It is hard not to notice the word “socialism” appearing steadily more often in steadily more places. Some appearances of the word aim to register dismissal or hate. But many appearances aim to register elevation and desire. Socialism in polls. Socialism as epithet. Socialism in Gracie Mansion. Socialism buried. Socialism resurrected. Socialism past. Socialism future.

That so many people nowadays so often use the word “socialism” or even say they support “socialism” is very promising. It builds momentum. But what is this thing called “socialism” that people say they favor? 

Socialism’s advocates most often enumerate a long list of characteristics. All the items included in each such list are good things, often very good things, or for detractors they are bad things, often very bad things. But in each case, the things listed are overwhelmingly predicted outcomes of attaining  socialism. For example equity but not the economic relations that will nurture and sustain equity. People having a say over what affects their lives but not the political, economic, familial, or cultural institutions that will foster such participatory decision-making. Free health care, education, and housing. Some serious redistribution. Sustainable energy production and use. Peace. But good as the desires are, the items listed in such descriptions rarely describe defining institutional features of socialism itself. Worse, the expositions that do contain institutional substance are often full of obscure terminology and convoluted passages.

Do people who list good socialist results have in mind defining institutional features that could yield those good results? Or is there considerable confusion about actual working features that could attain peoples’ desired outcomes? Put differently, to what extent does the current growing use of the term “socialism” reflect people moving to the left or, to what extent does it indicate that the term’s meaning is moving to the right?

In just the latest instance I have seen of this strange conflation of desire and vagueness, of assertion and confusion, we have a keynote speech by Bhaskar Sunkara delivered recently at the New York City Democratic Socialists of America’s biannual organizing conference. In his speech, Sunkara rightly celebrated Zohran Mamdani’s New York City mayoral victory. He rightly celebrated the role of grass roots volunteers and in particular of the New York City chapter of DSA. He rightly warned that we need to understand the many pressures Mamdani, a democratic socialist member of DSA, will face. He rightly urged that we should find ways to aid Mamdani in seeking to implement worthy aims that will in turn propel pursuit of still more worthy aims. And Sunkara did all that with no obscure terminology or convoluted passages. Not one. 

So what is my problem with his excellent speech and with many other uses of the label “socialism” that are now proliferating? The problem is certainly not new. It is cumulative and has deep roots. But is it getting worse?

Read poll questions, speeches, celebrations, and beyond them still more substantive sentences, paragraphs, speeches, essays, and even books that feature the word “socialism.” You will encounter wonderful wise and thoughtful values that socialism advocates want to attain. However you are unlikely to encounter descriptions of the institutional features of the thing the authors denote by the word “socialism.” Do they mean socialism is just changes in policies, or even just the desire for changes in policies? What about a shared institutional destination?

Does that explain my concern sufficiently for clarity? I am not sure it does. Try this. Find someone who says in a poll that they identify as socialist. Ask “what is socialism?” Listen closely to the answer. Is there institutional clarity? Are there institutions at all? 

Or read speeches by socialists and carefully examine their words. Or even read books with socialism in their title. Take your time. When you are done, based on your investigation, explain what the authors said socialism was to a spouse, friend, school mate, or work mate. What image of socialism do you convey? It is certainly not capitalism, at least as we know it. And it offers good things. But what is it?

Based on what you read—speeches, articles, and even books—did you describe the institutions of a proposed alternative system? Maybe the works you read saw “socialism” as mainly or perhaps even only a replacement for our capitalist economy. If so, did they explain what socialism’s new division of labor would be? What its new approach to determining how much income actors receive would be? What its new approach to making decisions would be? What its new way to allocate inputs to workplaces and outputs from workplaces to consumers or to other workplaces would be? How the new system would sensibly affect the ecology? Why the new system’s new institutions would yield the author’s desired results, and why the new institutions would eliminate the oppression and alienation the author abhors? Did the authors show, for example, how the new institutions would leave behind class division and class rule? How they would yield no bosses and not new bosses? When you related their message about socialism, did you perceive and convey all that? Shouldn’t we be able to do that in ways that inform and inspire?

