Top 212 Socialism Quotes

For me, it’s sort of like a cultural democracy or musical socialism to take a stand and get out of the major cities if you can.

To the biologist the problem of socialism appears largely as a problem of size.

I am a socialist, so I am not worried about socialism. I am worried about dictators who are putting everyone into a socialist state for their own benefit.

Libertarian socialism is properly to be regarded as the inheritor of the liberal ideals of the Enlightenment.

The harsh reality is that socialism not only destroys economic freedom, it severely limits the capability of everyone to reach maximum potential. It’s a system that doesn’t provide more, but instead vastly less.

National Socialism and Christianity are irreconcilable.

Obama believes in a big central government, where the federal government controls everything in our lives. That’s socialism.

Real socialism is inside man. It wasn’t born with Marx. It was in the communes of Italy in the Middle Ages. You can’t say it is finished.

Whether such socialism is foolish naivety or heroic idealism is a matter of opinion, but what is certain is that, however many CDs are sold or tours sold out, the sound waves themselves are free.

The first issue to be settled is whether socialism has a right to exist Are its allegations concerning the present system true? Is industry proceeding on a principle of fraud? I wish to test the power of recent economic theory to give an exact answer to this question.

Socialism violates at least three of the Ten Commandments: It turns government into God, it legalizes thievery and it elevates covetousness. Discussions of income inequality, after all, aren’t about prosperity but about petty spite. Why should you care how much money I make, so long as you are happy?

Is Medicare socialism? You want to get rid of Medicare. And a lot of the people against health care do. I want to preserve it and grow it.

I grew up in a family that despised not only communism but collectivism, socialism, and any ‘ism’ that deprived the individual of his or her natural rights.

People have to take socialism and anyone running on a socialist platform incredibly seriously.

But cutting the working week would free the individual, giving millions of workers more time to spend as they see fit. Human freedom should be the core aim of modern socialism. The right to work less would be an act of liberation – and a cause the left should embrace.

We’re going to fight racism not with racism, but we’re going to fight with solidarity. We say we’re not going to fight capitalism with black capitalism, but we’re going to fight it with socialism.

I was part of a generation that believed in socialism and finally found that belief corroded and destroyed. That is not renouncing Communism or socialism. It’s reaching a certain degree of enlightenment about what the Soviet Union practices.

The 19th century was the age of Individualism; the 20th and 21st are the ages of Socialism.

Socialism is when government’s taking care of you, you send all your money to the government, the government decides how to spend it instead of letting the people spend it and make all those decisions.

I am convinced that the path to a new, better and possible world is not capitalism, the path is socialism.

Socialism as such from its very origins is a workers’ system, and when there occur deviations, it is workers that react first.

I’m a socialist. I’m amazed at how the spirit of socialism is alive and well in New York. I had always thought I wouldn’t want to be here without a lot of money, but I was wrong about that.

I recognise that Socialism has ended its purely theoretical course, and that the hour to construct has come.

It’s one of the great mysteries to me how anybody who has ever believed in socialism can conceivably vote for Blair or New Labour, which is further to the right of any Tory government apart from that of John Major, and is taking privatisation into realms unheard-of.

One of the things I learned in ‘Slavs!’ is that it’s much easier to talk about being gay than it is to talk about being a socialist. People are afraid of socialism, and plays that deal with economics are scarier to them.

The Tories have built a system defined by insecurity – from wages to job contracts to housing to the welfare state. If they want to understand why socialism – long dead, never coming back, or so they thought – has undergone a revival, this is why.

Almost the only persons who may be said to comprehend even approximately the significance, principles, and purposes of Socialism are the chief leaders of the extreme wings of the Socialistic forces, and perhaps a few of the money kings themselves.

When progressives talk about equity, they mean equal outcomes, not opportunities. They want a government that’s so powerful, it owns everything and chooses how wealth is distributed to ensure equal outcomes. That in essence is socialism.

The promise of socialism is a lie.

There just isn’t a version of ‘socialism in one country’ around in the 21st century. I think it’s really important that we don’t fall for this nirvana of ‘Let’s just get out, and we can create a socialist Britain.’

When I talked to my medical friends about the strange silence on this subject in American medical magazines and textbooks, I gained the impression that here was a subject tainted with Socialism or with feminine sentimentality for the poor.

The slaves of socialism are slaves, but they are no one’s property and therefore no one’s loss.

