We're All 'Socialists' Now

[Uncle Joe]

(snip)

Nevertheless, by coopting the right’s expansive definition of “socialism” — which holds that any major government intervention in the economy (that conservatives don’t like) is a fulfillment of Marx’s vision — Sanders was able to recast the terms of America’s economic debate.

“In 2008, after their greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior created the worst financial disaster since the Great Depression, with millions of Americans losing their jobs, their homes and their life savings, Wall Street’s religious adherence to unfettered capitalism suddenly came to an end,” Sanders said Wednesday. “Overnight, Wall Street became big-government socialists and begged for the largest federal bailout in American history — over $1 trillion from the Treasury and even more from the Federal Reserve. But it’s not just Wall Street that loves socialism — when it works for them. It is the norm across the entire corporate world.”

One can pick many bones with Sanders’s wording here (e.g., Wall Street was a beneficiary of “big government” largesse long before 2008). But his remarks call attention to an important fact: Americans already live in a country where unelected bureaucrats pick economic winners and losers, where public policy exerts a massive influence over the distribution of income, where some indolent Americans live off the hard labor of others, and where the state directs investment toward official, conscious ends. If these are the defining features of socialism, then the United States lost the Cold War before it began, and the real debate between left and right in the U.S. isn’t over whether “big government” should intervene in markets, or even how much it should, but rather who should have a say over how it intervenes — and whose interests such “socialism” should serve.

(snip)

America’s existing political economy is much easier to defend if one posits that the gross inequities it produces are ordained by an invisible hand. If some natural economic process dictates that wage growth must be tepid while corporations sit on cash, or that urban workers must be rent burdened while landlords live high off their labor, or that major financial institutions must be insulated from risk while underwater homeowners are left to drown, then one can plausibly argue that government action to alter such outcomes would be hubristic and self-defeating. Who is man to challenge the wisdom of the market gods? By contrast, if the electorate were to recognize that these outcomes are largely determined by public policy, then apologists for the existing order would have a much harder time rationalizing acquiescence.

(snip)

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/06/bernie-sanders-socialism-speech-gwu.html

This is a good read.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. No, we are not.

Regulation is not the same as socialism.

[HerbChestnut]

2. Sorry

Subsidies, publicly funded departments, national and state parks, etc. are all forms of socialism. We're all socialists to some degree.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. Public funding of something isn't socialism either.

Socialism is an economic system in which the means of production and distribution are collectively owned - in other words, there is little or no private ownership of business - the government owns and operates the factories, the airlines, the trucking companies, the farms, etc. The existence of government agencies that provide services of some kind to citizens isn't the same thing.

[HerbChestnut]

7. That's fair, the dictionaries agree.

However, throughout history, no form of government has ever fit neatly into a definition. In the U.S., people have used the word "Socialism" to describe some of most popular public programs in history, i.e. Medicare, Social Security, the FDIC, and more. There's gray areas all over the political spectrum.

[GulfCoast66]

21. No, people have not! The right who hates these programs have done so!!

And still do. In an attempt to smear popular and proven programs by attempting to tie them to a ship wreck of a system.

And they have so successful that there are some on the left who believe it as well.

Socialism is the state ownership of the means of production. As described by Marx. That it what it is and remains. Democrats have never supported that.

But you know who does? Democratic Socialist. Read their manifesto. Their ultimate goal is the state ownership of certain ‘unspecified’ industries and work coop ownership of others. These are not dishonorable positions but not something that Americans or even most democrats support.

You are way off base if you think democrats have ever described the programs you mention as socialism.

[HerbChestnut]

26. Except none of our candidates are proposing the state ownership of industries.

Even the Democratic Socialists of America aren't advocating that (I checked). They do advocate for employee ownership of businesses, but so did Hillary Clinton in 2016. I wish only right-wingers used the word "Socialism" as an attack, but that's just not true. Martin O'Malley used the word as an attack against Bernie Sanders during a debate in 2015. Governor Hickenlooper is doing the same thing to Bernie now, and specifically cited Medicare for All as an example of "Socialist" policies we shouldn't pursue.

[ck4829]

25. Yep. Not being a sociopath is socialism in today's America

"You actually put human lives before profits? That's SOCIALISM!!!!"

[yaesu]

3. if you use a public roads, public schools, police, fire, if you are protected by the military,

if you fly through FAA regulated airspace, if you use public utilities, you are a socialist.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. Nope, see above.

People often mistake regulation for socialism and it's not the same thing.

[yaesu]

8. I would agree with you but then we both would be wrong. nt

[emmaverybo]

31. I am not a socialist.

[comradebillyboy]

6. It is not good enough for somebody to say, 'I'm a socialist, vote for me.'

And we aren't all socialists. FDR wasn't a socialist either.

