Socialism is on the rise in America. Wall Street itself, the very symbol of American free enterprise, is now under socialist rule.
This is not the stealth socialism of yesterday. Today’s socialists are openly declaring themselves as such, and winning elections.
Prominent socialists include a Senator, several Congress-people, and a few big city mayors.
There are also hundreds of less prominent city, state, and local socialists holding office throughout the U.S..
Why is this happening? Why now? Should we be concerned? And can it be stopped?
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Joke 1:
Question: “How did Socialists light their homes before candles?”
Answer: “Electricity.”
Joke 2:
Three communists walk into a crowded bar and demand free drinks for everyone. Before long the booze runs out. The communists get angry, blame capitalism, shoot the owner, torch the bar, and declare another great victory for the people.
Just kidding! They were socialists.
Some quotes on socialism:
Mr. Spock from Star Trek (TVs first alien socialist) - “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.”
Karl Marx - “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”
The World Economic Forum - “You’ll own nothing and be happy.”
Margaret Thatcher - “The problem with socialism is you eventually run out of other people’s money.”
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A note on the word “socialism”:
This piece will primarily use the word socialism because that’s what the current crop of politicians, academics, and activists call themselves.
However, for this analysis, socialism is interchangeable with all other forms of totalitarianism, like communism, Marxism, progressivism, collectivism, fascism, statism, monarchism, and Nazism.
Although there are distinctions between all those isms, when they are stripped down to first-principles, they are all identical.
It’s like comparing crepes to pound-cakes. Crepes and pound-cakes look nothing alike, but the ingredients are the same.
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A brief history of socialism in America:
The first socialist party in the U.S. was founded in 1876. The Communist Party USA followed 43 years later.
Prior to those two parties, socialism didn’t exist in America, right?
Nope. Not even close.
They don’t teach this in school, but the very first settlers in America were socialists. That’s right, both Jamestown (1607), and Plymouth (1620) were established under socialist principles.
So we were a utopia from day-one, right?
Well, not exactly. In both those cases socialism led to nothing but death and misery.
“(Socialism) was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to the (people’s) benefit and comfort. For the young men, that were most able and fit for labor and service, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense. …"
“The failure of this experiment of communal service, which was tried for several years, and by good and honest men proves the emptiness of the theory (that the)… taking away of private property, and the possession of it in community, by a commonwealth, would make a state happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God.”
William Bradford - Leader and Governor of the Plymouth Colony
Most of the people in both settlements were dead by the end of their experiment with socialism. Threatened with extinction, both settlements changed course and adopted private property and free enterprise.
Again from William Bradford:
“At length, after much debate of things, the Governor … gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves; .… And so assigned to every family a parcel of land, according to the proportion of their number.”
Suddenly, as if by magic, they had food and began to thrive.
"This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been …” “The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn, which before would allege weakness and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression.”
William Bradford
Many have heard the Plymouth story because William Bradford wrote a memoir, “Of Plymouth Plantation” Fewer know that the earlier settlement at Jamestown followed the same path and ran into the same problems.
Nearly two centuries later when the framers wrote the U.S. Constitution, they no doubt drew on that history and avoided the mistakes of our first two settlements.
OK, so now we know that Jamestown and Plymouth marked the beginning of socialism in America, right?
Umm, no. Not even close.
Even before Europeans brought their brand of socialism to America, many Native Americans were already socialists!
About one third of Native American tribes lived communally with no private property. Another third had hybrid systems. The final third practiced strict private property and free enterprise.
Which tribes do you think struggled and which ones flourished?
“Hey Grok, Which native American tribes were the most successful, and did they practice communal living or private property? (Success measured by ability to feed themselves, grow in #s, and win battles.)”
Here’s the conclusion after a long and detailed answer:
“The pattern is crystal clear
Every single tribe that achieved steppe-empire or state-level success used private property in the key resource:
- Comanche → private horses
- Haida/Tlingit → private fishing streams + slaves
- Cherokee → private farms + slaves
- Cahokia elites → private mounds and trade routes
The purely communal bands (Paiute, Western Shoshone, pre-horse Crow, etc.) never broke out of the 200–500 person range and were usually hungry half the year.
So yes — the most successful Native societies in North America were the ones that went hard on private property, individual wealth, and (often) hereditary slavery.”
In short, socialism has been here all along in various forms. It didn’t start with Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, AOC, or Zohran Mamdani. They are just the most recent purveyors of a failed cultural, economic, and political system that goes back a long, long, long time.