Everybody in this society that has been lurching toward socialism and collectivism for 40 years has their hand out. And the propensity of Congress is to spend, spend, elect, elect. That hasn’t changed, and it isn’t going to change for a long time.

Obamanomics, his imposition of European-style socialism, is not working for African-Americans. It is not working for Latinos and African-Americans.

Democracy and socialism are means to an end, not the end itself.

Socialism is the same as Communism, only better English.

Voluntaryism is the idea that all human interactions should be free of coercion, based on individual self-ownership. This is in contrast to socialism, which is based on coercion justified by collective ownership.

The two principles referred to are Authority and Liberty, and the names of the two schools of Socialistic thought which fully and unreservedly represent one or the other of them are, respectively, State Socialism and Anarchism.

Socialism proposes no adequate substitute for the motive of enlightened selfishness that today is at the basis of all human labor and effort, enterprise and new activity.

I think democratic socialism will ultimately prevail in this country because it makes an enormous amount of sense.

Sometimes you have to invest in people to get the best out of them. To me, that is socialism. That is why I’m a Labour member rather than a Conservative.

Traditional Marxism attempted to argue against free enterprise by saying that capitalism causes poverty and that, therefore, socialism is necessary. That didn’t work, because it was false.

I’m tired of this discussion of capitalism and socialism; we live in the 21st century, we need an economic system that has democracy as its underpinnings and an ethical code.

From a systematic standpoint, I think that capitalism is the best system. I can spend a lot of time explaining why I like communism, but it is actually not a good solution. Nor is socialism. So, capitalism is the right model.

Here’s the American situation – we have moved from a culture of independence to a culture of dependence. We have moved from capitalism into the direction of socialism. We have moved from being a beacon of strength internationally to a position of weakness.

Many people consider the things government does for them to be social progress but they regard the things government does for others as socialism.

Socialism, on the contrary, extends its function to the description of society as it should be, and the discovery of the means of making it what it should be.

Through argument and example, we must show that Corbyn’s hard left socialism will destroy business – the engine at the heart of our economy.

The function of socialism is to raise suffering to a higher level.

Socialism, reduced to its simplest legal and practical expression, means the complete discarding of the institution of private property by transforming it into public property, and the division of the resultant public income equally and indiscriminately among the entire population.

We must reduce all the emissions that are destroying the planet. However, that requires a change in lifestyle, a change in the economic model: We must go from capitalism to socialism.

Democratic socialism means, that in a democratic, civilized society, the wealthiest people and the largest corporations must pay their fair share of taxes.

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

Socialism is the ideal state, but it can never be achieved while man is so selfish.

And what always struck me about that war period was how even Churchill had to talk socialism to keep up people’s morale.

But Socialism, alone, can bring self-determination of their peoples.

The political and military position of socialism should be further cemented so that it can be an impregnable fortress.

Once one of the most important steel manufacturing centers in the world, Braddock – what’s left of it – solemnly affirms one of the great economic maxims of our society: socialism for the rich, and capitalism for the poor.

The New Deal is plainly an attempt to achieve a working socialism and avert a social collapse in America; it is extraordinarily parallel to the successive ‘policies’ and ‘Plans’ of the Russian experiment. Americans shirk the word ‘socialism’, but what else can one call it?

Socialism appeals to better classes and has far more strength. Attack the state and you excite feelings of loyalty even among the disaffected classes; but attack the industrial system and appeal to the state, and you may have loyalty in your favor.

Socialism is a fraud, a comedy, a phantom, a blackmail.

I believe that all forms of socialism have been proven over time to result in a loss of both economic and civil liberties, with increasing poverty.

The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism.

Yes, in socialism the rich will be poorer – but the poor will also be poorer. People will lose interest in really working hard and creating jobs.

The failure of Socialism since 1945 is that whilst encouraging us all, the creators of wealth, to produce less through strikes, it has caused us all to demand a higher level of our own product.

Socialism is the antithesis of opportunity and it’s time to reject this failed and dangerous idea once and for all.

I should tie myself to no particular system of society other than of socialism.

The rise of National Socialism is the protest of a people against a State that denies the right to work.

Democracy is not compatible with capitalism but is congruent with a version of democratic socialism in which the wealth, resources, and benefits of a social order are shared in an equitable and just manner.

The goal of socialism is communism.

Wherever socialism spread, misery followed – and still follows.

If Socialism can only be realized when the intellectual development of all the people permits it, then we shall not see Socialism for at least five hundred years.

