Penna Dexter

The campaign season brought some alarming advocacy of socialist ideas. An organization called Democratic Socialists of America spawned candidates who brought a mix of progressive ideas to their primaries. Most DSA-endorsed candidates lost their primaries. But they got a hearing and pushed some others to the Left.

Candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez became a socialist poster child. She unseated a 10-term Democrat incumbent in the New York primary and went on to win a seat in Congress. She’s 29. A little over a year ago she was waiting tables. She campaigned as a Democratic Socialist.

Democratic Socialists are not a political party. Members are free to support their own mix of progressive policies, like a $15 per hour minimum wage, Medicare for All, free college, abolishing capitalism, abolishing the US Immigration and Naturalization Service, and even abolishing the US Senate.

This comes partially from the view that capitalism spawns inequality. Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson writes that “the sanctity of American capitalism is now questioned more than at any time since World War II.”

World magazine’s Jamie Dean’s September article is titled, “Socialist Seeds.” She writes of the Socialist ideas that are taking hold especially among younger voters.

The socialism being touted is not necessarily Venezuela-style authoritarian dictatorship. There’s no push to abolish private property or for government to own the means of production.

Free market economist Jay Richards says of DSA members, “More often than not, what they have in mind is some pleasing idea that they usually associate with Scandinavian nations.” Sure these countries have very generous welfare benefits which they pay for with very high taxes. In a sense they lean socialist, but are technically free market economies. We’d still need capitalism to pay for their expensive ideas. The cost of Medicare-For-All is estimated at $32 trillion over 10 years.

Ms. Dean warns Christians attracted to these ideas that “an impulse toward compassion by compulsion can lead down a dangerous road.”