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So, what exactly is socialism?
The latin root for socialism is socius, which means ally or comrade. In this context it refers to the alliance represented by government.
You’re probably familiar with the modern textbook definition of socialism: government owns or controls the means of production, private property is abolished, and government controls the allocation of resources and wealth.
That definition applies to economic socialism, which is what the word socialism has come to mean. But there are two other sides to socialism, the political and the cultural. Political socialism is concerned with power & rights, and cultural socialism is concerned with status.
Here are illustrations and explanations of all three beginning with economic socialism:
Under economic socialism, government has a controlling interest in everything that has tangible value, represented in the illustration as $.
Economic socialism is a win/lose proposition. When government gets richer, individuals get poorer. There’s always a finite and dwindling amount of wealth whenever government is in control. Governments do not create wealth. They can only spend it. As Nobel economist Milton Friedman used to say, “If you put the Federal Government in control of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there would be a shortage of sand.”
Some of the more pure examples of economic socialism in history include N. Korea, USSR, Cuba, Cambodia, Maoist China, Laos, and Vietnam.
The second side of socialism, political socialism, is at times distinct from the economic side.
Here’s a drawing of political socialism:
Political socialism is also a win/lose proposition. There’s a finite amount of power and rights in a socialist society. When government has a power or right under socialism, it usually means individuals cannot enjoy that same power or right.
Free speech and the right to bear arms are good examples. Most socialist societies do not allow both government and individuals to simultaneously speak freely and arm themselves.
While economic socialism necessitates political socialism, political socialism does not necessitate economic socialism.
Modern China is an example of this. Fifty years ago Communist China had both a socialist economy and a socialist (communist) government. The people wore uniforms and rode bicycles. That system was unable to produce enough food and goods.
Today, the Chinese Communist Party still has totalitarian power, but the economy is in many ways a free market economy. Citizens can start businesses, make profits, accumulate wealth, and own luxury goods. The Chinese are well on their way to becoming the largest market in the world for super luxury cars like Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and Rolls Royces!
As happened in China, most socialist countries do eventually pull back from pure economic socialism due to economic failure.
Examples of this include several Scandinavian countries, post Maoist China, India, and modern Russia.
Finally, there is cultural socialism, aka cultural Marxism.
In the case of cultural socialism, the socius, or alliance, is a coalition of aggrieved victims who blame their victimhood on a perceived oppressor. This gives them elevated cultural status which they exploit for political purposes. The more victim groups one can identify with, the more status one can accumulate. This is known as intersectionality.
Dividing people into oppressors and victims, aka the divide and conquer strategy, goes back a long time, but it was popularized in modern times by Karl Marx. Marx’s focus was economics, so the oppressors were the bourgeoisie (capitalists) and the victims were the proletariat (wage earners).
For Marx, the solution was a violent revolution to bring about socialism and later communism. In addition to violence, today’s socialists use subversion in the form of cultural socialism. The idea is to subvert the existing order by dividing the society into victims and oppressors until the victims become a majority and take power.
Socialists will go to great lengths to include anyone they can in the victims group, and heap hatred on any perceived oppressors.
Law enforcement and criminals are a good example. A normal person would consider a career criminal to be an oppressor, and the victims of those crimes to be the victims. But not a socialist.
To a socialist, the criminal MUST be the victim because law enforcement, in any form, is almost always the oppressor. (The only exception is when law enforcement is doing the bidding of socialists and rounding up their political opponents. In that case the bigger oppressor according to intersectionality is the political opponent.)
Intersectionality applies to oppressors as well as victims. The more oppressor groups one can be identified with, the lower their status and the more they are hated under cultural socialism.
Straight, white, conservative, Christian, males are the ultimate oppressors. They score a 5 on the intersectionality scale. If they happen to work in law enforcement or border enforcement (ICE), that raises them to a 6, 7, or 8. If they happen to be also Republican politicians, they are automatically at 11 and literally Hitler. (Ironically, Hitler was a socialist!)
Divide and conquer, combined with hate, has always been an effective but destructive political strategy.
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So, what is the opposite of socialism?
Most people think that the opposite of socialism is capitalism, because that’s what they are taught. But if socialism can be economic, political, and cultural, how can its opposite be just economic?
It turns out, the person who popularized socialism and capitalism as opposites was none other than Karl Marx.
