Absolutely! A brilliant summary of history and late stage capitalism. And as for what is killing ( or has killed) the Democratic Party is corporatism, failing to fight for the average person, and continuing to prop up the aged old guard who are clueless about the reality of most Americans’ lives. Thank you for posting this! Sharing!!!
What is killing the Democratic Party is the leadership giving preference to corporate lobbyist$ and themselves, and not taking care of working families. Clinton pushing NAFTA caused millions of rust belt voters to lose their union jobs which greatly reduced their standard of living, now working at 1/2 prior pay, little or no benefits and no retirement or job protections. Did anyone think those millions whose livelihoods were greatly diminished by Clinton were going to vote for a Clinton in 2016? Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. That set up people voting for a false populist and got us Trump. There were other negative contributions for a later in depth analysis after we all unite to stop us falling into complete authoritarian rule. P. S. Check out my substack “Life on a Pale Blue Dot”. It is free. Inspired by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan.
If you weren’t so ignorant you would support President Trump who is building the infrastructure of jobs and businesses the right way. With investments not government handouts!
The Democratic Party is what's killing the Democratic Party. Democratic Socialism is the only thing that might have a chance at saving it. A remote chance, but a chance nonetheless.
No as we practice Democratic Socialism in our country. Capitalism without Socialism is Fascism. Socialism means simply, For The People. And without the middle class, there is no democracy. If anything, getting back to the people is what’s needed or we willl lose the Democratic Party because Centrists are Capitalists for corporations and the majority of the voters seems to have had enough of that.
Nice reminder of the history. As someone who knew folks who participated in the fights like the 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters I still think about how far the public discourse has drifted and shifted and been reframed by lousy corporate propaganda and by a lazier chicken-shit middle and working class, apathetic voters easily fooled and frightened by false fire.
Let's fight again. Start by talking about it. I work with fascists and they are not serious people. But they talk all the time and parrot empty slogans. Their emptier heads are full of sound and fury. They are old and will die soon, as will I.
But nor before I share a few things and help keep hope and the fighting spirit alive.
One of the strangest things about this modern dialogue is to hear the GOP lament the loss of manufacturing base in the US - which was the primary fruit of their decades long 'right to work' fight through the rural states. Once the unions were broken, and the Dems were 'playing the game' (i.e. the 'globalization' game), there was no resistance to this process. Now comes the Donald talking about this and the union leaders, clutching at straws, begin to support him.
The Dems did not support the unions at the state level and allowed this to happen. And it is all a big surprise that the Deplorables switched parties?!?
"The communists, at their extreme, think the state should own and control all of it"
That's not what communism is. These 3 forms of government are not separate entities; Marxism and dialectical materialism state that these are stages of society that progress one after the other. Socialism will replace capitalism (as a "dictatorship of the proletariat", where the means of production are seized by the working class).
Communism is Marx's theoretical endpoint of civilization - a stateless, classless, moneyless society.
Ideologically, it (Socialism, Communism, Marxism, etc) means being committed to public &/or working class control of the means of production. It’s not that hard to understand.
Although I appreciate Corbin’s very accessible analysis here but I find myself wanting more. Yes, private property and the existence of a private sector is not an automatic enemy of Marxism but make no mistake that public control of the MEANS OF PRODUCTION is a prerequisite to anything resembling freedom & democracy. And Ideological tools like nationalism and white supremacy - aka racism - only serve the status quo. So, yes, socialized medicine, in addition to public schools, fire/police. Yes, city owned grocery. Yes, public banks in every post office. Yes health clinics in every public school & rec center. Yes massive expansion of public transit.
As such, I’d say distancing oneself from “communism” and “state control” only serves to support some variation of what we already have with maybe a “reform” or two. Sorry to say, but that simply won’t cut it. The capitalist system is so deeply entrenched that comforting somewhat lefty liberal talk won’t cut it. An uncompromising militant labor movement must be revived - then maybe we’ll see some movement.
