Who could plausibly conceive that socialism is a beneficial construct? Socialism is a blend of elements that should never be considered for application; it`s akin to imbibing turpentine. The components of this ideology are undesirable; the United States should ardently avoid the adoption of socialism. According to recent data, 70% of American millennials indicate a high likelihood of casting their votes for a socialist agenda, and surprisingly, a third of this demographic view communism in a positive light. The term `socialist` has gained considerable momentum over the recent years. It`s likely that an increasing number of your acquaintances might self-identify with this descriptor. Possibly, it`s even one of these individuals who forwarded you this article. This visual presentation aims to elucidate the meaning people associate with when they label themselves as `socialists.` I will strive to cover as much context as efficiently as possible to provide an enhanced understanding of a term that is frequently heard but seldom comprehensively explicated. I acknowledge that some of you may harbor a negative predisposition towards socialism, which is entirely valid. You`re welcome to express your opposition either in the comments or through the tangible-to-me but imperceptible-to-you dislike feature. I merely request that you remain engaged for a while post expressing your dissent. A fundamental aspect of politics involves disagreements, but to have meaningful disputes, it`s essential to comprehend the concept you disagree with.

Let`s commence. The quintessential idea that aligns all socialists is the pursuit of maximizing freedom for every individual, irrespective of their identity. In a broad sense, socialists aspire for individuals to possess rights that ensure their freedom – the rights to education, healthcare, food, and shelter, to participate in and constitute democratic entities, and the right to free time and leisure. These rights amplify our freedom, enabling us to thrive and lead fulfilling lives. However, it`s insufficient for these rights to merely exist in legal documentation. Individuals must have the capacity to exercise these rights. If one theoretically has the freedom to an education but cannot feasibly reduce their working hours to attend classes, then they`re bereft of the genuine freedom to education. While the law asserts your freedom, in practice, you`re deprived of its enjoyment. Consider this analogy: We may have missed a multitude of potential Einsteins because poverty hindered them from realizing their full potential. The possession of freedom and the actual capacity to exercise it is critical.

This core concern with freedom isn`t surprising. Every political ideology aspires to maximize or guarantee freedom in some capacity. If the United States had its own ideology, perhaps termed `Americanism`, its proponents would assert its focus on freedom. To be fair, capitalism did become the predominant way of life globally because, at least in part, it enabled certain individuals to enjoy greater freedom than before. Preceding capitalism, we had an alternative social system - feudalism.

Feudalism and Captialism?

Envision medieval fortresses, banquet tables laden with lavish spreads straight out of a George R.R. Martin novel - pigs with apples in their mouths, and individuals bearing intriguing monikers like Torf. In feudal society, the fraction of the population that enjoyed freedom was minuscule. Kings and other nobility constituted this elite echelon; everyone else resided under their dominion, typically devoid of considerable freedom. After all, nobles were the proprietors of all land within their kingdoms. Consequently, if you lacked noble status but desired shelter, wished to evade absolute destitution, and sought a modicum of security, you were compelled to cultivate the noble`s land. This was an advantageous arrangement for the nobility, given that after you had completed all the arduous labor - agriculture and related tasks - they would levy their taxes, requisitioning the fruits of your labor, whether it was grain, meat, or the monetary profit acquired from their trade.

However, the reign of feudalism wasn`t eternal. The advent of capitalism catalyzed the transformation of feudal society into an entirely novel configuration. Over a span of a few centuries, merchants acquired increased autonomy from feudal lords, evolving into a new class of comparatively free individuals. Nobles relinquished a significant portion of their power, both progressively and via violent revolutions. The number of free individuals proliferated from a mere few hundred nobles to thousands of individuals not necessarily belonging to elite bloodlines. Capitalism emerged, and its operations are discernible in today`s world.

