This ridiculous motion was passed by the US Congress yesterday (since the Senate apparently approved this resoltuon by the House), timed as a snub to newly elected Democrat Mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, who just happened to be visiting President Trump:
Whereas socialist ideology necessitates a concentration of power that has, time and time again, collapsed into communist regimes, totalitarian rule, and brutal dictatorships;
Whereas socialism has repeatedly led to famine and mass murders, and the killing of over 100,000,000 people worldwide;
Whereas many of the greatest crimes in history were committed by socialist ideologues, including Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, Pol Pot, Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Un, Daniel Ortega, Hugo Chavez, and Nicolás Maduro;
Whereas tens of millions died in the Bolshevik Revolution, at least 10,000,000 people were sent to the gulags in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and millions more starved in the Terror-Famine (Holodomor) in Ukraine;
Whereas between 15,000,000 and 55,000,000 people starved to death in the wake of famine and devastation caused by the Great Leap Forward in China;
Whereas the socialist experiment in Cambodia led to the killing fields in which over a million people were gruesomely murdered;
Whereas up to 3,500,000 people have starved in North Korea, dividing a land of freedom from a land of destitution;
Whereas the Castro regime in Cuba expropriated the land of Cuban farmers and the businesses of Cuban entrepreneurs, stealing their possessions and their livelihoods, and exiling millions with nothing but the clothes on their backs;
Whereas the implementation of socialism in Venezuela has turned a once-prosperous country into a failed State with the highest rate of inflation in the world;
Whereas President Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, wrote, “To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it”;
Whereas President James Madison, the “Father of the Constitution”, wrote that it “is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest”; and
Whereas the United States was founded on the belief in the sanctity of the individual, to which the collectivistic system of socialism in all of its forms is fundamentally and necessarily opposed: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That Congress denounces socialism in all its forms, and opposes the implementation of socialist policies in the United States.
Passed the House of Representatives November 21, 2025.
Have none of the lessons of McCarthyism been learned?
Have none of these people read a book, including the Bible of which so many of them claim themselves to be so fond?
Have none read their own constitution?
Do any of them know what socialism actually is?
It would appear not.
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Another brick in the wall. A gigantic spanner in the works. I will be watching Robert Reich’s Coffee klatch later. He remembers the end days of the McCarthy era.
I will also be watching it later. I almost invariably do.
Just substitute capitalism for socialism and there’s not much difference. None so blind….
“Whereas capitalist ideology necessitates a concentration of power that has, time and time again, collapsed into fascist regimes, totalitarian rule, and brutal dictatorships;
Whereas capitalism has repeatedly led to famine and mass murders, and the killing of over 100,000,000 people worldwide;
Whereas many of the greatest crimes in history were committed by capitalist ideologues, including Lyndon Johnson, George Bush, Tony Blair…..”
Very good
As I read it thats just what I was thinking.
I regard the Left’s refusal to acknowledge the historic brutality and colonialism of Russia and other supposedly Left wing states, and the Right’s denial of much the same brutality of the likes of Chile, Argentina, Greece et al, as equally bad.
Agreed
I regret that left wingers are continually smeared as approving Stalinism etc when the opposite was palpably the case outside of CP ideologues and some Fabians in the 50s. Totalitarian brutality is anathema to socialism.
My ex-professor, friend, and neighbor, Robert Reich, was a child during the McCarthy era, as was I. The Army -McCarthy hearings in 1954 McCarthy’s Senate career. I was 9 years old. Robert Reich was 8.
As to your sentence regarding the Left’s failure to censure, repudiate, or fight against the brutality of Russia, in the USA, we most certainly have done so since 1947 and continue to do so. I’m not sure whom you mean by The Left. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a major war crime, on par with the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Hitler-Stalin invasion of Poland in September 1939, Pol Pot’s regime, Pinochet’s regime, Netanyahu’s murder of Palestinians.
Brilliant – might be worth putting that on Facebook and X!!!
Thanks, and please feel free to share. I don’t do FB or X.
And astonishing lack of self awareness – no mention of the deaths and cruelty inflicted in the world by the USA and other far-from-socialist regimes.