I don't want my political discussions to be framed so that they're comfortable for liberals; I want them to reflect the truth that radical transformation is the only thing that will achieve liberation.
If someone isn't ready for those talking points, we certainly work with them, but we NEVER compromise.
Agreed and understanding that every economic system is mixed but “Radical transformation” needs clear defining and concrete examples, otherwise we stay in academic theoretical la la land. Someone made a good point about following Mamdani’s example and I agree but with adjustments as needed for a given community or state. For example, why not see to it that public land ONLY benefit small (would need specifics) local ranchers & farmers who abide by both environmental AND economic sustainability (fair labor practices, etc).
The USA lost its mind over the Russian Revolution, and has yet to find it. It was all capitalist crap propaganda, but it worked because…. Fear makes people nuts.
We can’t have democracy unless we have democracy in the workplace; that doesn’t mean the custodian gets a business policy veto, but it does mean nothing happens without worker input and buy in.
Its impossible to give up some idealism isnt it? Democrats thought that education for all could help us understand our ideals and work towards better goals, capitalists give us space myths to misdirect/use our idealism.
the subject and preview text have a huge impact on open rates. There are about 50k people that read most of what I write. then another 50k or so that read some and that latter group is very moved by subjects and preview
I dearly wish that people who should know better would stop conflating:
- communism and socialism
- socialism that proposes social policies for public service with with socialism that calls for abolition of all private property
- socialism with well regulated capitalism.
- Unregulated capitalism with governmental protections such as tariffs, bail outs, tax "incentives", depletion allowances, a foreign service dedicate to promoting the interests of American corporations free of charge to them, and so on and so on.
- There is plenty of socialism in the USA: public schools (so far), tax supported police, fire, roads, parks, and some vital utilities.
As it is this is phony debate between a "democratic socialism" that is scary because of the labels and the "centrist" and "moderate" Democrats who bestow these bland labels upon themselves and who are simply corporatists and the are the right wing of the Party - this is a nonsensical, distracting and destructive discussion.
Even those who should know better continue to muddy the waters.
The simple question is who governments should serve: the only real majority in the country - working class and middle class citizens or a smaller and smaller group of people who taking more and more of the wealth under laws that favor them instead of all of us.
"The people are what matter to government, and a government should aim to facilitate the means by which all the people under its jurisdiction can access the best possible life."— Frances Perkins
I’ll be honest, when I hear “means of production“ my brain kind of shuts down. I wish there was a more accessible way of explaining it, like “who owns the factories that make shit.”
I just know that Europe has socialism and they seem very happy, and China has communism, and they don’t seem very happy. We have late stage, capitalism, and dear God, none of us are happy, except for the oligarchs, who also were not happy because they are endlessly rapacious.
This whole idea of conflating modern "socialism" with ownership of the means of production is an ongoing disaster. Some "schools" of thought preach NO private property - including factories, farms, and other kinds of property that produce items for consumption. Neither Russia nor China are even close to that standard any more. Each has private businesses from food stands to mines to farms large and small to car companies.
But it is good propaganda and fear mongering to keep on beating the drum that socialism means NO private property, business for personal profits, etc.
These days socialism is more likely to mean that the goal of government it regulate private businesses to a greater degree that "no holds barred capitalism". European countries that are thought of by Americans as "socialist" mostly just have things like health care, education even beyond high school being provided by tax dollars administered by government.
And, yes, the countries that provide more for everyone through state run health care, education, and other social service tend to be "happier" - the people have fewer worries about dying in pain because they have no money, many fewer live on the streets to freeze and die of exposure and the effects of untreated mental illness, and so on.
But the rhetoric is full of lies and distractions: your fire department, your police department, your public schools, your District Attorneys and Judges, your post office, your interstate, state, and local roads and sidewalks, and many more things in America are "socialized": the operate on taxes and are run by governments' civil service.