Perhaps instead the writings that you examined used the word “socialism” more broadly to refer to all of society. They described socialism as a replacement for defining economic institutions but also for defining political, familial, kinship, racial/religious/ethnic, international, and ecological institutions. The same questions arise. Did they describe the new features of each sort of new institution and explain why they would be viable? Why they would yield desired outcomes? How they would avoid creating new oppressive hierarchies and relations?

I worry that socialism has become unmoored from proposing new defining institutions. Is that unfair? I am sure many will think it is. Does that include you? If so, you may say that socialism is in fact just the good things you like. Thus, my problem disappears because socialism isn’t new institutions. It is just new outcomes. But will that conception attract mass belief, mass support, and arrive somewhere we intend to wind up?

Or you may agree that socialism is more than a list of desirable outcomes. You may agree it is instead the institutions that yield those outcomes. And then you may add that you know that, of course—and even that everyone knows that, of course. That is fair enough, if it is true—but does everyone know that? If so, will you tell me what they all know are socialism’s defining institutions? Will you tell me how those institutions will work? Why they will be viable? Why they will last? Why you are convinced they will deliver the outcomes you desire and not also horrible new ills?

I worry that many who use the word socialism can’t do that. Is that false? If it is true, I wonder, is the increasing use of the word “socialism” a sign of steadily

more people believing in and wanting to attain viable and worthy new economic or even new economic and also new political and social institutions? Or is it a sign that the word has become so vague that using it conveys little? The answer is likely, “some of each,” but to the extent that the term is vague, why has that happened? 

Here are some possible partial and highly tentative answers. I think nowadays the word “socialism” is used more frequently in the U.S., where I live, and is also less often ridiculed or hated here largely because of the U.S. impact of Bernie Sanders, AOC, and most recently Zohran Mamdani on huge audiences along with the growing dangers of capitalist tendencies. 

Okay, but still, what does the word convey? For the tens of thousands and indeed millions who now say they align more with socialism than with capitalism, does that just mean they like good outcomes and positive aspirations, or does it mean they favor an array of institutions that compose a system they want to put in place of capitalism? If it is just the former, why is that? 

I have thought it is because pro-socialist proclamations and literature have rarely tried to clearly present new institutions. They have tended to either not describe new institutions or to describe them too obscurely for nearly anyone to wade through much less be moved by and then able to explain the proposals to others.  

I still think that is part of the reason, but taken alone it seems an insufficient explanation. Why? This morning I woke up, checked my email, and in the mass of materials one missive immediately got my attention. It was a promotional mailing from Jacobin Magazine that offered a “socialist reading list.” I looked closer and the list offered three books that people could order. Two were by Bhaskar Sunkara, who I mentioned above—one that he edited and one that he wrote. I hadn’t read either one and I decided to take a look. I expected to encounter something more or less like what I encountered ages ago when I first read Michael Harrington’s book, Socialism. That is, a brilliant account of the ills of capitalism, some revealing history of socialist movements or parties, and a moving call for better things and perhaps even some indication of what’s necessary to win those better things, but not a description of new institutions.

Well, I was partially surprised. First, Sunkara’s efforts had no jargon and no convoluted passages. For those who read, which is a steadily declining proportion of the population, Sunkara could be accessibly read. More, Sunkara addressed real things that people do say and think. He used familiar examples. He offered some quite clever but on point humor, and no obscurity.

The longer offering, titled The Socialist Manifesto, which is what I read first, had an initial very creative, down to earth, daily life argument against what we endure in capitalism and for generating vision and indications of how to transcend capitalism. Then followed a long historical part with impressive breadth and depth. And then there was a third part offering insights bearing on current conditions and ways to go forward. Beyond style points, and I would have to give a great many of those, Sunkara did in fact address current institutions and their ways of impacting people’s options and actions. I liked and found compelling much of what he said, though I admit, not all. But that is not the point here. More, the book was from quite a few years back, and some conditions have changed. Also not the point here. But the fact is, I hadn’t previously read Sunkara’s work, so two new questions arose. 

First, why hadn’t I? And, second, why hadn’t his efforts and other efforts more or less like his had more impact on what a person who says “I favor socialism more than capitalism” would answer when asked, “okay, but what is socialism?” SUnkara’s ABCs of Socialism, a collection, had similar virtues. Written very accessibly, it experimented with different daily life rooted ways of presenting its material. But neither book described defining core institutions. 

