Socialism, a US View

Sixty years after McCarthyism made socialism “un-American”, Bernie Sanders has placed it back on the agenda. “Back” because socialism has a long history in our country, with such prominent advocates as Helen Keller and Albert Einstein. In the Sanders era, advocates of socialism are challenged to think and talk about what socialism really is, its essential promise, how it fits the American experience, what it might look like for the US, and how it’s a goal every American can embrace and help make a reality. But first, here’s what Bernie Sanders had to say about socialism.

Bernie Sanders showed how socialism makes sense for America

Sanders made a powerful case for his vision of socialism in a speech at Georgetown University on 19 Nov. In the New Deal of the 1930s, Sanders said, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt acted “against the ferocious opposition of the ruling class of his day, people he called economic royalists”: “Roosevelt implemented a series of programs that put millions of people back to work, took them out of poverty and restored their faith in government. He redefined the relationship of the federal government to the people of our country. He combatted cynicism, fear and despair. He reinvigorated democracy. He transformed the country. And that is what we have to do today.”
Sanders noted both FDR and Lyndon Johnson, who enacted Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s, were assailed by the right wing as socialists in their day. He did not mention the enormous mass movements of the 1930s and 1960s that pushed both Roosevelt and Johnson to act. But he acknowledged it implicitly when he declared that today:

“We need to develop a political movement which, once again, is prepared to take on and defeat a ruling class whose greed is destroying our nation. The billionaire class cannot have it all. Our government belongs to all of us, and not just the one percent”.

“A ruling class whose greed is destroying our nation”, Sanders didn’t say it specifically, but that is the essence and logic of capitalism. Defeating this ruling class, according to Sanders, means bringing about “a culture which, as Pope Francis reminds us, cannot just be based on the worship of money”.
Sanders cited calls by Roosevelt in 1944 and Martin Luther King Jr in the 1960s for an economy that serves the people. In their view, he said, you cannot have freedom without economic security—as Sanders put it:

“The right to a decent job at decent pay, the right to adequate food, clothing, and time off from work, the right for every business, large and small, to function in an atmosphere free from unfair competition and domination by monopolies. The right of all Americans to have a decent home and decent health care”.

Getting to that freedom means reshaping political power in our country, Sanders said, because “today in America we not only have massive wealth and income inequality, but a power structure which protects that inequality”.

“Democratic socialism, to me, does not just mean that we must create a nation of economic and social justice. It also means that we must create a vibrant democracy based on the principle of one person one vote”.

How socialism can transform our society to serve the people

The connection between our economic and political structures is stronger than Sanders indicated. They are not two parallel systems. We have a political power structure that maintains, protects and preserves an economic system that fuels inequality and injustice. Our economic system based on greed drives (in many ways or in important ways) our political system. The right-wing-dominated Supreme Court’s notorious Citizens United ruling is just one illustration of the role of Big Money—Big Capital—in politics. This is why it’s called “capital”-ism.
Socialism is simply about rebuilding our society so that working people of all kinds, all colors, all languages, all faiths—the car worker, the nurse, the computer technician, the McDonald’s worker, the teacher, the gay family farmer and the farm laborer, the musician, the truck driver, the scientist, the customer service rep, the college student, the teenager trying to land a first job, the Muslim, the Jew, the Catholic, the Methodist, the Anglican, the Quaker, and so too many others. The people who make this country run, not a tiny group of super-rich corporate profiteers, are the deciders, the planners, the policymakers. The driving force is not the ruthless quest for ever-larger individual profit, as it is under our current capitalist system, but pursuit of the common good, equality, freedom from want and fear, expanding human knowledge, culture and potential, providing a chance for everyone to lead a fulfilling life on a healthy planet.
Sanders showed how socialism is rooted in American values. Socialism is about deep and wide democracy. It is not about an all-powerful central government taking over and controlling every aspect of life. It is not only about nationalizing this or that or especially every company. But it does mean that the public will have to take on and take over a few key “evil-doers”.

