What is Socialism? Don’t Ask Mamdani or Vance

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Two socialists walk into a bar. One, a socialist of the more nationalist vintage—a self-styled “Heritage American,” though he dares not utter the dreaded “S” word. The other, a more traditional Marxist, with some critical theory and anti-Zionism sprinkled in for good measure. Both are politicians dripping with smarm.

As soon as the two men belly up to the bar, an angry economist approaches them with a question: “Why should I vote for either of you bozos?’

“I’ll go first,” the traditional Marxist says, signaling a staffer with a ring-lit phone to start recording. He proceeds to wax poetic about how it is the government’s duty to deliver dignity to its citizens—to provide a roof over every head, a chicken in every pot, a pony at every birthday party. His pitch crescendos as he raves about the “common good” and basks in the “warmth of collectivism.” Also, something something Israel genocide. The whole bar sits agog as his spiel nears its climax. Finally, gasping for air, he relents and reaches for his vape with a wry smile.

The patrons’ eyes dart to the other politician, expecting a fiery, furious response. Instead, the nationalist, grinning in admiration, replies with a quip: “I’ll have what he’s having.”

The bar erupts in laughter. The angry economist rolls his eyes and leaves without closing his tab. The two comrades clink glasses and say “cheers,” and the workers of the world unite for another round—putting it on the angry patron’s tab, naturally.

What is a socialist?

The story is, of course, fanciful. But in a populist era that spawns strange beliefs and even stranger bedfellows, is it really that fantastical?

Socialism has become a cause célèbre in today’s politics. Its admirers wear it as a badge of honor; its detractors wield it as a bludgeon, conjuring its specter to rile up their voters. On the Left, DSA-backed candidates have won 35 Democratic primaries, and self-described Democratic Socialists are a rising force. On the Right, populist Republicans have developed a strange new respect for socialist ideas. Many now openly champion industrial policy, nationalizing private firms, and a spate of policies that conservatives of the not-so-distant past decried as “socialist.”

No matter how you slice it, socialism is having a moment—both of the hammer-and-sickle and blood-and-soil variety. What’s most striking about this moment, though, is that as much as both ends of today’s political horseshoe love invoking the “S” word, neither side can define it.

What is socialism? Or, to borrow a framing conservatives love to deploy: “What is a socialist?”

Robert Heilbroner, a distinguished economic historian and reputable man of the Left, offers arguably the best and most succinct definition: socialism is “a centrally planned economy in which the government controls all means of production.” Although some might quibble at the margins, economists of all stripes would largely agree.

So when it comes to defining socialism, we economists know exactly what we’re talking about. Most prominent politicians, unfortunately, do not.

By now, you’ve probably guessed our bar-going politicians: New York City’s Democratic Socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani, and Republican Vice President J.D. Vance. Both made headlines this week for proffering definitions of socialism that were, to put it charitably, creative.

Mamdani’s soft-served socialism: dignity and social justice for all

Mamdani offered his own sanitized definition on Theo Von’s This Past Weekend podcast: “Socialism to me means that you will have whatever you need to live a dignified life, and that it is the government’s job to deliver on that.”

Well, cap my rent and call me Caityn. Socialism sure sounds warm and fuzzy when you put it like that, Mayor Mamdani. Who could possibly oppose a system that guarantees its citizens a “dignified life”? That might be the most Hallmark-worthy definition of state power since Barney Frank’s kumbaya slogan: “Government is simply the name we give to the things we choose to do together.” Call it the “puppies and rainbows” definition of socialism. What’s not to like?

Alas, his definition fits socialism about as well as O.J. Simpson’s glove or Peggy Flanagan’s suit.

Every political system promises its citizens dignity. The question is which one actually delivers.

Thankfully, we don’t need to draw on our imagination to answer this age-old question. We can consult the well-documented battle between capitalism and socialism in the 20th century. Score it any way you like, capitalism wins in a knockout. Market economies didn’t just outgrow and outinnovate their socialist rivals. They lifted more people out of poverty. Most importantly, they delivered higher standards of living for the poor and working class—precisely the groups socialists claim to prioritize. The verdict of economic history is clear: capitalism beats central planning on every margin imaginable. From North to South Korea and East and West Germany, the triumph of economic freedom shines as the definitive lesson of the 20th century. Even the economic historian Robert Heilbroner—a man of the Left who was certainly no apologist for free markets—acknowledges that socialism was “the tragic failure of the twentieth century.”

If the data on socialism doesn’t convince you of its failure, ask its subjects. Ask North Koreans and Cubans how socialism’s version of a “dignified life” is working out for them. Better yet, ask the dead—more than 100 million of whom are buried in mass graves. By political scientist R.J. Rummel’s estimate, Communist regimes killed 148 million people, including about 62 million in the Soviet Union and 77 million in China. Contra Mamdani, socialist regimes have a far longer record of delivering undignified deaths than dignified lives.

