Socialism? Hardly, Say Socialists

Under Obama, socialism chatter has permeated the media in 2009. But beyond sound bites, what is socialism?

Joshua Roberts-Pool/Getty Images

By Moira Herbst

The first months of the Obama Administration have given rise to abundant talk about a U.S. drift into socialism. "We Are All Socialists Now," a Newsweek cover declared in February. On May 20 the Republican National Committee approved a resolution calling on Democrats to "stop pushing our country toward socialism." The resolution was predicated on the idea that, under Obama, Democrats are following the path of Western European countries in advocating expansive social safety nets and deeper government involvement in the economy.

Some conservative commentators have even likened Obama's economic stimulus and regulatory initiatives to a Soviet-style takeover of the country. In February, syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh accused Obama of waging war on capitalism. "That's his objective. He wants to destroy capitalism," Limbaugh told a caller. "He wants to establish a very powerful socialist government, authoritarian. He wants control of the economy."

But real Socialists would vigorously disagree. They say if the Obama Administration were establishing a true socialist state, we'd have at least a $15-an-hour minimum wage (instead of the current $6.55 federal minimum) and 30-hour workweeks. Every American would be guaranteed employment and health-care coverage. Oh, and homeless people would be occupying vacant office buildings in cities and vacant McMansions in the suburbs.

In fact, many Americans appear to be confused about what socialism actually is. In a poll of 1,000 adults conducted Apr. 6-7, Rasmussen Reports found that 53% of Americans said they prefer capitalism to socialism, while 20% said they prefer socialism. More than one-quarter, 27%, said they're not sure which system is better. Another poll conducted this month by ConservativeHQ.com found that 70% of self-identified conservatives consider Obama's political philosophy "Socialist" or "Marxist," with 11% calling it "Communist."

Socialists say the policies Obama has pursued are hallmarks of "democratic capitalist" states, not socialist ones. "None of the societies of Western Europe are socialist, but the political influence of their strong Labor, Social Democratic, and Socialist parties make their form of capitalism much more humane than our own," says Frank Llewellyn, national director of the New York-based Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the largest U.S. Socialist party.

Obama: Saving Capitalism from Itself?

As with every political ideology, there's no discrete, tidy explanation of what socialism means. "There have been diverse socialist movements that have pursued different programs," says Frances Fox Piven, a professor of political science at City University of New York (CUNY) and an honorary chair of the DSA. "What they have shared is an effort to overcome the historical problem with democracies that separate political governance from the economy, often with a rigid wall. Socialists have tried to breach that wall in the interest of democracy, or expanding the idea that the people shall rule."

Karl Marx called socialism the "revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat," the working class seizing power and replacing a political, economic, and social system controlled by the bourgeoisie, or the propertied class. Such a reordering denotes "an association where the development of each is the basis of the free development of all," Marx wrote in 1848 in The Communist Manifesto.

Socialists say that far from creating a state in which workers rule, the Obama team is instead scrambling to rescue and preserve capitalism.

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