Nov 03 2008
Why is Socialism Such a Dirty Word?
Maybe I’m being naive, but I’ve always thought that equality was generally considered a good thing. I was pretty interested the other day to see Sarah Palin jump all over Barack Obama’s comments about sharing the wealth with the same glee and fervour as a starving dog who has been thrown a t-bone steak.
According to Wikipedia, socialism refers to a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating state or collective ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods, and the creation of an egalitarian society. The over-simplified version of this is “share the wealth” - which is why when Barack Obama uttered those words, his opponents were more than happy to bring out the “s-word”.
Socialism in it’s purest form politically is communism and this is the connection that the conservative movement wants voters to make. As much as I believe that being generous to those less fortunate than us is a noble thing, the reality is that, in practice, socialism will never work. The fact of the matter is that there are two groups of people in our society that will prevent it from ever coming close to possible - those who simply don’t want to share (for whatever reason) and those who don’t want to contribute.
If people felt that everyone was doing their own fair share, I don’t think many would mind sharing, but the reality is that people kind of suck at the whole “equality” thing as it is (just ask women, black people, gays, etc.), so we’re a long way from ever thinking of it as an entire political system. People who work hard resent the idea that people who don’t work as hard should get equal compensation - and who can blame them?
The problem I have is that certain socialist values shouldn’t be considered stupid just because parts or our society are too selfish or lazy to embrace them. Is it wrong to believe that those who do the bulk of the labour that keep our countries functioning should have more of a say? Or to be bothered by the relatively small financial compensation they receive for lifetimes of back-breaking labour? If Robin Hood were alive today, the political right would have him listed as socialist enemy number one - robbing to the rich and giving to the poor?? Boooooo!
How much wealth do certain people need? How many handouts should we provide to people too lazy to help themselves? I’m not sure there’s a perfect answer out there at the moment, but I do know that we’re a long way from finding the balance we need or appreciating the true value of all of our citizens.
