Glossophile
New Member
I originally wrote this on the Atheist Discussion Forum in response to a likely troll trying lamely to tie atheism to socialism, the latter presumably being a pejorative. I thought it might be worth sharing here as food for thought.
I've gotten to the point of wanting to pull my hair out whenever the term "socialism" is used by American conservatives to instantly scare all but their most progressive compatriots away from even the most reasonable economic reforms in the US. It's become almost a kind of political slur, such that the mere label itself seems sufficient to refute a policy proposal, independent of whatever semantic substance the word once had. Among those who use the term in such a misleadingly loose way, I doubt that many know what the word actually means, what it was originally supposed to mean, or what its advocates mean when they use the word.
Or do they? As a political leftist, whenever I hear a right-wing pundit use the word "socialism" or "socialist" in this broad, stigmatized, and misrepresentation-laden way, I inwardly groan and steel myself against the rising urge to throttle the interlocutor in question. As a trained linguist, however, I hold the descriptivist stance that word meaning is determined ultimately by popular usage. This leads me to view the American right-wing use of "socialism" (and all related terms) as perhaps just another instance of perfectly natural and legitimate semantic shift. In other words, "socialism" may simply be making its way into the class of words to which, for instance, "boot" and "thong" also belong. The first is footware no matter where you're from, but it may also refer to car anatomy in the UK. The second refers to a G-string in the US but a sandal or flip-flop in Australia.
As I see it, there are six main senses of the term "socialism," and they can be grouped into three pairs, the first of which may best be referred to as "traditional socialism" or "socialism proper."
(1) any economic system in which laborers own or at least control the means of production, particularly via democratic styles of workplace operation, often instituted and/or maintained by active regulation and/or planning on the part of government
(2) a form of socialism as defined in (1) implemented at a governmental level via public (i.e. tax-based) funding of production apparatus and the distribution of resulting revenue towards public welfare and/or other collective benefits
The shift from #1 to #2 may seem like a bigger leap than it actually is. In my view, it helps to think of each citizen as a laborer (regardless of actual occupation or socio-economic class) and the welfare state as the means of production. Taxation thus becomes a mechanism by which the "laborers" buy their respective shares in the "means of production," and hence comes the collective ownership that is core to socialism even in its strictest sense (#1). The citizens collectively own the system of public benefits because, in some sense, they've bought it (or rather, continually buy it in a sort of installment or subscription plan).
This is probably not a perfect analogy, but it seems close enough that, in my mind at least, it helps to bridge the gap between a principally economic system focused on collective ownership of the means of production and a more political (or at least politically charged) system in which the precise role of government in the economy is a more central question.
To encapsulate and specify the next pair of meanings, I propose the coinage "parasocialism." Both of these usages seem to describe possible (and perhaps even likely) components, strategies, and/or results of traditional socialism but then use such corollaries to independently redefine socialism as a whole. It's almost a kind of metonymy or synecdoche, though often used disingenuously rather than poetically.
(3) any policy or system that primarily or most directly aids lower socio-economic classes and/or fosters social mobility through the creation and/or augmentation of social welfare programs, especially if accomplished by redistributing wealth and/or resources from the rich to the poor
(4) deprivatization or "socialization"; shifting anything currently in the private sector into the public sector
Finally, we arrive at the most politically manipulative but otherwise vapid pair of usages, which I'll call "pseudo-socialism."
(5) communism or any similar regime, with a focus on overbearing government regulation of the economy and civil property; a kind of economic totalitarianism
(6) any policy or system that is even remotely construable as a harbinger of #5, however justified, moderate, careful, and/or democratically enacted it may be
If any of these definitions could aptly be called Marxist as well, it's most likely #1 and/or #2. Senses #3 and #4 are perhaps best aligned with what is more properly called social democracy or a social market economy [...]. They're the "socialism" of Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez. Meanwhile, senses #5 and #6 are the manipulative and paranoid fever dreams of Hannity and Carlson.
