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United States News Title: What Would a Socialist America Look Like? Just a decade ago, socialism was a dirty word in American politics. Debates over its merits were mostly limited to obscure blogs, niche magazines and political parties on the other side of the Atlantic. But more recently Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and a handful of other politicians have breathed new life into the label, injecting a radical alternate vision for the U.S. economy into the mainstream political debate. Ahead of the midterms, politicians like Ocasio-Cortez, Michigans Rashida Tlaib, and Kansas James Thompson have proudly held up their endorsements from Democratic Socialists of America, the countrys largest socialist group, whose numbers have swelled since Sanders 2016 presidential campaign. For Fox News viewers, its the stuff of nightmaresnot to mention that skittish Democrats fear alienating swing voters more comfortable with their partys post-Lyndon B. Johnson incrementalism. According to a poll from August, however, for the first time since Gallup has asked the question, more Democrats approve of socialism than of capitalism. Could socialism really come to Americaand what would it look like? Politico Magazine invited a group of socialist writers, policy wonks and politicians (and a few critics) to weigh in, and their responses were as diverse as the movement itselfreflecting, if nothing else, the expanded political horizons of our post-Trump brave new world. Derek Robertson *** If its good enough for the Nordics, its good enough for us. One way to implement socialism in the United States would be to copy many of the economic institutions found in the Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Norway. These countries, which consistently rank near the top of the world in happiness, human development and overall well-being, have highly organized labor markets, universal welfare states and relatively high levels of public ownership of capital. To move in the Nordic direction, the United States should promote the mass unionization of its workforce, increase legal protections against arbitrary termination and allow workers to control some of the seats on the corporate boards of the companies they work in, as Senator Elizabeth Warren has recently suggested. When it comes to the welfare state, the country should create a national health insurance system, akin to some Democrats Medicare for All proposals, extend new parents paid leave from work, provide young children free child care and pre-K, and give each family a $300 per month allowance per child. The United States should also provide housing stipends to those on low incomes and increase the minimum benefits for those on senior and disability pensions. To increase public ownership over capital, the government should establish a social wealth fund and gradually fill that fund with capital assets purchased on the open market. Over time, the returns from this fund could be parceled out as universal payments to every American, or used for general government revenue. The government should also build at least 10 million units of publicly owned, mixed-income social housing, which would both increase public ownership of the U.S. housing stock and provide a much-needed boost to the housing supply in prohibitively expensive metropolitan areas. *** Democratic socialism is about expanding democracy. The often-ignored core of how we would implement socialism is the expansion of who makes decisions in society and how, including the democratic ownership of the workplace. Democratic socialism in the United States is as much about expanding democracy as it is anything else. In the short term, socialists, like liberals, want to protect, strengthen, and expand social services and public goods. We do so, however, not just because those programs are humane, but to move us toward a social democracy where peoples lives are less bound to the whims of the so-called free market. Universal health care and a jobs guarantee, two seemingly radical ideas that are in fact currently before the Senate, would be just the first steps toward social democracy. Establishing democratic socialism means democratizing ownership of capital, our jobs and our personal lives. Socialists believe that if you work somewhere, you should have a say it in how its run. Through unions, worker councils and elected boards, this is possible at the company level today. Furthermore, if your labor generates profit, under socialism you would have an ownership stake and a democratic say in how your workplace is run. Co-ops and public enterprises like Mandragon in the Basque country, Cooperation Jackson in Mississippi and Red Emmas in Baltimore give us a partial glimpse into what such ownership could look like. This type of democratized economy would grant autonomy to historically neglected communities, and it would be the foundation of any socialist United States. *** Call it what you want, its about making communities more equal. Socialism, to me, means ensuring that our government policy puts human needs before corporate greed and that we build communities where everyone has a chance to thrive. Im resistant to labels, even ones that might obviously describe me, like progressive, because I feel like once the media starts defining you, instead of letting your actions speak volumes, you start to lose a bit of who you are. Im proud to be a member of the Metro Detroit DSA because they are working for the same things Im working fora living wage for all people, abolishing ICE and securing universal health care, to name just a few. Were trying to create communities where the education you have access to, or the jobs youre able to get, dont depend on your zip code or your race or gender. People arent looking for a progressive or a democratic socialist representative, necessarily, but they also arent scared of those wordstheyre just looking for a fighter who will put their needs ahead of corporate profits and never back down. So, if other people want to call me a democratic socialist based on my fighting for public goods that make us all better off, thats fine with me, and I certainly