Is democratic socialism the right path for America?

[Uncle Joe]

(snip)

What is democratic socialism and how would it change America's capitalist economy? And is it the right path for the United States?

CNN Opinion invited political scientists, economists and other experts to weigh in. What do you think? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section and on Twitter and Facebook.

Peter Dreier: What is democratic socialism, American-style?

In the early 1900s, socialists led the movements for women's suffrage, child labor laws, consumer protection laws and the progressive income tax. In 1916, Victor Berger, a socialist congressman from Milwaukee, sponsored the first bill to create "old age pensions." The bill didn't get very far, but two decades later, in the midst of the Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt persuaded Congress to enact Social Security. Even then, some critics denounced it as un-American. But today, most Americans, even conservatives, believe that Social Security is a good idea. What had once seemed radical has become common sense.

(snip)

Much of FDR's other New Deal legislation -- the minimum wage, workers' right to form unions and public works programs to create jobs for the unemployed -- was first espoused by American socialists.

Socialists were in the forefront of the civil rights movement from the founding of the NAACP in 1909 through the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Socialists have long pushed for a universal health insurance plan, which helped create the momentum for stepping-stone measures such as Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s and Obamacare today.

In the 1890s, a socialist Baptist minister, Francis Bellamy, wrote "The Pledge of Allegiance" and a socialist poet, Katherine Lee Bates, penned "America the Beautiful." Throughout our history, some of the nation's most influential activists and thinkers, such as Jane Addams, John Dewey, Helen Keller, W.E.B. DuBois, Albert Einstein, A. Philip Randolph, Walter Reuther, Martin Luther King, Paul Robeson, Eugene V. Debs, and Gloria Steinem, embraced democratic socialism.

(snip)

http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/27/opinions/opinion-roundup-socialism/

There are about 13 political scientists, economists and other experts giving their opinions on the link, most of them seem favorable.

[retrowire]

1. The way I see it is

Democratic Socialism is essentially what the American economic system should have always been and was always meant to be.

The people have a voice and control the creation of goods. (In a way, we already do, Supply and Demand anyone?)

Government would regulate banks and big business (Already happening, but the grip on that was decreased since the farewell of Glass Steagall)

And the wealthiest are taxed more than the poorest, distributing the wealth towards essential needs such as roads, infrastructure, healthcare and all that.

The rich would still be allowed to be rich, but the poor would be given the bare minimum to survive happily.

AND WHATS WRONG WITH THAT?

[jwirr]

4. I like that all except the words bare minimum to survive.

Be careful who decides what a bare minimum to survive is.

Before FDR the rich decided and it truly was a BARE MINIMUM.

[Enthusiast]

6. Remember when Limbaugh claimed that America's poor weren't really poor because

they had refrigerators, phones and microwaves?

I remember what that evil fuck says.

[deutsey]

8. You mean those of us who create the wealth of this country through our labor

should actually benefit from it?

And I don't mean just with plasma TVs but with health, education, roads/bridges, retirement, a commons, etc.?

Why, that's just crazy talk.

[Admiral Loinpresser]

2. Yes! n/t

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. I decided I am a capitalist/socialist in the same way I am a Jewish/Christian.

I want to use some of the profits capitalism generates to ameliorate social ills while maintaining the incentives that generated those profits in the first place.

[MohRokTah]

5. No. eom

[Armstead]

7. Yep

[Chan790]

9. Yes. n/t

[DianeK]

10. if we are truly a country that is..

of by and for the people then yes....we must embrace socialism that will soften the harshness of our capitalism

[Spitfire of ATJ]

11. People are discovering "Capitalism" isn't the same thing as "Freedom".

[Hydra]

13. Or democracy for that matter n/t

[YOHABLO]

12. We live under a Capitalistic Oligarch that slouches slightly towards Democratic Socialism.

This is why we have to rid the Congress of the Republican Party as it stands today. We are not a true Democracy, never were.

[Duppers]

14. Thank you for the thread.

Bookmarking, in case I confront more rethugians.

[Uncle Joe]

16. Thank you, Duppers and everyone else that posted and/or recommended.

[geretogo]

15. Preditory , monopoly capitalism as we have now is completely incompatable

with democratic government .

[Buzz cook]

17. Liberal capitalism for me.

Although I'm sure some of our friends on the right will say they're the same thing.

And they are pretty similar.