LinkedIn on Monday, August 10, 2026
I’m a fan of Bill Maher. He’s funny and I especially like the way he’s fearlessly critical of everyone out there in politics, regardless of their party affiliation. The way he blends serious and comedic commentary is spot on. But he’s not perfect and I’m sure he knows it.
In the spirit of productive criticism, Bill doesn’t seem to understand the meaning of socialism. In his defense, neither do many progressive Democrats who need to take an emergency course or two in common sense political marketing before the mid-term elections.
Technically, socialism refers to a system in which the government owns the principal means of production. To say “democratic socialism” just means that the government’s officials are democratically elected. A democratic socialist government is not a dictatorship.
Communism is an unrelated, non-existent government construct which would allocate goods and services produced by people according to their abilities to people according to their needs. Russian, Chinese and other governments may use the term “communist” in the names of their ruling parties, but that’s just for show. There’s nothing communist about their governments which are dictatorships running economies which have very large capitalist sectors.
Trump and other Republicans, lacking policies and programs on which they might run, are trying to scare voters into thinking that voting for a Democrat is tantamount to electing a communist which has negative connotations for our personal freedoms and would be contrary to our way of life – and our economy in particular.
Democratic Socialists, including the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) feed this politics of fear by recklessly misusing the term socialism in their name and promotions. They are not socialists. They do not advocate government ownership of the principal means of production. What they are is a progressive element of the Democratic Party that is more emphatic than regular Democrats about its commitment to popular, affordable if not outright free, healthcare and other “social” programs.
It’s an unfortunate confusion of terms. Just because you advocate for social programs – related to healthcare and education, for example – does not mean that you’re a socialist.
In last Friday’s show on HBO, no less an astute student of American politics as Bill Maher made this mistake. True, our government, under Trump in particular, has acquired small minority shares of some major companies. Whatever the value of those policies – which, under Trump, probably have something to do with generating revenues for his family and financial friends, and nothing to do with our national interests – it’s not socialism. It’s just bad and maybe even corrupt economic policy.
Among other misstatements, Bill made the observation that the word “social” is actually in the name of our “Social Security” program which involves zero government ownership of any means of production. “Social,” in this and other similar uses, just means “for the common good” and is not a term describing our form of government or economy.
One other thing… Our government provides national defense and many other programs for the people. It provides these “social” services because they are best done collectively. National defense, if we stay with this example, is not something we can do individually, the way we buy ordinary goods and services in our economy. Socialism, which is a form of government we do not have, has nothing to do with it. Our government “provides” these services, but doesn’t not own the companies that make the weapons and various other products that are essential to national defense. We, the people, through our elected government, purchase these items from the private sector of our capitalist economy.
These may seem like technical semantic distinctions that I’m making, which they are, but they are nonetheless important for their implications for how less discerning people vote.
In any case, I strongly, strongly recommend that some progressives in the Democratic Party stop calling themselves “Democratic Socialists.” They’re confusing everyone, even the most well-educated and otherwise learned people among us – and the Democrats will need every vote they can get in November’s midterms.
-Les Cohen
