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Keith Wheelock's avatar

GMB I taught ‘socialism’ for nearly two decades and I suspect that relatively few of my students understood it. It was a zinger phrase used against FDR’s New Deal.

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GMB's avatar

Keith Wheelock And the misuse continues. After decades of zinging, socialism is just a perjorative used to label anything conservatives dislike. No definition needed, the program or idea or person is automatically bad.

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Peter Burnett's avatar

Before WW2 "Socialist" and "Socialism" were the portmanteau words of the day. Including Hitler's "National Socialism".

There have been some hangovers like "Arab socialism" but on the whole the key words postwar became "Democrat", "Democratic", "Democracy". We got Christian Democrats, Social Democrats, in Germany, the neo-Nazi National Democrats. And many Communist States used either "Peoples" or "Democratic" -- e.g. the German Democratic Republic (DDR). Or "Democratic Kampuchea".

All the way down to Putin's "Managed democracy" and Orban's "illiberal democracy"...

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