wont tell them otherwise. But I define myself through my own unique lensIm a mother fighting for justice for all. Ultimately, Im trying to build coalitions and inspire activists to create a society where everyone has a chance to flourish. Thats the socialism Im interested in. *** Socialism would remedy the systemic deprivation of people of color. A more democratically socialistor equitableAmerican economy would require a re-engineering of the structures that have systematically stripped wealth and other resources from communities of color. To see these structures, one could look back hundreds of years to Europeans stripping land from Native Americans and enslaving Africans to till that land; one could look back just nine months to Republicans passing a tax cut to benefit their big-money donors at the expense of the working and poor people. Additionally, a new system would adjust how corporations are treated, recognizing what is already true: We invest in corporations and the infrastructure they rely on because they should serve us. With the current mood for deregulation and cutting taxes, weve shifted power to corporations. Appropriate regulation and fair taxation help business to pool resourceswhether money (as in finance), power (as in energy companies), technology, foodand distribute them where they truly need to go. Crucially, an equitable future requires that everyone has an equal say in American democracyequal ease in access to voting, free of overly restrictive hurdles. Smart public financing would enable voters to participate meaningfully by donating to candidates and enable all qualified citizens to run for office. Money should not give the wealthy extra votes. A more balanced political economy would recognize that only speech is speech, and the opportunity to influence the thinking of representatives is through the soundness of ideas. *** Democratic socialism means democratic ownership over the economy. A democratically elected government should own natural monopolies such as utilities and rail transport; provide social services like health care, education, housing, child care and banking; and create a general welfare state that eliminates poverty through guaranteeing a minimum income, with assistance for people with disabilities, the elderly and families with children. But we have to go beyond that. We need measures to establish democratic ownership over the wider economy, and eliminate our dependence on industries that rely on pollution and war for their existence. There need to be strategies to allow workers in the defense, aerospace and fossil fuel industries to repurpose their facilities for more socially useful production, drawing on the example of the Lucas Plan in Britain, where workers designed and published a viable alternative corporate plan that included funding for renewable energy, public transport and medical technology. We need a mechanism to transfer corporate equity into sector-oriented social wealth funds controlled by diverse and accountable stakeholders, which would gradually transfer ownership away from unaccountable elites and toward inclusive institutions. A democratic socialist America would be a society where wealth and power are far more evenly distributed, and it would be less cruel, less lonely and less alienating. Democratic socialism aims for the liberation of human agency and creativitynot just in America, but in all the countries that capital exploits and invades for the profits of our nations billionaires. *** Its about giving everyone a voice in decision-making. Our collective power is the key to what socialism in America would look like, because democratic socialism rests on one key premise: We dont have a blueprint, so expanding democracy to include all of us is both the means and the end. The problem with capitalism is not just that a system fueled by a wealthy, profit-hungry elite is inherently unstable, or that it leaves whole layers of society starving in the streets. It is that it relies on the dictatorship of the rich. The fundamental difference we expect from a socialist society is that we will all have a voice in the decisions that impact our lives. Workplaces will be owned by the workers who run them, rather than an authoritarian boss. The political system will be truly democratic, rather than run by those who have bought the politicians. Family life will be more democratic, and no one will have to depend on a breadwinner to survive because public services like health care will be available to all, and will be run with community oversight. Finally, government investment will be democratic, rather than decided by corporate donors or Wall Street gamblers. In other words, we will have true freedom, not just survivalthe choices available to us now that depend on the whims of the few. *** Its much simpler: social insurance. Almost a century after FDR signed the Social Security Act into law, it remains his most enduring legacy, helping to keep more than 22 million seniors out of poverty each yearand protecting millions more from the risk of outliving their savings. And yet, we generally dont think of Social Security as, well, socialist. But why shouldnt we? Not only is it the federal governments largest outlayone third of the budget, at nearly $1 trillion per yearbut its establishment signified that even the most rugged American individualist is ultimately bound to his or her fellow citizens. The frontier spirit of American entrepreneurship, and the enormous heterogeneity that comes with being a nation of immigrants, means the United States will never have the high-trust brand of social democracy one finds in Northern Europe. Yet the success of Social Security provides a two-word hint for how America can become more socialist overnight: social insurance. Social insurance is the public pooling of risks that markets struggle to contain, from pre-existing medical conditions to the sudden loss of employment. It can be done efficiently by any government competent enough to cut checks. And while the bureaucratic opacity of the Social Security Administration can be infuriating, it appears perfectly compatible with Americas low-trust brand of pluralism. This suggests that the