If Socialism Is The Way We Are Headed, Where Are The Socialist Marches And Candidates?

I keep hearing that the nation is moving towards socialism, yet I have not seen one socialist rally or heard of a socialist radio program.

While I imagine that there are socialist candidates for office in the United States, I am not aware of any.

We do, I’m glad to say, have one avowed Socialist in the United States Senate—Bernie Sanders of Vermont refers to himself as a Socialist. I wish we had more Socialist elected officials.

There was a time when Americans were open to Socialism. In 1912, Socialist Eugene Debs won 6% of the overall vote for President. There were Socialist parties in states across the union.

The 1912 Socialist platform had planks such a minimum wage and an income tax.

The Nation Magazine ran an article last year about ideas of Socialism in the United States today.

There is nothing that says Socialism can’t again become a force in the United States.

Just as I feel we should be open to the Green Party as on option when Democrats fail the American people, Socialism and the ideas of Socialism can be part of the agenda on the left.

Conservatives Helping Americans Consider The Idea Of Socialism

Republicans and conservatives are doing the nation a service by repeating the world socialist so often. They are taking a term that not many in America gave much thought about and now making it something to consider.

I’m sure that most on the left are like myself in that we never gave the idea of socialism much thought. But just as many of us never ran from the word liberal when it was being demonized ,we should not now run from the word socialism.

These right-wingers think we have been plotting some socialist revolution. But I don’t know that I’ve ever discussed the prospect of socialism in America with anyone. It never seemed on the table. It is the political right that is making it a viable idea for many. 

Maybe socialism has ideas that would make America and more fair and more just society. Why not look and see? If the right hates it so much, it might well have some merit. 

Americans have in the past been at least willing to consider socialist candidates. Socialist Eugene V. Debs won 6% of the total vote for President in the election of 1912. In the first 20 years of the 20th century there were many socialist candidates for a variety of offices around the nation.

The March 23 issue of The Nation Magazine has an essay called Reimagining Socialism. The essay is written by author Barbara Ehrenreich and by Bill Fletcher, Jr.  At the bottom of Reimagining Socialism are a number of links to other Nation articles discussing ideas for socialism in the modern day.

There are many different thoughts discussed and there are frank estimates of the work that to needs be done to make socialism a viable option for the nation’s future.  

Still, given the clear failure of our present system, we should consider a wide range of options. The American right has helped get this process started by injecting into the daily language a word that was not on many people’s minds before John McCain started calling Barack Obama a socialist.

Let’s explore socialism and see what good ideas it holds.

Tomorrow I’m going to make a post about Vermont’s Socialist United States Senator Bernie Sanders. I’ll examine what Senator Sanders sees as socialism. Whatever these ideas are, they have met with acceptance in the State of Vermont. (Here is that post on Mr. Sanders.)

Admissions Of The Failures Of Extreme Free Market Policy

Alan Greenspan admitted yesterday that he may have been wrong in some respects in his extreme free market approach to the American economy during his time as chairman of the Federal Reserve.

From Mr. Greenspan’s testimony yesterday before Congress—

“I made a mistake in presuming that the self interest of organizations, specifically banks and others, was such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and the equity in the firms,” Greenspan said. Having run the… central bank from 1987 to 2006 — under…three Republicans and a Democrat — Greenspan acknowledged that views he’s long held are now in question. “The problem here is that something that looked to be a very solid edifice and indeed a critical pillar to market competition and free markets did break down. And that, as I said, shocked me and I don’t fully understand why it happened,” he said. “And to the extent I figure out where it happened and why, I will change my views. And if the facts change, I will change.” Word of Greenspan’s confession spread quickly in Washington, where until recently he was treated as royalty….”After years of confrontation about the role of government regulation, I’m glad to see he now recognizes that his ideas are flawed,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont and frequent Greenspan sparring partner, said in a statement.”

Senator Sanders, the one Socialist in Congress, always took on Mr. Greeenspan when he testified before House committees during Mr. Sander’s time in the House. 

Less noticed yesterday was that former President Bill Clinton criticized his own administration’s handling of issues related to the world food supply—

“Former President Clinton told a U.N. gathering Thursday that the global food crisis shows “we all blew it, including me,” by treating food crops “like color TVs” instead of as a vital commodity for the world’s poor. Addressing a high-level event marking Oct. 16’s World Food Day, Clinton also saluted President Bush — “one thing he got right” — for pushing to change U.S. food aid policy. He scolded the bipartisan coalition in Congress that killed the idea of making some aid donations in cash rather than in food. Clinton criticized decades of policymaking by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and others, encouraged by the U.S., that pressured Africans in particular into dropping government subsidies for fertilizer, improved seed and other farm inputs as a requirement to get aid. Africa’s food self-sufficiency declined and food imports rose.”

Here is a BBC report on the World Food Crisis.

Free market policies, many of them quite extreme, regarding our most basic needs of money to live on and food to eat have failed. (Government oversight of these free market policies failed as well.)

Let’s hope that Senator Obama, if elected, and the newly strengthened Democratic Congress can make again the case for government’s—and by extension the average person’s— role in our economy and society. It’s clear that the old order has abdicated. For the moment at least. Now is the time for policies that favor people over greed in both the United States and the rest of the world.