People love to throw out the names of political ideologies so much that they have now become buzzwords. “He’s a socialist!” “He’s a fascist!” What reaction do you have when you hear either of those? It’s probably fear or disgust, right? Or for the few select people on the fringes, there may be a feeling of solidarity with your own ideology.
We can blame the Red Scare and their super effective propaganda campaign against communism and socialism for making all of these words so effective. People like me who weren’t even around at that time had it engrained in us to fear them. Then with Mussolini in Italy and Nazi Germany, fascism was a new term that we also came to fear.
Then we discovered one that America was very good at, capitalism. In this, we found an ideology that did not scare us like the others. Capitalism fit perfectly with the American values of pulling yourselves up by the bootstraps and that your income was directly tied to how much work you were willing to do. It sounds like a perfect idea on paper.
But in reality? Capitalism has a lot of flaws too, and every single country that has it as their main ideology has to implement a ton of laws and social programs because it has the potential to be just as brutal as the other ideologies if it’s left unchecked. Capitalism allowed to run unbounded leads to things like harsh labor conditions and worker exploitation, monopolies, and extreme wealth inequality, which leads to inflation and poverty for the majority of the population.
If you’ve ever played the game Monopoly, you know that eventually all the money goes to one person and everyone else is left with nothing. A lot of people refer to that in real life as “late-stage capitalism” and are arguing that the United States is getting to that point. When you look online at influencers flashing their rapidly growing wealth, while it is becoming harder every month for the average family to pay their bills, it’s pretty hard not to take those claims seriously.
House prices have risen 332% since 1990, but wages have only risen around half that much to compensate, making it a lot harder to afford a home. The tech industry is underregulated and are legally allowed to take and sell off more data than most realize, and 84% of Americans are concerned about corporations exposing them to harmful chemicals in their everyday life.
Now I love my country immensely, and as a business owner who’s also built a career in Finance, I also love capitalism. That’s why it may come as a shock when I argue that we probably need to do something to stop this.
Now I’m not saying that we should sell all our property to the government or elect a dictator, but maybe we shouldn’t be afraid to try new things to fix it. It may come as a shock when I say this, but capitalism is nowhere in the Constitution. It’s just an idea that we were taught in our generations was the best one, which actually went against the ideas of a lot of the Founding Fathers. Alexander Hamilton liked the idea of capitalism, but Thomas Jefferson cautioned against it, afraid that it would create a “monied aristocracy”, meaning that a few wealthy people would end up controlling the government and the people, which would lead to the downfall of the country.
So instead, our government was intended to be flexible, taking the best ideas of capitalism, socialism, communism, or whatever, and combining them into the greatest country ever. Our economy was able to thrive under capitalist policies for businesses and citizens, Public schools and libraries were socialist programs, and the Federal Reserve, it’s earlier counterpart, the First Bank of the US, and government-owned lands were all communist ideas. And we flourished.
Then the Red Scare began in the early 1900s with the rise of Communism and Socialist countries around us. There was a fear of falling into these traps and our country becoming like those places, and we wanted it to stay the way it was. People began asking the question “If they’re socialist, and they’re communist, then what are we?”
And when a government wants us to hate another country, putting out anything that makes us relate to their country and would make us feel sympathy for them is not in the cards. So instead of saying “Well, we do these things similar, but this is different”, we leaned into the one thing that made us different: capitalism. So every generation after was taught that we were a capitalist country.
Sure, we’ve had a few things through the years since then that weren’t capitalist. Social Security and worker protections such as OSHA and minimum wage were socialist. Things like Medicare/Medicaid and most government mortgage programs like FHA and Fannie Mae are communist. All of them benefit us greatly, but we’re not allowed to say the quiet part out loud about them.
And now, instead of giving honest policies so that we can be informed and vote for the things that benefit us, these buzzwords are thrown into anything that the speaker doesn’t want us to support.
Of course someone who is the chair of a corporation who doesn’t want them to dump chemicals into the water would call a candidate a socialist for being against that.
Of course a candidate upset at their opponent’s charisma or military support would call them a fascist.
And they will keep doing it because it works. People will vote against what they’re afraid of faster than they will show up to vote for what they support, because fear is the stronger instinct inside us. But we always have a choice to ignore the buzzwords and decide for ourselves what is best for our country.
I agree with the decision of our founding fathers that our country works best when we take the best elements of everything and combine them. Too much of one ideology causes countries to fail. What can a car do with three motors and no wheels?
Again, I love capitalism, but there are also some good ideas that socialism and communism have. I would love to see more National Parks and not to pay an arm and a leg for healthcare. I would also love to see people get some help combating the rising cost of living, and for more regulations on chemicals in our food, air, and water. Does wanting those make me a socialist or communist? I don’t think so.
So next time you hear one of these words used to describe a candidate, I want you to stop, pull out your phone, and research for yourself if you agree with their ideas. Also think about whoever bought the ad’s motivation to call them that word. Sometimes someone really is as radical as they’re made out to be, but usually they’re not.
One last thing. This article is set to release on Election Day. Research the candidates well and ignore the buzzwords. Your voice matters, despite what the Internet wants you to believe. Vote for what’s best for you and your family, whatever that looks like to you.
(Taryn Ogletree is a local small business owner and author with previous experience of several years in finance.)