[appalachiablue]

9. Who you callin' soshialist? Them's fightin' words Joe. LOL/S

[Uncle Joe]

10. ...

[appalachiablue]

13. The brave Thracian gladiator. I met him once- Kirk, at a movie

reception I was working as a student, good actor.

[Uncle Joe]

14. No kidding.

You will always remember that, won't you?

[appalachiablue]

18. Meeting EW, Bruce & Bailey would be terrific.

[ck4829]

24. Haha

[George II]

11. I'm not.

[rownesheck]

12. When a profit motive is introduced

into anything, it causes corruption. There should be no private entities operating anything having to do with health, education, infrastructure, and there are probably more if I wasn't too lazy to continue thinking. Private entities can operate fast food or clothing retailers, etc. That's just my opinion.

[aidbo]

20. I would include prisons as an industry that should not have a profit motive attached.

[LibFarmer]

15. 6th OP on the same old speech

[TwilightZone]

16. "by coopting the right's expansive definition of "socialism"

Their definition is nonsense. Not sure what Sanders would accomplish by co-opting something that's completely false. It just makes it appear that he doesn't understand it, either.

The article makes some good points. Too bad it's buried under a false, clickbait headline, though, as the author notes, it's intentionally false.

[OilemFirchen]

17. Yes we are, according to the convoluted definition provided by the right wing.

We are also racists, because we recognize white privilege. We are anti-Semites, if we don't support the policies of the Israeli government. We are sexists, as we fight against patriarchalism.

Why anyone would intentionally opt to describe themselves according to the caricatures meant to demean them is perplexing. I have a pretty good idea why Sanders has chosen to do so, but won't be sharing that here.

[betsuni]

29. I don't get it.

The only thing that makes sense to me is that he's sort of running as a third party candidate while technically running as a Democrat. That millions and millions of Americans who usually don't vote because they think both parties are the same will flock to the polls to vote for a democratic socialist FDR candidate.

[highplainsdem]

19. LOL! No, we're not.

[leftofcool]

22. Nope, not me

[ck4829]

23. K&R

[trev]

27. The country is more like an oligarchy.

"government by the few, especially despotic power exercised by a small and privileged group for corrupt or selfish purposes"

https://www.britannica.com/topic/oligarchy

[redstateblues]

28. All the explaining in the world is not going to make "socialism" an election winner in 2020

USSR. Union of Soviet Sociaist Republics is what springs to the mind when you say “socialism”

[democratisphere]

30. Must mean our first Universal Income checks are in the mail.

[Backseat Driver]

32. Not a socialist; however, with the mess that unregulated capitalism

has screwed up every equitable opportunity for a more financially empowered, healthy, housed, and community diverse in color, religion, lifestyles, and without the hatefulness of spirit toward those whose mistakes, disabilities, and lack of kin subject themselves to generational lack of opportunity, I offer that programs that serve such a population so devoid of care because of fear their riches will be depleted needs enforceable oversight of the hoarders of power, wealth, and infamous corruption.

If we care about our children, our friends and neighbors, the innate humanity of the people of our nation, and the wealth of our resources and environment, it is expedient to have "social" programs that offer what our Constitution recognizes as necessary to promote the general welfare.

These "social" programs should offer fair and equal wages and protections from discrimination to workers, an equally funded way and means to educate our children in the skills and arts of living in our competitive world knowing that verifiable research and accountable development require strong, thoughtful management. It requires a justice system that can be counted on by every man, woman, and child, not a tiered system unreachable to those of limited means, both to the injured and the complainant, and as related to capital crimes of violence, especially where lethal weapons are used or made accessible to those with evil intent; one that also recognizes the high damage done by passive-aggressive means of greed, neglect, and abuse of authority known as "white collar crime" and meaningful sentences of rehabilitation without obstructing plea bargains for the guilty. Our values and dignity demanded these "socialistically regulated systems that have been corrupted so badly that legislation has taken root to forever feed many who don't have those values nor recognize the dignity of our citizenry at large nor it's individual humanity.

Why is it wrong to recognize that such large systems need be handled through a system that spreads the costs most equitably and regulates it to offer the best possible means to operate within law to enhance this nation's goodness instead of its evil power. That is not socialism, that is following the tenets of our Constitution and Bill of Rights. Resist those who would twist both what it says and the broad hand it offers to find a path to success and to live in peace.

[quickesst]

33. To me, being labeled a socialist....

.... is like Mrs. Smith honoring her father by naming her son after him. Adolph will not serve him well. Personally, I've got enough problems in my life.