People conflate socialism with communism and various dictatorships, as it steers people and governments towards neoliberal capitalism, which bills itself as a better alternative, without clarifying who it is better for (and who loses). I think readers would be aghast if they knew the “cost” (financial and human) of foisting capitalism on countries:
❌The USA/CIA with the help of the UK has overthrown the governments (many democratically elected) of at least 60 countries, often replacing them with dictatorships. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change
❌”according to Brazil’s later-established truth commission, killings by the state became routine”
❌[Indonesia] ”In just over a month, at least half a million and possibly as many as 1 million people were killed”
❌”The exact number of people who went through the Southern Cone’s torture machinery is impossible to calculate, but it is probably somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000, tens of thousands of them killed”
❌”The economic plan has had to be enforced, and in the Chilean context that could be done only by the killing of thousands”
❌”the wars in Chechnya have killed an estimated 100,000 civilians”
❌”The years of criminal capitalism have killed off 10 percent of our population.”
❌”By May 2007, more than 900 contractors had been reported killed”
❌The creation of an underclass of between 25 and 60 percent of the population
Source and highly recommended reading: The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein
Amazon: https://amzn.eu/d/fAmspcx
Youtube documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL3XGZ5rreE&t=20s
Thanks.
And a question: is capitalism actually anti-socialism?
Capitalism is socialism for the well-off in the form of write-offs, tax breaks, tax incentives, startup costs, etc.
Capitalism is anti-socialism for everyone else.
Agreed
But I am still musing on this
in the late 19th cent. ‘Gas and Water’ socialism co-existed ( Birmingham to start with ) with Liberal economic policies of people like Joseph Chamberlain.
Richard makes the point ( if I understand him aright ) -that we can’t draw a clear distinction between politics/ values and OTOH economic systems.
And the early 20th century, Liberals did introduce elements of socialism ( Old Age Pensions, National Insurance, Mother and Child clinics which brought down infant mortality figures ) inspired by the Non-Conformist Conscience ( plus the pragmatic reasoning of Bismarck in the 1890s who thought it a way of keeping the hierarchy of society and not giving the workers a reason to rebel. )
Friedman (and hence capitalism) was definitely anti-socialist.
” .. the U.S. retained a welfare system, social security and public schools, where parents clung, in Friedman’s words, to their “irrational attachment to a socialist system.”” Quoted in Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein, https://amzn.eu/d/fAmspcx
Friedman also said: “A society based on the freedom to choose is better than a society based on the principles of socialism, communism and coercion.”
Source: Bright Promises, Dismal Performance
Not at all. Under capitalism socialist enterprises can always operate. If you think you can run a worker owned enterprise and use the profit margin of the capitalists to reduce prices or pay workers better then you can and so we see many such in the UK and in the USA.
Under socialism, government or workers own the means of production by compulsion and not competition. If there’s no worker owned player in the sector then the government buys or creates a government owned one. Capitalist enterprises can sometimes exist e.g. private health provision or private education are good examples but it is not a guarantee that they will always be allowed to, and they operate under the operating restrictions resulting from the compulsory socialised one existing by compulsion. Under communism, capitalist enterprises are illegal of course, but that’s not the topic of this thread.
You really do fundamentally misunderstand modern socialism. Like all those who promote anti-socialism, you misrepresent the truth. First, you treat socialism as an issue in microeconomics when it is not: it is much more profound and economically and socially significant than that. Second, is not democratic socialism that corrupts power, it is your ideology that does, by undermining the state and making it an instrument of the wealthy who seek to extract the well-being and effort of others for their own gain. Third, why would you want to do that? Please explain why you either a) have no clue about what you are talking or b) wilfully lie?
What a surprise to read that the US Congress is occupied by ignorami. The US has provided socialism – government transfer of the public’s wealth to sectors of the public to reduce inequality – for the rich since Adam was a pup. Financial institutions and large corporations that are deemed “too big to fail” got government bailouts during the 2008 Great Recession and the 2020 economic crisis. Government interventions, like the Federal Reserve lowering interest rates, are designed to stimulate financial markets and benefit investors and corporations. So says Thomas Friedman. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/26/opinion/us-capitalism-socialism.html . Deregulation benefits corporations. Easing regulations on banks and corporations reduce their costs and increase their profits, while insulating them from the risks associated with their operations. Corporations like General Motors have received large federal contracts, sometimes combined with tax breaks. In the 19th century, the US government gave – gratis – the checkerboard lands to railroad corporations. Every other square mile of land was granted to corporations to take trees for railroad ties, river gravels for road beds, and today, 530,000 acres of public lands in California alone are inaccessible to the general public. That’s because they alternate with privately owned lands in the shape of a checkerboard.