In a capitalist society, your employer represents this new group of liberated individuals. Analogous to the nobility of the bygone economic era, he enjoys substantial freedom to dictate his actions. Many of his decisions permeate down and inevitably impact you. In the rapport between the two of you, the power predominantly resides with him. For instance, your remuneration is not contingent upon the quality of your performance but is decided by your employer. He possesses this liberty. Either directly or indirectly, your employer hires and dismisses personnel according to his preference. You labor for him, dedicating your days to creating something he can subsequently market. This process enables him to generate profit. Irrespective of his personal disposition, his profit estimation mandates considering variables such as his dependency on you and the competition for your job. The more desperate these job seekers are - perhaps due to the threat of homelessness - the more leverage he gains to depress your wage. Thus, higher rates of homelessness or poverty could be advantageous for him. Your salary is not determined by your dedication or the value of your work, but by your replaceability. You can protest against such exploitation of your wages, but there`s a nagging apprehension that too much resistance might place you among the multitude fighting for your job.

Under feudalism, individuals were obligated to cultivate the noble`s land and surrender the yield of their labor. They had limited alternatives and virtually no freedom to act otherwise. Labor the land, or you face significant hardships. Presently, you are required to fulfill corporate, industrial, or service industry roles, surrendering your time and whatever you produce during your shift to the capitalist. Theoretically, you enjoy the freedom to abstain from work, choose your employer, and negotiate with them. However, akin to how serfs required shelter and sustenance, earning money through employment in the capitalist industry is essential for survival. It`s also evident that the power dynamics between you and your employer are skewed.

In the nascent phase of this new economic system, most workers were forced to dedicate a substantial portion of their lives - 12 hours a day, six days a week - to their employers, often from a tender age and under atrocious conditions. It was only recently that we managed to slightly ameliorate these conditions. The impediment to further progress today stems from the fact that capitalism didn`t represent a significant departure from feudalism. The dynamics of dominance and coercion remain largely unchanged; the only difference is that the group possessing freedom is marginally larger - a few thousand as opposed to a few hundred - and membership is not necessarily contingent on birthright. Despite its shortcomings, this system has not been entirely detrimental; generally, living standards have seen an improvement under capitalism.

For numerous individuals, capitalism constitutes a net advancement, albeit in select aspects, relative to its predecessor. Yet, akin to feudal society, capitalism has begun to show signs of obsolescence. The narrative of elevating living standards under capitalism has always been fraught with discrepancies, and lately, capitalism has begun failing even those who initially reaped decent benefits from it. A couple of generations ago, employment assured a comfortable lifestyle, encompassing homeownership, sufficient income to sustain a family, college tuition, and healthcare access. One wasn`t completely liberated, but the living conditions were not severely compromised. This is no longer the prevailing reality.

The small fraction at the summit of the social hierarchy has been granted abundant freedom to retain the revenue you generate for them by laboring in their offices, storefronts, and factories. Consequently, there`s little left for you. Today, high school and college graduates, who once could look forward to stable employment and sustainable wages, are increasingly struggling. Approximately 40-50% of college graduates are either unemployed or are engaged in jobs that don`t necessitate a diploma. They are encumbered by debts that drastically outweigh their earnings, and this narrative pervades the entire economy. For instance, an Amazon employee would need to work for 58 years to accumulate the annual earnings of Jeff Bezos, and that`s just his salary. If dividends are included, multiple lifetimes of daily work would be needed to match Bezos` single circumnavigation of the sun. Evidently, an upgrade is overdue.

How does it pertain to Socialism?

Socialists scrutinize this historical progression and pose two questions: Can a superior mechanism produce the same results as capitalism? If so, what is it? In other words, how can we retain the appealing aspects of capitalism - like elevated living standards - while eliminating the undesirable components - such as exploitation, power imbalances, and drastically uneven distribution of these escalating living standards?

