Socialism less of a dirty word in the US?

[lpetrich]

3 reasons why socialism is gaining popularity in America

It's difficult to discuss socialism these days without acknowledging that its definition varies depending on who you're asking. For Republicans, socialism is often an all-purpose slur used to describe relatively mild ideas like progressive taxation and Medicare, while the rest of the country can use it as a catch-all term for a whole spectrum of ideas and approaches left of "expanding the safety net a little bit." Labeling an idea "democratic socialism" offers a bit more clarity, but only barely.

That article linked to Much ado about socialism, noting that what the US Left tends to support is not orthodox Marxism-Leninism but a sort of New Deal 2.0, something like what many northern European nations do. The sort of thing that the more hard-boiled left-wingers disdain as 'reformism".

Back to my first-linked article.

1. Leaders are paving the way for a second massive economic crisis within a generation.

Regulators are starting to ease the rules put in place after the economic meltdown that led to the Great Recession a decade ago.

If I was some big moneybags oligarch, I'd be warning bank managers to be VERY careful and not do the sorts of things that caused trouble in 2008. If they don't listen, then I'd warn them that I'm not going to help them if they get into trouble.

2. It is becoming more and more difficult for the average American to live life sustainably.

Some of capitalism's stoutest defenders attempt to spin its worst flaws as virtues.

60 Minutes on Twitter: "Elaine De Leon, a third-year medical student at NYU, borrowed $76,000 to pay for her first year of medical school. She says that if she were to pay it off on a ten-year plan, that debt would increase to $100,000. [url]https://t.co/mPpGonJYFd… https://t.co/BTwyOUnOve"[/url]
David French on Twitter: "The horrifying plight of med school grads in the US. A life of prosperity, respect, and help for your fellow man awaits. The humanity!… https://t.co/8d4hxkYczV"

3. The party of capitalism put Donald Trump in the White House.

The face of the American Way these days isn't an industrialist like Steve Jobs or somebody else who makes things that make lives better — it's a man who inherited his wealth, blew much of it, oversaw numerous failed businesses, and still managed to fail his way upward into cultural superstardom.

Among numerous other misdeeds. His Presidency has featured grotesque assholishness and turmoil. Like his former Secretary of State calling him a moron.

The article concludes

At its best, capitalism can create broad wealth and a strong middle class. But capitalism in America is far from being its best. Instead, this system has let money, property, power, and opportunity accumulate mostly at the very top of the food chain.

So if socialism is finding a foothold in the Midwest, it's not because effete coastal trendsetters are following the latest fad. Frustrated Americans everywhere are looking for an alternative to the fading status quo.

 

[Harry Bosch]

3 reasons why socialism is gaining popularity in America

That article linked to Much ado about socialism, noting that what the US Left tends to support is not orthodox Marxism-Leninism but a sort of New Deal 2.0, something like what many northern European nations do. The sort of thing that the more hard-boiled left-wingers disdain as 'reformism".

Back to my first-linked article.

If I was some big moneybags oligarch, I'd be warning bank managers to be VERY careful and not do the sorts of things that caused trouble in 2008. If they don't listen, then I'd warn them that I'm not going to help them if they get into trouble.

2. It is becoming more and more difficult for the average American to live life sustainably.

Some of capitalism's stoutest defenders attempt to spin its worst flaws as virtues.

60 Minutes on Twitter: "Elaine De Leon, a third-year medical student at NYU, borrowed $76,000 to pay for her first year of medical school. She says that if she were to pay it off on a ten-year plan, that debt would increase to $100,000. [url]https://t.co/mPpGonJYFd… https://t.co/BTwyOUnOve"[/url]
David French on Twitter: "The horrifying plight of med school grads in the US. A life of prosperity, respect, and help for your fellow man awaits. The humanity!… https://t.co/8d4hxkYczV"

3. The party of capitalism put Donald Trump in the White House.

The face of the American Way these days isn't an industrialist like Steve Jobs or somebody else who makes things that make lives better — it's a man who inherited his wealth, blew much of it, oversaw numerous failed businesses, and still managed to fail his way upward into cultural superstardom.

Among numerous other misdeeds. His Presidency has featured grotesque assholishness and turmoil. Like his former Secretary of State calling him a moron.

The article concludes

At its best, capitalism can create broad wealth and a strong middle class. But capitalism in America is far from being its best. Instead, this system has let money, property, power, and opportunity accumulate mostly at the very top of the food chain.

So if socialism is finding a foothold in the Midwest, it's not because effete coastal trendsetters are following the latest fad. Frustrated Americans everywhere are looking for an alternative to the fading status quo.

