The Choice Isn’t Capitalism vs. Socialism – It’s Between a Democracy & Feudalism

To Accuse Democrats of being Socialists Misdefines both Capitalism & Socialism

by Daniel Henderson (originally published on his Substack page “Things We Don’t Talk About Like Politics and Religion on Sept 11, 2026)

October 21, 2026

Remember the good old days of feudalism when all resources were in the hands of the nobility and the church? Here is what life was like for the vast majority of peasants and serfs:

For a medieval peasant….

• Land was not something you freely owned, bought, or sold. A king, noble, monastery, or other lord controlled most land, and peasants were tied to the local manor where they lived.

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• In return for access to a small plot to grow food, they owed the lord rent, labor, crops, and various fees.

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• Even many basic services were effectively privatized. The lord might control the mill, oven, winepress, forest, pasture, and sometimes the local market, requiring peasants to pay to use them.

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• A peasant could also owe fees for marriage, inheritance, or moving away, depending on local custom.

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• Economic life was structured around access to resources controlled by a small landowning elite.

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• In simplified terms: the medieval peasant did not live in a society where land and essential services were public resources.

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• They were embedded in a hierarchy in which access to nearly everything depended upon one’s relationship to the people who controlled the land.

Ah…the good ole days! Welcome to the new feudalism… 21st-century style.

Republicans & Modern Feudalism

As the 2026 election season approaches, Republicans have nothing to run on, so they appear increasingly prepared to make one word a central weapon against Democrats: socialism.

Same old scare tactic.

Trump calls them communists, socialists, or just radical leftists. The labels are familiar. But this political strategy carries an interesting irony and hypocrisy.

The United States already operates an economy in which millions of people routinely pool their resources through democratic institutions to provide things that individuals could not efficiently provide for themselves.

• We call them roads.

• Fire departments.

• Police protection.

• Public schools.

• Libraries.

• Parks.

• Courts.

• Water systems.

• Sewage systems.

• Bridges.

• Public health infrastructure.

• Emergency services.

We don’t generally call these things socialism because anyone who can afford property can still purchase it. We call these public services.

The real argument underneath the socialism trope is a much larger question about what democracy really means. Here is the fundamental truth: introducing “public services” was essentially a democratic innovation that ended feudalism.

What Republicans are pushing today is a modern version of that earlier feudal system, where most services are held in the hands of private, wealthy “lords.” Instead of “lords,” they are now called “tech-bros,” “oligarchs,” and “financial investors.”

The godfather of this approach was economist Milton Friedman, who said,

“The scope of government should be limited... The government’s primary function must be to protect our freedom both from the enemies without our gates and from our fellow-citizens within.” 

Friedman was one of the most prominent advocates for privatization, arguing that public services are run more efficiently, cheaply, and innovatively when handed over to the private marketplace.

However, history makes something clear: the great transformation brought about by the democratic revolution of the 18th century was not simply the introduction of elections. It rejected the kind of privatization Friedman promotes.

This transformation rejected the idea that society should be organized around inherited status (knights & lords), private power (nobility), and hierarchy. That transformation changed politics.

It also changed economics.

The Democratic Revolution Was Also an Economic Revolution

Democracy introduced a radically different principle: Citizens are political equals.

• The farmer and the banker may possess vastly different amounts of wealth, but they possess equal citizenship.

• The wealthy landowner and the laborer are not supposed to have different political rights because one owns more property.

• The son of a powerful family and the child of a low-income family are supposed to stand on the same side of the ballot box.

  
  

That was revolutionary. And eventually the principle of political equality began to influence economic thinking as well.

If citizens are politically equal, perhaps there are certain things they should have equal access to, not because they are wealthy enough to purchase them, but because they are equal members of the political community.

That is where the modern public economy begins to emerge. The idea of a “shared economy” is a byproduct of democratic thinking, not socialism.

We already live inside a shared economy.

Consider the road outside your house. You didn’t build it, and you don’t own it. You don’t individually negotiate with every other driver who uses it. Instead, millions of Americans contribute through taxes; governments construct and maintain the infrastructure, and everyone benefits.

The same principle applies to bridges. And fire protection.

Imagine telling a homeowner:

“Your house is on fire, but you didn’t purchase the appropriate private fire protection, so we can’t put the fire out.” We instinctively recognize that something is wrong with that proposition.

