We are in an era of spiraling costs for core social goods—health care, housing, education, childcare—which has made proposals to socialize those costs enormously compelling for many on the progressive left. This can be seen in the ideas that floated around the 2020 Democratic primary. Proposals for free college and student debt relief, Medicare for All, free or nearly free universal childcare, and massive subsidies for renters in expensive cities were proposed by President Biden’s challengers, and continue to be at the top of the agenda for the left wing of the Democratic Party. Indeed, the current vogue for “socialism” on the left is, on closer examination, almost always about socializing these common household expenditures…

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