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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGuess Who Else Is a Socialist?
One of the side benefits of a well-watched national political debate is the exposure it brings to something obscure and forgotten like Denmark. Who doesnt love a country that gave us a dish of frikadeller and rugbrod to go with paid parental leave and universal health care?
I love Denmark, said Hillary Clinton during Tuesdays debate, by way of dismissing a quasi-socialist nation of 5.7 million mostly white people as not the best place to look for solving the problems of a multiethnic democracy of 322 million.
But in fact, the United States may be closer to Denmark than many think. In the reddest of red states say, Idaho you can find the kind of socialism, through publicly owned utilities or the federal dam that farmers rely on for their water, that would be right at home among aquavit-sipping Danes.
Once you label something socialist, it brings to mind dour Soviet types trotting out dreary worker clothing for the spring fashion line. Or, here at home, those insufferable parlor room Marxists who think it would be utopia if only we nationalized every Starbucks. In that sense, the worst thing about socialism is the socialists.
Free of the label, a hybrid economy where health care, education and pensions for the elderly are provided, side-by-side-by-side with creative capitalism, works pretty well in the Nordic countries, Britain and Canada. And most of the tenets of what is considered democratic socialism have majority support in the United States.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/16/opinion/guess-who-else-is-a-socialist.html?_r=0
Mnemosyne
(21,363 posts)AOR
(692 posts)that attempts to redefine leftism and completely ignores the existence of class and class struggle while defending capitalism. More feel good nonsense... popular with many who are unable to grasp the destructive nature of capitalist social relations and the institutionalized theft of labor and the commons that are the foundations of capitalism.
Talk about insufferable parlor room bullshit. The writer of this pablum should take a good look in the mirror and seek treatment for what looks like incurable cognitive dissonance.