My dad sends the occasional Wall Street Journal article my way because I think he likes to watch me squirm while I read it, but putting Bret Stephens' "What's Socialism, Dad?" in my hands just made me laugh and not for the reason Stephens would have hoped.
Granted, this piece calls the Opinion section home, but opinions aren't exempt from intellectual honesty in my book. No argument is fully fleshed out until counterarguments are accounted for and adequately gainsaid; that's the only way to earn an A on a paper in college. I don't know why standards are suddenly lowered once one begins working for such an acclaimed newspaper.
To begin, and possibly as a digression, the tone of the opening anecdote is something I personally experience when speaking with conservatives, and just as a reminder, unlike Stephens' son, I'm not ten years old. Earnest inquiries about ideological differences (in this case, from a child) are seen as opportunities to pitch conservative biases instead of giving both sides the equal weight they deserve.
Of course, liberals do this too, but I'm not really concerned with who says what. I'm only concerned with the issue of intellectual honesty here, not political parties, ideologies, or learned prejudices.
For the record, Stephens' humor is not lost on me. I understand the tongue-in-cheek jest of the opening of this piece, but I also think it's indicative of a bigger issue that perpetuates erroneous perceptions of opposing viewpoints by oversimplifying them and patronizing those who hold them.
On top of that, Stephens doesn't define socialism correctly. Government ownership of the means of production does not equal "dictating what you can and cannot do with your money, and therefore your life." That's stepping dangerously into the realm of conflating socialism and communism, which again, is oversimplifying the opposing viewpoint, but because Americans talk about socialism and communism like they are summoning a demon, that oversimplification is welcomed and even necessary.
As for the content of the article itself, Stephens does a good job of outlining how socialism failed Latin America. There is no denying the tragedy Venezuelans endured and continue to endure at the hands of a socialist overhaul, but Stephens' failure to differentiate between Venezuelan socialism and the Nordic model is disingenuous.
The Nordic model is not socialism. A report by The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy (ETLA) outlines how the Nordic model absorbs risk but maintains a capitalist economy à la the necessary and not-at-all pedantic distinction between authoritarian socialism and democratic socialism.
"This unique 'third way' of the Nordics has two tracks: an opening and well-functioning market economy, combined with a large public sector that has wide ranging responsibilities."
The report goes on to say that although globalization complicates this model drastically, "reducing benefit dependency and raising employment rates," "capping the welfare state and enhancing efficiency," and "giving priority to the young and investment in the future" are ways of fitting the model to the present day.
The fact that Nordic countries, such as Denmark, aren't utopias - as if anywhere ever could be - is not sufficient grounds for dismissal of their strengths (e.g., paid maternity leave).
In places where socialism has failed, it was partly because authoritarian regimes did not invest tax revenue into programs that truly benefitted the people. Reallocation within a welfare state is not anti-capitalist. The United States is not a capitalist utopia. We do not have a truly free market economy just as no country can have perfect socialism. Correcting market errors is a key part of real-life capitalism. What "socialism" as we have seen it in places like Venezuela and the USSR entails - denial of property rights, of market determination of prices, and of free trade - is anti-capitalist.
So, Mr. Stephens, instead of demonizing Bernie Sanders and his advocacy of the Nordic model, perhaps you should try to understand it in all its complexity before pushing your biases onto your son and preaching to the choir of your readers, but pretending that Sanders is a communist because of a comment he made in the 1980's is misleading. I'm not necessarily "feeling the Bern," but I can at least look at the merits of his platform before criticizing him.
By no means have I offered an all-encompassing rebuttal to the "capitalism vs. socialism and social democracy" false dichotomy, but simply acknowledging this is exponentially more honest than pretending to be an authority on an issue for the sake of perpetuating some ideological tenet.