Okay, we have disposed of education fail #1, there is no socialism in the USA.
Next, let’s define our terms. What’s Communism? Communism is a centrally planned, authoritarian social, political, and economic system.
Socialism, on the other hand, rejects autocracy and the Marxist-Leninist state and seeks social ownership.
DSOC – Democratic Socialism – combines socialist economics with a commitment to democratic political processes and institutions. Democratic socialists work within a democratic system to achieve goals like reducing economic inequality and ensuring essential services, rather than seeking a revolutionary overthrow of capitalism.
Two Democratic Socialists in government in the USA are Senator Bernie Sanders and New York city mayor elect Zohran Mamdani.
The best part of me knows that I despise people who practice their ignorance as a religion.
“Under capitalism socialist enterprises can always operate”
Under Milton Friedman, socialism is not allowed.
Under socialism, capitalist enterprises can always operate,
An interesting question.
I would say the capitalism is only anti – socialist if it is allowed to be. It is the same with how the current model of capitalism ignores double entry book keeping/ resource accounting. It is also dominated by profit in strictly narrow monetary terms that ignores other outputs that are more about quality of life issues for human beings. These modes of capitalism need not be as they are. They are reductionist and also too materialistic.
I think that capitalism has become a way to organise life rather than be a service to life. It has become a mode of rule, rather than a part of it. Think about how economists like Von Hayek have stretched their economic views and applied them in re-writing human history and democracy as if they had the God given right.
Like Varoufakis, I believe that capitalism can be saved, it can be made to work better. I believe that the politics of care you talk about can be the capitalism of care for example.
Current capitalism leads to too much social exclusion ( remember that)? As I pointed out about Hobbes elsewhere, it is the state that determines the capitalism that we have. What about a capitalist system that brings out the best in people by producing and sustaining their security; a capitalism based on cooperation not just competition. A capitalism of truly shared output, not one that excuses greed? A proper democracy can achieve that.
In America, they have read too much Ayn Rand and rejected the teachings of Jesus. Happiness over there has centred too much on the self and many, including the rich shrug off their Puritan responsibility to others.
I suppose what I am saying is that rather than bringing capitalism down, let us save it and reform it.
I worked on this yesterday.
See a post that should happen this morning.
As a lifelong Socialist, I have always believed that the opposite to Socialism is not Capitalism, but Sociopathy. Socialism is more a philosophy – like your politics of care Richard – than an ideology.
Capital, per se, is divorced from human activity or beliefs but the people who worship capital (money), so called Capitalists who have created systems to unreservedly, cruelly and brutally extract money from everyone and everything, are the essence of sociopathy.
I would add to the list that growth-dependent capitalism ultimately leads to the destruction of whole ecosystems and the loss of many life forms including humans if this trajectory is allowed to continue.
Is the US Senate unbiased? We have to remember that the US Sentate has already condemned Modern Monetary Theory:
❌A resolution recognizing the duty of the Senate to abandon Modern Monetary Theory and recognizing that the acceptance of Modern Monetary Theory would lead to higher deficits and higher inflation. Source: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-resolution/89
…as has the US House of Representatives:
❌Recognizing the duty of the House of Representatives to abandon Modern Monetary Theory and recognizing that the acceptance of Modern Monetary Theory would lead to higher deficits and higher inflation. Source: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-resolution/267
Those resolutions are really quite bizarre.
Thank you.
And this, despite all its whitewashing of world history, coming from a nation that was initially built on the theft of a whole continent and the genocide of its indigenous people and its wealth created on the backs of the slaves they took from other parts of the world. Words fail me. David Olusoga’s recent and excellent BBC2 series ‘Empire’ is particularly instructive here – he should make a similar US centric equivalent.
Empire is brilliant. We watched the second part last night, and will undoubtedly see it all. This is a BBC success.
We have been impressed and moved by Olusuga’s series and, as a historian and a trained archivist, I really appreciate the way he uses the written record, however mundane, to tell the historical story. However, nearly fell out with a couple of friends over it last week, who have not seen it, but had been influenced by a white old male ex-Judge friend of theirs who had convinced them it was ‘inadequate’ because it did not present ‘the full story’ (whatever that might be) and was partial ( as if that wasn’t part of its significance, given the mainstream story we all hear). I was really disappointed and challenged as they are people of education and experience, but chose to accept the judgement of one friend who had seen it over another friend’s (mine) judgement, who had also seen it, and knows a bit of history.