path forward for American socialists is not occupying Wall Street, but the streets of Hartford, Connecticutthe nations insurance industry capital. *** Forget social democracy. America is ready for actual socialism. When socialism comes to America, it wont be one size fits allalthough it will have universalist aspects and aspirations. Rather than imposed from above, it will be bottom up, in line with Americas best traditionsable to draw, like the New Deal, on a rich tapestry of experimentation in state and local laboratories of democracy. It will be democratic, decentralized and participatory. It will be rooted in racial, gender and sexual justice, recalling Langston Hughes and that never has been yetand yet must be. It will dismantle an already-existing American gulagtodays racialized regime of mass incarceration, encompassing the largest prison population in the worldrather than imposing one. It will be about living safely, wisely and well within a flourishing commons, in solidarity with our nonhuman comrades, rather than overshooting ecological boundaries in the pursuit of financial accumulation. This will be actual socialism, rather than social democracy or liberalism, because it will have socialized the means of productionalthough in plural forms that do not all center on the state. Instead of concentrated wealth, it will have broad dispersal of ownership. Instead of frictionless global markets, the rooted, participatory, recirculatory local economy. Instead of extractive multinational corporations, the worker, community and municipally owned firm. Instead of asset-stripping privatization, myriad forms of democratic public enterprise. Instead of private credit creation by commercial banks and rentier finance, the massive potential power of public banks and sovereign government financeharkening back to Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt. *** A radical alternative to an American capitalist system that is anything but free. A practical form of socialism in the United States in the 21st century would occur when democratic ownership displaces and supersedes the current, dominant extractive corporate model. There is no single, ideal form of democratic ownership, but an enormous variety including full state ownership, partial state ownership, local/municipal ownership, multi-stakeholder ownership, worker ownership, consumer cooperative ownership, producer cooperative ownership, community ownership and sustainable local private ownership. Despite all the rhetoric about the free market, the American capitalist system is anything but. Its already reliant on a heavy dose of government policy, regulation, administration and accompanying interventions at various levelsin some cases even approximating soft planning, as in, for example, the farm sector. Some such mix of markets and planning will, at least at first, inevitably be a feature of an American socialist system, ideally with more democratic involvement in determining long-term national, regional and local priorities, on one hand. On the other, it will feature greater rationality in efforts toward more geographically equitable economic developmentnot to mention dealing with the increasing threat of climate change. *** America could turn into Western Europe. But should it? When Americans talk about socialism, they typically arent referring to government seizing property and taking control of industry. Rather, they mean more aggressive and redistributive policies, with more regulation and higher taxes to fund more generous welfare servicessimilar to policies already implemented in Western Europe. While this path is clearly preferable to more extreme versions of socialism, Americans should still be wary. Higher taxes and more generous welfare services discourage work and invite people to rely on the state. Countries with strong cultures of work and personal responsibility are held up as examples of how this system can succeed, but these are the exceptions; high unemployment rates and lower incomes are the norm. Americans also face unique budgetary concerns: Europe has been able to forgo massive spending on defense and national security largely because of the role the U.S. military plays in our global alliances. The United States has no such guaranteed backstop. Meaningfully cutting defense spending will make not just our country, but the world, less secure. Just as importantly, Americans ought to consider how welfare-state socialism undermines peoples basic gumption. Europeans can hardly bother to reproduce, are less charitable, have less civic engagement and are less entrepreneurial than Americans. American innovation, risk-taking and our fundamental commitment to leaving the next generation better off than the last would all be jeopardized if we embrace European socialism. These are the virtues we would undoubtedly miss the most. *** A complete welfare state, a transformed labor market and state ownership of the means of production. The moral motivation for a move to socialism is egalitarianism, taken from John Rawls or Jesus Christ or whomever. The basic objective would be to harness the wealth developed by the collective operation of the economy on behalf of the entire population, because it is unjust for a tiny elite minority to hoover up a gigantic fraction of income and wealth while millions are destitute or just scraping by. In general, there are three main socialist policy objectives that make the most sense. The first is a complete welfare state, in which the state will catch every category of person who either falls out of work or cannot workthe unemployed, children, students, elderly, disabled, carers and so on. Once complete, the welfare state removes the capitalist compulsion to work by threat of destitution, and replaces that threat with the offer of job placement, training and so forth. Second would be a radically transformed labor market, in which virtually all workers are unionized and covered by union contracts, wage differentials between skilled and unskilled are sharply compressed, and workers hold perhaps 33 percent to 50 percent of corporate board seats. Third is the direct state ownership of the means of production, either through building