Let’s first define our terms.
Socialism is a theory of social organization based on
collectivism, the vision that the good of the group, rather than the
individual, is the standard of moral concern upon which a central planning
authority bases its dictats.
Controversial is a broad term. So I will assume that by
“controversial” the question refers to political controversy, as opposed
to, say, academic controversy. Politics is the field of human action
that deals with a nation’s government, the law-making and its coercive
enforcement that governs society.
In and of itself, socialism
needn’t be politically controversial. When socialists get together and arrange
their social organization by the voluntary consent of all individual
participants, there is little practical reason for controversy. As The Communistic Societies of the United States by Charles Nordhoff and History of American Socialisms by John Humphrey Noyes document, countless
socialisms arose across America prior to Marxism, thanks to this country’s
free, rights-securing government that guaranteed the unalienable individual
rights to life, liberty, and property. While a subject of intense debate, the
theory of socialism didn’t significantly invade the political realm because
these early American socialisms were voluntary arrangements respectful of the
individual rights of all.
When, in the early 20th
century, socialists turned to the government to impose their socialist creed on
the entire society, the controversy invaded the political realm. When massive
government intervention arrived, such as the “anti-depression” policies of
Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt (e.g, public-works spending, farm-price
maintenance, wage support, forced unionization, unemployment insurance, Social
Security), socialism ceased being a voluntary arrangement and became a threat
to the lives, liberties, and property of every individual in the country, including
to the many people who never consented to join the socialism. The political
controversy grew in lockstep with the subsequent steady growth of
government-imposed socialist programs over the following hundred
years.
Today, with the modern
socialists having pretty much captured a major political party, the political
controversy over socialism has understandably reached new heights because the
threat to liberty based upon individual rights has reached new heights. Unlike
the early American socialist movements of the 19th Century, which were
essentially private and voluntary, today’s socialist movement has become a
political movement geared to imposing socialism, by coercive tyrannical
legislative means, on the entire American society.
This political socialism is
really just crime under cover of law. In answer to the question “Why is socialism controversial?,” socialism is controversial because
socialists have abandoned peaceful persuasive means and turned to political
power--the power of legislative force--to advance their goals. Socialism will
cease being politically controversial when socialists decide to re-join
civility by renouncing the use of government force, getting out of politics,
and returning to respecting the rights of others and dealing with their fellow
citizens by voluntary consent and mutual agreement, leaving those not
interested in the socialist lifestyle free to go about their own lives
unmolested.
Related Reading:
* [Quora is a social media website founded by
two former Facebook employees. According to Wikipedia:
Quora is a
question-and-answer website where questions are
created, answered, edited and organized by its community of users. The company
was founded in June 2009, and the website was made available to the public on June
21, 2010.[3]Quora aggregates questions and answers to topics. Users can
collaborate by editing questions and suggesting edits to other users' answers.[4]
[You can also reply to other users’ answers.]
UNUSED:
That is one side of the collectivism vs.
individualism philosophical divide.
