How do you define 'socialist'?

To the editor:

I would like to know what percentage of national Democrats have actually read Paul Krugman’s New York Times article, “Bernie Sanders isn’t a socialist.”

It can be found online.

Of those who have, why do some of them still call themselves “Democratic socialists” when Krugman does an excellent job of showing that they are actually “social Democrats” and not truly “socialists” at all?

How do they deal with the fact Krugman won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2008? Isn’t it fair and reasonable to suggest that someone who won that award knows what a true socialist is and is not?

I think it’s very reasonable for him to be believed, and to be seen as credible.

I would like to ask this of all Democrats, but I would not want anyone to be offended or to believe that I am questioning their knowledge or intelligence. The problem here is that I believe that we are probably going to lose the midterm elections largely because of this issue, and being called names like “socialists” and “Marxists” by Republicans because those terms do scare and frighten many Americans, and lose a lot of votes for Democrats.

Many Americans erroneously believe the Democrats want to abolish capitalism, and it scares them. Krugman calls this name-calling strategy by the Republicans a “dishonest political strategy” that is just one example of how they operate “out of bad faith.”

Why can’t Democrats simply say that what they want is “a more humane, just, and caring capitalism”? That won’t lose us as many votes.

Stewart Epstein

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