Mises Wire

What is Socialism? Does the word apply to Obama?

What is Socialism? Does the word apply to Obama?

The New York Times offers a very funny look at the new fashion for calling Obama a socialist and investigates this issue as if the phenomenon is a strange linguistic invasion that requires the expertise of a psychoanalyst.

Hence, the first expert to weigh in chalks the use of the word up to “unconscious anxieties about modernity.”

Where are the tomatoes to hurl at this history prof?

So on it goes with the sole exception of Steven Hayward who inches closer toward a realistic analysis, though he repeats that story about Mises leaving the Mont Pelerin Society in disgust at the direction the debate was taking (as I recall from the actual history, how to get the government more revenue through tax shifting).

Look, this subject is not complicated. More government control leads toward socialism; less government control leads away from socialism. In addition, there are both left-wing and right-wing forms of socialism. Why is calling Obama a socialist considered so wicked? Didn’t the left often call Bush a Nazi, which means national socialist?

All Rights Reserved ©
Note: The views expressed on Mises.org are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute.
What is the Mises Institute?

The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. 

Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.

Become a Member
Mises Institute