The American left and the right have their key fear words that they trot out to scare voters. For the right, one word is “socialism.” McCain, having backed away a bit from trying to paint Obama as friend of terrorists, has started hinting that Obama will bring the dread spectre of socialism to haunt America.
Socialism is supposed to be bad and scary because it is alleged to be the mortal enemy of all that America stands for, such as individualism, free enterprise and living without a safety net. However, to say that Obama is going to bring socialism to America is like saying Obama is going to bring alligators to Florida, Moose to Alaska and Lobster to Maine. Such things are all obviously already well established.
America, as a brief reflection will indicate, is already a deeply socialist nation. We have welfare (money for the poor) and wealthfare (lots of money for the rich), farm subsidies, social security, and so on. Also, the federal government is bailing out and buying out failed businesses. As some witty pundits and economicists have pointed out, we have privatized profit and publicized loss. While that can be seen as a clever bit of capitalism in which the rich use the state to drain even more wealth from the middle class and poor, it could also be seen as a form of socialism. As such, trying to scare people with a hint of socialism would seem a bit ridiculous.
But, the ridiculous often works. I know from experience that many conservatives see red when they hear the word “socialism” (as many leftists see red when they hear the word “gun” or “pro-life”). Such people can be swept up into the rhetoric without realising that we already live in a partially socialist state.
This, of course, does not show that socialism is nothing to fear. After all, it could be very bad indeed and our socialist aspects could be doing us serious harm. Handing out public money to major corporations, for example, seems like a horrible thing for most of us. But, for McCain to try to raise the ghost of socialism against Obama is a silly thing. After all, the country is already haunted with an army of those ghosts.
As usual, I think we should examine proposals in a rational manner and see if they serve the general good. If so, we should employ them-even if they might have that taint of socialism. If a proposal does not serve the general good (like a scary proportion of what the government does) then it should be stopped.
These idiots are the same people that don’t even know what socialism is. They are invoking the term “socialism” as if it’s “commie” from the Cold War era… it doesn’t even have as much linguistic value as it used to back then… it’s not controversial enough.
Other social-funded (socialist) institutions: police, firemen, border security, military, transportation infrastructure, medical schools, etc.
All those “heros” the right is fond of worshiping (troops, police, firemen) – children of socialism.
Without “socialism” America would be a third-world country. Obama should point that out, as well as the fact paying taxes affords civilization.
We are coming to a division in this country not seen since the Civil War in my mind. Just from talking to friends and relatives not much is keeping parts of the country from saying goodbye to the rest. And please Daniel even Karl Marx stated that socialism is the first step to communism for advanced countries.
socaiism i think is something good and something we should embrace
I guess when painting someone as a tax and spend liberal doesn’t work, you have to switch to tax and spend socialist. The intellectual acuity of McCain and the RNC are remarkable. Well, at least we are finally getting down to the crux of the matter. The abject fear of the word ‘socialism’ is a left-over from the “red” scare and the McCarthy era. If we ever get to a point where we can talk about the concepts of socialism and capitalism rationally, maybe we can make some progress.
While marching around in Mao suits is not the way to go, the pooling of resources for the benefit of the nation is often worth considering. I’m sure you’ve heard Republican crowds booing whenever someone says global warming is man-made or suggests a universal health care plan. They would rather stick their heads in the sand or some other place the sun doesn’t shine than face reality.
Does any rational person really believe that free market capitalism will address environmental, health care, and retirement concerns in a beneficial and compassionate way? It’s ridiculous on its face.
I guess when painting someone as a tax and spend liberal doesn’t work, you have to switch to tax and spend socialist. The intellectual acuity of McCain and the RNC are remarkable. Well, at least we are finally getting down to the crux of the matter. The abject fear of the word ‘socialism’ is a left-over from the “red” scare and the McCarthy era. If we ever get to a point where we can talk about the concepts of socialism and capitalism rationally, maybe we can make some progress.
While marching around in Mao suits is not the way to go, the pooling of resources for the benefit of the nation is often worth considering. I’m sure you’ve heard Republican crowds booing whenever someone says global warming is man-made or suggests a universal health care plan. They would rather stick their heads in the sand or some other place the sun doesn’t shine than face reality.
Does any rational person really believe that free market capitalism will address environmental, health care, and retirement concerns in a beneficial and compassionate way? It’s ridiculous on its face.
But socialism as a scary thing, not because it goes against enterprise, individualism, or living w/o a safety net, but because it does not work…it does not set up the proper incentives and preconditions for an effective system. It distressingly fails the standard of Rawlsian Justice, rational parties from the original position would fail to select socialism…
The incentives offered by the pseudo-capitalist system that does presently exist in America at least inspires individuals to create and cure, even if only for their own benefit.
