Introduction to Sociology

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8. 
   Who was the leading theorist on the development of socialism?
   
   1. 
      Emile Durkheim
      
   2. 
      Heidimarie Schwermer
      
   3. 
      Adam Smith
      
   4. 
      Karl Marx
      

Check your answers at the end of this document

POLITICS AND SOCIALISM: A FEW DEFINITIONS

In the 2008 presidential election, the Republican Party latched onto what is often considered a dirty word to describe then-Senator Barack Obama’s politics: socialist. (Watch clip from the History channel on Socialism to learn more about the history of the word “socialism.”) It may have been because the president was campaigning by telling workers it’s good for everybody to “spread the wealth around.” But whatever the reason, the label became a weapon of choice for Republicans during and after the campaign. In 2012, Republican presidential aspirant Rick Perry continued this pitch. A New York Times article quotes him as telling a group of Republicans in Texas that President Obama is “hell bent on taking America towards a socialist country” (Wheaton 2011). Meanwhile, during the first few years of his presidency, Obama worked to create universal healthcare coverage and pushed forth a partial bailout of the nation’s failing automotive industry. President Obama is not the first president to be called a socialist. Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd president of the U.S., was attacked as being a socialist when he proposed his New Deal, which included Social Security and unemployment insurance, both of which Americans still enjoy today ^[1].

In 2016, Bernie Sanders ran for president on the Democratic party platform as a self-described democratic socialist. Two prominent democratic socialists were elected to Congress during the 2018 midterm elections: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, from New York’s 14th congressional district, and Rashida Tlaib, representing Michigan’s 13th congressional district. They are all part of a broader movement within the Democratic party to address inequality in the United States with the goal of instituting some socialist policies alongside existing democratic features.

In Donald Trump’s 2019 State of the Union address, he said, “Here, in the United States, we are alarmed by new calls to adopt socialism in our country. … Tonight, we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country,”^[2]

Are Rick Perry and Donald Trump correct? Is America headed towards socialism?

Socialism can be interpreted in different ways; however it generally refers to an economic or political theory that advocates for shared or governmental ownership and administration of production and distribution of goods. Often held up in counterpoint to capitalism, which encourages private ownership and production, socialism is not typically an all-or-nothing plan. For example, both the United Kingdom and France, as well as other European countries, have socialized medicine, meaning that medical services are run nationally to reach as many people as possible. These nations are, of course, still essentially capitalist countries with free-market economies.

It seems as though the complicated past of the word socialism, especially as that term has been confused with the repressive totalitarian communism of the Cold War period (1945-1991), has many people worried that any sort of socialist policy, such as universal healthcare, is also an attack on personal freedom. Watch this clip from a Washington Post opinion piece that explains how socialism today is not “your grandfather’s concept of socialism.” Do you think the term means the same thing that it used to?