Socialists are often quick to counter that a more equitable, dignified world demands sacrifice. “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs,” they might argue, echoing Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist Walter Duranty, who, writing in 1933, defended the Soviet project during their state-engineered famine in Ukraine. History suggests otherwise. As Lawrence W. Reed observes, the eggs always get broken, but the omelet never gets made.

“That’s unfair!” socialists would undoubtedly snap back. “Those deaths came largely from authoritarian communist regimes, not democratic socialist ones. Didn’t you notice? The word ‘democratic’ comes first in our rebranded title. All you’re doing is attacking a strawman.” Fair enough. To their credit, today’s socialists pay far more lip service to pursuing socialist ends through “democratic” means than their hardline predecessors did. There’s just one problem: real-world socialist regimes rarely stick to democratic norms and constraints. They invariably slide into authoritarianism.

Keeping the sort of command-and-control economy the DSA platform envisions “democratic” is far easier said than done, as history shows. Economist F.A. Hayek famously warned in The Road to Serfdom that once governments take control of the economy’s commanding heights, it’s nearly impossible to hold them to peaceful and democratic means. Millions of people with different values will never agree on a single plan or vision for the economy. Planners inevitably encounter dissent. And because democracy is a slow, messy process, coercion must inevitably be deployed on those who refuse to fall in line. The more ambitious the plan, the more coercion is required.

Mamdani understands this. He knows that Americans yearn for the freedom to make their own economic choices. That’s why he deploys the rhetoric of democracy as a Trojan horse for his more radical socialist ambitions. Sharp-eyed Americans should see through the ruse.

Later in the interview, Mamdani describes socialism as “an extension of democracy from the ballot box to the rest of your life.” Notice the subtle confession. His definition leaves no room for the private sphere. It also rejects any notion of individual agency and self-determination. For Mamdani, it is the “government’s job” to deliver a dignified life to its citizens. Under socialism, individuals are no longer the protagonists of their own stories. They are extras in someone else’s. None of this squares with America’s spirit of rugged individualism. Mamdani may dream of a world where planners like him run the show, but most Americans will take a hard pass on any system that casts bureaucrats as the stars. Few aspire to be NPCs in his collectivist fantasy.

The case for capitalism is fundamentally a case for freedom. To put a finer point on it, it’s a case for giving people the freedom to make their own economic choices so they can be the authors of their own destiny. As Hayek argues in The Fatal Conceit, the central question of capitalism versus socialism isn’t whether planning should be done at all, but who plans for whom. Should private individuals be free to make their own economic decisions, or should planners make those decisions for them? Democratic socialism can offer voters a tiny say in which planners decide for them, but it can never give them the freedom to make their own economic decisions.

Pressed on socialism’s moral and economic failures, many socialists will retreat to the position that their proposed system represents a “third way” between unfettered capitalism and full-blown communism. They often point to Scandinavian nations like Sweden as examples where their benign version of socialism works. There is just one problem: Sweden isn’t a socialist country. Nor are Denmark, Norway, or any other alleged exemplar of “Scandinavian socialism,” at least not anymore. Don’t believe me? Ask Swedes. Or Danes. Or Nords. Most will happily describe their economies as capitalist. Older ones will even recount, with regret, their postwar tryst with socialism, and, with relief, the growth that followed once they returned to markets.

Do these economies have larger welfare states? Absolutely. But are they socialist? Absolutely not. They are definitively capitalist. On many key margins, their economies are freer than ours, which is why they can afford to pay the bill for their heftier welfare states. Most important for our purposes, they are decidedly not what DSA leaders like Mamdani are hoping to usher in. The DSA platform explicitly calls for ending capitalism and nationalizing private industry. So don’t fall for motte-and-bailey tactics. Socialists don’t want diet capitalism. They want the real deal.

Credit where it’s due: for a devout socialist, Mamdani is quite the salesman. One might even liken his “Art of the Spiel” to that of another prominent New Yorker (now residing in Washington, D.C., via Mar-a-Lago). But don’t let his silver tongue and Cheshire grin fool you into buying his socialist snake oil. Buyer beware: there’s an iron fist beneath his velvet glove.

Vance’s self-serving socialism: Wokers of the world, unite!

Not to be outdone, Vice President J.D. Vance offered his own novel definition of socialism at an October 8 White House press conference. “I think, in reality, what [socialism] actually means in the American context is that you want to replace American workers with foreign workers and you want boys to play girls’ sports,” Vance argued.

Not since Kamala Harris wined alone has the White House endured such a vacuous word salad. Gather ’round, comrades. A new socialist anthem just dropped: “Wokers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your pronouns.”

In fairness to Vance, words often do evolve over time. It’s true that many self-described socialists today don’t define their movement the same way comrades did in the 19th and 20th centuries. Historically, socialism meant standing in solidarity with workers—most notably blue-collar workers, although, much like today, the movement’s energy often came from downwardly mobile members of the bourgeoisie. Today, it is often associated with standing in solidarity with “marginalized groups,” whether racial minorities, immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, or some other self-ascribed victim class. Or, as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth might denigrate them: fatties, trannies, beardos, weirdos, wimps, and radicals.