A fundamental solution for socialists is rooted in the ownership of entities like corporations. The argument suggests that as long as one, or a few individuals, hold ownership of our society`s productive enterprises, they can make decisions that benefit themselves, not the wider population. Your employer, given the freedom, will employ his power to limit yours. He will perpetually strive to suppress your wages, extend your working hours, and degrade your working conditions since it is cost-effective and maximizes his profit. Simultaneously, he must balance that with what other capitalists may offer in terms of better conditions, hours, or wages. Each improvement he makes is constrained by his profit margins. If an action is unprofitable, even by a fraction, he cannot pursue it. He cannot risk a rival company undercutting his business by being more ruthless. Consequently, the only options available are those that enhance his wealth, even if that leads to your impoverishment or overall degradation.

Socialists assess these incentives, seeking ways to reform them. Rather than prioritizing capitalist profit, how can we create incentives that benefit the community at large? This could mean expanding the options beyond those that solely enrich the top tier. There are numerous ideas on how to achieve this, ranging from centralized planning to free association between communes, worker cooperatives, or cybernetic management. Despite the diversity of these ideas, they all converge on the notion that the most effective method to discern which ideas benefit everyone the most is through collective decision-making. Grant everyone control over the ideas we wish to implement and how. Instead of a select few dictating the rules, everyone should have a say over things like their working conditions - essentially, control over tasks, performed by everyone, for everyone. This concept opposes the dominion of a self-proclaimed class of millionaires and billionaires who command everyone else.

You instinctively understand the effectiveness of this concept. Reflect on how many times your employer made a decision that you knew was erroneous, but you had to bear the consequences. How often were you told that a raise or day off was unaffordable due to budget constraints, even as the company recorded record profits? How frequently were decisions shrouded in secrecy until they became problems? While you might not always have solutions to every issue faced by your company.

Yet, if the decision-making of those in power is superior, why is it conducted in secrecy? Why does it always favor them and not you? Socialists recognize that this system doesn`t necessarily increase freedom or fairness. Freedom is a two-way street: I can`t exercise my liberty if you can obstruct it. I am not free if you make all the decisions for me. When something only impacts you, you should have the freedom to do as you wish, but when things such as my livelihood are involved, it is only fair that we all have a say. It is increasingly clear to the younger generation that their prospects of leading a decent life are less secure than they were in the past. Ultimately, whether you thrive or lead what we may call a normal life, despite your hard work, is largely a matter of luck.

Despite witnessing how our current capitalist society is steering us down a regrettably restrictive path - limiting our freedom, benefiting from high unemployment, poverty, and low wages - we may hesitate, or even feel fear, to resort to socialism as a solution. We can identify the flawed incentives and inherent economic instability of capitalism, yet feel unsure about the next steps. After all, history hasn`t definitively proven that an alternative system is effective - or so we`ve been led to believe.

Contrary to popular belief, developing countries experienced superior performance during the era of state-led development compared to subsequent periods of market-oriented reform. Although state intervention resulted in some spectacular failures, most of these countries exhibited faster growth, more equitable income distribution, and fewer economic crises than during periods of market-oriented reform. Moreover, it is not true that all affluent countries have achieved their wealth through free-market policies. Most of today`s wealthy nations - including Britain and the US, allegedly the epitomes of free trade and free markets - achieved their affluence through protectionism, subsidies, and other policies that they now caution developing nations against. These insights come from economist Ha-Joon Chang in his book `23 Things They Don`t Tell You About Capitalism` - a compelling read if you`re interested. Not a socialist himself, Chang provides a candid account of capitalism`s shortcomings.

So what does this mean? Is socialism simply when the government does stuff? The answer is no. For starters, such a question implies a litany of unpalatable scenarios. If you find the DMV frustrating, imagine a world where all services are managed like the DMV. If you believe the government is already exploiting you, imagine it wielding even more power. Clearly, a world with an all-powerful DMV-style government isn`t what socialists desire. Nobody in their right mind would advocate for that. The problem lies in the deceptive framing of the question. What counts as `the government doing stuff”? Sometimes government programs are methods for wealth redistribution - like Social Security, welfare, public libraries, and food stamps. Other times, they`re basic services that all governments, regardless of economic model or ideology, provide - like fire departments, garbage disposal, sewer systems, or streetlights. This list also includes institutions like the police, the military, the FBI, the CIA, courts, and prisons. Regardless of your political standing, there will be aspects of this list that you dislike and others that you endorse. When you suggest that socialism is synonymous with `the government doing stuff`, and you`re predisposed to be skeptical of the term, your mind naturally gravitates towards whatever aspect of government involvement you detest, or deem least effective. Hence, the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) and authoritarian associations.