All socialism involves slavery.

Liberal democracy – as you know, in the old days, we were saying we want socialism with a human face. Today’s left effectively offers global capitalism with a human face, more tolerance, more rights and so on. So the question is, is this enough or not? Here I remain a Marxist: I think not.

The argument that any income redistribution is tantamount to socialism, and that socialism has always been unAmerican, has helped legitimise keeping taxes on America’s very wealthy very low.

Democracy is the road to socialism.

Since the end of the 1970s, free-market capitalism has been in, and socialism has been out.

I can understand Communism, but not Socialism.

No one should suffer from the great delusion that any form of communism or socialism which promotes the dictatorship of the few instead of the initiative of the millions can produce a happier or more prosperous society.

In the past 20 years and more since China embarked on the road of reform and opening up, we have moved steadfastly to promote political restructuring and vigorously build democratic politics under socialism.

The left is back, and it’s the only path we have to get out of the spot to which the right has sunken us. Socialism builds and capitalism destroys.

You’ve got Washington picking winners and losers. And so, all of a sudden, decisions are being made on what helps politicians, not what helps the economy. Some will call it socialism. Some will call it a command and control economy. Whatever it is, it’s antithetical to the American experience.

I have collected the history of ‘domestic,’ ‘indoor’ socialism, bit by bit. The history of how it played out in the human soul. I am drawn to that small space called a human being… a single individual. In reality, that is where everything happens.

I address myself to the Communists, to those Communists who were prompted to join the Party by the progressive ideas of mankind and socialism, and not by selfish personal interests – let us represent our pure and just ideas by pure and just means.

Socialism is a sacred cause for realizing the demand and desire of the masses of the people for independence; it is a revolutionary cause that advances amid a fierce struggle against imperialism and all other counterrevolutionary forces.

There is nothing wrong with socialism or communism but they are irrelevant now. Some intellectual terrorists are provoking people in the name of these ideologies just like some religious terrorists go and demolish mosques and want to build temples in their place.

It doesn’t benefit me to lie to people. They’re eventually going to find out the truth, and then where am I? That’s the problem with liberalism and socialism, by the way: it has to be propped up by lies.

Marxism, communism, socialism – the ideologies – did not have the automatic answers to the problem of the relations between the lighter and darker races of mankind. They did not even have an answer to anti-Semitism.

More socialism means more democracy, openness and collectivism in everyday life.

For too long, for way too long the Republican party has just been the party of ‘no’ that has always conceded things. They have let God out of our schools, they have let socialism creep into our country.

Poverty is not socialism. To be rich is glorious.

Democratic socialism means that we must create an economy that works for all, not just the very wealthy.

What if capitalism is unsustainable, and socialism is impossible?

I have a political philosophy by which I judge political events. It’s called socialism, which at its core is about achieving equality, justice and peace through democracy.

At times, I’ve referred to Christ’s miracles, and have said, ‘Well, Christ multiplied the fish and the loaves to feed the people. That is precisely what we want to do with the Revolution and socialism.’

You don’t want communism. You don’t want this socialism. This is what destroys countries and lives.

What we are not willing to negotiate and what we will not give in one iota is the revolution, socialism and our sovereignty.

It’s impossible, I think, however much I’d become disillusioned politically or evolve into a post-political person, I don’t think I’d ever change my view that socialism is the best political moment humans have ever come up with.

We can’t keep flirting with communism and socialism.

The mass of workers, as yet non-Socialist, is retarded in its development towards Socialism.

The only differences one can and should allow in socialism are between hard working people and idlers and between honest people and dishonest people.

When people are desperate or wealthy, they turn to socialism; only when they have no other alternative do they embrace the free market. After all, lies about guaranteed security are far more seductive than lectures about personal responsibility.

I have the feeling that this Moscow Pact will at some time or other exact vengeance upon National Socialism.

It was not that socialism failed, it was the lack of socialism.

Socialism is about claims of justice, and it is also about money: about wealth, income, physical and financial capital. It is an ideology based on allocating economic resources. It may try to achieve that goal by nationalizing assets, by command-and-control regulation, or by taxation and redistribution.

The problem with K-12 education is socialism and the solution is capitalism.

It’s time to replace career politicians with citizen’s politicians. It’s time to elect people who are going to stand up to the Washington elite and stand up to a White House and Congress hell-bent on ramming socialism down our throat.