Not only did Marx (along w/ Engels) write the book on socialism & communism, he also wrote the book on capitalism. That book was named, “Capital” (German name -“Das Kapital”) which was a scathing critique of European economics in the 1860s.
The word capitalism was a derogatory term popularized by socialists and communists in the 1800s. Unfortunately, the word stuck.
A better term, and the true opposite of socialism, is individualism.
If socialism is a society built around the socius, or alliance represented by government, individualism is a society built around the individuus, or individual.
The latin root, individuus, means indivisible. Individuals cannot be divided (at least not safely!) Each individual is a minority of one.
From first-principles, the essential building block of any society must be the individual.
That was the groundbreaking idea on which The U.S. was founded. Never before had a country been designed around the individual. The United States Constitution was the first exception. That’s the reason we refer to our system as “American Exceptionalism”.
The constitution defined a very limited government with very specific enumerated powers. Every power and right not enumerated to government belonged to the individual citizens and the states.
"Hey Gemini, what are some of the key ideas established at the founding of the U.S.?"
- Individualism: The individual is the central unit of moral worth, with a focus on individual autonomy and the ability to make personal choices.
- Natural rights: Individuals are believed to possess inherent rights that the government cannot infringe upon.
- Limited government: The government's role is restricted to protecting individuals from harm by others and providing essential services like national defense and a stable currency. Power should be limited, and the government should operate under the rule of law and a constitution.
- Economic liberalism: A belief in free markets with minimal government intervention, often described as laissez-faire capitalism. The profit motive and competition are seen as drivers of efficiency and prosperity.
- Rule of law: All individuals should be treated equally under the law, and government actions must be consistent with principles like those found in the U.S. Constitution.
- Freedom of choice: Individuals should be free to pursue their own good in their own way, including freedom of speech, belief, and association.
Here’s an illustration of individualism incorporating the economic, political, and cultural aspects:
Unlike socialism, individualism is a win/win proposition. As William Bradford observed, unleashing the power of individuals under private property and free enterprise is likely to create abundance. Adam Smith, the Scottish philosopher who influenced the American founders called this idea “the invisible hand”.
And this win/win idea applies to power, rights, and status as well. Under individualism both the government and the individual can enjoy free speech and the right to bear arms. And there is no limit to the status one can achieve since it is determined by merit, not intersectional victim or oppressor scores.
But that’s not to say there exist any pure forms of individualism today. You’d have to go back to early days in the U.S. to get anywhere close.
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So, who invented socialism?
If you’ve read this far you know socialism was around long before Bernie Sanders, Karl Marx, or even Plato. But how far back does it go?
Turns out, socialism goes all the way back!
Here’s the original model for socialism:
That’s right, socialism is as old as humans and the nuclear family. That’s where the idea came from.
Here’s an illustration for nuclear families:
Socialist utopians throughout history are mistakingly extrapolating the family idea onto greater society. That cannot work because a family and a greater society are two very different things.
For one, parents are not like governments. Parents are motivated by love for their children. Governments are motivated by many things, including self preservation and corruption. (That’s why small government is best!)
And children are not like adult citizens. Children are born dependents. They need parents for survival, guidance, and support. When we treat adults like children, as happens under socialism, they become dependent, less productive and less successful.
It turns out, when you treat adults like children, they begin to act like horrible, bad children. And the more socialism you have, the more bad children you will have.
"Hey Grok, what are the main behavioral characteristics that distinguish children from adults?"
- Impulsivity: Children often act without fully considering consequences, as their prefrontal cortex (responsible for impulse control) is still developing.
- Egocentrism: They tend to view the world from their own perspective, struggling to understand others' viewpoints (e.g., Piaget’s preoperational stage, ages 2–7).
- Emotional Regulation: Children have less control over emotions, leading to outbursts, tantrums, or exaggerated reactions to minor events.
- Dependency: Children rely heavily on adults for guidance, decision-making, and emotional support.
- Short Attention Span: They struggle to focus for extended periods, especially on tasks requiring sustained effort.
When those behaviors apply to adults it can get ugly.
Here’s leftist James Carville displaying most of the traits above. Does he not sound like a child having a tantrum?:
(This rant is too raw for YouTube so here's a link of it uncensored on X. https://x.com/JasonJournoDC/status/2030306775346368789?s=20)
Modern socialists are suffering from Peter Pan syndrome, aka arrested development. They see the world from a child’s perspective. Like Veruca Salt in Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, they want stuff for free and they want it now!
But the above only applies to modern socialists in developed countries.