Meanwhile, my own understanding of the word was, for the longest time (roughly from middle or high school to my late 20s), more along the lines of…
(7) a hybrid system that "communizes" (i.e. socializes) sufficiently fundamental and important needs and desires of the citizenry while "capitalizing" (i.e. privatizing) more trivial needs and desires; a kind of government that will pay for your healthcare but not your flatscreen TV
This long-standing schoolboy conception of socialism, which may again be better labeled as a "social market" or "mixed" economy, has likely influenced my own views on broad economic policy, even as I revise the terminology I use to articulate them. Many of you may have seen some variation of a triangular or pyramid-shaped graphic representing a "hierarchy of human needs" or something to that effect, with things like food, water, and shelter at the base and various forms of entertainment or leisure at or near the tip. In a nutshell, I think the stuff at the bottom of such a hierarchy should be socialized and capitalism should be relegated to the top. I've never been certain of where exactly the cut-off should be or if it should even be a binary switch rather than a more gradated system, but healthcare, at least, is an easy one. It belongs firmly in the most socialized stratum, regardless of whether there are two tiers or 20. It ranks comparably to safety and security, and not even American Republicans bat an eye at socialized police and fire brigades.
It is through this lens that I often view conservative propaganda as, deliberately or not, conflating the impulse to provide for the people's most foundational needs with a compulsion to somehow enable everyone to live in unearned opulence. We want the government to pay everyone's medical bills, and right-wing pundits often seem to react as if we've just proposed buying everyone a brand-new private jet. Private jets are a privilege that should indeed be earned. Healthcare is a right that one earns just by being human.
So for whatever it's worth, that's my own attempt to lend at least some definitional rigor to a discussion that often sorely needs it. As a trained linguist and consequently a descriptivist, I consider it hasty, though understandably tempting, to dismiss much of American conservative propaganda as relying on an improper definition. Insofar as popular usage determines validity, I believe all six or seven definitions offered here are valid and proper, at least within appropriate contexts. Crucially, however, the polysemy of the term "socialism" does nothing to excuse the rampant equivocation on which so much of Republican rhetoric depends. "Bank" may have two separate entries in the dictionary, but anyone who tries to cash a check at a riverbed is still insane.
And, after writing far more than the [likely troll] probably deserves, I can only reiterate what has already been stated but shouldn't need to be stated. [...] It is true that atheists are generally more likely to be politically progressive, and progressivism does frequently, though not necessarily, include at least some socialist ideas. But in no way does atheism definitionally or logically compel socialism, nor vice-versa. Neither "atheist capitalist" nor "theist socialist" is at all oxymoronic. These terms answer two completely different questions: 1) do you believe in at least one deity, and 2) what do you believe is the proper way to distribute wealth, resources, value, and/or control thereof within a modern developed polity?
I've gotten to the point of wanting to pull my hair out whenever the term "socialism" is used by American conservatives to instantly scare all but their most progressive compatriots away from even the most reasonable economic reforms in the US. It's become almost a kind of political slur, such that the mere label itself seems sufficient to refute a policy proposal, independent of whatever semantic substance the word once had. Among those who use the term in such a misleadingly loose way, I doubt that many know what the word actually means, what it was originally supposed to mean, or what its advocates mean when they use the word.
Or do they? As a political leftist, whenever I hear a right-wing pundit use the word "socialism" or "socialist" in this broad, stigmatized, and misrepresentation-laden way, I inwardly groan and steel myself against the rising urge to throttle the interlocutor in question. As a trained linguist, however, I hold the descriptivist stance that word meaning is determined ultimately by popular usage. This leads me to view the American right-wing use of "socialism" (and all related terms) as perhaps just another instance of perfectly natural and legitimate semantic shift. In other words, "socialism" may simply be making its way into the class of words to which, for instance, "boot" and "thong" also belong. The first is footware no matter where you're from, but it may also refer to car anatomy in the UK. The second refers to a G-string in the US but a sandal or flip-flop in Australia.
As I see it, there are six main senses of the term "socialism," and they can be grouped into three pairs, the first of which may best be referred to as "traditional socialism" or "socialism proper."
(1) any economic system in which laborers own or at least control the means of production, particularly via democratic styles of workplace operation, often instituted and/or maintained by active regulation and/or planning on the part of government
(2) a form of socialism as defined in (1) implemented at a governmental level via public (i.e. tax-based) funding of production apparatus and the distribution of resulting revenue towards public welfare and/or other collective benefits
The shift from #1 to #2 may seem like a bigger leap than it actually is. In my view, it helps to think of each citizen as a laborer (regardless of actual occupation or socio-economic class) and the welfare state as the means of production. Taxation thus becomes a mechanism by which the "laborers" buy their respective shares in the "means of production," and hence comes the collective ownership that is core to socialism even in its strictest sense (#1). The citizens collectively own the system of public benefits because, in some sense, they've bought it (or rather, continually buy it in a sort of installment or subscription plan).