Socialism is the political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole. There is no room for privately owned companies in a socialist system.

Savvy right wingers began describing an increasing safety net (which requires higher taxes) during the 1950s. Most people don't like socialism because it doesn't work. There are some on the left who favor socialism. But I doubt that it's much more than 5% or so. But it boggles my mind as to why so many on the left have ceded the right's position that increased safety net is socialism! I really don't get it. Regulated capitalism is not socialism! It's incredible how the right has been able to convince a majority that social programs and regulations are evil. Well, good for them. That's democracy. But why are some on the left helping this effort?

 

[Politesse]

3 reasons why socialism is gaining popularity in America

That article linked to Much ado about socialism, noting that what the US Left tends to support is not orthodox Marxism-Leninism but a sort of New Deal 2.0, something like what many northern European nations do. The sort of thing that the more hard-boiled left-wingers disdain as 'reformism".

Back to my first-linked article.

If I was some big moneybags oligarch, I'd be warning bank managers to be VERY careful and not do the sorts of things that caused trouble in 2008. If they don't listen, then I'd warn them that I'm not going to help them if they get into trouble.


60 Minutes on Twitter: "Elaine De Leon, a third-year medical student at NYU, borrowed $76,000 to pay for her first year of medical school. She says that if she were to pay it off on a ten-year plan, that debt would increase to $100,000. [url]https://t.co/mPpGonJYFd… https://t.co/BTwyOUnOve"[/url]
David French on Twitter: "The horrifying plight of med school grads in the US. A life of prosperity, respect, and help for your fellow man awaits. The humanity!… https://t.co/8d4hxkYczV"

Among numerous other misdeeds. His Presidency has featured grotesque assholishness and turmoil. Like his former Secretary of State calling him a moron.

The article concludes

At its best, capitalism can create broad wealth and a strong middle class. But capitalism in America is far from being its best. Instead, this system has let money, property, power, and opportunity accumulate mostly at the very top of the food chain.

So if socialism is finding a foothold in the Midwest, it's not because effete coastal trendsetters are following the latest fad. Frustrated Americans everywhere are looking for an alternative to the fading status quo.

Socialism is the political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole. There is no room for privately owned companies in a socialist system.

Savvy right wingers began describing an increasing safety net (which requires higher taxes) during the 1950s. Most people don't like socialism because it doesn't work. There are some on the left who favor socialism. But I doubt that it's much more than 5% or so. But it boggles my mind as to why so many on the left have ceded the right's position that increased safety net is socialism! I really don't get it. Regulated capitalism is not socialism! It's incredible how the right has been able to convince a majority that social programs and regulations are evil. Well, good for them. That's democracy. But why are some on the left helping this effort?

Both parties are run by the same elite class. They're probably hoping that people will be happy with the idea of socialism even if the means of production are no more in their grasp than they were in the Gilded Age. I live in a very blue state, California, but truly socialist ideas are almost never discussed here, just little band-aid projects using public taxes to combat homelessness or pollution by ineffective means. Panem et circense. Economics-wise, we are the poster child for abusive capitalism, with one of the steepest divides of income inequality in the world and entire industries that do whatever they please with little union oversight. Even things that used to be in the commons, like water and rangeland management, are in private or semi-private hands, resulting in mismanagement-for-profit and wildfires thst burn down entire towns every summer.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

The Repubs as the party of capitalism? Ha!

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Socialism is the political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole. There is no room for privately owned companies in a socialist system.

There is Socialism and then there are socialistic ideals that can be integrated into a capitalistic system... ideals that are required to make capitalism sustainable. People do seem to be tossing the big S word around when they are talking about the smaller s word.

Savvy right wingers began describing an increasing safety net (which requires higher taxes) during the 1950s. Most people don't like socialism because it doesn't work. There are some on the left who favor socialism. But I doubt that it's much more than 5% or so. But it boggles my mind as to why so many on the left have ceded the right's position that increased safety net is socialism! I really don't get it. Regulated capitalism is not socialism! It's incredible how the right has been able to convince a majority that social programs and regulations are evil. Well, good for them. That's democracy. But why are some on the left helping this effort?

The GOP has done an unbelievable job at setting the message. It is why the draft dodging son of a huge DC insider, who went to Ivy League schools and vacationed in Maine was able to present a persona of the outsider western cowboy rancher... and beat a Vietnam War Veteran.