Many groups chose socialism throughout history because they were, more-or-less, an actual “family” trying to survive in a hostile world. Examples include one third of the native American tribes, the early settlers in the U.S., Jews in Czarist Russia, and the Kibbutzim in early Israel.
The closer a group comes to an actual family, the more compliance they will likely achieve under socialism.
Compliance and sustainability become problematic when a group is not a family, or becomes large enough for the individuals to have divergent goals and allegiances.
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OK, but how does any of this apply to the U.S.? Surely we are not a socialist country, right?
There are no objective tests to determine when a country becomes socialist. But if there was one, it would certainly include the percent of National Income spent on government.
Based on this metric we crossed the line into socialism a long time ago.
In 1900 we spent less than seven percent of our national income on government at all levels (federal, state, and local). Today we spend over eighty percent of national income when including all spending plus Federal Reserve printing and magic money computers. (Exact figures are impossible because as DOGE discovered, the federal government does not even keep track of all the ways it spends money!)
Here’s a graph based on figures from USgovtspending.org, the federal reserve, and Elon Musk’s estimate of “magic money computers”:
(Note: this graph is based on National Income, not GDP. GDP includes government spending which makes it less useful for an analysis like this, since government spending would be in both the numerator and denominator.)
In keeping with spending >80% on government, we have the largest socialist programs on the planet.
Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, etc. add up to by far the biggest socialized healthcare system anywhere. (Some countries in Scandinavia do spend slightly more on healthcare per capita, but they are tiny in comparison.)
Social security is by far the largest socialized retirement system in the world.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, et al, our government backed mortgage giants, own nearly every mortgage in the U.S. making our housing finance system almost entirely socialized. (Socialized housing was the cause of the Great Financial Crisis in 2008!).
Student loans and higher education are also massively socialized.
This list could go on for pages. Suffice it to say we are a socialist country today, and have been for decades.
Sidebar: Karl Marx is the #1 assigned writer on economics across all U.S. colleges and universities. In fact, Marx is the #4 author assigned out of all the authors who ever wrote a book in history! You are what you teach. (see The Open Syllabus Project - opensyllabus.org)
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So, are all big government programs examples of socialism?
One criticism socialists often employ is to say that to deny socialism is to deny having any government programs. Socialists contend that having a military, police department, fire department, national space program, interstate highways, national parks, etc. are all examples of socialism, so why not just have free housing, universal income, and free healthcare too?
Of course, that’s nonsense. All government programs are not socialism. It is sometimes necessary and proper for government to do big and expensive things. It’s also sometimes necessary for government to provide a safety net for the needy.
The test for socialism is the principle of subsidiarity.
From Wikipedia:
“Subsidiarity is an organizing principle stating that social, political, and economic issues should be handled at the most local, immediate, or decentralized level possible. Higher-level authorities (like governments) should only intervene when lower levels (families, local communities) cannot effectively resolve an issue themselves. It serves to foster personal responsibility, limit bureaucracy, and protect freedom.”
- If a government program violates subsidiarity, it’s probably socialism.
- It it does not violate subsidiarity, it is probably not socialism.
Here are some examples of how the subsidiarity test works when applied to familiar programs:
National military, interstate highways, national parks, NASA, federal courts, etc. do not violate subsidiarity because these are things only the federal government can realistically do.
Similarly, police, fire, sanitation, schools, etc. do not violate subsidiarity. They are not examples of socialism.
However, Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare, SNAP (food stamps) etc. can easily be done by the states. The reason they are funded at the federal level is because that’s where money is created, and only there can the true costs be hidden from the people.
In general, health care, health insurance, retirement, housing, and education, can all be done by the private sector for the vast majority of citizens. State governments should be there as a safety net for the needy, but the federal government should not be involved.
Under our current set up, the federal government pays the bill for much of the safety net, while the states are charged with administering the programs. This violates subsidiarity and encourages waste, fraud, and abuse. Recent cases in Minnesota, California, Illinois, NY, etc. prove this point.
Sidebar: Subsidiarity is not the only test for socialism, but it covers the vast majority of cases. Some others are: Is funding done at the same subsidiary level as the administration of a program? Is the program narrowly targeted at the needy? Is the group paying vastly different from the people benefitting?
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OK, if socialism is so bad, then why are seemingly smart, educated people choosing it?
To hear modern socialists talk about it, you would think socialism springs from inequality.
