Socialism and Democracy

I would like to make a few precepts perfectly clear here, because America seems to be confused on them. If you know anyone who is confused on the following points, please forward a link to my blog to them. Thanks. The reason that I’m doing this post at this time is because Barack Obama’s opponents, having run out of every other thing both insane and sane to attack him on are now calling him a “socialist” because he wants to REdistribute the wealth that was redistributed over the last eight years. So I want, if I may, to clarify the idea of socialism somewhat.

1) Socialism is an economic system, not a political system. In other words, socialism is NOT in opposition to democracy, it is in opposition to capitalism. America is, by definition, a democracy… we are not, by definition, capitalist. As a matter of fact, if you think about it, socialism is much more in line with democracy than capitalism is. Socialism is primarily concerned with the people. Keeping the people healthy, educated, sheltered and happy. Sounds awful, doesn’t it? Capitalism, meanwhile, values only one thing: the bottom line. Where health care is concerned, for instance, capitalism has failed miserably. Between insurance companies lobbying for the right to increase their premiums while decreasing their coverage, McDonald’s lobbying to have their food sold to our kids without regulation and Dow Chemical lobbying to continue poisoning our earth, air and water, health care in this country is somewhere between a dirty joke and an epic tragedy. Oh, and let’s not forget the alcohol and nicotine lobbyists. To be clear, neither candidate is suggesting that we socialize our health care system, but if either one did, I’d probably vote for them. It’s worth a try, and about anything has to be better than what we have now.

2) To expand on that point… there ARE socialist democracies in the world, they are all our allies, and apparently their systems work quite well. The four that spring immediately to mind are England, Canada, Denmark and France. Of course, Denmark has taken our idea of democracy and run with it, keeping the government almost entirely out of the lives of the people while giving the people ultimate authority over their government. Prostitution and marijuana, for instance, are both legal there.

3) America is now, and has been since around the civil war, partially socialized. Socialized sectors of the economy include: libraries, schools, police, fire department and roads. The argument at the time, concurrent with the introduction of a national income tax, was that areas of education and public safety should NOT be put into the hands of private, for-profit companies. Back to health care, I would firmly put that in that category. It has not always been this way. Prior to that, if you wanted someone to come put your house out if it caught on fire, then you hoped that the volunteer fire department in your area was able to get to you, or you had a seal on your house for a nearby for-profit fire department. It was kind of like fire insurance. You bought coverage from your local fire department and then put their seal somewhere on your house where it could be seen from the street. On some historic farmhouses and barns in the east you can still see these marks. If an engine from another “company” came by your house while it was burning, that was just too bad. So, to you people who say that America should be free of socialism, I say “be prepared to have a credit card handy if your son gets mugged or your daughter gets raped.” Would you like to be personally responsible for the staggering costs of one of these investigations? I sure wouldn’t.

Am I a socialist? No way. I like money. I like the things that it can buy for me. I’m about to finish my first novel, and when I do, I hope that someone pays me a lot of money to publish it. Enough to comfortably quit my day job, at least. But that doesn’t mean that I think that America can’t adapt aspects of socialism as we have done so magnificently in our past.

One part of this argument that really bothers me is that the very same people who are arguing against American socialism are the people who are PRACTICING socialism for the rich. John McCain, who, when defending his decision to vote against Mr. Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthiest 5% of Americans said “I think that the rich can afford to pay a little more”, has recently spent a lot of time attacking Barack Obama for using the term “Spread the wealth”. Economist Thomas Friedman recently made a statement that I thought was absolutely brilliant. He said “In America, we have socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor.” When a multi-millionaire CEO gets into a bind because of stupid decisions that he’s made, the republicans are right there to “bail him out”. If, to use a recent media celebrity as an example, Joe the Plumber loses his job, his house and his health care because of that CEO’s bad decisions, well that’s just too bad. We don’t want to be socialist, after all, do we?

Sarah Palin, at the vice presidential debate, said that Obama wanted to institute redistribution of wealth, which is one of the precepts not only of socialism, but also of communism (which, by the way, is another economic philosophy, not a political one). What I want my middle and lower class brothers and sisters to understand is that, over the last eight years, we have witnessed the largest redistribution of wealth in human history. The reason that we don’t recognize it as such is because it has been redistributed from the poor to the rich rather than the other way around. Ending Bush’s tax cuts and instituting new tax relief for the middle and lower classes is only an attempt to balance that.

Am I a socialist? No way. But, at the same time, I see that America is the wealthiest country in the world. Because of that, I think that it’s reprehensible that there are Americans who have to struggle for food, shelter and health care. I think that every American should be guaranteed a roof over their head, food on their plates, and the care and medicine that they need to be well. These things should no more be privatized than the police or fire departments. And if we need to have Phil Knight make only six billion dollars next year than eight billion, so be it.

I know that it isn’t “PC” in America today to invoke Europe, but I’m going to. I can’t think of a time when anyone has accused me of being politically correct, except in the fact that say “happy holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”, so I’m not too worried about the accusation of political incorrectness now. There is a concept in Europe called “Noblesse Oblige”. What that means is “the obligation of nobility”. The rich have an OBLIGATION to help out those less fortunate. This is also a Christian precept, by the way. Some rich people in America already do this such as Stephen King and Bill Gates and they deserve all credit for doing that. I said earlier that I hope someone pays me a lot of money to publish my book. If they do, I have already made a promise to God that if he sees fit to reward me in this way, ten percent of any money that I achieve from my writing will go immediately to charities that help people. Food banks, AA, homeless shelters. I challenge all people in America who are rich or potentially rich to do the same.

Peace.

Randal