 

[PyramidHead]

The strategy of those on the left who advocate "socialism" when they actually mean "social democracy" is to make socialism more palatable by associating it with something that has been successful (though social democracy is starting to show its cracks). There is a subset of people--more than 5%, Harry--who are sympathetic to actual socialist ideas but can't imagine how they would work in practice because they've been continually bludgeoned with the Cold War-era message that they simply don't and can't. The resurgence of socialism as a label for policies that benefit the working class and the poor is a way to start that conversation. It's a shift in the window of acceptable dialog that gives a voice to the actual left in a way that hasn't been heard in almost a century in American politics, since the decline of the labor movement and the disappearance of American socialist and communist political parties.

 

[SimpleDon]

This demonizing of social programs as socialism goes back to the New Deal. Friedrich Hayek, one of the founders of neoliberalism, wrote The Road to Serfdom in which he argued that Social Security put us on to a slippery slope to totalitarian fascism or communism. The RTS is a gateway drug for libertarians, neoliberals, and free market fantasy believers. The RTS was condensed into the Fox News of the middle twentieth century, the Reader's Digest and was even put into comic book form by General Motors, which ironically is where it belonged all along.

 

[Canard DuJour]

Savvy right wingers began describing an increasing safety net (which requires higher taxes) during the 1950s.

In fact you are still rather falling for a crafty deception here. The welfare safety net along with massive investment in public goods (infrastructure, R&D, education) was payed for by deficit spending (i.e. not tax), which payed for itself with economic growth. The Keynesian post-war economic expansion.

Most people don't like socialism because it doesn't work. There are some on the left who favor socialism. But I doubt that it's much more than 5% or so. But it boggles my mind as to why so many on the left have ceded the right's position that increased safety net is socialism! I really don't get it. Regulated capitalism is not socialism! It's incredible how the right has been able to convince a majority that social programs and regulations are evil. Well, good for them. That's democracy. But why are some on the left helping this effort?

They aren't by now because those "savvy right wingers" have overplayed their hand. People think "well, if that's socialism, maybe I'm a socialist." Because neoliberalism hasn't worked like post-war Keynesianism did for most folks (which is actually what ppl like AOC are proposing). Don't wait for some twat like Grover Norquist to denounce you as a socialist!!! Pre-empt him, get past the label so he has to dispute actual policies which turn out to be wildly popular and have a history of working. Then it doesn't matter what pure socialism is.


ETA : meh - what PH and SD already said.

 

[PyramidHead]

Keynes envisioned the same future that socialists did: a massively shortened work week combined with widespread prosperity and leisure time, enabled by automation and the redistribution of societal wealth. He thought we'd get there sometime in the 20th century, but we're working more than ever despite our technology outpacing his wildest dreams. For me, that's the biggest reason to support socialism: we have lost the freedom to relax and enjoy our lives, to pursue our creative passions and form bonds of solidarity with each other for shared goals, and taken it as normal and good that we live this way because "growth". That has to stop, and Nordic-style social democracy won't stop it, although it may give us more spare time in the same way a particularly accommodating lord would give his serfdom a bigger share than the one in the next village. But the existence of a benevolent state, like the benevolent lord, at least plants the seed in people's minds that our endless work hours are a choice and not a necessity.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Keynes envisioned the same future that socialists did: a massively shortened work week combined with widespread prosperity and leisure time, enabled by automation and the redistribution of societal wealth. He thought we'd get there sometime in the 20th century, but we're working more than ever despite our technology outpacing his wildest dreams.

Funny... HG Wells figured the rich would devolve into simple creatures that'd be eaten by the working class who devolved into tunnel living animals.

For me, that's the biggest reason to support socialism: we have lost the freedom to relax and enjoy our lives, to pursue our creative passions and form bonds of solidarity with each other for shared goals, and taken it as normal and good that we live this way because "growth". That has to stop, and Nordic-style social democracy won't stop it, although it may give us more spare time in the same way a particularly accommodating lord would give his serfdom a bigger share than the one in the next village. But the existence of a benevolent state, like the benevolent lord, at least plants the seed in people's minds that our endless work hours are a choice and not a necessity.

This ignores that money is like bad cholesterol.

 

[PyramidHead]

Keynes envisioned the same future that socialists did: a massively shortened work week combined with widespread prosperity and leisure time, enabled by automation and the redistribution of societal wealth. He thought we'd get there sometime in the 20th century, but we're working more than ever despite our technology outpacing his wildest dreams.

Funny... HG Wells figured the rich would devolve into simple creatures that'd be eaten by the working class who devolved into tunnel living animals.