Taking on Big Oil and Big Finance

1. The giant energy corporations, Big Oil, the coal companies, the frackers. This section of corporate America plays a central role in the US economy, but also in its politics—and it’s a dangerous and damaging one. People know that they not only ravage our environment and worker health and safety, and hold communities hostage with the threat of job loss if they are curbed, while at the same time blocking progress on a green economy, but they also back and fund far-right policies on a whole range of issues. (It’s not just the Koch brothers.) This sector of the economy will clearly have to be restructured in the public interest.
2. The giant banking and financial companies—commonly known as “Wall Street” although they are sprinkled around the country. We’ve seen how they wrecked our economy and destroyed lives and livelihoods. For what? Simple greed. They will need to be returned to their socially needed function—to protect ordinary people’s savings and to fund investment in the social good, driving a thriving economy and society:
   • new technologies to save our planet from climate change disaster, flood protection for example
   • a 21st century public education system rich in resources to enable the next generations to flourish
   • expanded medical research and a national health system that serves every American with top quality, humane, state of the art care from one end of life to the other
   • exploration of space and our own planet to enrich human society
   • and so many more.

You may have a few others to add to the list of key evil-doers that will probably be on top of the list to be challenged and taken over. But aside from that, socialism can mean a mix of:

• Worker and community-owned co-ops
• Companies democratically owned and run by local or state entities. This is not new—we already have, for example, more than 2,000 community-owned electric utilities, serving more than 48 million people or about 14 percent of the nation’s electricity consumers. Then there’s the state-owned Bank of North Dakota
• Privately run companies
• Individually owned small businesses.

For socialism to work, public expression and participation will have to be mobilized and expanded, in the economy and in all other areas of life, for example, by measures like:

• Strengthening and enlarging worker-employee representation and decision-making
• Expanding the New England town hall meeting concept
• Implementing proportional representation and other measures to enable a wide range of views to be represented in our government at every level.
• Taking money out of political campaigns
• Making voting easy.

Obviously there’s a lot more to think about and figure out—these are just a few suggestions.

Shedding stereotypes about socialism

Bernie Sanders and others take pains to call themselves democratic socialists. That’s because the concept of socialism—in essence, a society based on the “social” good—has been tainted by what happened in the Soviet Union, and some other countries, and its exploitation for propaganda purposes by the capitalist media. But there’s nothing in socialism that equates to dictatorship, political repression, bureaucracy, over-centralization, commandism, and so on.
Those features of Soviet society arose out of particular circumstances and personalities. But they were not “socialist”. As events have shown, in fact, socialism requires expanded democracy to grow and flourish.
Socialism does not mean a small group “seizing power”. It doesn’t mean radical slogans either. Red flags and images of Che or Lenin not required. Socialism means an energized, inspired, mobilized vast majority from all walks of life, from “red” state and “blue”, coming together to make changes, probably one step at a time.
Socialism is not a “thing” that will “happen” on one day, in one month, one year or even one decade. History shows that vast and lasting social change rarely happens that way. It will be a process of events, many small steps and some big ones—and elections will play a big and vital role—creating transformations that perhaps we won’t even recognize as “socialism”. Perhaps it will only be in hindsight that we will look back and say, “Oh yes, we’ve got something new”. And it’s not an end product. There is no “end of history”.
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels became famous for analyzing capitalism and how it exploits and oppresses the 99 percent—OK they didn’t use that term, but that’s what they were talking about. Capitalism started out as a productive and creative force, they wrote, but it contained the seeds of its own decline. It has created a massive and ever-widening working class but most of the wealth this class produces and sustains goes into the pockets of an ever-smaller group of capitalists—that’s called exploitation. It creates so many problems that eventually it will have to be replaced. Change is on the agenda. Thank you Bernie Sanders.

Slightly Adapted from Susan Webb, People’s World

Marx’s Class Analysis is Still Correct! Workers have yet to Realise it!

Tensions between classes in the US are rising. Society is split between the 99 percent (ordinary working people, struggling to get by) and the 1 percent (the super rich getting richer every day). Statistics that show the rich are getting richer while the middle class and poor are not. In the USA, which has no nobility, the working class are called the “middle” class. A Pew Research Center poll found two-thirds of its respondents thought the primary division in society was the strong conflict between rich and poor, 19 percent up on 2009.

Michael Schuman says in Time (March 2013) an Economic Policy Institute (EPI) study found:

• the median annual earnings of a full-time, male worker in the US in 2011, at $48,202, were smaller than in 1973
• 74 percent of the gains in wealth in the US, between 1983 and 2010, went to the richest 5 percent while the bottom 60 percent experienced a decline.