up productive state enterprises, nationalizing certain key companies, or scooping up large swathes of corporate equity into a social wealth fund (as Alaska has done). This last one is the most radical but, I think, necessary to really hammer down inequality. A third of all national income goes to capital, ownership of which is increasingly concentrated. Indeed, all the top 1 percent income growth since 2000 has come from capital. *** Markets are not enough to solve the problems we face. Socialism is the radically simple idea that democratic values should guide our economy toward the maximization of human flourishing, rather than the accumulation of capital. We would never accept decisions about our government being made exclusively by old rich white men, and we shouldnt accept decisions about our economy being made that way. Historically, rich white men as a group have not been the best stewards of the common interests of humanity. When our economy is not democratic, its impossible for our government to be. We cannot steer our society toward maximum well-being as efficiently as the interests of capital override the interests of our shared humanity. Take, for example, climate change: The math is simple. Our largest corporations have fossil fuel supplies that, if burned through, would push global concentrations of carbon to more than twice the dangerous threshold. The choice is simple: Humanity exists, and companies take a write-off, or companies maintain profitability and human life is extinguished. How do socialists differ from liberal Democrats? First, socialists recognize that markets alone are not enough to solve the problems we face. In the current moment, the market capitalization of just a few large fossil fuel companies has been enough to override the will of not just American voters, but the international community. More of the economy must be taken out of the hands of marketsnot just energy production, but health care, through socialized medicine. Second, socialists recognize that a welfare state built on imperialism is not a progressive goal. The United States, as many Democratic politicians like noting, is the wealthiest country in the world. That wealth is built on violence tantamount to murder on a global scale. It is the wages of empire. A socialist politics strives for a radical flattening of the global income distribution. Socialists believe that without democratic control of capital and an end to imperialism, the goals of progressivism will be left unfulfilled. Socialists argue that capitalism is incompatible with democracy. To those who disagree, we pose a simple question: which will be wiped out soonerthe market capitalization of ExxonMobil, or the city of Miami?
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#1. To: Willie Green (#0)
A picture is worth a thousand words. ― Napoléon Bonaparte, circa ~ 1800
It would look like Berniezuela. It would be like a choo-choo train going nowhere.
Democracy wiTh Sub human savages Is cannibalism Uugah uugah If you ... don't use exclamation points --- you should't be typeing ! Commas - semicolons - question marks are for girlie boys !
It still is to those that have two brain cells left! Socialism/Communism/Fascism/Marxism doesn't work! Why do you ask? Why would any sane productive person work while other nonproductive people are at home playing games, watching TV, doing drugs and fucking??????????? If you can get this figured out you come back to me and we shall talk!!!
Yeah Willie Gods of The jungle PuT a red haT On sideways King of The jungle Love ps ConsTiTuTion of The jungle drums
If you ... don't use exclamation points --- you should't be typeing ! Commas - semicolons - question marks are for girlie boys !
Detroit.
In the entire history of the world,the only nations that had to build walls to keep their own citizens from leaving were those with leftist governments.
You can't lump all these ideas together. It has not been proven that socialism doesn't work. When I read the description in the first part of this article I could have been reading the description of the Australian economy I grew up in. It worked very well until the forces of conservatism started messing with it, privatising public assets. There is nothing wrong with social responsibility, there is something wrong with rampant capitalism where avaristic CEO rape corporations and ultimately the public
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Socialists_of_America Membership 2018 50,000. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Chess_Federation Membership as of 2018 over 85,000 Dang. The Socialists have swelled their number to almost 60% that of the U.S. Chess Federation. The GOP can run chess players against the Dem socialists.
Those are stages of communism and you can not just have limited use do to corruption of humans. Just like Venezuela people found out you can not tame socialism once it gets a solid foot. It starts with identity politics which allows the corrupt nature of man to turn government from communism light(socialism) to full blown communism. It cant be helped or stopped. You can slow it down but it will turn. Its already happening all over the world and the peons are starting to see this. With immigrations from nonwestern society and if you say something your a racist (identity politics). If you believe and your country your are a fascist (identity politics).
Capitalism will solve the problem if socialist get out of the way. The reason these guys make so much is because of corrupt government supporting these big global corporations. Capitalism will solve almost all issues if corrupt government stays out of the way. To big to fail is really crony capitalism which is socialism. Im not sure how many times socialism must fail and destroy nations before people realize capitalism is the best we have. It was capitalism that took the world where 1% owned everything to 98% own property. Before capitalism you where either a peon or lord. We went from lords telling everyone what to do to people deciding how they will live and where they will live. I just think people have forgotten what has happen in just a few centuries under capitalism!
Fuck off, you filthy socialist.