Conservatives may worship Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand,’ but for Obama, the helping hand comes in large measure from the public, not the private sector. To call this ‘socialism’ is to do violence to the word and to the concept. To call it ‘un-American’ is a smear.

Socialism is nothing but the capitalism of the lower classes.

Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.

There is socialism in the family that conflicts with meritocracy. And that bothered me.

Uncle Matheson and my father would frequently argue long into the night about politics. Like me, he was all about socialism, togetherness and investing in people, whereas Matheson, to this day, holds very strong conservative views.

Socialism is not a way of life. It is an unworkable formula which would apply to robots but not to men and women.

If Obama’s vision of the public sector is socialism, then so too were the visions of Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon.

America has got the equivalent of stage three cancer of socialism because the federal government is tampering in all kinds of stuff it has no business tampering in.

Socialism is antithetical to freedom, because when it breeds and thrives, people die.

For me, democratic socialism is about – really, the value for me is that I believe that in a modern, moral, and wealthy society, no person in America should be too poor to live.

There is nothing in socialism that a little age or a little money will not cure.

The market came with the dawn of civilization and it is not an invention of capitalism. If it leads to improving the well-being of the people there is no contradiction with socialism.

Communism is a way of thinking. Socialism is wimpy communism. When you don’t have the courage to become a communist, you become a socialist.

Like the phoenix, socialism is reborn from every pile of ashes left day in, day out, by burnt-out human dreams and charred hopes.

The real issue behind these people who are gun grabbers, the truth is – based on fact – the reason why is, they want control. They want control of the people. That’s what socialism is and communism.

I’m from Berkeley, California, so I’m fully trained in socialism and all, but basically what they teach you there is markets are efficient and we can’t beat them, so we might as well index.

Under socialism all will govern in turn and will soon become accustomed to no one governing.

It’s ironic that socialism and similar left-wing ideas appeal to people who fashion themselves as ‘anti-establishment,’ when you can’t have socialism without political repression.

Socialism is simply Communism for people without the testosterone to man the barricades.

Democratic socialism means that our government does everything it can to create a full employment economy.

If you contrast the productivity that comes from a networked or capitalist distribution of resources versus a centralized planning system, frequently referred to as communism or socialism, the network approach does much better when it’s applied accurately.

People focus on the labels when they are not sure what they mean. What people call socialism these days is Eisenhower Republicanism!

Democratic socialism is not only a poor electoral strategy – it’s a disastrous governing model.

Socialism never arises in the earlier phases of capitalism, as, for instance, among the pioneers of civilisation in a country where there is plenty of land available for private appropriation by the last comer.

I grew up during the shift to socialism, and since it was my childhood, I used to think that everything was beautiful and human.

We know growing technological developments in artificial intelligence, automation and big data mean that democratic socialism in the 21st century must adapt to such a rapidly changing world.

I suppose not everyone has a dad who wrote a book saying he didn’t believe in the Parliamentary road to socialism.

I belonged to the generation that grew up under National Socialism, and was blinded and led astray – and allowed itself to be led astray.

My vision for the country is of warmth and energy. A country that starts every conversation and every project – either in business or politics – with a belief in the best in people. This is the hopeful creed of a 21st-century socialism.

I must firmly adhere to the views I have held and practice, that Socialism to succeed must be practical, tolerant, cohesive and consciously compromising with Progressive forces running, if not so far, in parallel lines towards its own goal.

We, people of socialism, are not like others. We have our peculiar ideas about heroes and martyrs.

I’m against having a Fed. It’s socialism in its worst form. But until the Fed is gotten rid of, the only economic variable the poor have to counteract the injustices of the Fed is the minimum wage law.

Our socialism does not include extreme materialistic concepts, since Indonesia is primarily a God-fearing, God-loving nation. Our socialism is a mixture. We draw political equality from the American Declaration of Independence. We draw spiritual equality from Islam and Christianity. We draw scientific equality from Marx.

For the Bharatiya Janata Party, Gandhian socialism is what we want to achieve and make society free of exploitation and full of opportunities.

The current of emotion, which was formerly directed to gaining eternal bliss, is turned in socialism – in the same degree as the latter is permeated by evolutionism – towards the perfecting of earthly life.

National Socialism stands or falls by its Weltanschauung.

Obamacare is socialism? Nope – as insurance companies vie to sell new policies, competition within private industry is growing rapidly, with the number of participating insurers growing by 26 percent between 2014 and 2015, and the number of products they offer growing by 66 percent.