Canada is more socialized than the U.S. but less than Finland, for example.
Final point: I have worked in China a couple of months a year for the past 4 years. People there are as happy and more secure than many places in the U.S. The streets are full of shops that are privately owned, huge businesses are also privately owned. It is not perfect but infrastructure makes America look backward. Arguably, the reason is that there is a lot of centralized planning PLUS the fact that they have not been involved war after war after war draining the treasury to fight in far off was (and losing) wars. That money is spent on infrastructure, education, and so on.
On the other hand one of our largest socialized activities in the U.S. is WAR. We, the people pay for it out of taxes. We get no benefit while the privately owned arms industry gets richer and richer.
It is not so simple as "socialism" vs "capitalism".
I agree with you. Marx also recognized that the middle class is the seat of intellectual, creative and progressive ideas and action. That is why of course the Capitalists, with Reagan a good marker, have been working to destroy what middle class is left. Trump is interesting because he so openly exemplifies this.
The capitalist owners didn’t give away the means of production to eg Mexico they still owned it and extracted more profit , that is, surplus value —the differential between what it takes to reproduce labor power and the remaining profit. So 1) The Democrats failed to raise taxes sufficiently on off shore extraction. 2) they failed to raise minimum wage in the jobs that remained. 3) companies them off-shored many of the remaining customer service jobs 4) credit cards became more necessary and their usury (more extraction) ballooned. But what caused the Democrats to surrender in this way to the Republicans was as you begin with, anti-communism and attacks on so-called socialism meaning anything the state did to regulate or provide a safety net or “the commons”. DSA is reversing both anti-socialism and the idea that state provision and regulation is undemocratic. But the sticking point has always been Americanism, nationalism, imperialism. Labor made the ill-fated choice of choosing not only narrow trade interest but nationalism. We now have a faint but crucial chance to make globalism mean not corporate extraction elsewherebut recognition that nationalism, permission to extract others resources and labor, is not good for the working class. Unfortunately the New Left and Labor were in conflict about this. This is what DSA with its unifying the theme of Palestine and affordability could finally break through. We wouldn’t need to exploit others if we didn’t have a humongous military, and vice versa.
That's actually becoming less and less, though. As you can see now, with the number of companies that are owned by the Chinese and are producing the tangible products that the world uses, you can see that they actually did indeed sell off or give away the means of production. It's largely died in America. It being the means of production.
Agreed. But large scale military stuff is still made in US and is a major portion of our taxes. I don’t know how much of the new tech is produced here v. Israel. The consumer economy became increasingly separate and produced abroad. My main thought is that unlike in the Vietnam war period anti-communism and nationalism are increasingly irrelevant to younger generations. What about a proposal to break up Amazon as a monopoly? Undo the new Ellison Paramount merger etc
Is it a ridiculous idea to focus on policies, projects, and outcomes? Forget about labels. Look at Mamdani. Be like that.
As for US military power relative to the rest of the world and whether the dollar will continue to be the world's reserve currency, or the US a beacon on a hill if ever it was, those things like being famous after death are well out of anyone's control.
“Then we beat the fascists, the Nazis in Germany and Italy and the imperialists in Japan”
The actual truth is that it was Russia that beat the nazis in Europe. Hitler threw around 75% of his war machine at Russia. And the Russians defeated them (at a cost of 27 million Russian souls; any wonder Victory Day is such a solemn day in Russia?). The Allies faced only 25% of the Nazi war machine in Europe, thanks to the Russians.
In Asia, China had been invaded by Japan in 1933. The Chinese defeated the Japanese armies by 1943, at a cost of 33 million Chinese souls. When the U.S. went to war in the Pacific, Japan had only its navy remaining. There was very little of the Japanese army left to defend Japan against an invasion (that’s what makes Hiroshima and Nagasaki such horrendous war crimes, btw).
The Russians and Chinese won WWII. The U.S. won the narrative.