Now you know all about cognitive bias.
They appear to be denouncing the “horrors” of social security, old age pensions, and public provision of essential services such as housing, healthcare and education. Because, you know, it would be a violation to take from one class of citizens with excess resources to provide for another class with too few .
At least their constituents can see plainly that they are in favour of the wealthy hoarding resources while everyone else dies in penury: afraid, cold and hungry. So much for the four freedoms.
Agreed
Quote – They appear to be denouncing the “horrors” of social security, old age pensions, and public provision of essential services such as housing, healthcare and education – end quote
But disguising their views under a cloak of concern for the “individual”
If you tell a lie, make it a big one and repeat it often. It’s worked before.
Of course they want to remove the safety nets, it makes sense, this is how the lemmings will become obedient to the true gods of market.
Imagine having secured house and all the basics to live and the boss telling you, you need to do the extra league after you have done the extra mile after you have done the extra furlong, while working for the minimum wage and producing something socially irrelevant or even bad that nobody really needs and nobody will miss. You would happily raise a particular finger and have an fu attitude, or at least they are afraid you would do so.
Capitalism would be popular/successful If workers rushed to contribute, instead of being threatened by the “market” that they will die homeless If they don’t comply.
Abraham Lincoln was a socialist.
https://ia601306.us.archive.org/3/items/littlesermonsins00mcca/littlesermonsins00mcca.pdf
Naughty, you are not allowed to spoil Amercian fantasies.
Amusing side note: there was only one European journalist that supported the Northern States in the Civil War………….Karl Marx.
Had Lincoln lived, the USA would have developped into a very different place.
Laughable really, but then again, we know that poor old America has ended up with a feudal elite that many of their ancestors left Europe to escape from. Those on the Mayflower not only brought the common cold and other diseases of the old Europe with them to the new world – they also brought the disease of the propensity to think ones self superior because of the size of one’s wad and other holdings.
Look, I still see America as a vibrant place of ideas and good intent, I have more hope for them than this dump, but what that statement tells us that the U.S. is a kakistocracy – it is ruled by the least qualified and unprincipled people possible. That is because most of those people are rather rich and that is what got them there – not their brains or humanity. Where we stand together is in solidarity with millions of ordinary American citizens who have to suffer at the hands of these self interested thickos who rule over them.
Oh, the irony.
Quoting Jefferson and Madison justifying the preservation to each individual “the fruits of their personal industry” whilst also condemning every employee to the loss of the profits of their personal industry…
Perhaps it’s not irony. Perhaps the ghost of Hayek still haunts the collective mind of the USA.
Agreed
If it is self evident that socialism is bad and the USA has a perfect system of liberty, then why do they feel the need for such a motion? A spectre haunts them. They feel feel threatened by an ideology that is miniscule and dying out. The only ones talking about socialism and the ones complaining about it.
How long before someone on the right in the UK argues for something similar to be adopted over here?
It will happen.
Starmer will vote for it.
Actually I find that quite a restrained view of Socialism for the US, after all it is a country where any government funded endeavour is liable to be labelled Socialism and therefore bad, though that notion never seems to extend to the armed forces.
The NHS is viewed by many as dangerous socialism and was used as an argument against Obamacare and the whole of Europe is sometimes labelled unequivocally Socialist. ” I traveled to the OECD…to tell these unelected globalist bureaucrats that they are going down the wrong path and the U.S. tax base is not a piggy bank for Europe’s socialist policies.” Rep. Carol Miller, Ways and Means Hearing, 2024
Socialism, as a term, has improved in popularity in recent years though, probably mainly due to Sanders use of it.
back in 2016 Political Compass noted
“It remains a mystery to us why Sanders chose to describe himself — incorrectly — as a socialist, and in America of all countries. His position is that of a mainstream social democrat — a Keynesian in the mould of the New Deal, and the mainstream left in all other democracies. You wouldn’t need a degree in marketing to see that ‘social democrat’ would be a much more appealing self-description, so why did he insist on such an unhelpful misnomer? It was helpful, though, to his right wing primaries opponent, who was able to present herself as a centrist, between an off the wall socialist and a quasi-fascist.”
