Word.ws English Dictionary

lemon socialism

lemon socialism noun: the practice in otherwise free market capitalist economies in which the government steps in to bail out or otherwise subsidize weak or failing firms. A government attempting to transition from capitalism to socialism by this method takes control of the worst industries — the "lemons" — first, which undermines such an approach.

Noun

lemon socialism (uncountable)

  1. The practice in otherwise free market capitalist economies in which the government steps in to bail out or otherwise subsidize weak or failing firms. A government attempting to transition from capitalism to socialism by this method takes control of the worst industries — the "lemons" — first, which undermines such an approach.

Origin of lemon socialism

Coined by Mark Green in 1974.

Questions about lemon socialism

What does lemon socialism mean?
Lemon socialism means the practice in otherwise free market capitalist economies in which the government steps in to bail out or otherwise subsidize weak or failing firms. A government attempting to transition from capitalism to socialism by this method takes control of the worst industries — the "lemons" — first, which undermines such an approach.
What part of speech is lemon socialism?
Lemon socialism is a noun.

Words near lemon socialism in the dictionary

  1. lemon myrtles
  2. lemon pepper
  3. lemon plait
  4. lemon shark
  5. lemon sharks
  6. lemon socialism
  7. lemon soda
  8. lemon sodas
  9. lemon sole
  10. lemon soles
  11. lemon square

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lemon socialism (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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