This is probably not a perfect analogy, but it seems close enough that, in my mind at least, it helps to bridge the gap between a principally economic system focused on collective ownership of the means of production and a more political (or at least politically charged) system in which the precise role of government in the economy is a more central question.
To encapsulate and specify the next pair of meanings, I propose the coinage "parasocialism." Both of these usages seem to describe possible (and perhaps even likely) components, strategies, and/or results of traditional socialism but then use such corollaries to independently redefine socialism as a whole. It's almost a kind of metonymy or synecdoche, though often used disingenuously rather than poetically.
(3) any policy or system that primarily or most directly aids lower socio-economic classes and/or fosters social mobility through the creation and/or augmentation of social welfare programs, especially if accomplished by redistributing wealth and/or resources from the rich to the poor
(4) deprivatization or "socialization"; shifting anything currently in the private sector into the public sector
Finally, we arrive at the most politically manipulative but otherwise vapid pair of usages, which I'll call "pseudo-socialism."
(5) communism or any similar regime, with a focus on overbearing government regulation of the economy and civil property; a kind of economic totalitarianism
(6) any policy or system that is even remotely construable as a harbinger of #5, however justified, moderate, careful, and/or democratically enacted it may be
If any of these definitions could aptly be called Marxist as well, it's most likely #1 and/or #2. Senses #3 and #4 are perhaps best aligned with what is more properly called social democracy or a social market economy [...]. They're the "socialism" of Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez. Meanwhile, senses #5 and #6 are the manipulative and paranoid fever dreams of Hannity and Carlson.
Meanwhile, my own understanding of the word was, for the longest time (roughly from middle or high school to my late 20s), more along the lines of…
(7) a hybrid system that "communizes" (i.e. socializes) sufficiently fundamental and important needs and desires of the citizenry while "capitalizing" (i.e. privatizing) more trivial needs and desires; a kind of government that will pay for your healthcare but not your flatscreen TV
This long-standing schoolboy conception of socialism, which may again be better labeled as a "social market" or "mixed" economy, has likely influenced my own views on broad economic policy, even as I revise the terminology I use to articulate them. Many of you may have seen some variation of a triangular or pyramid-shaped graphic representing a "hierarchy of human needs" or something to that effect, with things like food, water, and shelter at the base and various forms of entertainment or leisure at or near the tip. In a nutshell, I think the stuff at the bottom of such a hierarchy should be socialized and capitalism should be relegated to the top. I've never been certain of where exactly the cut-off should be or if it should even be a binary switch rather than a more gradated system, but healthcare, at least, is an easy one. It belongs firmly in the most socialized stratum, regardless of whether there are two tiers or 20. It ranks comparably to safety and security, and not even American Republicans bat an eye at socialized police and fire brigades.
It is through this lens that I often view conservative propaganda as, deliberately or not, conflating the impulse to provide for the people's most foundational needs with a compulsion to somehow enable everyone to live in unearned opulence. We want the government to pay everyone's medical bills, and right-wing pundits often seem to react as if we've just proposed buying everyone a brand-new private jet. Private jets are a privilege that should indeed be earned. Healthcare is a right that one earns just by being human.
So for whatever it's worth, that's my own attempt to lend at least some definitional rigor to a discussion that often sorely needs it. As a trained linguist and consequently a descriptivist, I consider it hasty, though understandably tempting, to dismiss much of American conservative propaganda as relying on an improper definition. Insofar as popular usage determines validity, I believe all six or seven definitions offered here are valid and proper, at least within appropriate contexts. Crucially, however, the polysemy of the term "socialism" does nothing to excuse the rampant equivocation on which so much of Republican rhetoric depends. "Bank" may have two separate entries in the dictionary, but anyone who tries to cash a check at a riverbed is still insane.
And, after writing far more than the [likely troll] probably deserves, I can only reiterate what has already been stated but shouldn't need to be stated. [...] It is true that atheists are generally more likely to be politically progressive, and progressivism does frequently, though not necessarily, include at least some socialist ideas. But in no way does atheism definitionally or logically compel socialism, nor vice-versa. Neither "atheist capitalist" nor "theist socialist" is at all oxymoronic. These terms answer two completely different questions: 1) do you believe in at least one deity, and 2) what do you believe is the proper way to distribute wealth, resources, value, and/or control thereof within a modern developed polity?