No, Not All Democrats Are Socialist
The Difference Between Politics and Economics and Why It Matters
Socialism has been a critical buzzword thrown around for the last decade to describe progressive Democrats and, increasingly, anyone that does not subscribe to conservative views. However, there is a general fallacy to this, showing that many average Americans (and politicians for that matter) have little understanding of the difference between economics and political ideology.
Socialism in and of itself does consist of economic, political, and social ideology. The economics of socialism are diametrically opposed to capitalism and favor the collective benefit of production and profit. This has been proposed or carried out in several ways, including planned economies, anarcho-communism, state-directed economy, and market socialism. As opposed to the capitalist free-market, the public benefits from public goods and, in many cases, welfare and pensions offered by the state.
For the record, the United States is not and has never been a purely capitalist state. We have all benefited from publicly owned utilities, social security, welfare, and Medicare. Since its inception, the US has been a mixed market-economy with additional socialist principles adopted during FDR’s New Deal.
Back to the point, the political and social aspects of socialism are tied in directly with economics. Many socialists believe we have an ethical duty to supply the collective good and feel that institutions such as health care, education, workers’ compensation, and child/elder care should be publicly and universally accessible.
Though true that many Democrats support this, there are just as many who believe in free-market capitalism and profit from it.
Liberalism, on the other hand, is a political ideology. It supports, well, liberty, free trade, individual rights, secularism, equality, constitutional freedoms… you get the point. By definition, liberalism asserts independence from the state. By this, I mean the government should not interfere with private lives. In fact, anarcho-capitalism falls under classical liberalism. Neat, right?
But wait, don’t the liberals want to take away our rights and our guns and our religion and suppress freedom of speech? The short answer is no. The long answer is to stop watching Fox News and OAN.
Here is a wonderful graphic to show how political ideology and economics overlap. (For reference, horizontal is economics, vertical is social/political. Thus “left” is socialism, “right” is capitalism.)
Nice quadrant graphic, isn’t it? Notice how it is possible to be capitalist and socially liberal. You can also be socialist and authoritarian. Also, note how a couple of respected Founding Fathers are considered more liberal than Obama.
Americans have completely forgotten that being “liberal” or “conservative” is a social and political ideology. Economics has (almost) nothing to do with it.
So, please, let’s stop throwing around terms like “socialist” and “communist” to describe ideologies that have little to do with either.
