Communism, Socialism, and Kitchen-Sink Trumpism (Explained)

We hear a lot of condemnation of communism and socialism these days from President Trump and MAGA Republicans, with the election of Zohran Mamdani as the mayor of New York, and now with Katie Wilson elected mayor of Seattle. But what do these terms mean?

Communism, according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is a totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production, and a final stage of society in Marxist theory in which the state has withered away and economic goods are distributed equitably.

Socialism, on the other hand, is any of various egalitarian economic and political theories or movements advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods, and a stage of society in Marxist theory that is transitional between capitalism and communism. Mainland China calls itself “socialism with Chinese characteristics” and is led by a communist party, which has among its ultimate goals the elimination of private ownership.

After Mao Zedong declared the founding of the People’s Republic, the Communist Party-led government took China through lengthy “socialist transformations” from 1949 to the late 1950s. The period saw agriculture being collectivized, small businesses turned into coops, industry and commerce nationalized. All land belonged to the state. Housing, education, including college, as well as medical care were provided free. There was no job market, for instance, as one was assigned jobs by the government. One could not also freely move, as an official approval was needed. China was a poor socialist country, and everybody was equally poor.

China calls itself “socialism with Chinese characteristics” and is led by a communist party, which has among its ultimate goals the elimination of private ownership. With Mao’s passing and China’s economy collapsing, the Communist Party with Deng Xiaoping at the helm took the country through a new transformation in the 1980s, modernizing, or capitalizing, China’s economy.

Experimental economic zones introduced foreign capital, management and technology, as the market economy expanded throughout China. Rural communes were abolished; housing and land-use were marketized. Private enterprises mushroomed, a corporate stock system was adopted, stock markets were established, Chinese-foreign joint ventures flourished, foreign trade exploded, and free college or medical care faded away.

Today, China’s state-owned-enterprises still control key industries such as banking, energy, telecommunications, infrastructure, railways, aviation, and more. China’s private companies contribute 60% of the country’s GDP, 70% of its technological innovation, 80% of its urban jobs and 90% of its total number of enterprises.  Along with its growing ranks of billionaires and unicorn companies, China is now more capitalist than socialist. It is still authoritarian, but the Chinese Communist Party is also more communist in name than in fact, as “communism” in Chinese means “common property.”

No one knows whether the Chinese Communist Party will one day decide to switch the country back to the socialist path when there is more wealth for Marxist distribution of “from each according to one’s ability, to each according to one’s needs.”

Right now, the Chinese Communist Party does not even control a majority of China’s means of production to be truly communist. Likewise, no politician in America could be a communist, no matter how Trump would like to call Zohran Mamdani.

As for socialism in America, it may be controversial, but nothing new. Michael Harrington wrote The Other America: Poverty in the United States (1962) and founded Democratic Socialists of America. On its website, DSA states that Harrington’s book helped to shape President Johnson’s plans for the War on Poverty in the 1960s, at a time when America’s national poverty rate was at 19 percent.

Before that, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s ranged from regulating banks to setting up farm subsidies, from the Tennessee Valley Authority to the Public Works Administration, from the Social Security Act to the Works Progress Administration. These programs were attacked as socialist, or not socialist enough.

In our own backyard, as my Post Alley colleague Bruce Ramsey wrote in his book Seattle in the Great Depression, there was also a socialist-inspired group called Commonwealth Builders, which dedicated itself to “building a system of state-owned farms and industry,” with the unemployed put to work to produce for use, not profit. And Seattle even once elected a socialist mayor.

Americans’ understanding of socialism has also changed over the years, from government ownership or control, as in the Soviet Union, to generous public services, as in the Scadinavian model welfare state, said a report by the Brookings Institute. Americans need to know that democratic socialists differ from socialists in their belief in democracy and individual freedom.

Even though still a little unsavory for some, even dirty for Republicans, socialism has been a steady part of every American’s life. Brookings Institute report continued, “Medicare and Social Security are, in a sense, socialist, and so are our public schools and universities, our community colleges, our water supplies and sewers, and our mass transit systems.” One may add SNAP, the food stamps program originated in the 1930s, now serving 42 million American.

In Seattle, there have been quite a few welfare programs: two-year tuition free at three Seattle community colleges for Seattle high school graduates, ride-free for youth on buses and ferries, reduced transit fare for seniors and low-income adults, as well as Washington state food, housing, medical care, and utility assistance.

Both Seattle and New York city face serious affordability and homeless issues, Zohran Mamdani and “Mamdani West,” as The Wall Street Journal called Katie Wilson, may have an opportunity to practice more of their democratic socialist ideals.

If the Chinese Communist Party could adopt or borrow capitalist ways to develop China’s economy, improve Chinese people’s living standards, and change the ownership structure of a socialist country, it should be fine if an American politician tries any or more socialist methods in solving problems that other policies had failed.

As for President Trump, when he attacks progressive Democrats as communist or socialist, it is hard to tell if he believes in or cares about any ism. Trump can be a state capitalist (forcing companies to share equity or revenue with the U.S. government); or a trade protectionist who betrays the conservative belief in free trade; or a dictator who admires Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un and rules by fiat and wields Justice Department as a personal weapon; or an authoritarian who punishes dissent among universities, law firms, and media; or a twisted anti-internationalist, who cut American aid funding but bailed out a country for its MAGA-type leader; or a strange America-Firster who professed to love our farmers only to almost cost them their biggest soybean market; or simply a king wannabe.

Trumpism in the end is a grab-bag — not conservatism, not libertarianism, not even populism. A little socialism won’t hurt America, but everything-sink Trumpism does.