For me, that's the biggest reason to support socialism: we have lost the freedom to relax and enjoy our lives, to pursue our creative passions and form bonds of solidarity with each other for shared goals, and taken it as normal and good that we live this way because "growth". That has to stop, and Nordic-style social democracy won't stop it, although it may give us more spare time in the same way a particularly accommodating lord would give his serfdom a bigger share than the one in the next village. But the existence of a benevolent state, like the benevolent lord, at least plants the seed in people's minds that our endless work hours are a choice and not a necessity.

This ignores that money is like bad cholesterol.

Then let's work towards getting rid of that, too.

 

[Harry Bosch]

The strategy of those on the left who advocate "socialism" when they actually mean "social democracy" is to make socialism more palatable by associating it with something that has been successful (though social democracy is starting to show its cracks). There is a subset of people--more than 5%, Harry--who are sympathetic to actual socialist ideas but can't imagine how they would work in practice because they've been continually bludgeoned with the Cold War-era message that they simply don't and can't. The resurgence of socialism as a label for policies that benefit the working class and the poor is a way to start that conversation. It's a shift in the window of acceptable dialog that gives a voice to the actual left in a way that hasn't been heard in almost a century in American politics, since the decline of the labor movement and the disappearance of American socialist and communist political parties.

Well, the problem with socialism is that it's never been demonstrated to work. Everytime someone tries to implement it: they force people into it with blunt force. Demonstrate how it can work, don't force it on anyone, make it voluntary: then maybe you'll get some followers. I do think that certain aspects of socialism can work in smaller companies. But it fails as a business grows and becomes more complex. But I'm always open to new ways of doing things!

 

[dismal]

The strategy of those on the left who advocate "socialism" when they actually mean "social democracy" is to make socialism more palatable by associating it with something that has been successful (though social democracy is starting to show its cracks). There is a subset of people--more than 5%, Harry--who are sympathetic to actual socialist ideas but can't imagine how they would work in practice because they've been continually bludgeoned with the Cold War-era message that they simply don't and can't. The resurgence of socialism as a label for policies that benefit the working class and the poor is a way to start that conversation. It's a shift in the window of acceptable dialog that gives a voice to the actual left in a way that hasn't been heard in almost a century in American politics, since the decline of the labor movement and the disappearance of American socialist and communist political parties.

It’s a weird strategy - which of course means you find people here doing it all the time - I don’t really see the point of trying to rehab the word “socialism” by making it mean something different than it has historically meant while simultaneously squawking about how right wingers are trying to demonize things by calling them “socialism”. If you are for capitalism with a bigger welfare state, just argue for that.

 

[dismal]

The strategy of those on the left who advocate "socialism" when they actually mean "social democracy" is to make socialism more palatable by associating it with something that has been successful (though social democracy is starting to show its cracks). There is a subset of people--more than 5%, Harry--who are sympathetic to actual socialist ideas but can't imagine how they would work in practice because they've been continually bludgeoned with the Cold War-era message that they simply don't and can't. The resurgence of socialism as a label for policies that benefit the working class and the poor is a way to start that conversation. It's a shift in the window of acceptable dialog that gives a voice to the actual left in a way that hasn't been heard in almost a century in American politics, since the decline of the labor movement and the disappearance of American socialist and communist political parties.

Well, the problem with socialism is that it's never been demonstrated to work. Everytime someone tries to implement it: they force people into it with blunt force. Demonstrate how it can work, don't force it on anyone, make it voluntary: then maybe you'll get some followers. I do think that certain aspects of socialism can work in smaller companies. But it fails as a business grows and becomes more complex. But I'm always open to new ways of doing things!

But by its nature it is force. If you don’t ban people from forming businesses and attempting to better their lives they will attempt to do it. If you do ban people from forming business and attempting to better their lives you will need a police state to enforce the ban. This can be observed every time it’s tried.

 

[Canard DuJour]

I don’t really see the point of trying to rehab the word “socialism” by making it mean something different than it has historically meant while simultaneously squawking about how right wingers are trying to demonize things by calling them “socialism”.

Well I do and it's implicit in what you say.

If you are for capitalism with a bigger welfare state, just argue for that.

But that would misrepresent more democratic control of a mixed economy - which is what really gets some ppl squawking about socialism.

 

[Canard DuJour]

If you are for capitalism with a bigger welfare state, just argue for that.

But that would misrepresent more democratic control of a mixed economy - which is what really gets some ppl squawking about socialism.

..in fact the argument would be the complete opposite. That it is, in fact, people like Margaret Thatcher who are for capitalism with a bigger welfare state because that was the effect of her policies.