Union membership in the US has continued to decline through the economic crisis, the global labor market having apparently rendered unions toothless throughout the developed world. But the world’s workers are getting more impatient with their prospects. They have common problems, but seem still reluctant to unite to resolve them. Even so, tens of thousands have taken to the streets of cities like Madrid and Athens, protesting against massive unemployment and austerity.

Marx’s trenchant criticism of capitalism—that the system is inherently unjust and self-destructive—cannot no longer be easily dismissed. Marx theorized that the capitalist system would inevitably impoverish the masses as the world’s wealth became concentrated in the hands of a greedy few, causing economic crises and heightened conflict between the rich and working classes. He wrote:

Accumulation of wealth at one pole is at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole.

Yet since the deregulation big bang of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, the political left has been unable to unite around a practical alternative strategy. Jacques Rancière, a political analyst at the University of Paris, says:

Virtually all progressive or leftist parties contributed at some point to the rise and reach of financial markets, and rolling back of welfare systems in order to prove they were capable of reform. I’d say the prospects of Labor or Socialists parties or governments anywhere significantly reconfiguring—much less turning over—current economic systems to be pretty faint.

Michael Schuman concluded that though Marx’s revolution has yet to successfully appear, Marx had correctly diagnosed both capitalism’s flaws and the outcome of those flaws, and that:

If policymakers don’t discover new methods of ensuring fair economic opportunity, the workers of the world may just unite. Marx may yet have his revenge.

The Communist Manifesto: Some Notes

The Communist Manifesto is among the most widely read and widely discussed written work known. It was a short statement of the aims and arguments of the revolutionary movement in Germany, but was soon recognized worldwide.

These notes on it, lightly edited, are from the pages of the Texas Communist Party.

Introduction

Communism already (in 1848) inspired fear among Europe’s rulers. Communists needed a public explanation of their views, goals, and tendencies. Thus, progressive leaders of many nations gathered in London to create this straightforward declaration, this manifesto.

1. Workers and Capitalists

1. Class struggle explains all written history.
2. The main economic classes of the past, such as slaves, aristocrats, kings, and serfs had the relationship of oppressor versus oppressed. They fought constantly until, eventually, they either destroyed themselves or transformed society into a new and better stage.
3. Capitalism sprang from the ruins of feudalism as property owners took power from the aristocrats who had ruled. As capitalists took over governments, they re-shaped them to advance capitalism. Governments in capitalist countries are committees for furthering the interests of the capitalists.
4. From the 18th century, capitalism raged through the planet. It destroyed other economic classes and exploited the lands and peoples of all nations.
5. Some previous classes all but disappeared as the capitalists took power, but the working class became the main opponent of capitalism. Capitalists are driven to improve their methods of production to outpace other capitalists. One result is that they tend to drive down prices. Another is that they constantly try to lower workers’ wages and benefits. Just as capitalists constantly need more and better machinery, they also need more and better-trained workers.
6. Big capitalists tend to displace small ones, whether farmers, small producers or small shopowners. As they are displaced, they become workers. Thus, capitalism creates more workers. Through constant training and regimentation, capitalists also strengthen the working class and make it more and more capable of taking over.
7. Capitalism reduces all economic and social activity into a search for profit. Capitalist politicians act on the behalf of their own national capitalist class.
8. This is especially evident in foreign affairs, where the politicians are willing to sacrifice the lives of millions to gain advantage for their own capitalist class.
9. Even though the capitalists have created marvels far surpassing those of previous societies, it is a serious mistake to think of capitalism as purposeful. It is not. It’s only “purpose” is to create profit for capitalists. Any and all other accomplishments are incidental.
10. The third class evident in modern capitalism consists primarily of small businesses, farmers, shopkeepers, and some professionals. They fight the capitalists to maintain their own incomes, but their fight is not a progressive one. In fact, it is anti-progressive, because these middle-class people wish to move history backward to stop the relentless march of big capital. Only the working class is revolutionary, and only the working class can grow in power enough to challenge the capitalists.
11. A fourth “class” is sometime considered, but they are extremely weak and not at all progressive. These are the idlers and criminals, who neither produce nor play any independent fighting role. They may temporarily help the workers, but not in any consistent way. They are usually available for hire by the capitalists against the workers.
12. When class fought class in previous societies, the revolutionaries had fewer members than the rulers. But the working class movement is a movement of the vast majority of people. They fight within their own nations to overcome their own capitalist oppressors.
13. Capitalism, as noted, is capable of great developments, but its progressive role in history soon ends. Instead, its main role becomes that of oppressor, warmongerer, polluter, and destroyer. As capitalism’s progressive role came to an end, the revolutionary role of workers became more important and more evident.
14. Fortunately for human kind, the capitalists have created and organized their own replacements. Given the survival of our planet, the fall of capitalists and the victory of workers are equally inevitable.

