Socialism has returned to American political debate. Zohran Mamdani, the recently elected mayor of New York City, describes himself as a democratic socialist and campaigned on progressive policies intended to address affordability and economic inequality. Now Florida state representative Angie Nixon, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, has won the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate. Meanwhile, President Trump and other Republicans routinely describe progressive Democratic policies as socialism or communism.
There can and should be a healthy debate about socialism, capitalism, taxation, public spending, and the proper role of government in the economy. But the criticism of socialism in American politics contains a striking contradiction.
Government intervention is frequently condemned as socialism when it provides health care, housing assistance, education, food assistance, or other benefits to working and middle-class Americans. Yet tax advantages for wealthy individuals, subsidies to profitable industries, favorable treatment of corporations, government contracts, and policies protecting accumulated wealth rarely provoke the same ideological objection.
When government helps the poor, it is called dependency. When it helps the middle class, it is called an entitlement. When it helps the wealthy, it is called economic policy.
The question, therefore, is not whether government intervenes in the economy. It already does. The question is: socialism for whom?
Applying one ideological standard to assistance for ordinary people and another to assistance for the wealthy is the hypocrisy at the heart of this debate.
The evidence is all around us. Corporations receive subsidies, tax preferences, government contracts, and regulatory advantages. Major oil companies record enormous profits while consumers pay more at the pump. Tariffs shift costs to American consumers and businesses. Technology companies and their billionaire owners exercise extraordinary economic and political influence while benefiting from government contracts and favorable public policies.
Government has not withdrawn from the economy. It remains deeply involved. The issue is who benefits and who pays. America has faced this problem before. During the Gilded Age and into the early twentieth century, enormous fortunes and corporate power existed alongside severe economic inequality. Wealth increasingly translated into political influence, while workers and farmers struggled for economic security. America’s response was not socialism. It was reform capitalism.
The Progressive Era brought antitrust enforcement, regulation, political reform, and progressive taxation. The New Deal later expanded Social Security, banking and securities regulation, labor protections, and government’s responsibility for economic security. These reforms did not destroy capitalism. They corrected some of its excesses and helped preserve it.
We face a similar choice today, but it need not become class warfare. Prosperity is the product of human endeavor across society. Entrepreneurs and investors contribute to it, but so do workers, teachers, scientists, professionals, farmers, and the public institutions and infrastructure upon which private enterprise depends.
Democracy requires neither economic equality nor equal outcomes. It does require fairness: that citizens have a reasonable opportunity to share in the prosperity their collective endeavors make possible.