Bernie Sanders complains about the “oligarchy”. That’s his word for anyone who has more stuff than you. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez wears a dress that says, “Tax the Rich”. The rich are anyone who has more stuff than you. Zohran Mamdani, the socialist mayor of NYC says the city will be run for the poor, not the wealthy. The wealthy are anyone who has more stuff than you.
This kind of class warfare rhetoric is politically effective. It divides society into victims and oppressors and drives hatred. It promises free stuff. It’s an easy sell. And it occasionally gets socialists elected.
But it’s not what drives the masses towards socialism.
People choose socialism when they lose MOBILITY. Inequality has nothing to do with it. When citizens feel stuck, trapped, hopeless, endangered, that’s when they turn to socialism.
Recall, the U.S. Socialist Party was founded in the 1800s and The Communist Party in the early 1900s. But neither party did well back then because despite massive inequality, the “American Dream” was alive and well.
The American Dream was the idea that people in the U.S. had economic mobility. Unlike much of the world - Europe, Russia, India (with it’s caste system) - where birthright and class largely determined status, America was all about merit, hard work, ingenuity, resilience. It didn’t matter who your parents were, what religion you were, or even what color you were. If you had the goods, you could advance.
Descendants of slaves were flooding into the middle class despite racist headwinds. New arrivals with nothing were starting businesses. And the rich could lose it all if they were careless. There was massive mobility in both directions.
And yet, inequality was everywhere. The poor were extremely poor. The rich were astonishingly rich. Amidst all that inequality, socialism never got a foothold because economic mobility gave the citizenry hope and a dream of a better life. The American Dream was visible and attainable everywhere, everyday, for everyone.
So, what killed the American Dream?
Government grew like a cancer!
By the 1970s we had instituted much of the platform of the Socialist and Communist Parties. We had Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Pension guarantees, Subsidized mortgages, Guaranteed student loans, and on and on and on. Before we knew it, we had grown government to such a size that it choked out much of our economic mobility.
Then came the borrowing, money printing, and the high inflation we are experiencing now. Runaway government spending and fiat-money-socialism killed the American Dream.
Ironically, big government was sold as a way to lift the poor, level the playing field, tax the rich, and end inequality.
It did the opposite.
Today, we have disillusioned wage earners chasing ever shrinking dollars, while asset owners enjoy skyrocketing wealth due to runaway inflation.
So what do the wage earners do? They turn to socialism!
Here’s a graphic that explains the phenomenon:
We are stuck in this cycle now. Wage earners have lost mobility. They have never known limited government in their lifetimes. They rightfully feel the American Dream is a myth.
That’s not to say there is no mobility in the U.S. We still have plenty of cases of immigrants and the poor rising up. The problem is , as always, on the margins.
As a group, the immobile wage earners have fewer children, have children later in life, support importing cheap labor, and choose socialism. They are ironically perpetuating the very pathology that put them in this position in the first place.
And this is happening throughout the developed world.
Another way to explain this is to paraphrase author G. Michael Hopf:
Hard times make strong individuals
Strong individuals make good times
Good times make weak socialists
Weak socialists make hard times
(The original quote referred to strong and weak men.)
Sidebar: When Marx and Engels wrote “The Communist Manifesto” in 1847, Europe was experiencing similar conditions to what Americans have today. In addition to historical immobility, wage earners were hit with skyrocketing food prices and shortages. In that case, the problem was not monetary inflation, but rather years of widespread crop failures likely due to unusual volcanic activity in the previous decade. Starving workers watching the rich eat well made Marxism an easier sell.
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OK, if we are already a socialist country and it’s getting worse, is there any way to reverse the trend?
Perhaps, but it’s not easy. Not at all.
Since the disease stems from immobility, mobility is the thing that must be restored. To do that, the size and scope of government must be reduced from over 80% of National Income to around 40%. This would return us to 1960s levels of government spending. Recall, we got to the moon and fought a war in the 1960s!
It would require about a 50% reduction in the size of government at all levels, federal, state, and local, relative to National Income. And that also means a 50% reduction in the regulatory burden.
There are two paths to that outcome; government must be radically cut and/or National Income must be radically increased.
Without that, socialism will continue to thrive as mobility continues its downward spiral.
Those are just the facts.
The good news is, our current administration knows this instinctively and has been one of the few to shrink the number of government employees, cut government regulations, and cut waste, fraud, and abuse all at the same time.
It’s a tiny start and they got no help from congress, but if it can be sustained for a few administrations, it could buy some time.
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