What do Scandinavia, Bernie Sanders, and the Soviet Union have in common?
Arguably the most misused theory of all time: socialism.
The word is thrown around in popular culture and political discourse as both a pejorative
and a compliment.
But how can the same system be behind both the Nazi Party and Finland’s world-class
education system?
What exactly is Socialism?
Well, in it’s most simple form, socialism is when a population collectively owns and
controls the means of production, and distributes the end result proportionally.
In practice, however, control is usually delegated to the state.
While the distribution usually comes in the form of underlying social welfare to satisfy
everyone’s basic needs, like housing, education, and health care.
The end-all purpose is to guarantee a level playing field for members in a society, thereby
removing class distinctions based on ownership.
For example: in the US’s capitalist society, high quality education is expensive, meaning
that those who can afford it are generally given better opportunities.
Those who can’t are forced to compete at a material disadvantage.
This leads to class inequality, not on the basis of talent or ability, but on generational
wealth.
By comparison, in countries like Finland, where high quality education is free, everyone
is given the same opportunity to succeed or fail, regardless of their financial status.
If that sounds a bit idealistic, that’s because it is supposed to.
Early socialism was predicated on the idea that if we could eliminate classes and have
true, societal equality, it would be a utopia.
In fact, the earliest modern form of socialism was called “utopian socialism”.
It’s important to note that there are no 100% socialist countries, but rather, different
socio-economic systems with socialist undertones.
Even the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which literally has the word “socialist”
in the name, has been called a far cry from “real socialism”.
The same is true of the Nordic countries, which employ socialist programs combined with
a capitalist economy.
But so, why are the Nordic countries doing so well, while Russia is still recovering?
Well, like any political system, socialism has a countless number of variations.
The two most dominant are Social Democracy, as practiced by Sweden and Bernie Sanders.
And the Marxism-Leninism form of socialism, used by the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba.
Social Democracy generally prioritizes improving quality of life through equal rights and opportunities,
bolstered by a state-run welfare system and on top of a capitalist economy..
On the other hand, Marxism-Leninism prioritizes the infallibility of its dictatorship government.
The rationale is that any benefit to the state would also be a benefit for the people.
However, in practice this has meant that the ruling party can massively depreciate the
population’s standard of living for the “good of the state”.
Although both strive for similar utopian socialist goals, the way they approach them is very
different.
These examples show that socialism (along with it’s logical extreme, communism) may
be backed by rational theory, but requires rational practice to go along with it.
Social democracies make up the happiest countries in the world.
Other socialist-leaning countries like China and Cuba suffer from terrible human rights
abuses, like modern slavery and censorship.
Maybe the best takeaway is not to trust anyone using the word “socialism” to describe
radically different political theories.
Just because “salad” is in the name doesn’t make fruit salad, potato salad, and Caesar
salad the same thing.
If you’d like to learn more about Libertarianism, Anarchy and other political ideologies, check
out our full playlist here starting with Communism.
That links in the description below.
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