The Washington Post’s Elizabeth Bruenig published a column on Sunday about the evolving definition of socialism. It’s not just an academic indulgence—it’s a relevant topic, given the Democratic party’s and voters’ curiosity with such a system, and the abuse and misuse of political terminology in public discourse. The right labels some left-of-center public figures as “socialist” when it’s unwarranted, for example, just as the press and the left label some right-of-center public figures as “ultraconservative” without disclosing what is meant by “ultra.”

Read in context, the use of such descriptions often is intended to alarm the public, not inform it. Bruenig—given that she wrote earlier this year that “It’s time to give socialism a try”—obviously was going for the latter. She did not, however, determine a contemporary definition of the word. “[N]ow, as in the 19th century, confusion about what ‘socialism’ means is stoked by political interest in clouding the issue,” she wrote, singling out conservatives who struggle to decide whether Nordic economies are capitalist or socialist.