Our manufacturing capacity was able to arm and supply the Allies, including Russia, and I think that that story, for whatever reason, gets very little attention. We get Saving Private Ryan instead of an understanding that it was actually our manufacturing and industrial base that did the heavy lifting for the Allies.
I hasve sa few problems with the way you develop your thesis, Corbin.
First, you keep saying "we" gave this and that away. Yes...and no! While we allowed the neocons and capitalists to clean the table and leave only crumbs for the rest of uss, it was a long term business strategy to poison discussion by labelling anything for the people as "communist" or "socialist." Let's be clear that "we" didn't give anything away. It was taken from us through long term, manipulative, and clever messaging by folks with a vested interest in an outcome that favored them. I think it's important to name them and shame them - to call it what it really is.
Second, because of that very clever and successful campaign, the word "socialism" has become poison in the United States. It would certainly be better branding if the Democratic Socialists called themselves something else. Let's stop using the term socialism altogether. Rather, let's just talk about sensible and common sense solutions for problems that plague the vast majority of Americans. Those are solutions that most Americans would vote for, I think.
Third, you raise the question of AI at the end of your post. I think it's a serious issue that needs to be addressed. But it's a specific issue within the larger question you pose: who should control and benefit from the productive capacity of the country?
In my view, capitalism encourages diversity and maximizes alternatives. That makes any system extremely robust and flexible. (Compare it to the brittleness of centrally controlled, top-down systems.) However, capital tends to concentrate in fewer and fewer hands over time, which ultimately defeats the strengths of the system. Accordingly, it needs to be controlled and regulated for the public good. The easiest way to accomplish this is for a shared ownership in the fruits of the system.
So, to answer the question you pose in your title, I think common sense solutions to serious problems definitely have a place in the Democratic Party!
I appreciate the pushback. There's a real reason I keep saying "we.
If Americans keep treating the government as an "other," then we lose our agency to fix it. Our government is a reflection of us, deeply manipulated and undemocratic right now, sure, but still a reflection of us. Look at the 1960s and 70s. When civil rights burgeoned, the elite weaponized racism, xenophobia, and racial resentment to push the corporate blueprint laid out in the Powell Memo. They tricked us into dismantling our own power. The problem is us. That's the bad news and the good news, because it means the fix is us too.
And that's why we can't give up on words like "socialism" or "public ownership." Every time we run from a word because they scream "communism," we surrender the actual solution. We tried that branding retreat with reproductive rights, healthcare, and infrastructure, and we lost the capacity to compete on all of them.
Capitalism builds great products and turns a profit, but it can't build a society, a community, or a culture. Those investments have to come from us. And if we just outsource those public goods to private corporations and try to "pay the bill," that bill balloons way past the point of reason or affordability. We have to stop letting them dictate the dictionary imo.
Capitalism encourages wealth inequality, and privatizing profit while socializing ‘externalities’. Period.
As to ‘centrally controlled systems’ -
".... every socialist experiment in the 20th century - without exception - has been crushed, overthrown or invaded or corrupted, perverted or destabilized or otherwise had made life impossible for it, by the US. Not one socialist gov't or movement ... was permitted to rise or fall on its own merits; not one was left secure enough to drop its guard against its all powerful enemy abroad and freely and fully relax control at home.
It's as if the Wright brothers first experiments with flying machines all failed because automotive interests sabotage each test flight. And, then the good, God-fearing folk of the world looked upon them, took notice of the consequences, nodded their heads and wisely intoned solemnly 'man will never fly' " .. This is from Wm Blum "Killing Hope: US military and CIA Interventions since WWII" 2004
I think that's what uncontrolled and unregulated capitalism does.
But capitalism is just an economic system. If left to its own devices, it will work to maximize profits for owners, just as you say. But it exists within the context of nations and how they are organized. Seems to me it's up to those nations to decide how the gains from a capital-based system will be applied.