Regardless, this interpretation is not what socialism represents. Socialism is a system in which the means of production - the factories, farms, and offices that essentially produce for the economy - are owned collectively and subjected to democratic decision-making rather than being controlled by a select few. While governments may coordinate this communal ownership, they aren`t the only means to do so. However, there`s a more profound issue with this perspective. Our conception of government isn`t fixed or devoid of context. As humans, we struggle to imagine a world dissimilar to our present reality. Thus, we often find it challenging to envision how our governments could function differently from how they currently operate under capitalism.

We are all familiar with this scenario: corporations investing billions to sway elections, public services operating on shoestring budgets and generating immense frustration, elected officials failing to perform their duties while earning substantial salaries and shrugging off responsibility, and elections invariably choosing the lesser of two evils. The conventional perception of government that we all inherit is one of inefficiency, unresponsiveness, corruption, and elitism. It predominantly serves a privileged 1% class, offering mere scraps to the remainder of the population.

The fundamental promise that socialists uphold is that we can revolutionize this system - that we can genuinely attain a democracy that isn`t deplorable or out of touch. By actively involving individuals in the democratic process at their workplaces and divesting billionaires of their massive corporate powers to lobby against democracy, we can coordinate the production of goods and services to align with our needs and desires, rather than solely for the profit of a select few.

While profit-driven markets occasionally meet these expectations (even a broken clock is right twice a day), they frequently fall short in fulfilling our wants and needs. This discrepancy explains why housing remains unaffordable for many, why homelessness rates are persistently high, why education remains inaccessible to millions, and why healthcare costs continue to surge. Despite evident demand, capitalism struggles to provide adequate supply.

The task assigned to socialists is to fulfill the promises of capitalism that capitalism itself fails to deliver: to offer you and your loved ones the security, stability, and quality of life you deserve and that we are capable of providing to everyone - if not for the exploitation of a few individuals in power who prevent the establishment of a liveable baseline for all.

In brief, socialism isn`t about the government dictating everything. You get to decide what gets done. You participate more directly than before in decisions that affect your daily life. Socialists aren`t against competition or innovation, but we object to these concepts being used as pretexts to drive most people towards poverty and a select few towards extravagant wealth.

Still, one might argue, this all sounds well in theory, but socialism doesn`t work in practice, right? To address this, we must acknowledge that socialism, like capitalism, exists on a spectrum of policies and ideas. There is no purely capitalist or socialist experiment. Claiming that `socialism doesn`t work` is as misguided as stating `capitalism doesn`t work.` More fundamentally, it`s not as though we can conduct a valid experimental comparison between the two economic models. We can`t isolate two countries, control for all their differences, and let them function according to each economic model. No two countries are identical, start from the same conditions, or exist in isolation. Comparing country A with country B doesn`t provide a definitive conclusion. Socialist experiments have often been implemented in countries that were initially poorer and had to navigate a global economy dominated by capitalist adversaries.

If we were to equate these economic models to a scientific experiment, it would not meet the criteria for publication due to its lack of control groups and variables. However, we can examine the historical records of nations that have mostly pursued socialist economies and evaluate their success rates given their circumstances.

And what about nowadays examples?

A notable example is Salvador Allende`s socialist Chile. Salvador Allende was a socialist who won the Chilean presidential election of 1970. Although his presidential term was rather brief (the reasons for which will be discussed shortly), Allende introduced transformative changes to Chilean society. He increased wages, leading to a roughly 22% rise in real wages during the first full year of his presidency. Allende also lowered taxes, leading to 35% of Chileans no longer being taxed. Furthermore, he curbed inflation, reducing it by over 10 points.

