Teaching About Socialism; Discourse in an Age of Polarization

Teaching About Socialism; Discourse in an Age of Polarization

As I began my unit on social class, I asked students what they would want to know about social class throughout the unit. Some students said they wanted to know if socialism would benefit the U.S. and how socialist countries compare to us.  These student queries combined with the way our current President uses socialism made me want to address it.  As I researched this topic I increasingly came to the belief that there is a problem in our discourse over socialism and this problem represents a larger issue that teachers need to address.  

Capitalism is most closely associated with the 1776 publication of The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith.  The Adam Smith Institute explains that capitalism is rooted in free-market (no government control) and the accumulation of wealth.   

From the OED, Socialism was being used in England as early as 1822 by Robert Owen as a response to the capitalism, individualism and the Industrial Revolution (also detailed at History.com).  In the 1800s, a small group of industrialists was amassing extreme fortunes while the average citizen and worker was working longer and longer hours for less money and in dangerous working conditions often in sweatshop factories and including children as young as 5 years old!  This inequality of labor/economy spilled over into private life as workers increasingly lived in unregulated conditions at home that resulted in diseases like smallpox, typhus, yellow fever and cholera, spread through overcrowded tenements that lacked running water, plumbing, waste removal.  Jacob Riis detailed living conditions around 1900. 

By the late 1800s, there was a call within the U.S. (and Europe) to address the growing issues associated with urban industrialism.  As the US teachers will point out, many regulations and reforms of the Progressive Era were meant to address the problems that came out of unregulated 1800s urban industrialism.  Because these reforms did not give government ownership of the industrial production of goods, the reforms were not technically socialist in the way that Marx referred to the term.  In fact, there were other terms/parties such as the Populist Party of 1892 and the Progressive Party of 1912 that called for such reforms, but they are not equated with socialism.  However, Eugene Debs did run as a Socialist in 1918 and his platform was more closely aligned with Marx's 1848 Communist Manifesto.

The meaning of 'Socialism'

The point is that the idea of socialism was the idea of using government to combat the effects of urban industrial capitalism.  However, the idea of socialism was used variously depending on who's idea was being cited.  There were numerous forms of "socialism" not all that unlike the numerous forms of "democracy".  

The meaning of "socialism" grew even further amorphous when in 1917 the Russian Revolution created the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) an authoritarian government run by a single party, the Communist Party.   Lenin's socialism is very different than Marx's. As communism spread during the 20th century (China, Cuba, Korea, Vietnam) it took on various forms further confusing the idea of communism (which Americans still saw as connected to socialism via the USSR).  In AP comparative government, China and Iran are labeled as "authoritarian" and China is also considered a "one-party state" with "state-managed markets."  However, North Korea is considered Totalitarian.  Venezuela might be considered socialist but also an authoritarian state.

Confused?  Good.  That's the point.  So is the rest of America!   This link to the Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom ranks countries by how much economic freedom they have - the US ranks 17th!  And "socialist" Denmark is 8th.  Whatsmore, all but one country in the top ten have universal healthcare.  All of this is to say that there is not really agreement about what socialism is anymore.  Instead, it is just a buzzword used for fear mongering Americans.  And it is easy to gin up fear because Americans have very different ideas about what socialism is.

Americans do not agree on what countries represent socialism today - this article from Forbes explains that,

"Among Republicans, the three most socialist countries are Venezuela (60%), China (57%) and Russia (57%) while among Democrats, Sweden (43%), Denmark (43%) and Norway (42%) come first."

Yougov.com explains the partisan gap in what "socialist" means in this 2020 article.   Americans from different political parties have different ideas about what socialism is in terms of healthcare, gun safety laws, taxes etc...  Furthermore, the article explains that there is a partisan divide over which countries in the world are considered socialist.

 

In addition to the Yougov article above, 2019 research from the PEW reveals that,

"Critics of socialism point to Venezuela as an example of a country where it has failed. People with positive views of socialism cite different countries, such as Finland and Denmark, as places where it has succeeded....[And many Americans] viewed socialism and capitalism in zero-sum terms. A large majority of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (68%) had both a positive impression of capitalism and a negative view of socialism."

This zero-sum definition fails to take into account the reality that in the US and most western countries there is a mix of socialism and capitalism." 

 It may be best for Americans to use the labels of progressive, liberal or conservative as this PEW study shows stark partisan divisions in Americans’ views of ‘socialism,’ ‘capitalism’.

Overall

Generally, I think that democrats and republicans both use the term socialism but when democrats use it, they really mean social democracies like Sweden, Canada and Denmark, and when republicans use "socialism" they really mean authoritarian communist government like that of China, North Korea, or Cuba.  Just like much of our discourse in the current political climate there is stark differences in meaning when discussing the term "socialism."  Without meaning, there is no shared reality.  We might as well be speaking different languages to each other.  So, it is my plan to not to respond to student questions about socialism without first asking a follow up question, "what do you mean by socialist?"  I think all teachers would do well to do the same in their classes.  I think our country is having problems because we can't discourse together, but we cannot discourse because we are using the same words with very different meanings.