Why are most people afraid about Socialism?

The self-identification of US senator Bernie Sanders as a socialist has aroused fear and suspicion among some Democrats. Whereas many voters, previously fed up from the long run ineffective system of capitalism have embraced the concept of a change, with a hope that the new policies of the government might do what the older one couldn’t. Whatever may be the case, the scene is such that neither the opposing community have any clear conscious of what the new system might mean, nor the supporting voters have known and understood the potential change very well. They are either just afraid of change, that is quite understandable given the monopolistic form of government in most of the socialistic countries. Or, they are just restless of waiting and want a change that might deal with their concerns.

Anyway the main point is that the people in favor of socialism are desperate and the people against it are fearful. So, neither of the choices they are making is actually rational. Many people even consider socialism as contrast to democracy, which is not. There are also varying definitions of Social democracy and Democratic socialism. The distinction is mainly in the stringiness of the socialism aspect in the democratic system of government. I will not go very deep into that because the exact dividing line between their definitions is always changing. It should suffice that either way we are talking about a democratic government with a socialistic economy in nature.

Democracy as per the traditional definition is a system with a governing authority of people’s choice. It may either be attained by directly electing a head of government and other governing members. Or, the directly elected head of the government may nominate members of his cabinet by himself. There are also other forms of democracy. In every such case the people’s choice of by whom they are going to be governed is of vital essence. Socialism is completely different but not an opposite thing. Unlike democracy, socialism is not about who is going to rule the people. It’s about how the appointed ruler is going to rule the country, and how the economic issues of production, distribution and raw materials allocation is to be dealt with. So, the assumption that a socialist system is always anti-democratic is untrue.

And that’s what these self-proclaimed socialist candidates are talking about. Being an economic student, I can personally vouch for the productivity and justice in distribution in a socialistic economy. People in support of capitalism mainly support it because they think that the private ownership and accumulation of wealth would be a good motivation for higher productivity. But you have to agree that there are other motivations besides increased wealth like, social recognition and communal praise. After all the wealth we like to accumulate is not an end in itself but just a mean for other ends. And if an economic system were to guarantee to fulfill maximum desires of its human components, why not give it a chance. And that’s just the thing that socialistic economy promises in theory. Socialism form of economy will neither have any products with poor bargaining power, and so nobody (theoretically) would be extorted by economy.

But even the wisest of people do miss some critical points. And so did the inventor of socialism. The system has some faults. The main fault of the system is it ignores the power and hence integrity of the people in the authority who will be charged to supervise the distribution of wealth. Most people in against of socialism are afraid that the government or any other supervising authority may unequally distribute the wealth, not based upon the work done but biased by personal favors and affections.

If you are afraid of socialism for this reason just take a look at the present system of capitalism. Do you think that the personal relations of a president don’t get special favors above others? That is the defect of the people in authority not of the form of economy. Of course you will say that that’s where the present democratic government will help. If you find or even suspect that somebody is misusing their power for personal benefits, you can remove their credibility and remove them from the power using your voting rights. So, then open your ears, we are not saying that the socialistic form of economy will be governed by supreme warlords. We are speaking here about the Democratic Socialism.

We are criticizing capitalism not democracy. And even so, we are criticizing very gently. We are after all Gentle Critics.