The United States is traditionally considered the antithesis of socialism.

For decades, our country has represented free market capitalism at its brightest — starkly contrasting our perceptions of communism and socialism.

Yet, by most definitions, the U.S. is technically a partially socialist state already.

Sumanth Gopinath, a professor of music and comparative literature at the University of Minnesota with specialties in Marxism, said socialism is an economic system blending capitalist and communist ideas.

“Sometimes people call it a mixed economy,” Gopinath said. “There’s some amount of state or social control of the means of production, from anything like a very strong welfare state to the entirety of an economy being state-controlled. There are lots of different positions on these things.”

Some people will split hairs when defining socialism, but ultimately, it encompasses several ideas. Most social studies textbooks provide similar summaries when comparing socialism to communism and capitalism.

Capitalism is based on a free market with private ownership of companies and limited government intervention. Communism is the complete opposite, with no private property and all resources held publicly by the government.

Socialism lies in between communism and capitalism. Private property still exists, but the government owns at least some means of production and intervenes to lessen the gap between the wealthy and the poor.

This is exactly how the U.S. operates today.

No countries in the world are purely capitalist or communist — all use some type of mixed economy.

“Capitalism, in order to function, requires the state’s intervention of various sorts,” Gopinath said.

Despite constantly championing free markets, our government owns or controls many means of production. One example is water systems and some utilities, as 88% of Americans receive water through local governments. 

This is socialism, but normalized so most people don’t realize it.

Nearly all transportation systems in the U.S. are publicly owned, too. The federal government owns Amtrak and local governments own most airports. Highways are the biggest example, entirely owned and operated by federal, state and local governments. 

All of these systems are socialist.

For many Americans, the capitalist alternative — privately owned highways and airports — would be unthinkable. Yet they are entirely possible.

Other nations like the U.K. have many privately owned airports, making the U.S. an exception. Similarly, privately owned highways, funded entirely by tolls rather than taxes, are more extensive in Europe and other countries compared to the U.S.

The military is another massive example of our government controlling the means of production.

The military-industrial complex is an entire sector of our economy fueled by massive government spending on manufacturing companies for weapons, aircraft and supplies, such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin. The latter received 74.2% of its revenue from the U.S. government this year. Similarly, defense company Booz Allen Hamilton earned 98% of its revenue from the U.S. government.

“If you’re in the military, you are connected to a nearly socialist system,” Gopinath said. “From all the state-based structures of employment and the education system that’s associated with it to the V.A. healthcare system.”

The list of socialist policies in the U.S. goes on. Public schools, public universities and public transit are “public” because the government owns them, unlike private alternatives. Welfare systems like Social Security and Medicare are also socialist because they assist low-income people and slightly lessen the wealth gap.

August Nimtz, Jr., a political science professor at the University, said multiple U.S. welfare programs originated through demands of the working class for a socialist system that served the people.

“The big breakthrough was in the Great Depression with the New Deal and Roosevelt administration,” Nimtz, Jr. said. “That was the result of workers taking to the streets. The Roosevelt administration came up with the New Deal as a way to appease the working class.”

Socialism not only exists in the U.S., but it is also bipartisan. 

For example, neither Republicans nor Democrats advocate for ending our socialist highway programs because turning all our roads into private companies funded by tolls would be inefficient and unpopular among everyone.

While Democrats advocate for many of our socialist programs like public education and public transportation, many staunchly oppose our large, socialist military programs, which see more support from Republicans.

A growing number of Americans, particularly young people, have embraced socialism.

Following the Great Recession, more Americans became disillusioned with capitalists on Wall Street and began considering socialism, according to Gopinath. It gained momentum with Bernie Sanders’ campaigns for president in 2016 and 2020, who openly described himself as a democratic socialist.

Socialism is already here, so why is it a dirty word that many politicians use as a fear-mongering tool?

President-elect Donald Trump famously stated “America will never be a socialist or communist country” during his first presidency, even though his administration maintained the socialist policies that were in place for years.

When conservatives scorn socialism, they are not scorning our existing socialist system — they are scorning the movement that seeks to use socialism to reform our government and support the working class.

“Socialism is first and foremost, a movement,” Nimtz, Jr. said. “Not a doctrine, but it’s a movement in which the working class is the protagonist. And it seeks to make the working class the ruling class.”

Even though our government continues to use socialist policies, not all of them benefit the people and capitalism continues to widen the gap between the rich and poor.

“Once the socialist movement comes into existence with the working class at its head, it’s seen as a threat to the status quo — the ruling elites and most specifically to the capitalist class,” Nimtz, Jr. said.

Being a socialist is not a radical idea. It is merely advocating for a better version of our existing political system that works for everyone, not just a select few.