Allende initiated significant housing programs, which resulted in the construction of tens of thousands of affordable homes across the country. Education was another sector that received a substantial boost, with enrolment growing at all educational levels. Universities, in particular, became free, leading to an enrolment increase of nearly 90%.

Under Allende`s leadership, hospitals and other medical centers were established across the country, particularly in underprivileged rural and poor areas. He also extended maternity leave from six to twelve weeks. Consequently, Chile experienced a significant decrease in poverty, allowing more people to enjoy their lives fully.

Interestingly, this new economy was largely organized through Project Cybersyn, a decentralized network of computers that collected anonymous, self-reported, and voluntary updates from workers in productive enterprises across Chile to identify areas needing resource redirection. The democratic economy in Chile was highly responsive to changes, and Chileans benefited immensely. In the first year, GDP grew by 7%, production by 13%, and consumption by 11%. By ousting capitalist enterprises, not only did the Chilean economy serve more people, but it also performed better overall.

However, this kind of response was not universally embraced. The Church Commission report on Chile provides an insight into this. This report is one of the only documents released by the American government to the public that outlines the extent of its intelligence agency`s intervention in a foreign country. According to the report, covert American activity played a role in nearly every major election in Chile between 1963 and 1973, with the 1964 presidential election being the most significant example. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) spent over 2.6 million dollars (equivalent to 24 million today) to support the opposition`s election. The CIA financed over half of the Christian Democratic candidate`s campaign.

Propaganda, which was relatively inexpensive, was the CIA`s most extensive covert action in Chile. They not only purchased propaganda individually but also subsidized Chilean media organizations friendly to the United States on a larger scale. The CIA even supported or founded friendly media outlets that might not have existed without their backing. The covert efforts of the United States to affect Chile`s political trajectory reached its peak in 1970.

The CIA was instructed to foster a military coup in Chile to prevent Salvador Allende from coming to power. In essence, the White House, intelligence community, multinational corporations, and military spent millions trying to thwart a popular candidate from winning a democratic election. When their efforts fell short, they invested another set of millions to overthrow the leader who had improved Chile by nearly every conceivable measure. Their first coup attempt in 1970 was unsuccessful, but their endeavors bore fruit three years later. Allende was overthrown as president, choosing to take his own life rather than being captured when the Chilean army, fueled by CIA funding, seized the presidential building.

What ensued was a new phase of an American puppet government that imprisoned, tortured, and killed hundreds of thousands of people. Allende`s story is far from unique. We see similar patterns around the globe wherever socialist alternatives began to flourish.

We don`t have the capability to turn back time and try this again. We can`t definitively know if things would have unfolded differently if, by some historical accident, socialism had become our global economic model when capitalism was born. But we can still strive to envision what we can do from this point forward.

Without a doubt, this article won`t have addressed all your questions. Imagining a different world is a complex task, and there are numerous concerns to address. It`s typically easier to question something in the future than to critically evaluate our current system. However, if we applied the same level of scrutiny to our present society as we do to the future, would we still choose it?

For further understanding, I`ve provided a link below to a short pamphlet composed by Verso and Jacobin magazine. It provides answers to most questions people have when first introduced to socialist theory. It addresses concerns about human nature, property, authoritarianism, laziness, and other typically concerning topics in a fair manner, offered by those who envision a socialist future.

I am one of those individuals who believe that a better world is possible. You`ve likely seen exaggerated portrayals of socialists on TV as the red scare never truly dissipated. However, I hope this article shows that we are, in fact, ordinary people. We just believe that our current system isn`t functioning, and it`s time for a change.

This article was designed for a slightly different audience than usual. If you`re a longtime reader, I realize this might have been a bit basic, but the intention was for you to share it with your friends and family who might not fully understand what socialism is about. Perhaps it can ignite some constructive discussions. If you`ve stayed until the end, I appreciate your patience and interest.