In the presidential campaign we heard a great deal of concern about "socialism." Sanders said he was a socialist, Biden was accused of being a socialist, and Trump was going to save the United States from socialism.

Like many things people argue about, socialism is a term poorly understood and often used as an epithet rather than a descriptor. Since I am a retired professor, it is time for Old Dr. Roy to give you his famous fifty-minute lecture on "Socialism: Its History and Meaning." Take notes.

Karl Marx (yes, we have to go back to Marx) thought history evolved through a dialectical process. He got that idea from Hegel, a German philosopher who believed that a major idea (a thesis) is countered by an opposite idea (an anti-thesis, or antithesis). These clash and become a synthesis, which then acts as a new thesis, and the process continues.

Marx thought it wasn't ideas that battled for supremacy, but rather economic systems. Every economic system had a ruling class, an underclass, and a scarcity of goods. The classes battled and a new economic system emerged. According to Marx, the capitalist system had a ruling class (the bourgeoisie), and an underclass (the proletariat or workers.)

In the revolution the proletariat would seize power and all the factories, which Marx called "the means of production." However, since the economic system was capable of producing so many goods (a car in every garage, a cell phone in every pocket), scarcity would end and conflict would cease.

We will skip the big problem with Marx's analysis, which is that no matter how much people have, they want more.

Marx said while the bourgeoisie claimed they had a democracy, they restricted the vote to a small group. (Keep in mind that when he was writing, women, slaves, prisoners and in many countries men who did not own property could not vote.) Even if citizens could vote, capitalists would never give up power peacefully, hence the need for a revolution. What I've just described is what is known as Marxist socialism, often called communism.

When Lenin and the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia, they were not concerned with bourgeoise niceties like free speech and press and fair elections. They also assumed that they were harbingers of a world-wide revolution that would sweep the globe. We know how that turned out, but that is not the end of the story.

Eduard Bernstein (1850-1932), a German follower of Marx, believed that the working class could achieve its objectives by peaceful means. He revised Marx. (If you are a Communist Marxist, the worst insult you can hurl is "revisionist.") Bernstein thought that free speech and press were not just bourgeoise ideas, but principles that could be applied to all systems. He believed workers could organize political parties and vote themselves into power, taking over the means of production by legislative means.

British workers also thought they might win elections if they took democracy seriously. The unions and the socialists joined forces, formed the Labour Party, and by the 1920s had become one of the two major parties in Great Britain.

When it achieved power at the end of World War II, the Labour Party instituted the National Health Service and a pension system, took over some of the larger industries like electric power and coal, and implemented what is usually labeled the "welfare state."

After World War II, German followers of Bernstein also achieved power as the Social Democratic Party. Similar parties won elections in Sweden, Norway and other European countries. All of those countries continue to have free speech and free press, fair elections, public health programs, longer life expectancy than the U.S., less poverty, and less crime. You can see why some voters in America might be attracted to that kind of system.

The next time someone says she is a socialist, it is important to ask, "Are you a Marxist communist or a democratic socialist?"

If the answer is Marxist communist, you may have a problem. If she says "democratic socialist," you may want to argue policy, but you don't need to hide under your bed.

~ Roy Christman