Op-ed: Clearing up politicized myths on socialism
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Every time the word "socialism" rises up in the public lexicon and reenters the zeitgeist, the myth machine goes into overdrive. The authoritarian right and so-called "moderate" or "centrist" Democrats and others like them engage in delusional scaremongering and spread all the panic and fear they can until they feel the progressive left has been sufficiently shamed and silenced. But the cycle is beginning to break as candidates espousing democratic socialism are securing notable Democratic primary wins across the country.
One of the most insidious myths that's tossed around any time our society starts trying to have serious discussions about socialism is that the Nazis were socialist because their party took the name National Socialist German Workers' Party. Truth be told, socialism was popular among working Germans in and around 1920. Party leaders knew this and changed the name of the party from the German Workers' Party to the National Socialist German Workers' Party to attract working-class members.
Hitler despised communism and Marxism, viewing both as nefarious international Jewish plots, and during the "Night of the Long Knives" in 1934, Hitler actually had the most anticapitalist and left-leaning members of the Nazi Party killed. The Nazis were the very embodiment of fascism. Fascism, according to Benito Mussolini (history's most infamous fascist), "should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." Sound familiar?
Another oft-repeated myth involving socialism is that it is always and everywhere Stalinist or Maoist or Leninist (aka party-centered and state-driven and authoritarian). This just isn't true. Lenin did believe in and work to create a system with what is referred to as a vanguard party -- a disciplined party that Lenin believed builds socialist consciousness amongst the working classes -- but not all socialists accept this as a desirable or practical path to transitioning to an equitable, classless society, and of course the mass death and oppression of regimes like Stalin's and Mao's are nothing any other society should seek to replicate.
There are many strands of socialist and broader leftist (e.g., communist, anarchist) thought. The website polscience.co.in and the social media presences accompanying the site offer helpful summations of socialist thought for those who may not wish to wade into the weeds right now. The site briefly mentions what it calls the "major traditions" of socialism and briefly defines each. The traditions discussed are Marxism, Democratic Socialism, Social Democracy, Libertarian Socialism, Guild Socialism, Ecosocialism, Postcolonial or "Third World" Socialism and Feminist Socialism. Some of these traditions or concepts, as you see when you start reading about them, have a lot of overlap.
What's catching on with many working-class folks today, as we're seeing in those Democratic Party primary election results, is democratic socialism. Democratic socialism is a movement for a more equitable and just society with class distinctions broken down through democratic means (e.g., legislatures, unions, mass organized movements), seeking to reform existing capitalist systems until a more ideal socialist system can be achieved. Democratic socialism is similar in ways to social democracy. Social democracy is centered around reforms to the existing capitalist system like stronger social welfare programs, stronger and more strictly enforced regulations and greater redistribution, but it doesn't conceptually call for an end to capitalism.
Socialism is antithetical to capitalism, but not necessarily in the ways many think. Capitalism is structured to concentrate wealth in the hands of the few who can gain the greatest ownership over and exert the most control on the means of production (today those few consist of people like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk). These people then use their considerable extracted wealth to build considerable political power. Workers in a capitalist system lack ownership and control of the means of production and the power that comes with it. We can only bargain with our labor and the vast majority of the surplus value of our labor is exploitatively taken as shareholder dividends and executive compensation.
Socialism calls for the collective ownership of the means of production (e.g., stakeholders owning a company, not shareholders), an end to massive wealth concentration, solidarity (cooperation valued over competition), democratic decision-making across our economy and a focus on meeting needs instead of allowing for the hoarding of resources. After more than a century of red scare tactics, many working-class folks are beginning to tire of being the Monopoly player who's desperately trying to avoid landing on places with high rents while staying out of jail, hoping beyond hope to land on free parking and looking forward to periodically passing GO.
We deserve better and we can have better, but only if we stop rolling the loaded dice and stand together to demand it. That's the power of the ideas that make up socialist thought and it's time we embrace them and realize their potential.
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Eric Engle is a resident of Parkersburg and chief steward of National Treasury Employees Union Chapter 190.