I am for socialism, disarmament, and, ultimately, for abolishing the state itself… I seek the social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class, and the sole control of those who produce wealth. Communism is the goal.

The most influential utopian idea of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was socialism, which has failed everywhere. Under the banner of socialism, Stalin’s U.S.S.R. and Mao’s China gave us not utopias but ghastly anti-utopias.

Socialism is nothing more nor less than the social, political and ideological system which breaks the fetters upon economic growth created under capitalism and opens the way to a new period of economic and social expansion on a much larger scale.

To cure the British disease with socialism was like trying to cure leukaemia with leeches.

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

I don’t think socialism, and I don’t think warmness and respect are necessarily bad words.

Obamacare is a private mandate that will drive billions to the insurance industry, much like the auto insurance mandate. Hardly socialism. In fact, it was a Republican plan to begin with.

Socialism and Communism are extremely attractive to a superficial observer. It is not until you get into the details, or actually experience it, that it becomes apparent that it does not work.

I can only say, think of me what you will, I have worked for thirty years in the Party, and my whole family has devoted everything to the affairs of the Party, the affairs of socialism.

It is time we had democratic socialism for working families, not just Wall Street billionaires.

There is no freedom without groceries. There are no groceries without freedom. What people call ‘capitalism’ and ‘socialism’ are actually one and inseparable. It’s a virtuous circle.

Is socialism still for me if I’m a millennial millionaire?

Socialism, as I understand it, is a system of democracy. Without democracy, there is no socialism.

Socialism may have failed as an economic theory, but global warming alarmism, with its dire warnings about the consequences of industry and consumerism, is equally a rebuke to capitalism.

For, just as it has been said that there is no half-way house between Rome and Reason, so it may be said that there is no half-way house between State Socialism and Anarchism.

When one makes a Revolution, one cannot mark time; one must always go forward – or go back. He who now talks about the ‘freedom of the press’ goes backward, and halts our headlong course towards Socialism.

Now a great debate has been born. The thesis is Democratic Socialism. The antithesis is free-market capitalism. The Obama Democrats have posed the challenge. It is now up to the Republicans to pick it up and fight along these lines.

Compassion is not weakness, and concern for the unfortunate is not socialism.

I think the rules will change and I think more and more young women are going to decide that having a family and taking care of a home is not a bad choice, but how do we subsidize it – not necessarily European-style socialism. It’ll have to be a new more creative, dynamic and local solution.

I think you hear, at least as an undertone, and it’s going to grow louder, is that we believe that capitalism is the mantra of the day and anything that creeps towards socialism is a problem.

‘Democratic socialism’ is awful as a slogan and catastrophic as a policy. And ‘social democracy’ – a term that better fits the belief of more ordinary liberals who want, say, Medicare for all – is a politically dying force. Democrats who aren’t yet sick of all their losing should feel free to embrace them both.

I think I got disappointed over the years about New York, about the States. You know, sometimes you go and visit Europe and see good old socialism in its good part! You see public concern about art, and young people’s participation and young faces in the audience.

With the development of industrial capitalism, a new and unanticipated system of injustice, it is libertarian socialism that has preserved and extended the radical humanist message of the Enlightenment and the classical liberal ideals that were perverted into an ideology to sustain the emerging social order.

But I do have one real problem with socialism: I like money.

Socialism and the woman movement are two mighty streams which drag along with them great parts of the firm formations which they touch.

As the egalitarianism of Marxism is attractive to many, socialism could have attracted many followers in America, anyway. But there is no doubt that it could not possibly have affected us so widely and so deeply as it has, had it not been heavily financed.

The calls for socialism on the left get louder and louder, and they don’t stop.

The case for socialism is always made based on an ideal and a promise. The ideal is that humans can lovingly coexist in a sharing and peaceful way. The promise is that this time, unlike failed attempts elsewhere, socialism will be implemented properly, and no citizen will suffer as a result.

It is already clear, after twenty years of socialism in Russia, that if you do not provide your society with a new religion, it will gradually revert to the old one.

International socialism recognizes the right of free independent nations, with equal rights.

The only way to save the world is through socialism, but a socialism that exists within a democracy; there’s no dictatorship here.

Without Socialism the working class is a heterogeneous mixture of different categories, some of which have independent, varying interests, sometimes opposed to each other.

I believe that President Nixon was right in what he did at Watergate. Lack of respect for authority and things like socialism are turning this into a weak, effeminate country.