Unlike the more egalitarian economy of the decades before neoliberalism which saw high wage and productivity growth, low unemployment, and it was unthinkable that most welfare recipients would actually be in work.

 

[Canard DuJour]

"capitalism with a bigger welfare state"

Neoliberalism has turned out to be "capitalism with a bigger welfare state".

The worst of all worlds which no one wanted.

And now its apologists are "squawking" about "socialism".

 

[Harry Bosch]

If you are for capitalism with a bigger welfare state, just argue for that.

But that would misrepresent more democratic control of a mixed economy - which is what really gets some ppl squawking about socialism.

..in fact the argument would be the complete opposite. That it is, in fact, people like Margaret Thatcher who are for capitalism with a bigger welfare state because that was the effect of her policies.

Unlike the more egalitarian economy of the decades before neoliberalism which saw high wage and productivity growth, low unemployment, and it was unthinkable that most welfare recipients would actually be in work.

Canard: are you honestly arguing against yourself here?

 

[Harry Bosch]

"capitalism with a bigger welfare state"

Neoliberalism has turned out to be "capitalism with a bigger welfare state".

The worst of all worlds which no one wanted.

And now its apologists are "squawking" about "socialism".

Again, not following your general theme at all. However, IMO, the modern mixed economy with a healthy regulated safety net has produced the greatest economies for the greatest amount of people in history. There isn't a close second. Not sure how you can say that it's the worst of all possible worlds! What is the better system? I also think that you somehow have it backwards regarding safety net or social welfare. People who are against the growth of the safety net criticize it by calling it socialism. People on the right generally want a smaller safety net. People on the left generally want a larger safety net. It could be terms are slight different in the UK - I don't know. But I think that you are misunderstanding some terms here.

I also think that you are confused when it comes to Margaret Thatcher. Again, I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt since you are British. But a fast google search on Margaret Thatcher and the welfare state reports that she was far from an advocate for expanding the social welfare state:

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...r-breakup-of-welfare-state-despite-nhs-pledge

 

[Canard DuJour]

"capitalism with a bigger welfare state"

Neoliberalism has turned out to be "capitalism with a bigger welfare state".

The worst of all worlds which no one wanted.

And now its apologists are "squawking" about "socialism".

Again, not following your general theme at all. However, IMO, the modern mixed economy with a healthy regulated safety net has produced the greatest economies for the greatest amount of people in history. There isn't a close second. Not sure how you can say that it's the worst of all possible worlds! What is the better system?

The post-war Keynesian era before the current neoliberal era. OECD economies enjoyed growth averaging > 4% per year by the 1950s, and nearly 5% per year in the 1960s, compared with 2% in the 1980s when median wage growth stopped.

Even with growth in China and India, global GDP growth has slowed, despite the IT revolution, and all but stopped in some places like Britain since the crash of 2008.

As I said.

If you just don't know what I'm talking about, then you just haven't the knowledge for this kind of discourse.

I also think that you somehow have it backwards regarding safety net or social welfare. People who are against the growth of the safety net criticize it by calling it socialism. People on the right generally want a smaller safety net. People on the left generally want a larger safety net. It could be terms are slight different in the UK - I don't know. But I think that you are misunderstanding some terms here.

I also think that you are confused when it comes to Margaret Thatcher. Again, I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt since you are British. But a fast google search on Margaret Thatcher and the welfare state reports that she was far from an advocate for expanding the social welfare state:

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...r-breakup-of-welfare-state-despite-nhs-pledge

Nobody wants a big welfare state just for the sake of it. What lefties want is a big safety net and a small welfare state, i.e. people able to support themselves like they could during the pre-neoliberal era of high wage and productivity growth. Thatcher delivered the opposite. She attacked the safety net and put millions on the dole. Inequality and household debt exploded. Now, after 4 decades of neoliberalism, the distinction between work and welfare is permanently blurred. Most welfare recipients are now the working poor.

What little growth we've seen since Thatcher has been driven by private debt. During the century before 1980, private debt averaged a steady 57% of GDP. By the GFC it had exploded to nearly 200% of GDP :



So much for all the horseshit about self-reliance and sound finance.

Economists using the Oxford econometric model (which makes some pretty neoliberal assumptions) have calculated that, without the consumer credit and housing bubbles, the pre-crash economy wouldn't have looked much better than the post-crash economy, in either the UK or US.

IOW it never really worked. Without escalating debt, neoliberlism cannot maintain living standards for the mass of people.