How Can You Denounce What You Won't Define?

Socialism, the GOP catch-all term for Democratic policies, must mean something before it's condemned

Two of recent French presidents - François Mitterrand and Francois Hollande - were socialists. The country has one of the highest tax rates as a percent of Gross Domestic Product in the industrialized world, with the money going to pay for government-sponsored paid maternity leave, healthcare, and education and other social programs. America’s Republican Party has deemed these programs to be socialism. France is one of world’s most successful capitalist countries.

Denmark, like most Scandinavian countries, is renowned for its socialist policies - as well as its ranking as a country with the high rates of happiness and well-being. Denmark has a very high tax rate, and the government spends that money on a large number of social programs, including healthcare, education, and job training. Many of those are condemned as socialism by America’s GOP. But Denmark is a capitalist country - in fact, probably more capitalist than the United States because they encourage businesses to act purely on market principles without government interference. The socialist policies allow businesses to take big risks to improve worker productivity, since they all know that one risky undertaking won’t result in mass unemployment and collapse.

Germany has numerous socialist policies, many promoted by former Chancellor Angela Merkel. Healthcare, education, and other social services are universally available. However, like Denmark, France and many other countries, Germany is a capitalist state with socialist policies, which is credited with helping it maintain its strong economic condition.

Is this what the Republicans wanted to condemn in their recent performative resolution seeking to have every member of Congress to denounce socialism? Who knows? The resolution didn’t define socialism, but merely condemned socialism “in all its forms” and “opposes the implementation of socialist policies” in the United States. They used as examples the Soviet Union under Stalin, China under Mao Zedong, Cuba under Castro, North Korea under Kim Jong Un (Trump’s friend, right?), and so on. But they ignored France, Denmark, Germany, Britain, Canada, Italy, and many, many other capitalist allies of the United States that have forms of socialism, have implemented socialist policies, and often have ratings of public happiness that far exceed those in America.