I would argue that it's in the long term interests of the capitalists to make sure that those gains are shared with the nation that nurtures and encourages them. Anything less than that will not be sustainable in the longer term.
Yes, capitalism is an economic system, as was feudalism, and slavery.
We’re at 1.75 earths at present just to sustain our current consumption level, never mind raising that of the global south. Not saying there can’t be elements of capitalism in a new system, but capitalism, even ‘well regulated’ capitalism, as the dominate paradigm, has to go.
I would start by socializing, or providing a strong majority socialized component, in every facet of what we would consider the ‘necessities’ of life. Universal health care, housing, federal jobs guarantee, education, public banking, no food deserts, water/sewage systems, electrical grid, broadband, public transit, etc.
Once a baseline of well being for all citizens is established via public control of the ‘necessities’, private components might be allowed, and taxed, but never allowed to eat into the baseline.
The freedom that comes from eliminating economic anxiety trumps ‘maximizing options and choices’, imo.
There will always be someone who can invent a new gadget, and they should be able to be rewarded for doing so, but again, never gaining the ability to infect the public baseline via avoiding progressive taxation or legislative lobbying.
I pretty much agree with you. I think a robust public program to build housing and hospitals would provide important competition to the for-profit, private sector. Same for grocery stores.
At the same time, I'd eliminate all subsidies and incentives for the private sector efforts, so they'd have to be truly competitive.
And while we're at it, I'd make our tax system more aggressively progressive and treat capital gains the same as earned income. Further, I'd remove all loopholes and incentives - they may have had genuinely worthwhile aims at the beginning, but they've all been gamed to a fair-thee-well by now.
Yes, and we also see this inflation in the price of luxury goods and services. So these high-priced hotels and sporting events and jets and homes and cars, which are the playthings of the billionaire class, are where the investment money goes. I mean, if you're a builder, why build hotels that rent for $50 a night and modest homes that sell for $150,000 when you can build hotels that charge $500 a night and luxury homes that sell for millions? The rich have so much money they can afford such things, so they prop up their end of the economy.
Looking at their approval ratings, the Democratic Party is already near death. Perhaps the Democratic Socialists can save it.
Absolutely! A brilliant summary of history and late stage capitalism. And as for what is killing ( or has killed) the Democratic Party is corporatism, failing to fight for the average person, and continuing to prop up the aged old guard who are clueless about the reality of most Americans’ lives. Thank you for posting this! Sharing!!!
What is killing the Democratic Party is the leadership giving preference to corporate lobbyist$ and themselves, and not taking care of working families. Clinton pushing NAFTA caused millions of rust belt voters to lose their union jobs which greatly reduced their standard of living, now working at 1/2 prior pay, little or no benefits and no retirement or job protections. Did anyone think those millions whose livelihoods were greatly diminished by Clinton were going to vote for a Clinton in 2016? Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. That set up people voting for a false populist and got us Trump. There were other negative contributions for a later in depth analysis after we all unite to stop us falling into complete authoritarian rule. P. S. Check out my substack “Life on a Pale Blue Dot”. It is free. Inspired by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan.
If you weren’t so ignorant you would support President Trump who is building the infrastructure of jobs and businesses the right way. With investments not government handouts!
Oh interesting, I hadn’t connected that.
The Democratic Party is what's killing the Democratic Party. Democratic Socialism is the only thing that might have a chance at saving it. A remote chance, but a chance nonetheless.
No as we practice Democratic Socialism in our country. Capitalism without Socialism is Fascism. Socialism means simply, For The People. And without the middle class, there is no democracy. If anything, getting back to the people is what’s needed or we willl lose the Democratic Party because Centrists are Capitalists for corporations and the majority of the voters seems to have had enough of that.
Nice reminder of the history. As someone who knew folks who participated in the fights like the 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters I still think about how far the public discourse has drifted and shifted and been reframed by lousy corporate propaganda and by a lazier chicken-shit middle and working class, apathetic voters easily fooled and frightened by false fire.