Still, none of that explains why Vance proffered such an idiosyncratic definition of socialism. After all, he correctly defined it as “seizing [the economy’s] means of production” on the Joe Rogan Experience in July, less than three months earlier. Vance may hate to admit it, but his definition of socialism has shape-shifted more in three months than the Left’s definition of a “woman” has in as many decades. To borrow a line from Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride: You keep using that word, Mr. Vice President. I do not think it means what you think it means.

So why the sudden shift? As is so often the case with Vance, the likeliest explanation is also the most cynical one: he says whatever best serves his immediate political self-interest. Seen in that light, a clear answer emerges: Vance has grown uncomfortable with the textbook definition of socialism because it comes a bit too close to describing many policies he currently champions.

Take the Trump administration’s domestic economic agenda. Vance has led the charge for the administration’s most socialist-adjacent policies. He has argued forcefully for the government taking ownership stakes in private firms, which is no small step toward the technical definition of socialism that he so carefully elided. He has championed the administration’s trade war and its use of tariffs to protect American firms from foreign competition, all while openly bragging about rewarding and punishing private businesses based on how well they complied with the administration’s wishes. Republicans of yore might’ve called that “picking winners and losers.” He has called for government-led industrial policy in terms that would make Bernie Sanders blush. He has argued, à la Mamdani, that “the economy is a tool” that government can wield “to service the dignity of the human person.” He’s even advocated using the government to censor speech and conscript private businesses in the administration’s culture wars.

Vance might concede that, in his latest political metamorphosis, he has become a tad “socialist-curious.” Even so, favoring a handful of large-scale interventions doesn’t make him a full-fledged socialist. In his recent book, Communion, he argues for a “third way” between “libertarian free-market fundamentalism” and communism. In other words, Vance doesn’t gorge himself on the full buffet of socialist policies. He simply enjoys sampling its offerings à la carte.

Fair enough. In moderation, and within Constitutional limits, some government interventions might be defensible. Reasonable people can disagree on how much state intervention a market economy warrants. Taken together, though, Vance’s giant leap towards big government points to a man who has lost his capitalist bearings. If Vance defined socialism correctly, he knows full well that he would indict much of his own agenda in the same breath. That wouldn’t serve him or his presidential ambitions at a time when “socialism” remains in bad odor in the GOP.

Nor would that be ideal while gearing up for an election that his boss is branding as America’s last stand against socialism. Trump has repeatedly branded Democrats as communists and socialists on the campaign trail. He has cast November’s midterm elections as a choice between “communism and common sense,” warning that Congress will be governed by a “communist caucus” if Democrats win. Trump is no stranger to hyperbole. But this charge is rich, especially given that many of the “Dumocrats” he brands socialists and communists are warier of sweeping government intervention than he and his vice president. If Jon Ossoff and Josh Turek qualify as socialists, one shudders to think what voters might call Trump and Vance these days.

Vance is welcome to keep deploying the “S” word to attack his political rivals. But he should do so at his own risk. That slur he hurls at his foes might just boomerang back and clock him.

Mamdani and Vance: Two sides of the same interventionist coin

Mamdani and Vance might think of themselves as polar opposites. The uncomfortable truth is that, when it comes to government’s role in the economy, they are ideological twins. Neither can define socialism, much less explain why it fails. Both prefer the “warmth of collectivism” to our proud tradition of individualism and a robust civil society. Both are amenable to heavy-handed state intervention, especially when they can wield it to reward their friends and punish their foes.

All of this should give voters pause as we stand on the precipice of what both Vance and Mamdani would almost certainly call one of the most consequential elections of our lifetime. America’s future is, indeed, in jeopardy. With the national debt past $40 trillion, radical new technologies like AI, and an increasingly unstable world, our future has rarely looked more uncertain. At such a critical juncture, Americans deserve a real choice at the ballot box between two competing visions, not two peas in a pod. They deserve an alternative to the Road to Serfdom we’ve been traveling for far too long. They deserve candidates who understand what drove us to this precarious position and how to get out of it. At the very least, they deserve leaders who can define socialism, and who know better than to prescribe more of it.

Understanding what socialism is, and why it is so dangerous, is especially important if we want to win the contest that will define our generation: the new cold war with China. China’s economy has made great strides in the four decades since Deng Xiaoping’s “Reform and Opening Up.” But it’s worth noting that China has made that enormous progress by moving toward the American model—toward markets and away from socialism. To be clear, it is still far from a free-market paradise. It remains a heavily state-directed economy with many more socialist elements than America has. But allowing some degree of private property and market forces is why it has gone from one of the world’s poorest countries to one of its preeminent powers.

America won’t win today’s brewing cold war with China by moving closer to their top-down economic system. We will only win to the extent we stay committed to the principles that won us the original Cold War versus the Soviet Union—that is, by doubling down on free markets and private property and reducing the government’s footprint in the economy. The government’s proper role in the economy is that of a caretaker, not a manager. Mamdani and Vance might not like that. But at least it’s something economists can drink to.