The political right has done a good job of brainwashing reasonable Americans to be afraid of any hints of socialism by equating socialism with Stalin’s communism. Yet democratic socialism is a very different economic system than Russian communism, which we can see working in most of postwar Europe.
FDR’s response to the stock market crash that led to bank and business failures and the Great Depression was pure and simple socialism. Like his predecessor, Teddy Roosevelt, he supported unions. By creating public works programs that improved our infrastructure, he put workers back to work. By lending money to the stronger banks, he restored faith in the banking system. None of these were handouts, but were examples of the ways the government can and should work for its people.
Bob Stillwell’s fear of socialism strikes me as a bit hysterical. Bob, by the way, is a frequent contributor to our local print newspaper, and I applaud him for doing so. I, as a proud Democrat, however, am not afraid to look toward socialism for answers to some of our problems. Wouldn’t putting wealth back into the hands of the public through higher wages, universal health care, and investment in infrastructure, for instance, offer more hope for the future than allowing the rich to get richer and the poor poorer, thus moving us toward having a virtual king or dictator? Is he really in favor of eliminating Social Security and Medicare, for instance? Investing in public infrastructure and higher education would put people to work in decent-paying jobs. And yes, college is designed to teach people to think by giving them access to many different ideas, not to graduate them as robots for either the right or left. And why are our young people becoming radicalized? Could it be that they don’t see a future for them given the ways jobs are drying up and the direction we are going?
Giving people the skills they need to hold a good job is far cheaper than keeping people on welfare. Restructuring our tax system so the wealthiest corporations and individuals pay their fair share of taxes is not socialism. It is just plain fair. And don’t get me started on the illusionary trickle-down theory. Solid economies are built on a trickle-up structure that puts money in the hands of workers and innovators. Does Mr. Stillwell really think that there is something wonderful about oligarchs holding over 99% of the nation’s wealth while their private secretaries and employees pay a higher rate of income tax than the billionaires and trillionaires who hire them? Would it be so awful to ask the wealthy to share some of that wealth by paying their employees more, establishing retirement plans to supplement Social Security, and contributing toward their employees’ health care while shoring up the Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid funds? Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are positive examples of socialism, by the way. What would be so bad about asking employers to contribute toward making higher education affordable or even free, thus guaranteeing the skilled workers businesses will need for the future? Or having the big tech companies invest in America since they are making their money by collecting our data? And yes, changes would cost money, but if the government would set aside X number of dollars to match what big business and the wealthiest would contribute, what would be wrong with that? Given what we spend on defense, that would be peanuts.
My husband was an economics major in college. He had an acute business sense. He was not afraid to make money and was a firm advocate of capitalism. Yet he also maintained that the only way capitalism can work is if it is strictly regulated. For instance, he said we need stronger antitrust laws, and the rules applying to big business should not be the same as those for small mom-and-pop businesses. Plus, he would add, tax laws need to be reworded so that savvy lawyers could not find loopholes.
In the aftermath of World War II, businesses were encouraged to enroll their employees in health and retirement plans. These were not a free ride, as the employee paid half and the employer paid half. Not only did these lead to a booming economy, but they are a good example of how socialism can work. But over the years, lobbyists convinced Congress to do away with those regulations, and workers suddenly found their retirement pensions evaporate along with their health insurance.
I know many on the right get hysterical when we talk about universal health insurance, but we are the only industrialized nation in the world that does not offer some form of universal health care. Other nations that are not as rich as we are pay for health care in a variety of ways, including private health insurance companies that have a cap on what a CEO can earn, with any profits plowed back into the system rather than going into investors’ pockets. Here we see health care as a business, not a service, with health insurers lining their pockets and those of their investors. And to what end? We are one of the sickest developed nations in the world, which, by the way, definitely affects the workforce.
I could go on, but I think you get my point. Instead of being afraid to borrow ideas from socialism, we should be open to any and all ideas that undergird the principles upon which our nation was founded: that our government must be based on the underlying principle that its main purpose is to ensure that it is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people—not for the 1% at the top. Otherwise, this nation cannot long endure.