In a thread under this meme, a chud commented "socialism is cringe." When I responded with, "Taxes going towards social welfare programs isn't socialism, lol," a girl replied:
actually it is definitely a socialist thing. Public schools, public infrastructure (such as roads and parks), stuff such as the fire brigade, public transport, medicare/Medicaid, and even the military. Essentially, if the government funds it, it is widely beneficial to people, and its free for said people to access... Then it's probably socialist. A lot of American stuff is based on socialism. Some elements of socialism is literally required to function. Imagine if there was no public school. Or every fire department was privately owned. Your kids get no education, your house burns down... Well unless you are rich enough to pay, of course.
I said, "Socialism is when the means of production are publicly-owned. Taxes being used to fund programs has existed long before socialism was an established ideology. I get what you mean, but sometimes I cringe when people say that socialism is when the government does stuff. This is coming from a socialist."
Then she came back with this:
"In a purely socialist system, all production and distribution decisions are made by the collective, directed by a central planner or government body. " By that definition, a government funded state school is controlled by the government, whom the public vote in. Hence...
I mean, the "all production and distribution decisions are made by the collective" part is pretty key to establishing whether something is socialist or not. Sure, publicly-funded fire departments, healthcare, education, and transportation would exist in a socialist system, but those institutions aren't inherently socialist by themselves just because we pay taxes to fund them. But I'm struggling to put into words that socialism refers to the economy and society as a whole, and not just things that we pay for through taxes.
Feudal societies had public infrastructure, but I don't think even she would call that socialism. The Great Wall and the Grand Canal are two public infrastructure build through penal and corvee labor, but they weren't an example of socialism. The issue is that even if those programs are widely beneficial to people, they didn't come to existence through the conscious decision of the people. Otherwise, you can point to any enlightened despot who was smart enough to invest in public infrastructure as an example of a "socialist."
She doesn't consider the people having control over their collective destinies as a criteria. This can only be true when the people have complete control of their political, social, and cultural lives. And since the political, social, and cultural life of a society is ultimately informed by its economic life, it means the people must have firm control over their economic lives as well, which translates to control over the means of production. Through conscious control of the means of production, the people can consciously determine what economic course to take, which also translates to what political, social, and cultural course to take. This is what it means for a people have control over their own destinies.
When Cuba passed its Family Code, it was Cuban society consciously making history by passing the most progressive family code in world history. Just by how Cuban society is organized as a socialist society, it was a widely discussed proposal discussed throughout the entirety of Cuban society, the pros and cons of the proposal were hashed out among Cubans, and it was finally put to a democratic vote where the majority of Cuban society, even accounting for people who didn't vote as voting against the proposal, won the vote. The entirety of Cuban society was part of the political process.
Meanwhile, gay marriage being federally legal was not a conscious decision by American society. It was the conscious decision of a bunch of reactionary judges who just so happened to be on the right side of history for once. Outside of queer activists and homophobic evangelicals, American society at large was not politically engaged with the question at all. But the most serious difference is that unlike the Family Code, the Supreme Court decision can be easily Roe v Wade'd by a different set of reactionary judges. It did not come from the masses and it can be taken away from the masses.