I'm the infidel... Allah warned you about. كافر المسلح
GrandIsland sez: Fuck off, you filthy socialist. GI - Apparently, you fail to understand the double negative that "paraclete" suggested. He is basically suggesting that "it has been proven that socialism works." You should have laffed @him while asking to cite sources from around the world.
The latest version of Socialism: Venezuela hits bottom running water now scarce https://www.westernjournal.com/ct/venezuela-hits-rock-bottom-now-even-running- water-scarce/?ff_source=Email&ff_medium=CVBreaking&ff_campaign=ct- breaking&ff_content=libertyalliance
Vegetarians eat vegetables. Beware of humanitarians!
And thats why GrandIsland sez: Fuck off, you filthy socialist. He/she is full of libtard shit... and he can FOAD
I'm the infidel... Allah warned you about. كافر المسلح
Capitalism and Communism have a flaw, they reduce everything to the lowest denominator, with capitalism it is money, with communism it is people. Capitalism exploits the same denominator as communism does; people. This means the people with the most money control those with the least. What problem does this solve? Socialism is not communism, socialism does not seek to be totalitarian, it seeks to redistribute wealth and thus capitalists oppose it. For 1% to control 99% is wrong, it is undemocratic. Capitalism cannot exist in a society where the resources are equally distributed, and another form of governance is needed. Capitalism allowed the world to go to hell in the early 1940's and profited by it Communism mobilised against the threat and laid their resources on the line, necessity; yes, but there was no profit in it. If they had not done it, vast recourses would have fallen into the hands of totalitarians and the outcome would have been different
You have demonstrated that you are losing the argument
You can't learn, can you? Congratulations. Youve been initiated into the world of chit-chat. (Sorry, theres no secret hand- shake or decoder ring.) You could have been polite to others in your opinion, BUT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
Thats a weakness.
I'm the infidel... Allah warned you about. كافر المسلح
Take a look who my president is... whos getting nominated into the USSC. I AINT LOSING SHIT, douche bag. lol
I'm the infidel... Allah warned you about. كافر المسلح
did you see who was sitting behind him in the hearing? I've seen your president, all I can say is you are easily impressed, but then he follows in a long tradition. Do you think he thought up that nomination all by himself, it must have been on a piece of paper that actually landed on his desk. It took a while but the president's men finally got hold of the reins, kiddy reins that is
All GOP pols have to do is run slide shows of Venezuela and S. Africa...
True but there is no comparison. Capitalism lets the individual decide without coercion from the state while communism removes all choices. Oh in the fact that communism has murdered more innocent people than any political institution in the history of the world. There is no close second! Capitalism exploits the same denominator as communism does; people. Absolutely false! The rest is propaganda. No other system comes close to capitalism. Socialis/Communism are the control of the people by a small group of people and the people have absolutely no recourse. American founding fathers are brilliant people who did the best they could to set a standard for the world. Capitalism has some area's that need work. Mainly keep socialist away from any power to ruin the state. People always want to throw the baby out with the bath water. Capitalism just needs a few minor tweaks. Get rid of the social programs which steals from productive to give to the nonproductive without any protections for the productive. Its ripe for corruption and guess what that's exactly what happens. I bet that 10% of the money taken from the productive actually makes its way to the needy. Social programs are not necessary because good people give freely to those that truly need it. BTW im not a libertarian in the classical sense but a better name would be a libertarian with common sense. You have to have borders, military, police etc. keep government as small as possible and chain it down with many laws to protect the people's rights and liberties.
And Detroit...
Vegetarians eat vegetables. Beware of humanitarians!
Israel is small and they have an infusion of outside money from the American taxpayer. If the flow of money would stop they would adapt they aren't as dumb as the other countries who have tried it. You should try some of the ammunition they make it's pretty nice stuff, I have both 9MM and .45 and have no issues using it.
Vegetarians eat vegetables. Beware of humanitarians!
The Organized Criminal cult of socialist blood suckers have been "adapting" for 3000 years: Korah was:
no one suggests this is the way to do it
Thered be a bunch of dead snowflakes laying around from conservative sniper fire.
I'm the infidel... Allah warned you about. كافر المسلح
Are you saying that conservatives are murderers?
No, it never starts out like that Commie-Socialist model. But always winds up just like it.
I think GI is suggesting that your Antifa-BLM-Commie fascist allies might find their collective commited assault and war on the rest of us to.... turn out badly. If conservatives decide to defend themselves, the results won't be pretty.
And that other "model" of Dems for the rest of us: CAMDEN, NJ.
TY for educating the sites token potato.
I'm the infidel... Allah warned you about. كافر المسلح
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