Shared Responsibility
The Public Services We Use Every Day (And the Labels We Throw Around)
Lately, it seems like the words socialist and communist get thrown around at just about everything. If a policy involves government or tax dollars, someone is bound to call it one or the other.
But here’s a question worth asking:
If socialism and communism are always bad, why do so many Americans—including many of the people using those labels—depend on and support publicly funded services every single day?
Before anyone jumps to the comments, let me be clear:
I’m not saying America is a socialist country.
It isn’t.
The United States is fundamentally a capitalist economy. We have private businesses, private property, free markets, and entrepreneurship. But we’ve also chosen, over many generations, to fund certain services collectively because we’ve decided they’re important enough that everyone should have access to them or because they’re better provided as public institutions.
That’s not a contradiction. It’s how our country has operated for centuries.
Here are just a few examples of the public services and social insurance programs many of us rely on.
Everyday Infrastructure
- Public roads and highways
- Bridges
- Sidewalks
- Streetlights
- Public water systems
- Sewer systems
- Public libraries
- Public parks
- The U.S. Postal Service
These are funded collectively because maintaining separate private systems for every individual would be impractical or inefficient.
Education & Opportunity
- Public K–12 schools
- Community colleges
- State universities
- Government-funded scientific research
- Student financial aid programs
Many of the technologies we rely on today—including GPS and the early foundations of the internet—were made possible through publicly funded research.
Health & Public Safety
- Police departments
- Fire departments
- 911 emergency services
- Public health departments
- Food and drug safety oversight
- Disease prevention and vaccination programs
Most of us don’t think twice about these services until we need them.
Financial Security
- Social Security
- Medicare
- Medicaid
- Unemployment insurance
- SNAP (food assistance)
- Child tax benefits
Whether you support expanding these programs or reducing them, they are examples of Americans deciding to pool resources to provide a safety net.
Military & Veterans
As a veteran, this is the part that resonates with me the most.
The United States military is one of the largest publicly funded institutions in the country.
Americans collectively pay for:
- National defense
- Military pay and benefits
- Military hospitals
- The GI Bill
- VA healthcare
- VA home loan guarantees
- Disability compensation
- Military retirement pensions
- TRICARE
- Veteran job training
- Mental health services
- Survivor benefits
None of those programs exist because they generate profits.
They exist because, as a nation, we’ve decided defending the country and caring for those who served are shared responsibilities.
A Note from a Veteran
As someone who served in the Air Force, I’ve personally benefited from some of these programs.
I’ve used the VA.
I’ve earned education benefits.
I receive disability compensation for service-connected conditions.
I’m grateful these programs exist because they recognize that some responsibilities are too important to leave entirely to the private market.
That’s why I sometimes find our political conversations confusing.
I’ve watched people proudly support the military, the VA, Social Security, Medicare, public schools, and countless other taxpayer-funded programs while simultaneously insisting that anything involving government is “socialism” or “communism.”
Those labels often end the conversation before it even begins.
Instead of asking whether a program is “socialist,” maybe we should ask better questions.
- Does it solve a real problem?
- Is it effective?
- Is it financially responsible?
- Does it serve the public well?
Those seem like much more useful conversations than arguing over labels.
The Reality
America has never been purely capitalist.
It has never been purely socialist either.
We’ve always had a mixed economy—a system that combines free markets with public institutions, infrastructure, and social insurance programs.
Reasonable people can disagree about where that balance should be.
Some believe government should do more.
Others believe it should do less.
Those are legitimate debates worth having.
But calling everything we disagree with “socialism” or “communism” doesn’t move the conversation forward.
It oversimplifies a country that’s always been more complicated than that.
The next time someone uses one of those labels, ask a simple question:
What do you actually mean by that?
You might discover you’re talking about two very different things.
