Fact Checker: What is socialism?
By Glenn Kessler Glenn Kessler The Fact Checker Email Bio Follow March 5 at 3:00 AM “Socialism is not about the environment, it’s not about justice, it is not about virtue. Socialism is about only one thing: It’s called power for the ruling class.” “Under the guise of Medicare-for-all and a Green New Deal, Democrats are embracing the same, tired economic theories that have impoverished nations and have stifled the liberties of millions over the past century. That system is socialism.
That’s the economic theory, which emerged in reaction to the brutal working conditions of the Industrial Revolution, such as 16-hour work days and child labor. But in reality, the theory has been perverted and distorted by advocates and detractors. This allows politicians to assign the label “socialism” to just about any ideology.
Trump, on occasion, has tried to link the collapse of the Venezuelan economy to a broad condemnation of socialism. “In other words, the socialists have done in Venezuela all of the same things that socialists, communists, totalitarians have done everywhere that they’ve had a chance to rule,” he said in a speech to Florida International University on Feb. 18.
Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers, in a report in October warning against the appeal of socialism, argued that “Nordic country living standards are still at least 15 percent lower than in the U.S.” — a conclusion that was fiercely disputed by leaders in those countries. “Our goal is not to rein in the excesses of capitalism for a few decades at a time — we want to end our society’s subservience to the market,” according to DSA member Meagan Day. She described “Medicare-for-all” as not socialism because it would “only nationalize insurance, not the whole health-care system.” She said Democratic Socialists eventually would want to move toward something like the British National Health Service.
By the time Reagan became president 20 years later, Medicare was firmly established. He even cut a deal with Congress to raise taxes to implement the largest Medicare expansion in decades.
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