Socialism has garbage marketing, full stop. Probably because those who specialize in marketing tend to thrive in, and thus gravitate to, capitalist frameworks. Consequentially, a great many members of the working class are propagandized into reflexive rejection of socio-economic policies that would greatly benefit them, based on taboo buzzwords and false equivalences.

Yes, established terminology is quite useful for nuanced discussion in leftist spaces, among those who understand the distinctions between “communism”, “socialism”, “democratic socialism”, “social democracy”, “command economy”, “State capitalism”, and “totalitarian dictatorship”. But for many people, those are all synonyms. “Socialism” means gulags and breadlines and the government stealing your stuff to give it to slackers.

I propose a reactionary framework. A movement committed to abandoning familiar terminology in favor of capitalist buzzwords. Driving a wedge between “capitalism” and “market economies”, leveraging discontent of blue collar workers against big business and political cronyism.

It’s not universal healthcare, it’s alleviating the unfair healthcare burden on small businesses. It’s not universal welfare, it’s freeing business owners by replacing the minimum wage with a prosperity dividend. It’s not a socialized workplace, it’s an equity compensation initiative.

The established terms are poisoned, but the actual concepts are widely popular, if you phrase them right. The movement cannot thrive by trying to carve out a portion of the “leftist” party, it has to draw support from the entire working class. The only way to accomplish this is by abandoning the poisoned terms in favor of business terms that cannot be twisted by capitalists without destroying their own platform.

Thoughts?

  • Hot SaucermanEnglish
    2•1 year ago

    This is roughly in line with the idea that “socialist” (ha) policies are incredibly popular, electorally, in the US, but the “socialist” label renders them unworkable in reality.

    Beyond the fact that none of the things discussed, such as universal healthcare, are actually socialist, it does speak to the idea that talking about how these ideas work and avoiding their traditional labels has some merit.

    However, I think you might find that we’re stuck at, like you said, marketers tend to gravitate to capitalism and it makes escaping their web quite difficult. (Cue Bill Hicks saying “I feel like I’m trapped in a web!”) It’s very difficult to get people onboard in changing how we discuss it, partially because many feel like we shouldn’t have to change the labels for people to figure out ideas like workers having agency and control in their own workplaces isn’t a bad thing.