The Facebook group "Action Items for the Political Revolution" reposted this set of misunderstandings, published online by Business Insider, under the illusion that it was hip to do so. It wasn't. The article confuses socialism, social democracy, democratic socialism, and so on, in an attempt to reduce readers to political infantilism.

Here's the difference between a 'socialist' and a 'Democratic socialist'

Now I have no idea who this John Halfwitger, er, Haltiwanger is, but he's no expert on socialism. Here are the primary objectionable passages:

In general, socialists believe the government should provide a range of basic services to the public, such as health care and education, for free or at a significant discount.

No, those would be social democrats. Also, note how the Google Dictionary repeats the error, which pops up when you google "social democracy," telling us that social democracy is "a socialist system of government achieved by democratic means." No, that would be socialism too, although socialists would generally bristle at any mention of that word "government." Socialists are in favor of what Karl Marx called "the withering away of the state."

The point of having a word "socialism" is so that we can describe a possible system in which the public, and not "the government," owns and controls the means of production. A system in which the state owned and controlled the means of production might receive the phrase "state socialism," though.

Usually the version of socialism advocated by socialists is that of a cooperative of cooperatives -- a society in which both the relations within organizations and the relations between organizations are cooperative. I'm sure this is something Business Insider doesn't want you to know.

Scrolling down the Business Insider piece we can read this:

Socialism can be defined as "a system of social organization in which private property and the distribution of income are subject to social control."

Of course it is true that in the United States private property and the distribution of income are subject to social control. Private property is subject to social controls such as zoning laws and environmental restrictions, and income is taxed. Is the United States socialist?

The author immediately tries to make amends:

In other words, it's a state-controlled economy in which the state controls the means of production (factories, offices, resources, and firms). There are also forms of socialism in which the means of production are controlled and owned by workers.

Yes please let's talk about those "also forms of socialism." Our author, however, wants to hurry back to defining socialism as social democracy, as he soon thereafter repeats the erroneous definition he used at the beginning. So if socialism is really social democracy (in the fantasy world of our author), then what's social democracy? Social democracy is "democratic socialism," perhaps dolled up in the rhetoric of human decency. Here's Haltiwanger's first clue for us:

They (social democrats) do, however, generally believe the government should help provide for people's most basic needs and help all people have an equal chance at achieving success.

This is of course a mainstream political belief in the United States, outside of perhaps certain circles in the Republican Party, which stays in business mainly because the Democratic Party keeps handing it the reins of power. Only the worst of Republicans advocate the abolition of basic food and medical subsidies. People generally like humanitarianism; it's only when great ideologies are filled with excuses and pitched at them that they decide to become inhumanitarians. Remember that our proliferation as a species once depended upon our caring attitudes toward each other, to such an extent that natural selection once favored caring humans over uncaring ones.

If you want to see how far the ideological edifice of cleverness has gone to counteract our natural tendencies to be sweet to each other, check out the libertarians on whether or not it's okay for mothers to abandon children. Or better yet read Barbara Ehrenreich's (1997) book Blood Rites, in which it is discussed how far militaries will go to overcome the natural instincts of soldiers to not want to kill each other.

Of course, our task in this essay is to criticize Business Insider and John Haltiwanger, and so we continue to that portion of his narrative where he characterizes social democracs:

they don't feel socialism should be forced on people

As if the triumph of people power were to be forced upon people! Now don't all raise your hands at once. Yes, of course people power is to be obtained through the triumph of the people themselves.

Fortunately for him, Haltiwanger concludes with a long quote from Bernie Sanders who, being a social democrat, defines social democracy (i.e. "democratic socialism") well. Sanders concludes:

"I mean, to me, it means democracy, frankly," Sanders added. "That's all it means."

At least Haltiwanger ends by giving his readers half of a definition of "democratic socialism," which is really social democracy. As for Sanders' point: perhaps social democracy is more democratic than the corporatist fuck-you our lovely US government gives a significant number of its people. As examples of this fuck-you, take a look at the great love our government has for its privately owned banks and military corporations, and contrast that love with the fantastic costs in housing, medical care, and education in America today, which are conditioned by the fact that anyone who wants government subsidy to buy these things must submit to an imposition of impoverished economic status. Alex Pareene has a really good take-down of American Enterprise Institute cant on these topics, and certainly a government run by identical clones of Bernie Sanders would do better than the one currently in power. Such a government would still leave the means of production in the hands of immensely-powerful corporate owners, while providing ordinary people with an extra cushion of comfort (as it rains down upon their homeless encampment).

The thing is, though, that socialism, real socialism, would expand the sphere of democracy beyond the US government's current grant of unequal rights to human beings under the banner of "equal opportunity," into the realm of actual binding votes, in which you would participate (dear reader), on social rules which would actually matter -- on who did what and who got what -- i.e. the public control of economic life, and not merely the boredom which today counts as politics. This is why we shouldn't confuse socialism with social democracy.