Let's fight again. Start by talking about it. I work with fascists and they are not serious people. But they talk all the time and parrot empty slogans. Their emptier heads are full of sound and fury. They are old and will die soon, as will I.
But nor before I share a few things and help keep hope and the fighting spirit alive.
Thanks for your efforts.
Brilliant analysis thank you Corbin 🙏🏻
One of the strangest things about this modern dialogue is to hear the GOP lament the loss of manufacturing base in the US - which was the primary fruit of their decades long 'right to work' fight through the rural states. Once the unions were broken, and the Dems were 'playing the game' (i.e. the 'globalization' game), there was no resistance to this process. Now comes the Donald talking about this and the union leaders, clutching at straws, begin to support him.
The Dems did not support the unions at the state level and allowed this to happen. And it is all a big surprise that the Deplorables switched parties?!?
"The communists, at their extreme, think the state should own and control all of it"
That's not what communism is. These 3 forms of government are not separate entities; Marxism and dialectical materialism state that these are stages of society that progress one after the other. Socialism will replace capitalism (as a "dictatorship of the proletariat", where the means of production are seized by the working class).
Communism is Marx's theoretical endpoint of civilization - a stateless, classless, moneyless society.
Ok, the StarTrek future then.
Ideologically, it (Socialism, Communism, Marxism, etc) means being committed to public &/or working class control of the means of production. It’s not that hard to understand.
Although I appreciate Corbin’s very accessible analysis here but I find myself wanting more. Yes, private property and the existence of a private sector is not an automatic enemy of Marxism but make no mistake that public control of the MEANS OF PRODUCTION is a prerequisite to anything resembling freedom & democracy. And Ideological tools like nationalism and white supremacy - aka racism - only serve the status quo. So, yes, socialized medicine, in addition to public schools, fire/police. Yes, city owned grocery. Yes, public banks in every post office. Yes health clinics in every public school & rec center. Yes massive expansion of public transit.
As such, I’d say distancing oneself from “communism” and “state control” only serves to support some variation of what we already have with maybe a “reform” or two. Sorry to say, but that simply won’t cut it. The capitalist system is so deeply entrenched that comforting somewhat lefty liberal talk won’t cut it. An uncompromising militant labor movement must be revived - then maybe we’ll see some movement.
Great way to put it!
I don't want my political discussions to be framed so that they're comfortable for liberals; I want them to reflect the truth that radical transformation is the only thing that will achieve liberation.
If someone isn't ready for those talking points, we certainly work with them, but we NEVER compromise.
Agreed and understanding that every economic system is mixed but “Radical transformation” needs clear defining and concrete examples, otherwise we stay in academic theoretical la la land. Someone made a good point about following Mamdani’s example and I agree but with adjustments as needed for a given community or state. For example, why not see to it that public land ONLY benefit small (would need specifics) local ranchers & farmers who abide by both environmental AND economic sustainability (fair labor practices, etc).
The USA lost its mind over the Russian Revolution, and has yet to find it. It was all capitalist crap propaganda, but it worked because…. Fear makes people nuts.
We can’t have democracy unless we have democracy in the workplace; that doesn’t mean the custodian gets a business policy veto, but it does mean nothing happens without worker input and buy in.
Its impossible to give up some idealism isnt it? Democrats thought that education for all could help us understand our ideals and work towards better goals, capitalists give us space myths to misdirect/use our idealism.
Fully automated luxury communism
The Soviet Union (Socialist Republic) had far more to do and made far more sacrifices than Capitalist countries in defeating the Fascists.
I would have titled this op ed "Can Democratic Socialists Save the Democratic Party?"
I was going for open rates. oops
I would find it sad if your wording improved your open rates. Hopefully if it did that will change.
the subject and preview text have a huge impact on open rates. There are about 50k people that read most of what I write. then another 50k or so that read some and that latter group is very moved by subjects and preview
I dearly wish that people who should know better would stop conflating:
- communism and socialism
- socialism that proposes social policies for public service with with socialism that calls for abolition of all private property
- socialism with well regulated capitalism.