Why?

Because we have decided that protecting the community from fire is a shared responsibility.

Police protection operates according to a similar principle. So does the court system. So do public schools. So does the basic infrastructure that makes modern commerce possible.

This is not Marxism, nor is it communism. And it is not the abolition of private property.

It is a mixed public economy in which private enterprise operates alongside institutions that society has decided are better provided collectively.

Capitalism and a public economy are not enemies. In fact, American capitalism has depended upon public investment throughout its history. Capitalism has ALWAYS depended on government support.

American capitalism has always had a public foundation

The story Americans sometimes tell themselves is that capitalism created America and government got in the way. History is considerably more complicated.

The federal government has been involved in economic development from the nation’s earliest years. The postal system created a national communications network. Public investment in transportation such as railroads and canals helped connect markets.

Land policies like the Homestead Act encouraged settlement and development. Land-grant universities expanded access to higher education while simultaneously creating enormous economic benefits.

Publicly supported scientific research has generated technologies that became foundational to private industries. The internet itself emerged from publicly funded research. Modern agriculture, aviation, medicine, energy, and manufacturing have all benefited from government investment.

The point isn’t that government deserves all the credit. It doesn’t. The point is that American prosperity has never been purely private. We have always lived within a system in which private initiative and collective investment reinforce one another.

And that is not an accident. Some things work better and more efficiently when we do them together.

So what exactly are we calling “socialism”?

This is where today’s political rhetoric becomes misleading.

Socialism or Marxism didn’t appear as an ideology until the mid-19th Century. It means government ownership of the means of production. Public ownership of all property. It is an ultimate “public or shared economy.”

By the time Marx wrote his Communist Manifesto, the US government was already highly invested in the economy, subsidizing private industry. The public economy was already established.

It becomes clear that roads, police departments, and public schools aren’t socialist institutions in the traditional Marxist sense. Not even close.

But if Republicans are using socialism as a political synonym for anything we pay for collectively, then the definition becomes so broad that virtually every American benefits from “socialism” every day. The word loses any meaning whatsoever.

And perhaps that is the point. Instead of arguing endlessly about the label, we should ask a much more practical question:

What services should we provide collectively, and what should individuals provide privately?

This is a legitimate democratic question, and there is no single answer. But once we ask it that way, the Republican slogan begins to lose its power. Because almost nobody actually wants to privatize everything… even MAGA Republicans.

Think of what the logical extension of the Republican agenda might be:

• Do we want privately owned roads where every driver pays a different corporation for access?

• Do we want private fire departments deciding which homes are worth saving?

• Do we want police protection available only to those who can afford a subscription?

• Do we want privately operated courts where justice depends upon the ability to pay?

• Do we want bridges owned by investors who can deny access to people who cannot afford the toll?

  
  

Of course not.

We understand intuitively that some things are common goods. And once we recognize that, the argument becomes one of degree rather than ideology.

The discussion becomes: what other services should be shared in a public economy? Childcare? Healthcare? Higher Education? Those are legitimate issues that deserve to be part of the political discussion without the hyperbole of calling it “socialism.” It is not.

The Offer of Republican Hyper-Individualism

Individuals have rights. Government should protect liberty. People should be free to pursue their own lives.

That is an important part of the American tradition.

But another version of individualism goes much further. The Republicans have been selling this version since the advent of neo-liberalism in the Reagan administration to today.

It suggests that virtually every social obligation should be converted into an individual responsibility. It has resulted in the largest income and wealth inequality in American history.

You want education? Pay for it. You want health care? Buy it. You want protection? Purchase it. You want transportation? Pay for access. You want retirement security? Invest enough to provide it yourself. You want assistance when disaster strikes? Hope you bought the right insurance.

At some point, something fundamental changes. Citizens become customers or worse, commodities, and society becomes nothing but a marketplace.

That is not the same as freedom because it produces a new form of dependency: dependency on whoever owns the resources everyone else needs. And that is where the comparison with feudalism becomes relevant.

The return of hierarchy

Feudalism offers a useful historical metaphor because it reminds us what happens when ownership and power concentrate while obligations to the broader community weaken.

Imagine a society in which a small number of people own the land, housing, energy, transportation networks, technology, and other essential resources.