A 2019 poll found that 55% of Americans had a negative impression of “socialism,” while 42% expressed a positive view. That represented a significant improvement for ”Socialism’ over earlier times (25% positive in 1942), a very recent poll suggests a modest popularity improvement for “socialism” over 2019 but noticeably greater antipathy to it among Republicans. In the context of this poll, a positive view is more likely to be for Saunders-like policies rather than a text book definition of “Socialism”.
At least it doesn’t include national socialism, Hitler and the Nazis as socialists, which a lot of the right continue to parrot. That may be because they have a far right constituency they don’t want to antagonise.
I was going to make a similar point.
“Do any of them know what socialism actually is?”
Very few do!
“Have none of these people read a book?”
Other than “Green Eggs & Ham” by Theodor Seuss Geisel from the Random House “Beginner Book Series” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beginner_Books), I doubt few of them had read anything non-social media except the “National Inquirer” while standing in a grocery store checkout lane. The more educated ones may pick up People Magazine or InTouch Weekly every now and then.
🙂
That Jefferson quotation never made a lot of sense to me, given that he had slaves.
The House resolution was pathetic. And from my experience of X I can say that very few in the US actually know what socialism is.
That said, to embarrass them all, Mamdani went to the White House and King Donald loved him (yes, all true), actually defending him from attacks from the right wing press present. Chris Hayes has a full report with footage. Well worth watching. https://www.ms.now/all
A good clip.
Hmmm – so socialism alone would explain the genocide in Gaza, the mass extermination of Jews in Europe during the last century and the pogroms in previous centuries, the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam and on and on – think again!
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…” – isn’t that the philosophy underpinning socialism?
Do Republican congressmen (and Democratic for that matter) not agree with the founding documents of the USA?
A perfect question.
The evidence strongly suggests that they do not. And do keep in mind that the author of these noble words, Thomas Jefferson, kept slaves, as did many of the signers.
[…] the Resolution of Congress I have noted today, passed this last week, shows, anti-socialists are also what our opponents clearly think themselves […]
Re: the Thomas Jefferson quote above, readers may be interested in two articles I have seen this weekend…
1. From ex Tory MP Miriam Cates, a right wing evangelical Christian, writing here about how those who won’t work, shouldn’t eat (misquoting St Paul seriously out of context), and how the bible apparently mandates small government, with social care and helping the weak, being the job of churches and charities, NOT government. She also criticises those who are able to work but don’t, although she doesn’t apply her arguments to those who live off capital, rent and other unearned income.
https://www.premierchristianity.com/opinion/kemi-badenoch-was-right-to-quote-st-paul-if-you-can-work-then-you-should/20517.article
You need to register (free) to see the whole article and the 2 critical comments, one of which you might recognise.
My main rebuttal of her argument is that almost all of the many angry criticisms and exhortations of the old testament prophets about poverty, injustice, hunger, exploitation etc.were addressed to the leaders/kings of either Israel or its neighbours, ie to the “governments”. Even the priests count as government in that context, because these were theocracies. The prophets were constantly berating kings on issues of social injustice, gross inequality and care for the poor. Nehemiah 5 is a particular problem for her line of thought, given that Nehemiah was the actual governor of Jerusalem (not the vicar!) appointed by emperor/king Artaxerxes back in Babylon – he WAS effectively the government, and he lays into the idle rich living as rentiers and takes personal responsibility – as governor, for looking after the poor – he feeds them in the governor’s palace! So much for the small state..!
Her argument is that such things are not the proper function of government – but of the church or charities. Yet the bible roundly and comprehensively contradicts her at every turn.
2. From a different corner of the church, the Vatican. Simon Tisdall, in the Guardian describing what appears to be a growing organised resistance to Trump’s “immigration” policies by the US Catholic church, and Pope Leo.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/23/who-can-tame-trump-pope-leo-xiv-catholic-church-usa
If Trump crashes and is replaced by Catholic Vance, then the relationship between the Vatican and the US could change, as Vance may find himself arguing with the US Catholic Bishops and Pope Leo.
Thank you
[…] Does the US Congress know what socialism is? Richard Murphy […]
Short answer: No. The members of the House and Senate are predominantly people who are ignorant of the definition of socialism. There are a few exceptions. Senator Bernie Sanders, a socialist, from Vermont. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democratic Socialist from New York. Here’s a list of Democrats who voted to condemn the horrors of socialism when New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani went to Washington, D.C. https://www.newsweek.com/full-list-of-democrats-voting-to-condemn-socialism-as-mamdani-comes-to-town-11088383