The Best Way to Talk About Socialism is to Not Talk About Socialism

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Why do most discussions of socialism shed so much heat and so little light? Because they’re about socialism! A word that has been so demonized in America (just as the word capitalism has been deified) that it prevents thought and discussion, rather than encouraging it.

For the record, I should say that I myself am not a socialist. Nor am I a capitalist. And the same is true of America, and of every other country and system on earth. There’s no pure one or the other, and discussing the two concepts as though they’re some sort of Manichean binary either-or choice is at best a misleading and sterile approach to the topic.

May I propose something I think would be better?

Here are some things we have in America that are taxpayer-funded for everyone’s benefit and apparently not socialism:

1.  Roads and highways.

2.  K-12 education.

3.  Parks

4.  Police.

5.  Fire departments.

6.  The military.

7.  The postal service.

8.  Catastrophe planning and response (National Guard, FEMA, etc).

Do you see what I’m getting at? To use just one of the foregoing examples, I think a useful framework for discussion would be, “Why is public K-12 education not socialism, but public college education is socialism?” Or, to put it more broadly while avoiding scare words entirely, “Why is public K-12 education good, but public college education (which in any event already exists at the state level) is bad?”

I have my opinions about such matters, naturally, but I care less about my (or anyone else’s) conclusions than I do about using a proper framework. There might be excellent, defensible reasons to distinguish between the costs and benefits of public K-12 education and those of public college education. That’s a discussion worth having. But reflexively looking at the first as the embodiment of the American Capitalist Way and the latter as Evil Foreign Socialism! isn’t likely to lead anywhere productive.

The same applies to taxpayer-funded health insurance for everyone’s benefit. If Medicare and Medicaid are good, and if free healthcare to soldiers and veterans is good, and if free or subsidized health insurance for congresspeople is good, what is it about taxpayer-funded health insurance for everyone that would be different or bad?

FWIW, my ideal society would be one where no one has to fear being homeless, or being hungry, or of being bankrupted by a medical emergency. And where everyone would have equal access to decent public transportation and to the kind of education that would offer the best chance of stable employment. My personal ideal is an outgrowth of my view (which I grant could be wrong) of human nature—I think humans are adequately motivated by hope, and generally don’t also need to be motivated by fear.

Now it’s possible that my ideal society is some sort of fantasy socialist utopia. But before anyone dismisses it as such, may I ask: how is my ideal so different from what we already believe with regard to crime? That is, I think most Americans would agree that in an ideal society, no one would fear being victimized by crime. No one would be reluctant to leave the house, or visit a park, or walk down the street out of fear of being mugged or worse. And we devote public resources—police, the judicial system, etc—in the service of that goal.

So I think a productive framework to considering my ideal society would be, “How is creating a society where no one has to fear being homeless different from creating a society where no one has to fear being victimized by crime?”

There might be important differences—differences so significant that in the end, you might decide that public resources devoted to freedom from fear of crime are good while public resources devoted to freedom from fear of homelessness are bad. And that opinion, even though I would disagree with it, is okay with me. I just want us to be able to have a productive conversation.

It’s interesting to consider what prevents us from approaching things by asking, “How is this new thing similar to and different from what we already have,” and instead shutting down the whole inquiry by invoking scare words, instead.

I think some of it is just the innate human tendency to be comfortable with the familiar and to fear the new. This is anecdotal, but a few years ago when I read an article about how one day soon drones will deliver packages to our doorsteps, my first thought was, “That’s horrible, what’s going to happen when one of those things crashes into a pedestrian?” And then I laughed at myself, because I realized, “What happens when a FedEx truck crashes into a pedestrian?” As it turns out, there’s a whole body of law on the topic, called Agency Law, and whatever else Agency Law does, outlawing FedEx isn’t part of it.

Anyway, if you think I’m on to something here, give it a try. The next time someone says to you, “Socialism!”, see if you can elevate the conversation by avoiding fraught labels and just comparing and contrasting the new to the existing, instead. It’s been my experience that doing so can lead to some really interesting and satisfying conversations even with people who don’t agree with you. And best of all, at the end you can still disagree, while liking and respecting each other, too. Which, if we could manage it, might not be a bad thing for society as a whole.

Update:

This Nathan Robinson article from Current Affairs—about how publicly financed fire departments and publicly financed health insurance might be similar, how they might be different, and what those similarities and differences might suggest for policy—is an outstanding example of how to approach the topic productively.

Phoniness and Electability

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In September 2015—over a year before Trump was elected president—Rula Jebreal wrote what I think is still one of the most insightful takes ever on Trump’s appeal, comparing him to another rich demagogue, Italy’s former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Given the current obsession with the electability of whichever Democrat will face off against Trump in the general election, Jebreal’s article is at least as worth reading now as it was at the time. But the gist: conmen like Berlusconi and Trump make their audience feel in on the joke. “We’re all liars and conmen,” the subtext goes; “the difference is, I’m honest about it!”

The reason Trump—who himself is such an obvious phony—is Kryptonite to other phonies is that subtext. “You can trust me because I’m letting you in on the joke—the other candidates are laughing at you, while I’m laughing with you!”

I recommend Adam Johnson on why so many electability discussions are nothing more than disguised ideological attacks (and from people with breathtakingly bad records on the topic). But it’s also true that electability matters, and if you’re factoring electability into your calculus of who to vote for, I think it’s important to consider the paradoxical withering effect Trump has on other phonies.

Of course I have my opinions about which Democratic candidates are more genuine and which are more phony. But it’s been my experience that as soon as specific politicians become the focus of a political conversation, the conversation’s heat-to-light ratio tends to worsen (in that regard, I regret that if you’re inclined to support Trump, you’ve probably already stopped reading). 

That said, because so much support for Joe Biden has to do with notions of electability, I’m going to take a chance and say this:

No matter how much you might like Biden (and in many ways there is a lot to like, and even to admire), if you’re concerned about electability, I think you have to consider Biden’s long history of personal fabrications. Shaun King has compiled a list here, including video, and it’s devastating. On top of which, there’s also Biden’s attempt to rewrite his vote for, and support for, America’s 2003 invasion of Iraq, and his attempt to revise his long history of attempting to cut social security.

Again, I have my opinions about the 2003 Iraq invasion and about social security, but here the substance of such things isn’t my point. It’s the electability vulnerability of a candidate who is so breathtakingly dishonest about his involvement in them—and the related vulnerability of any other candidate with a history of personal and political inconsistencies.

When I’m trying to decide on which candidate to support, I try to focus more on the person’s track record than on electability (though obviously the two topics overlap). But to the extent I’m considering who would be strongest against Trump and who would be weakest, I give a lot of weight to the question of which candidates are most genuine and which are most phony. We have plenty of evidence that other phonies don’t do well against Trump. I think the more formidable matchup would be a candidate characterized by genuineness.

Update

This Zephyr Teachout op-ed is related and worth considering.