'Socialism' Isn't The Scare Word It Once Was

Time was when the word "socialism" had a firm footing in the American political lexicon, with as many meanings as it has collected in all the other nations where it has taken root — as mixed or pure, as planned or market, as democratic or authoritarian, as a dogma or simply an aspiration — "the name of our desire," as the critic Irving Howe (and Lewis Coser) famously defined it. But once the native socialist movement crumbled in the 1920s, the right compacted the word into a single term of abuse. It became the "S-word," as John Nichols of The Nation magazine titled his recent history of socialism in America.

From Social Security and unemployment insurance to Medicare and the Affordable Health Care Act, Republicans have labeled every social welfare program proposed by the Democrats as "socialist," "socialistic" or "creeping socialism," a phrase coined by Thomas Dewey in 1939. Give socialism a foothold, they say, and nothing can arrest the slide to perdition. In 1936, Herbert Hoover said that FDR's socialist policies were leading America on a march to Moscow. With the fall of the Soviet empire a half-century later, Republicans had to redirect that road to a warmer destination.




As Vice President Pence told the Conservative Political Action Committee in March, "We know where socialism leads. If you want socialism, just look at Venezuela." But the logic hasn't changed since Hoover's time. Passing universal health care or a $15 minimum wage is like picking up a Monopoly card that says, "Go directly to Caracas. Do not pass Stockholm."

Until recently, Democrats dismissed those charges as fear-mongering. In 1952, Harry Truman called "socialism" a scare word and said that when a Republican said, "Down with socialism!" he really meant "Down with progress!"