I won’t call you a socialist for assuming farmers should receive government subsidies when they cannot sell their beans if you don’t call me a socialist because I believe all Americans deserve health care. [just to get your attention and encourage you to read further]
I have been bothered for some time by the way politicians attack Democratic positions on topics such as health care or funding of higher education by labeling such commitments as socialism. I wonder whether those applying this label with this sentiment could even come up with a definition for what they assume is a derogatory term. I was not certain that I could generate a meaningful definition myself and this resulted in my impression that socialism was essentially a term with a generally negative connotation, but lacking a useful definition. By useful, I don’t mean that those who study the characteristics of governance have no precise definitions, I mean the average individual on the street has little insight and whatever description might be provided would be different from what the next individual asked to offer a description would generate. This lack of specificity for a label that implies a negative practice works great for the dismissal of something you can’t criticize in a specific way.
Certainly, Democrats tend to look to the government more frequently for assistance in solving problems and there is a tendency to tie this expectation in with a greater emphasis on taxation as a way to pay for such solutions. Of course, not having a way to pay for solutions would be irresponsible. Here is the thing, it is also easy to generate a list of things that Republicans want the government to emphasize and I assume would tax citizens accordingly. So what then does this label of socialist actually mean?
I read an article in the Minnesota Post (see below) that addressed the issue I just raised (what do the different parties expect citizens to pay for) and did these differences in priorities influence how and when the label of socialism is applied? According to this article, the Democrats are more likely to see spending on the military, interstate highways, tax credits for business development, and Social Security (surprise) as more socialistic than Republicans. Republicans are more likely to see Medicare, free health care, and support for higher education as more socialistic than Democrats. Now, to be fair, the degree to which the label of socialistic applies varies – e.g., military spending is rated lower as a socialistic value by both parties and free health care was rated as more socialistic by both parties. So, there are differences in how socialistic different investments are labeled and there are party differences in how socialistic a given investment is perceived to be. Not only are there differences in the extent to which the parties see a given form of spending as socialistic, the party labeling a specific funding as more socialistic varies.
The news article uses data from a YouGov survey (https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/07/25/are-democrats-socialists-poll) and I would think that the survey could have included more items (e.g., farm subsidies, food stamps) likely to generate party differences.
It seem to me that the term socialist has little value in political discussions. For more productive conversation, it would be far better to just describe what areas the different parties want taxpayers to spend money on.