This is the most common type of argument I get, and I’ve seen it take the following forms:

1. Government Service X works, and that’s socialism, therefore socialism works/is great.

2. You wouldn’t want to not have Government Service X? No you wouldn’t! And Government Service X is socialist, therefore, you can’t say you don’t want socialism.

3. Conservatives, if you really hate socialism, I demand you immediately call for all services of type Government Service X to be abolished because they’re socialist.

Where in the above, Government Service X is one or more basic safety, infrastructure, or a limited government service, such as police, fire department or road construction.

These arguments are completely moot, i.e. have no practical significance. To see why, let me agree with those arguments for a moment:

Fine, Government Service X (read police, departments fire, road construction, etc.) works great, we have to have it, and it’s socialist.

However, it’s interesting how those services like Government Service X that are most frequently pointed to as paragons of socialism in this context, are those which are limited in scope, have little effect on the citizens’ personal choices and freedoms, and are mostly run by local governments. This should give us a STRONG hint where government does its best and where it fails. A fantastic in-depth treatment of this theme appears in this article.

So in fact, Government Service X is so great, let’s have socialism only like that! Let’s limit our government services to basic safety and infrastructure. (After all, we’re not advocating no government here, just limited government. Any suggestion to the contrary is a straw man argument.)

But if we do that, we’ll have a whole lot less socialism here and maybe even less than anywhere else in the world. Clearly that’s not what proponents of socialism have in mind! (Socialists, let me know if I’m wrong here.) So if socialism is to be a whole lot more than the likes of Government Service X, then Government Service X is irrelevant in support of what socialist really want.

If socialism were about limited infrastructure programs, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. This may change the day we hear people say “Denmark sure has a lot of socialism, just look at all their police, fire departments and roads,” but until then, socialism means something else.

And we’re done! Thank you and good night everybody.

Here is an example of the above, where Government Service X is the government’s development of the early Internet. This discussion transpired in the Facebook page of “Socialism Does’t Work”:

Some Proponent of Socialism:

Socialism DOES work folks–you’re using the Internet developed by the US gov. However, two cups and a string are non-gov. Use them as you see fit.

Me:

Of course, that the government developed the Internet is proof socialism is great. Why didn’t I think of that before? Everybody, as of tomorrow I’m changing the name of this page to “Socialism Does Work”. Oh, and it wasn’t until the government opened the Internet for private use that pretty much everything people think of as the “Internet” today really happened.

Some Proponent of Socialism:

Perhaps the groups name should be “Socialism, like the Free Market, has its Strengths and Weaknesses.”
As to the last few sentences, the private sector would never have taken the colossal risk to build it. Same for the highway system, the Louisiana Purchase, government range lands, and the land to build the early railroads . Government builds the slate and the private sector then writes on it. The private sector cannot exist without government, and vice versa.

Me:

I repeat, it wasn’t until the government opened the Internet for private use that pretty much everything people think of as the “Internet” today really happened.

If your example of the Internet, where the government took a relatively small initiative and then stood out of the way of the private sector to see huge growth over and beyond government control, is what you call “socialism” then I’m all for it! Why don’t we try that with health care? But I think those who want more socialism in the US will strongly object to that characterization of it.

And that was the end of it.

In general, government programs, whether we call them socialist or not, whether they’re necessary or not, will exhibit certain negative side-effects. And that’s why government does not scale. Have a little bit of it, and you’ve got a well running society. Have more, and the negative side-effects overtake any intended benefits.