- Unregulated capitalism with governmental protections such as tariffs, bail outs, tax "incentives", depletion allowances, a foreign service dedicate to promoting the interests of American corporations free of charge to them, and so on and so on.
- There is plenty of socialism in the USA: public schools (so far), tax supported police, fire, roads, parks, and some vital utilities.
As it is this is phony debate between a "democratic socialism" that is scary because of the labels and the "centrist" and "moderate" Democrats who bestow these bland labels upon themselves and who are simply corporatists and the are the right wing of the Party - this is a nonsensical, distracting and destructive discussion.
Even those who should know better continue to muddy the waters.
The simple question is who governments should serve: the only real majority in the country - working class and middle class citizens or a smaller and smaller group of people who taking more and more of the wealth under laws that favor them instead of all of us.
"The people are what matter to government, and a government should aim to facilitate the means by which all the people under its jurisdiction can access the best possible life."— Frances Perkins
I’ll be honest, when I hear “means of production“ my brain kind of shuts down. I wish there was a more accessible way of explaining it, like “who owns the factories that make shit.”
I just know that Europe has socialism and they seem very happy, and China has communism, and they don’t seem very happy. We have late stage, capitalism, and dear God, none of us are happy, except for the oligarchs, who also were not happy because they are endlessly rapacious.
This whole idea of conflating modern "socialism" with ownership of the means of production is an ongoing disaster. Some "schools" of thought preach NO private property - including factories, farms, and other kinds of property that produce items for consumption. Neither Russia nor China are even close to that standard any more. Each has private businesses from food stands to mines to farms large and small to car companies.
But it is good propaganda and fear mongering to keep on beating the drum that socialism means NO private property, business for personal profits, etc.
These days socialism is more likely to mean that the goal of government it regulate private businesses to a greater degree that "no holds barred capitalism". European countries that are thought of by Americans as "socialist" mostly just have things like health care, education even beyond high school being provided by tax dollars administered by government.
And, yes, the countries that provide more for everyone through state run health care, education, and other social service tend to be "happier" - the people have fewer worries about dying in pain because they have no money, many fewer live on the streets to freeze and die of exposure and the effects of untreated mental illness, and so on.
But the rhetoric is full of lies and distractions: your fire department, your police department, your public schools, your District Attorneys and Judges, your post office, your interstate, state, and local roads and sidewalks, and many more things in America are "socialized": the operate on taxes and are run by governments' civil service.
Canada is more socialized than the U.S. but less than Finland, for example.
Final point: I have worked in China a couple of months a year for the past 4 years. People there are as happy and more secure than many places in the U.S. The streets are full of shops that are privately owned, huge businesses are also privately owned. It is not perfect but infrastructure makes America look backward. Arguably, the reason is that there is a lot of centralized planning PLUS the fact that they have not been involved war after war after war draining the treasury to fight in far off was (and losing) wars. That money is spent on infrastructure, education, and so on.
On the other hand one of our largest socialized activities in the U.S. is WAR. We, the people pay for it out of taxes. We get no benefit while the privately owned arms industry gets richer and richer.
It is not so simple as "socialism" vs "capitalism".
I agree with you. Marx also recognized that the middle class is the seat of intellectual, creative and progressive ideas and action. That is why of course the Capitalists, with Reagan a good marker, have been working to destroy what middle class is left. Trump is interesting because he so openly exemplifies this.