Socialism/communism fails because it forgets the self-interested nature and evil leanings of humanity.
Policies don’t merely “help out the disadvantaged,” they commonly have ripple effects that cannot be fully understood (look at the origins of the mortgage crisis: Community Reinvestment Act of 1977). Perhaps a rereading of the worldly philosophers (grand-macro economists) is needed…
And, following your maxim from the last line, we should stop those socialist policies, and all other policies that do not promote the general good, that are already in place…
Now, if men were angels it would be a different story altogether…
Thank you.
Dr. Mill,
What are the concepts of socialism and capitalism that you wish to discuss rationally?
Rather than tossing around these words that, I am sorry Daniel, are very emotionally-charged, let us drop down and make an attempt at what they mean. To avoid presenting a straw man, I would rather if you could tell us what you mean by socialism. What are the foundational concepts? Where does it derive its origins?
France, Germany, U.K. all have socialized medicine… in and of itself does not equal communism. Norway is a very successful socialist country that never fell into what you morons claim to be “communism.” Read up on it for heavens sake. That’s the problem with Mccain followers… they are aliterate.. you can read, but you choose not to.
So, giving the richest (and might I say most inept) businesses in America 750 billion dollars is not socialism? Hmmm It seems to me that Mr. Mcain and Mr. Obama both endorsed this plan as “good for America”. Socialism is, apparently, only for the rich and powerful in this country and it’s good old American capitalism for the rest of us? Me thinks something smells in Denmark!
Not surprisingly, there seems to be tons of “socialists” on WordPress. I would point out to them that for the most part, socialism means increasing taxes and that those tax dollars are unlikely to find their way back to the people who actually paid their taxes. More likely, they will go to one more government program. I am not a ultra-capitalist of the Ayn Rand variety. I do though believe in personal choice and that the money we make is ours. The other day, I asked a guy who wants to vote for Obama, what he thought about Obama’s “spread the wealth” comment to Joe the Plumber. He said he thought it was a good idea. I asked him why. He said it was because he’s not rich. And that’s the conclusion I’ve come to: It’s about jealousy as much as anything. And jealousy may be the most destructive emotion of all.
So, now I’ll plagiarize myself and repost my response to this blog from another posting:
We are a socialist nation. There is however, a tipping point.
There are plenty of issues for me disagree with Obama on. Not to mention that he’s seemed to surround himself with suspect individuals and organizations for twenty years now, all of which his supporters claim to be incidental. Where DID Rev. Wright go anyways? Wright himself said that Obama lied when he said he knew nothing of Wright’s racist remarks.
The tipping point can be seen in the book, Animal Farm. It’s called Marxism or Communism or Leninism or Trotskyism. It’s root is the supreme ISM of the Left–ATHEISM.
With all of the above ISMs, we not only got free public libraries, but political purges so horrible, they would keep a Nosfuratu up at night.
All I know is that we have a good thing going, here in America, despite everything. Let’s not ruin it with foreign systems that can only bring us to where our foreign allies and competitors in Europe are: Lagging behind current America in almost everyway–except for free needles and legal heroin in Amsterdam. Go Netherlands….
It is interesting that the bailout is not considered socialism by McCain. Nor does he any longer criticize government support to oil companies and other major corporations/business. Apparently, taxing people and sending the money to businesses is to be called “capitalism.” Taxing high income people and businesses more is to be called “socialism.”
Put crudely:
“Capitalism”: Redistribution of wealth from the middle and lower class to the rich.
“Socialism”: Redistribution of wealth from the rich to the middle and lower class.
So, I suppose it is all a matter of direction of flow.
While excessive taxes can do damage to businesses and hence have an indirect harm on “Joe six pack”, the notion that those who have much more should contribute more seems to be the morally right thing to do. Also, as Thoreau argued, those who have the wealth get much more from the state and hence should pay more.
How much to tax businesses is a real challenge. It cannot be so much that it actually harms the businesses. But, it cannot be so little that the business is not paying back the state for its support or contributing its fair share. Also, when taxing businesses, the amount they pay their employees should also be factored in. After all, employee income is taxed, so businesses contribute to the tax income that way. After all, if they did not provide jobs, there would not be that income to tax. Naturally, the employee actually pays the tax. Naturally, businesses provide such taxable income only to the degree that they employee people who pay American taxes. So, when businesses send jobs overseas, they are also sending the tax income overseas as well (assuming that taxes are paid by the employees).
Socialism is not bad, look at north of europe. Scandinavians are one of the richest people on this planet. And the goverment controls about everything we do. So we just lay back and enjoy the life 😉