Everyone else rents access. Everything becomes subscription-driven.

The formal political system might still be democratic. People might still vote. But economic power could become so concentrated that citizenship increasingly becomes subordinate to ownership.

That is the danger of extreme economic hierarchy we have seen emerging over the past decade of MAGA politics. It threatens freedom and shared economic services.

No person’s basic standing in society should depend entirely upon another person’s wealth or power. That is why public institutions matter.

They create spaces where we meet one another not primarily as buyers and sellers, employers and employees, landlords and tenants, creditors and debtors; but as fellow citizens.

What Democrats should be asking

Democrats shouldn’t spend all their time defensively insisting:

“We aren’t socialists!”

That accepts the Republican framing. Instead, Democrats could ask a much more interesting question:

What are the things Americans should do together because doing them together makes us stronger, freer, and more equal citizens?

That question has a long American tradition.

It doesn’t deny capitalism. It is not foreign to democracy. It is not out of step with American history. It is one of the foundations upon which modern America was built.

An important political opportunity lies here.

• Americans who would recoil from the word “socialism” would never dream of privatizing their local fire department.

• They don’t want to buy individual access to every public road.

• They don’t want to pay a private corporation every time they need police protection.

• They don’t want their children’s education determined entirely by their parents’ bank account.

• They don’t want to live in a society where everything is for sale.

  
  

They already understand the value of the common good. They don’t call it socialism.

Capitalism versus Socialism Is a False Choice

The most important political argument of our time isn’t between capitalism and socialism. It is between two competing visions of society.

One says:

We are individuals who occasionally cooperate when necessary.

The other says:

We are citizens who have responsibilities to one another as well as rights for ourselves.

One emphasizes ownership. The other emphasizes membership. One tends toward hierarchy. The other tends toward equality. One asks, “What can I afford?” The other asks, “What do we owe one another?”

Democracy requires us to resist the idea that wealth should determine human worth. And it requires us to recognize that some of the most valuable things in our lives are valuable precisely because we share them.

The road is valuable because everyone can travel it. The bridge is valuable because it connects communities. The fire department is valuable because it protects people who may never be able to repay the favor. The public school is valuable because it educates the next generation. The library is valuable because knowledge shouldn’t belong exclusively to those who can afford to purchase it.

These are not signs that America has abandoned capitalism. They are signs that America has embraced something bigger: democracy.

And that is why the question facing us isn’t whether we want socialism. That is a false choice.

It is whether we want to preserve the democratic institutions that prevent economic life from becoming another hierarchy of ownership and dependency.

If democracy was, in part, humanity’s great experiment in replacing inherited hierarchy with political equality, then the privatization of everything is not necessarily a march toward greater freedom.

It can also become a march toward greater dependency on those who own what everyone else needs.

And that is a future worth thinking about before we start tearing down the public structures that make democratic equality possible.

It should also push us to talk about what other services should be part of the shared economy: childcare, healthcare, and education.

Tony Judt, a British historian who wrote Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945, commented on the choice before us now as a civilization:

“Something is profoundly wrong with the way we live today. For thirty years we have made a virtue out of the pursuit of material self-interest: indeed, this very pursuit now constitutes whatever remains of our sense of collective purpose. We know what things cost but have no idea what they are worth. We no longer ask of a judicial ruling or a legislative act: Is it good? Is it fair? Is it just? Is it right? Will it help bring about a better society or a better world? Those used to be the political questions, even if they invited no easy answers. We must learn once again to pose them.

“The materialistic and selfish quality of contemporary life is not inherent in the human condition. Much of what appears "natural" today dates from the 1980s: the obsession with wealth creation, the cult of privatization and the private sector, the growing disparities between rich and poor. And above all, the rhetoric that accompanies these: uncritical admiration for unfettered markets, disdain for the public sector, the delusion of endless growth.   We cannot go on living like this.”

This essay was originally published on Substack: https://hendersond.substack.com/p/the-choice-isnt-capitalism-vs-socialism. 

Learn more about Democratic candidates for all local elections here:  https://sites.google.com/blackhawkdemocrats.com/black-hawk-county-democrats-ca/home 

Find your sample ballot here:  https://blackhawkcountyelections.iowa.gov/search/ 

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