Good Stuff

Terms
By John Brown

In less than three minutes, you can amaze your friends, cut through a lot of political blather, and clearly assess what’s being proposed over the next eighteen months as the presidential campaign heats up.

How?

By understanding the simple taxonomy below. 

Every day folks in the media make accusations and claims about socialism, Sweden, Venezuela, capitalism, and the United States. Unfortunately, a lot of the time it’s clear they’re a bit muddled. So let’s cut through the confusion. 

Whether you’re an independent, Democrat, or Republican, you’ll want to know these three terms.

SOCIALISM

The state owns and directs huge portions of the economy. The government in these schemes is the old-fashioned Soviet, Mao, and Nazi style dictatorships.

These types of socialists did so much good in the 20th century. No other scheme was better at piling up dead bodies. Millions and millions of them. 

An interesting tidbit. Did you know that “Nazi” is the abbreviation in German of “Nationalsozialistische”? That word means “National Socialist”. It comes from the name of Hitler’s political party, the “National Socialist German Workers' Party” or "Nationalsozialistische der Deutsche Arbeiters Partei.”

Nobody running for president today is advocating for this type of government.

DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM

The state owns and directs huge portions of the economy. The government in these schemes is supposed to be democratic, which means you should be able to vote the bums out and put other bums in. Venezuela supposedly uses this model, although some wonder if it is a true democracy or a sham one.

For those who like socialism, this is supposed to be the good way of doing it as opposed to the bad way of the old fashioned authoritarians. I will let you determine whether the “good” scheme actually leads to any better economic outcomes than the “bad” one.

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY

You rely on lots and lots and lots of capitalism (private ownership and direction of companies in a free market) to fund government social programs. The funding is done via high tax rates. You have elections and can vote the bums out and put other bums in. This is Sweden.

A lot of people in the current presidential race are advocating for this type of government. Although, if they say that any system that allows billionaires to exist is immoral, you will need to scrutinize that candidate carefully because Sweden’s system allows billionaires. It may be that candidate actually wants some form of democratic socialism.

One last point. If you think about it, the United States and Sweden are similar types of governments. They’re on the same continuum. The difference is that the United States is simply much less of a welfare state than Sweden is.

There you have it. Three terms you are going to hear a million times over the next eighteen months.

Amaze your friends by actually knowing what they mean.

Be proud of your knowledge.

And use it to carefully consider the candidates.