I suspect the reason for my having not read Sunkara’s works before may in part be because I didn’t see much notice about the books among “intellectuals” and economists and that led to my assuming it was nothing new or different. That seems like it might explain it. Or maybe there was more to my not reading it. I honestly don’t know. But then comes another question. Why didn’t these books get more notice? Jacobin admirably pushed them into view and is still, years later, doing so. That is good. Even exemplary. Of course, mainstream media did not promote them. But that’s our current world. We get that. 

Another question rises. why didn’t literally all alternative media review and debate these books, as well as others also serious about addressing what we want and how to get it? Why isn’t collective attention to vision and strategy across progressive venues a persistent priority? Why didn’t these books, for example, reach further into the public, at least the “capitalism dismissing snd socialist leaning” public, and cause more such people to have coherent answers when asked what institutional changes would bring into existence the wonderful things they want? And to have coherent answers for what what they now favor wouldn’t generate the horrific outcomes so-called socialist revolutions have delivered in the past? 

The Socialist Manifesto and ABCs or Socialism are admirably more accessible than most other such works but they too present socialism as movements, as history, as desires, but not as a set of institutions that would generate wonderful and not horrific outcomes. Why is that?

Is my concern about the word “socialism” just that presentations that have sought to advance “socialism” have not in fact gotten across? Is it that presentations that try to advance socialist vision and that have offered institutional proposals and arguments, have been too obscure and too divorced from the experiences, desires, and fears of working people’s daily lives? Or is it—and this is ultimately my concern—that today’s populations are overwhelmingly disinclined to even look at such works much less to give serious attention so as to gain and spread insights from them? Is it that their merit is never even assessed, and only tangentially even noticed?

Whatever obstacles are at play, they apply pretty equally to pretty much any positive alternative vision, including participatory economics which is sometimes called participatory socialism—as well as to participatory society—and to every other vision for economics or for other parts of society. 

In short, are socialists and really everyone who has offered economic or social vision just doing a poor job of communicating for one reason or another? What we offer doesn’t resonate. Or is it that regardless of how good a job anyone might do, the public resists reading about any vision? Such writing doesn’t get assed much less debated, refined, augmented, and spread. Folks just aren’t interested or even actively resist? And if that is the case, why? 

One thing is certain. It is not because everyone likes what we now endure much less the growing risks for coming years. It could be that those of us trying to expand commitment to vision haven’t found an effective way to convey our proposals, and I actually hope that it is, because then once we find better ways, we will do better. 

Even just in the U.S. at least tens of millions do not like what we have. Tens of millions even hate what we have. So why don’t tens of millions pay attention to alternatives? Setting aside promotion problems, why is there vastly more inclination to write and read self help nonsense than to write and read serious vision and strategy? It may be because most people are convinced nothing better is possible, or nothing better can be attained, or nothing better would last. People may feel that to read about something fundamentally better and how to attain it is a waste of time. 

Yes, I know, our immersion in social media, the corruption of culture, our lacking any memory or operational conception of collective action, our rampant individualism, simmering and even currently escalating fear, and especially manipulated cynicism based on lies and confusions all also play a role.

But whatever obstacles impede people hungering for and devouring and then assessing, refining, and finally augmenting works of vision and strategy—to gain shared clarity about what we want, about it’s actual institutional substance, and about why it would work as we say, why it would deliver the goods we seek, and why and how our actions can lead toward it instead of leading in circles or even toward still more abominable relations—overcoming the obstacles is an essential step to amassing growing support to not only reduce the horrors around us, but to finally eliminate their causes and attain new institutions that promote better. 

Whatever obstacles interfere with people arriving at really widespread shared visionary and strategic clarity, we have to overcome them. We want new economy, new polity, new kinship, new culture and community, new ecology, new international relations. We have to find ways to envision viable lasting institutions for all that and, more so, we have to communicate effectively about those desired institutions and about the strategies they entail. 

Whatever the obstacles to all that are, to overcome them is a priority task. Being right matters, but it is the easy part. The hard part is effective communication. To communicate effectively needs more attention.

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