I do not want to take all the money from the rich and give it to “undeserving” poor people. I do not worship the image of Vladmir Lenin or Mao Zedong. I do not believe in fascism. I do not wear a Che beret. However, I do believe there are certain things that should be given rights to all human beings and not privileges, such as adequate food, shelter, health care, and education. I also believe in developing the autonomy of the working class and that those who produce the world’s wealth should also own the means of producing that wealth. I believe in democracy and creating a world that values improving the quality of life for all and not just for an elite few who exploit other people to live an excessive, irresponsibly lavish lifestyle. Perhaps it’s too idealistic, but I believe in a world free of poverty and oppression of all sorts.

Does this make me a socialist? A lot of people wouldn’t think so, because they believe in the same things. They support universal healthcare and are starting to warm up to the idea of nationalized banks, but they’d never call themselves socialist. I can’t necessarily blame them. For all intents and purposes, I am a socialist. However, I’ve had to rewrite what you are reading right now about three times already because a part of me was hesitant about the possibility of the phrase “I am a socialist” appearing alongside my name in a Google-search performed by future employers.

So, here we are, 2009, 20 years since the fall of the Berlin wall, nearly 50 years since the end of McCarthyism, and I still fear judgment and, yeah, persecution because of my political ideologies. If I even mention the name “Marx,” I brace myself for an angry rant that references Stalin about 30 times—but the truth of the matter is, socialism is one of the most misconstrued and misunderstood political phenomena in recent history.

Kevin Bednarz’s article, “Into the Red,” goes into the history of why these misconceptions exist. In actuality, socialism isn’t the tyrannical, culture-sucking beast that it’s been presented to us as. From what I can gather, socialism, as the theory demands it to be practiced, is the most pure form of democracy and the truest possibility for an egalitarian nation. What’s really creepy is a lot of the theories behind socialism are starting to predict a lot of the crazy things that are happening right now in history. Karl Marx postulated that capitalism will continuously alienate workers until they eventually demand a change, or that the free market system will eventually collapse on itself. You know, businesses will get too big, not enough people will own the means of production, eventually causing insane amounts of unemployment, thus no money going into the market…Oh, you know, nothing we don’t already know about. Now, my mind is open, and I suppose it’s possible that the need to bailout Wall Street is just a little speed bump in market fluctuations, but it seems a lot worse than that to me.

According to Marx, it’s once these economical “speed bumps” start to seem more like spikes in the road and the gap between the rich elite and the poor working class increases (which is bigger than ever) that a change will ultimately occur. Now, what that change will look like is up to us. I don’t think this change is going to appear all that much different from campus groups like UB Students Against Sweatshops, or other groups all over New York State that are fighting against the tuition hikes and Paterson’s incredibly awful budget. While I don’t think Obama will save us from capitalism, I think voting for increasingly progressive candidates like him is going to make up a huge part of that change as well. Again, maybe I am too idealistic.

And even more importantly, I could be wrong. I could be dead wrong, and the neo-conservatives could be right; the coming of socialism in the United States will bring about the most horrible dictator known to man, and all rich people will have to make giant bonfires out of their huge piles of cash and the deeds to their foreclosed fancy mansions just to keep warm. It might turn out that poor people are actually just too stupid and lazy to move up the social ladder and won’t know what to do with their newfound power, squandering it away on lottery tickets, hookers, and Newports.

But probably not.