Seriously, you can’t talk socialism in America without going to the OG, Sen. Bernie Sanders.

If anyone says that American socialism isn’t possible, point them toward the bowling shoe.

In socialism, everything is supposed to be equal. And yet, it’s always fascinating how the elite government bureaucrats (in socialist places like Venezuela, Cuba and Argentina) are the ones that wind up with all the money.

There are a few people, but a diminishing number, who still believe that Marxism, as an economic system, off era a coherent alternative to capitalism, and socialism has, indeed, triumphed in one country.

To pursue a so-called Third Way is foolish. We had our experience with this in the 1960s when we looked for a socialism with a human face. It did not work, and we must be explicit that we are not aiming for a more efficient version of a system that has failed.

Homeland or death! Socialism or death! We shall overcome!

Socialism doesn’t work. A big government doesn’t work.

To me, democratic socialism means democracy. It means creating a government that represents all of us, not just the wealthiest people in the country.

We either go one direction, left, which would be socialism. Or right, which would be people trying to make the money themselves.

Socialism and freedom are not compatible, regardless of repeated convincings.

The perverse gift of the Chinese coronavirus is that it has given Americans an up close and personal look at the horrors of big government – and, by extension, socialism.

Socialism values equality more than liberty.

Socialism is good when it comes to wages, but it tells me nothing when it comes to other questions in life that are more private and painful, for which I must seek answers elsewhere.

They talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?

In four continents, workers, taking control of their destiny, are building a happy future, are building socialism, communism.

The reason this country continues its drift toward socialism and big nanny government is because too many people vote in the expectation of getting something for nothing, not because they have a concern for what is good for the country.

If you want government to take everything, if you want government to take more and more over with the banks, more of the industries, all of a sudden you’re going to have a government auto czar, right there, right down the line, that’s socialism.

This much I would say: Socialism has failed all over the world. In the eighties, I would hear every day that there is no inflation in the Soviet Union, there is no poverty in the Soviet Union, there is no unemployment in the Soviet Union. And now we find that, due to Socialism, there is no Soviet Union!

And Marx spoke of the fact that socialism will be the kingdom of freedom, where man realizes himself in a way that humankind has never seen before. This was an inspiring body of literature to read.

If the Jew transmogrified into the Devil for the medieval church, he retained his devilish characteristics as Christian sentiment found other places to express itself, early socialism being one of them.

The communists saw what we did in the arts as the only product of socialism that was known in the West, so they tolerated it.

Capitalism is at least tolerable, which cannot be said of Socialism or Communism.

The market economy of its own cannot destroy socialism. But to build socialism with success, it is necessary to develop a market economy in an adequate and correct way.

A lot of family members worked in the joint commodities family business. It was a classic case of capitalism at work and socialism at home.

I was not chosen to be president to restore capitalism to Cuba. I was elected to defend, maintain and continue to perfect socialism, not destroy it.

To me, it seems pretty obvious that socialism is terrible. After all, do you know what’s not terrible? Freedom.

The working class will not halt until socialism has been realized.

In fact, there is an academic blackout about the atrocities perpetrated in the name of communism and socialism.

There are words bandied about that are being misused – words like ‘socialism,’ words like ‘communism,’ words like ‘fascism.’

Here’s what I don’t think works: An economic system that was founded in the 16th century and another that was founded in the 19th century. I’m tired of this discussion of capitalism and socialism; we live in the 21st century; we need an economic system that has democracy as its underpinnings and an ethical code.

I made the case for public ownership in ‘Another World is Possible’ – a manifesto for 21st-century socialism – as it is the most rational approach for managing resources in the long-term interest of the entire community.

Throughout the west, the rise of populism has shaken establishments, with politicians and commentators asking why there has been a resurgent interest in socialism, and a growth of the far right on the opposite side.

Socialism and communism fall of their own weight because, as Margaret Thatcher said, you run out of other people’s money. Because socialized medicine never falls of its own weight because you put people on lists, and they die waiting to get the treatment and care. So you don’t go broke.

People like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have been very busy educating America about just how much socialism we have, from Social Security to Medicare to public schools to public universities, and how much we love that. The truth is that there is no pure socialist or capitalist economy on earth.

In 1967 I entered Harvard as a freshman, confident – in the way that only 17-year-olds are – that I could change the world. My major was African Studies, and my plan was to travel to Tanzania, where President Julius Nyerere was creating a government based on democracy and socialism.