I was watching a Vlad Vexler YouTube video the other day, and underneath it - like clockwork - a MAGA type had turned up to perform the usual ritual incantation.
“Socialism has never been for the working man, socialists despise and look down on the working man, its an academic ideology and academics think the working man shouldn't get a vote, the American Political Economy IS for the working man, its whole premise is based on Industry, it's the model that Stalin and now the Chinese look to, and also the basis of Putin's Russia.”
Before you even get to the content you can tell exactly where the comment is coming from. The instant jump from “socialism” to Stalin and communism is a dead giveaway. That’s a very American reflex. In the US, it’s almost a cultural tic to treat “socialism” and “communism” as interchangeable words, as if the NHS is just five minutes away from gulags and compulsory potato farming. Over here we tend to use words with a bit more care, partly because we’ve actually lived with social democratic institutions for decades and nobody had to start wearing a Mao suit.
Anyway, let’s unpack it, because it’s a perfect example of how political arguments are now assembled. Not from evidence, but from vibes, resentment, and a handful of scary foreign nouns thrown in for flavour.
First, “socialism has never been for the working man.”
This is one of those statements that only works if you delete the entire 20th century. But let’s go further back, because the whole myth depends on forgetting where we started.
We didn't begin with “the market” as some benign force lifting everyone up. We began ruled by an aristocracy, living off land, rents and inherited privilege, with working people treated as labour to be used up. If you were poor, that wasn’t a social problem to solve, it was your place in the natural order. You worked, you suffered, you died early, and the people at the top called it civilisation.
Yes, things improved a bit when the old aristocracy began to be displaced by merchants and industrialists. Some of them came from ordinary backgrounds and had real drive. But plenty of them just climbed out of poverty and bought their own seat at the top table. They didn't abolish exploitation, they just made it more efficient and gave it a glossy brochure. The new bosses didn't cure the worker’s plight. They just charged for it.
Real change came only when working people organised. Trade unions, labour movements, and socialist parties turned the working class into a political force that couldn't be ignored. Rights at work, safety rules, pensions, public health, free education, paid holidays, the NHS, unemployment support, council housing - none of that was gifted by benevolent capitalists. It was forced into existence by collective action and then defended politically.
So if you want to talk about whether socialism has been “for” the working man, look at what actually improved everyday life. Look at the curve of living standards rising sharply in the mid 20th century. That isn’t a coincidence. It was the result of politics that shifted power away from owners and toward citizens.
Then comes the grievance garnish:
“Socialists despise and look down on the working man… academics think the working man shouldn't get a vote.”
This is pure invention. The working class vote wasn't gifted by kind hearted capitalists. It was expanded through political struggle, labour movements, unions, and reform campaigns. If you want a group that historically tried to keep the vote restricted, it wasn't the people building trade unions. It was the people defending property as the only qualification that mattered.
And the idea that “academics” are uniquely anti-worker is just modern anti-intellectual cosplay. Some academics are insufferable, yes. So are some plumbers. That’s humanity, not ideology.
Now for the punchline:
“The American Political Economy IS for the working man.”
If that’s true, it’s doing an excellent job of not showing it.
America is the place where you can work full time and still be poor. Where healthcare is so expensive it needs its own insurance industry, billing industry, and bankruptcy industry. Where job security is weak, unions have been battered for decades, and “freedom” often means your employer is free to sack you because they woke up in a mood.
If that’s “for the working man”, it’s a strange kind of devotion. Like saying a casino is “for the gambler”.
And then, because every rant needs a foreign villain, we get:
“its the model that Stalin and now the Chinese look to, and also the basis of Putin's Russia.”
This is where the whole thing collapses under the weight of its own nonsense.
Putin’s Russia isn't socialism. It isn't social democracy. It isn't even a normal market economy. It’s an oligarchic kleptocracy: a state captured by a small circle of the wealthy, with elections as theatre and the rule of law as a punchline. Calling that “the American model” is either confusion or an accidental confession about what happens when money buys politics.
China isn't “looking to America” because it loves the working man either. It’s state directed capitalism with authoritarian control. It manufactures cheaply because labour is cheap and dissent is inconvenient. That’s not worker power. That’s a production strategy.
And Stalin? If you have to invoke Stalin to argue against universal healthcare and decent labour rights, you’re not making a point. You’re just shaking a rattle.
Here’s the reality, stripped of culture war perfume.
Social democracy isn’t about “despising the worker”. It’s about recognising that working people need power, security, and public services because the market doesn’t provide them out of kindness. It provides them only when forced - by law, by unions, by taxes, and by political pressure.
The post war decades weren’t perfect, but they were the closest Britain ever came to an economy that genuinely worked for the many. That’s why living standards rose so sharply. Not because we discovered greed, but because we restrained it.
So when someone turns up under a Vexler video claiming socialism hates workers and America is their salvation, what you’re really seeing is a man defending a system that treats the working class as an input cost - while insisting, loudly, that this is “freedom”.
It’s not freedom.
It’s just exploitation with better branding.
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