Enlarge(Credit: AP/Charlie Neibergall)
On October 21, 2015, Conor Lynch writes on Salon:
On Sunday, after a week of being asked whether he was a socialist or a capitalist, and accused of being a communist by some of the more hysterical Republican candidates, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) announced that he is planning a “major speech” to explain to the American people what “Democratic Socialism” is really all about. “I think we have some explaining and work to do,” Sanders told a crowd in Iowa, conceding that the S-word has long made many Americans “very, very nervous.”
After nearly a century of red-baiting and anti-socialist propaganda, this will happen. But today is a much better time to run as a socialist than in the past, and Sanders could be just the man to open up our political playing field to future socialists — or Democratic Socialists, to be more accurate — if he can finally remove the stigma from the word. Of course, communism fell a quarter-century ago, and for many millennials who grew up in a post-Cold War period, the word socialism actually evokes a more positive response than capitalism, according to a poll by the Pew Research Center. This is certainly a good sign for the future of socialist politics; however, the majority of Americans today are not millennials, and there is great deal of ignorance when it comes to these words, which tend to elicit a whirlwind of emotions.
There seem to be two common, yet very different, thoughts that come to the minds of many Americans when they hear the word socialism. For some, it automatically means 20th century communism, i.e. a Stalinist or Maoist dictatorship where the state controls all ways of life and plans the entire economy while enslaving all dissenters. On the other hand, it is thought of as a massive bureaucratized welfare state, where citizens are lazy and rely on the government for “free stuff.” In America, this view has always had a racial undertone, with a narrative that it is African Americans or Hispanic immigrants who are getting the free stuff off of the hard work of white people. Today, this dog-whistle strategy is alive and well, as we see in one of Donald Trump’s recent tweets: “Notice that illegal immigrants will be given ObamaCare and free college tuition but nothing has been mentioned about our VETERANS.”
Now, it is important for Sanders to explain to the people what he is and what he is not. Sanders calls himself a Democratic Socialist, and does not argue when reporters leave out the first word, as they tend to. But in reality, Sanders is less a Democratic Socialist and more a “Social Democrat.” The Scandinavian countries that Sanders rightfully praises, such as Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, are Social Democracies. These countries have strong welfare states (another term that has been demonized through dog-whistle politics), which means universal healthcare, free college tuition, a well regulated market, etc. These countries are still very much capitalist societies, just with rules that create a more even playing field. Democratic Socialism, on other hand, is the belief that both the political and economic spheres should be run democratically. It is important to note that Democratic Socialism does not want to replace corporate ownership with state ownership, and is critical of state bureaucracy as well as corporate bureaucracy. On the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) website, this is explained in further detail:
“Today, corporate executives who answer only to themselves and a few wealthy stockholders make basic economic decisions affecting millions of people. Resources are used to make money for capitalists rather than to meet human needs. We believe that the workers and consumers who are affected by economic institutions should own and control them. Social ownership could take many forms, such as worker-owned cooperatives or publicly owned enterprises managed by workers and consumer representatives. Democratic socialists favor as much decentralization as possible… Democratic socialists have long rejected the belief that the whole economy should be centrally planned. While we believe that democratic planning can shape major social investments like mass transit, housing, and energy, market mechanisms are needed to determine the demand for many consumer goods.”
“Democratic Socialism and Social Democracy do have much in common, of course, but the latter is more concerned about providing basic necessities to all citizens, while the former is focused on spreading ownership of capital and creating a truly democratic society. Sanders promotes policies that reflect both. As a Social Democrat, he advocates universal healthcare and free college tuition, while as a Democratic Socialist, he promotes employee ownership and worker cooperatives.”
“It is important to note that Democratic Socialism does not want to replace corporate ownership with state ownership, and is critical of state bureaucracy as well as corporate bureaucracy.”
“We believe that the workers and consumers who are affected by economic institutions should own and control them. Social ownership could take many forms, such as worker-owned cooperatives or publicly owned enterprises managed by workers and consumer representatives. Democratic socialists favor as much decentralization as possible…”
Bernie Sander is not nor any other candidate for the presidency advocating the classic definition of socialism, which is the abolishment of private property ownership in the means of production. Regulation yes, in order to look out for each other. What we have now is “Hoggism,” propelled by greed and the sheer love of power over others. “Hoggism” institutionalizes greed (creating concentrated capital ownership, monopolies, and special privileges). “Hoggism” is about the ability of greedy rich people to manipulate the lives of people who struggle with declining labor worker earnings and job opportunities, and then accumulate the bulk of the money through monopolized productive capital ownership. Our scientists, engineers, and executive managers who are not owners themselves, except for those in the highest employed positions, are encouraged to work to destroy employment by making the capital “worker” owner more productive. How much employment can be destroyed by substituting machines for people is a measure of their success––always focused on producing at the lowest cost. Only the people who already own productive capital are the beneficiaries of their work, as they systematically concentrate more and more capital ownership in their stationary 1 percent ranks. Yet the 1 percent are not the people who do the overwhelming consuming. The result is the consumer populous is not able to earn the money to buy the products and services produced as a result of substituting machines for people. And yet you can’t have mass production without mass human consumption made possible by “customers with money.” It is the exponential disassociation of production and consumption that is the problem in the United States economy, and the reason that ordinary citizens must gain access to productive capital ownership to improve their economic well-being.
What Bernie Sanders and every other candidate for the presidency is failing to do is to address the solutions to hoggism. What about EVERY citizen a capital owner of wealth-creating, income-producing productive assets of our future economy?
To deal with critics of American socialism, Bernie Sanders should acknowledge that he does not advocate the abolition of private property in the means of production, the very core definition of socialism, but wants economic and social policies that will empower EVERY child, woman, and man to acquire significant wealth-creating, income-producing capital asset ownership simultaneously with the growth of the economy using insured, interest-free capital credit, repayable out of the future earnings of the investments in our economy, and prevent the further concentration of capital ownership among the tiny minority who now OWNS America and wields tremendous political power, as a result.