2. Workers and Communists

1. Communists have no interests separate from those of the world working class. We do not have a list of “do’s” and “don’ts” to impose. Every strategy, and every tactic, is taken to enhance the working class and make it stronger. Even though workers’ struggles take place within their own nation, communists maintain a world view.
2. The immediate goal of communists is to help the workers form and improve the working class to grow in power and, eventually, overcome the capitalist ruling class. History shows that this changing relationship between oppressor class and the oppressed has ever been the same.
3. Communists and workers are no threat to freedom for ordinary people. Rather, they threaten the power of capitalists to continue exploitation. Communists have no intention or reason to take away ordinary people’s property, but they fully intend that the means of production should pass under the democratic control of the people. The authors point out that the workers want no more than what they have created. Capitalists, of course, want it all!
4. The rights of women and of children are emphasized.
5. As workers, the majority of people, come to power across the world, divisions among people will begin to terminate. Artificial national boundaries and armies will no longer be needed, as people on both sides of every border share common interests. Workers have no separate country.
6. Communists strive to extend democracy to all aspects of modern life, including economic decisions. The capitalists control the economies today with no concern for democracy. Workers have always struggled for more democracy, and have won many smaller battles. Once the working class controls the economy, the battle for democracy and the socialist revolution will be complete.

The goal of communists is stated at the end as:

…we shall have an association in which the development of each is the condition for the free development of all.

3. Analysing Socialist and Communist Positions

This chapter is delightful for the authors’ use of language and vocabulary as they demolish the rival philosophies of their time. We don’t have to look at the 19th century to find dishonest authors and quacks with fake answers. Our news stands and bookshelves are full of them today

1. To analyze our problems and recommend honest solutions incurs the wrath of the capitalists, while phony analysis and meaningless solutions are safe—often even a good way to make an income and become famous!
2. Reactionary spokespeople criticize capitalism, but recommend, as a solution, a return to the romantic fantasies of feudalism, in which the main characters are knights and beautiful princesses, not mud-covered serfs. Other reactionary “socialist” writers attack capitalism, but hope to advance the values of the ruling class. Marx and Engels, Germans, were particularly infuriated by middle-class philosophers of Germany who copied their ideas from the French, but made them even more abstract, spiritual, murky, and obscure.
3. Many authors espoused ways to “improve” capitalism and make it more humanitarian. They say that corporate “free trade” schemes will help workers, or that clever corporate personnel policies will lead to a form of socialism. They preach that capitalism will become more and more humanitarian and will eventually become socialism without any need to organize the working class. The capitalists, they say, rule for the benefit of the workers. The historical anomaly of post-war prosperity gave a measure of undeserved believability to these harebrained ideas.
4. A third general category of anti-Marxist philosophers was extremely popular then, and enjoyed a resurgence in the 1960s. They are well-meaning “utopian socialists” who criticize capitalism but do not want to organize resistance against it. Their criticisms may be valuable, but their solutions are useless and no threat to capitalism. They organize “counter-cultural” institutions, such as communal farms, private schools, or whole communities in peaceful nations such as Costa Rica, and even in Texas. While clever and brave, they opposed political organization of the working class and thus had no future.

All these “philosophers” are tolerated, even rewarded, by capitalists. Our universities are crammed with them. They make fine after-dinner speakers!

4. Communists and their Opponent Parties

Thoigh short, less than two pages, books have been written about the ideas in this brief chapter. Arguments about it continue still.

1. Marx and Engels explain clearly that Communists are with the working class on its immediate aims whatever they may be. They talk about the many and diverse kinds of short-term coalitions they joined in different countries. But Communists also keep their “eye on the prize” of a long-term settlement with capitalism.
2. Communists always remind workers of the basic class antagonism with capital. Communists keep the question of property, “who owns what”, in mind. Communists of all countries labor for union and agreement of all who treasure democracy.

The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The workers have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workers Of All Countries, Unite!