In a recent TV interview, Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman warned that socialism was becoming something akin to a badge of honor among some Democrats, and that some go so far as to speak positively about communism. They are either ignorant or simply disabuse themselves from the truth that communism is a political and economic system responsible for some 100 million deaths in the last century. The host doing the interview commented that America is already "quasi-socialist" because of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. He was wrong.
Socialism is not a government program. Nor is it any form of tax. Nor is it a disability check, a school voucher, or a police department. Socialism, if properly understood, means public rather than private ownership or control of property, natural resources, and the means of production. Its true definition is it is a doctrine calling for public rather than private ownership or control of property and natural resources. Merriam-Webster defines it as collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution.
That distinction matters. A safety net inside a market economy is one thing. Government command over production, prices, wages, capital, housing, healthcare, energy, and investment is another. If Medicare is socialism, then why not medical coverage for all? If Social Security is socialism, then why not government pensions, housing, childcare, college, energy and food? If all Western democracies are already socialist, then the remaining argument is only about who gets how much...
Socialism is wrong because it rests on a false moral premise. Its moral premise is that 'society' has a superior claim on an individual's labor and property. In practice, 'society' always means politicians, regulators, committees, and favored constituencies. The worker earns, the entrepreneur risks, the saver defers consumption, and the state arrives with a theory of justice that just happens to require other people's money. There is room in a decent, moral society for charity, mutual aid, insurance, and limited public assistance. There is no moral case for treating private citizens or the fruits of their labor as state property.
There is a practical problem that is even harder for socialists to escape. Markets are not merely channels for the expression of greed. They serve as information systems. Prices tell millions of people what goods and services are scarce, what is abundant, what should be conserved, what should be produced, and where labor and capital should move. Friedrich Hayek, one of the most notable economists of the 19th century, made the point that knowledge is dispersed across society, and prices help coordinate the separate plans of millions of people who do not know one another.
A famed 20th century European economist argued that when the state abolishes private ownership in the means of production, it destroys teh market prices needed for rational economic calculation. Without prices for land, labor, capital, machinery, risk and time, planners cannot know whether they are creating value or burning it. They can issue orders. They can print plans. They can punish dissent. What they cannot do is calculate as well as free people trading under private property.
This is precisely why socialism consistently produces shortages, queues, rationing, black markets, declining quality, and repression. When the plan fails as it is destined to do, the planner blames hoarders, wreckers, speculators, profiteers, foreigners, landlords, doctors, farmers, and shopkeepers. Economic failure becomes a search for antagonists and enemies.
Social Security and Medicare are not proof that socialism works. They are proof that popular entitlement programs become fiscally strained when politics promises more than the math can deliver. The 2025 Trustees' Report projected that Social Security's Old Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund can pay full scheduled benefits only until 2033, after which only 77% of scheduled benefits could be paid. In plain terms, Social Security is on a path to insolvency.
American healthcare is not an example of unrestrained capitalism begging for socialism. It is a maze of subsidies, tax distortions, public payment formulas, mandates, licensing rules, third-party payments, and political bargaining.
The tax debate is no less confusing and distorted. When Bernie Sanders scoffs at millionaires and billionaires, is he talking about retired couples with a paid-off house and some good investments made over time, or is he talking about a tech founder with a private jet? Or both? Should the wealthy be scorned and saddled with outrageous taxes because they are wealthy? The truth is that they have actually created value and jobs in the economy. There is no evidence that the government can spend the wealthy's money better than they can by plowing their earnings into innovations and business expansion. When politicians claim the rich do not pay their fair share, which is an old worn-out and false axiom, what they're not telling you is based on IRS data, in 2023, the top 1 % paid 38.4% of federal income taxes while earning 20.6 % of adjusted gross income. The top 10% of earners paid 70.5 percent. A nice easy take-away from that is 90% of American taxpayers paid less than 30 precent of federal income taxes. The top 1%, even the top 10% of taxpayers, commonly called "the wealthy" are paying their fair share.
A government should not claim what it does not own. A humane society can protect the poor without nationalizing production. It can regulate fraud and force without replacing prices with commands. It can tax without treating every private fortune as stolen goods.
Senator Fetterman's warning matters because socialism has become socially fashionable among historically ignorant people who would never tolerate its consequences. They want Swedish benefits, American innovation, Silicon Valley capital, Manhattan restaurants, cheap imports, private pensions, and moral superiority, all while sneering at the system that makes all these things possible. They do not want socialism. They want capitalism and a guilty conscience and a bigger bill that is paid by someone else.
There is a difference between assistance and control. Socialism crosses that line.
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