Donald Trump Warns about Venezuela and “Socialism.” Words Make a Difference.

Donald Trump, WH photo

Words make a difference. Is the United States hurtling toward failed socialist policies? That depends on how you define your terms. Properly speaking, socialism is an economic system in which the means of production are publicly owned. Social democracy, a word that liberals rarely use even though most of them believe in it, is a system in which the government uses progressive taxation to provide for people's basic needs. Social democrats are firmly committed to representative government; socialists might or might not be.

President Donald Trump gave a political rally-type speech yesterday. His theme was to criticize the political turmoil in Venezuela, a nation that Republicans often use to show the dangers of socialism. Mr. Trump said:  "Almost 90 percent of Venezuelans now live in poverty. In 2018, hyperinflation in Venezuela exceeded one million percent. Crippling shortages of food and medicine plague the country. Socialism has so completely ravaged this great country that even the world's largest reserves of oil are no longer enough to keep the lights on." He insisted that "The twilight hour of socialism has arrived in our hemisphere." He also said that "The days of socialism and communism are numbered, not only in Venezuela, but in Nicaragua and in Cuba as well." That sounds awful, doesn’t it? Impose socialism, Mr. Trump said. Impose. And Venezuela truly is a mess

Then, making a thinly-veiled criticism of liberal American politicians who call themselves socialists, he stated: “And to those who would try to impose socialism on the United States, we again deliver a very simple message: America will never be a socialist country." 

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Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, US Congress

Some liberal politicians, including Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Independent Bernie Sanders, call themselves socialists. American politicians who call themselves socialists speak for policies like universal health insurance, free college tuition, and highly progressive taxation. These policies, which resemble those found in most industrialized nations like Sweden, Denmark, Canada, or France, are better called social democracy rather than socialism because they preserve the free enterprise system while providing various taxpayer-funded services that help ordinary citizens. That is not socialism.

They aren’t really socialists. So why the big debate about socialism? It comes down to how we use and misuse words.

Word choice matters, and theories of public speaking – going all the way back to ancient Rome – make language choice (which they call “style” or “elocutio”) one of the five main components (or “canons”) of rhetoric. “Socialism” is a curious word choice that arouses fanatical emotions. But “socialism” is more properly defined as an economic system in which the public, the government, or the workers themselves own factories, farms, hospitals, distribution centers, and so forth. We do have examples of public ownership across the United States: for instance, Veterans Administration hospitals, community hospitals, the United States Army Ordnance Corps that manufactures weapons, and electrical co-ops. Programs like employee stock options represent a bridge between capitalism and socialism, as they encourage worker ownership of the businesses. All of those programs seem to do fairly well and few conservatives advocate abolishing them.

At the same time, full-blown socialist countries earned a bad reputation. Stalin’s forced collectivization of Soviet farms and Mao’s Cultural Revolution both caused great suffering. And, of course, economic troubles and unstable government have hobbled Venezuela for many years.

So, why do liberals like Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders call themselves socialists? They represent very liberal voters in liberal regions. By calling themselves socialists, they make themselves sound more liberal than they really are. Their constituents seem to like that.

At the same time, when conservatives like President Trump call Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders socialists, they can, with a broad but illogical swipe, associate their policies with failed nations like Venezuela and the Soviet Union. Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders invite that attack, since they wrongly call themselves socialists and thus open themselves to Trump’s complaints.

Conservative pundits welcomed Trump’s speech, which was an implicit rebuke of liberal politicians.

It is one thing to win office and it is something else again to get policies adopted. American politicians who call themselves socialists are claiming to be much more radical than they really are. They will have more trouble getting their ideas adopted precisely because they mistakenly call themselves socialists. Likewise, Trump and other conservatives are wrong when they imply that liberal policies will necessarily turn the United States into Cuba or Venezuela.

Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders aren’t socialists. They don’t speak for the policies that disrupted Venezuela’s economy. Trump was in error to call them socialists, but they were wrong on the facts to invite his criticism. 

Both sides score political points by misusing words. Socialism versus social democracy. They aren't the same. Words make a difference, do they not?