The capitalist owners didn’t give away the means of production to eg Mexico they still owned it and extracted more profit , that is, surplus value —the differential between what it takes to reproduce labor power and the remaining profit. So 1) The Democrats failed to raise taxes sufficiently on off shore extraction. 2) they failed to raise minimum wage in the jobs that remained. 3) companies them off-shored many of the remaining customer service jobs 4) credit cards became more necessary and their usury (more extraction) ballooned. But what caused the Democrats to surrender in this way to the Republicans was as you begin with, anti-communism and attacks on so-called socialism meaning anything the state did to regulate or provide a safety net or “the commons”. DSA is reversing both anti-socialism and the idea that state provision and regulation is undemocratic. But the sticking point has always been Americanism, nationalism, imperialism. Labor made the ill-fated choice of choosing not only narrow trade interest but nationalism. We now have a faint but crucial chance to make globalism mean not corporate extraction elsewherebut recognition that nationalism, permission to extract others resources and labor, is not good for the working class. Unfortunately the New Left and Labor were in conflict about this. This is what DSA with its unifying the theme of Palestine and affordability could finally break through. We wouldn’t need to exploit others if we didn’t have a humongous military, and vice versa.
That's actually becoming less and less, though. As you can see now, with the number of companies that are owned by the Chinese and are producing the tangible products that the world uses, you can see that they actually did indeed sell off or give away the means of production. It's largely died in America. It being the means of production.
Agreed. But large scale military stuff is still made in US and is a major portion of our taxes. I don’t know how much of the new tech is produced here v. Israel. The consumer economy became increasingly separate and produced abroad. My main thought is that unlike in the Vietnam war period anti-communism and nationalism are increasingly irrelevant to younger generations. What about a proposal to break up Amazon as a monopoly? Undo the new Ellison Paramount merger etc
Is it a ridiculous idea to focus on policies, projects, and outcomes? Forget about labels. Look at Mamdani. Be like that.
As for US military power relative to the rest of the world and whether the dollar will continue to be the world's reserve currency, or the US a beacon on a hill if ever it was, those things like being famous after death are well out of anyone's control.
Corbin Trent wrote:
“Then we beat the fascists, the Nazis in Germany and Italy and the imperialists in Japan”
The actual truth is that it was Russia that beat the nazis in Europe. Hitler threw around 75% of his war machine at Russia. And the Russians defeated them (at a cost of 27 million Russian souls; any wonder Victory Day is such a solemn day in Russia?). The Allies faced only 25% of the Nazi war machine in Europe, thanks to the Russians.
In Asia, China had been invaded by Japan in 1933. The Chinese defeated the Japanese armies by 1943, at a cost of 33 million Chinese souls. When the U.S. went to war in the Pacific, Japan had only its navy remaining. There was very little of the Japanese army left to defend Japan against an invasion (that’s what makes Hiroshima and Nagasaki such horrendous war crimes, btw).
The Russians and Chinese won WWII. The U.S. won the narrative.
Our manufacturing capacity was able to arm and supply the Allies, including Russia, and I think that that story, for whatever reason, gets very little attention. We get Saving Private Ryan instead of an understanding that it was actually our manufacturing and industrial base that did the heavy lifting for the Allies.
I hasve sa few problems with the way you develop your thesis, Corbin.
First, you keep saying "we" gave this and that away. Yes...and no! While we allowed the neocons and capitalists to clean the table and leave only crumbs for the rest of uss, it was a long term business strategy to poison discussion by labelling anything for the people as "communist" or "socialist." Let's be clear that "we" didn't give anything away. It was taken from us through long term, manipulative, and clever messaging by folks with a vested interest in an outcome that favored them. I think it's important to name them and shame them - to call it what it really is.
Second, because of that very clever and successful campaign, the word "socialism" has become poison in the United States. It would certainly be better branding if the Democratic Socialists called themselves something else. Let's stop using the term socialism altogether. Rather, let's just talk about sensible and common sense solutions for problems that plague the vast majority of Americans. Those are solutions that most Americans would vote for, I think.
Third, you raise the question of AI at the end of your post. I think it's a serious issue that needs to be addressed. But it's a specific issue within the larger question you pose: who should control and benefit from the productive capacity of the country?
In my view, capitalism encourages diversity and maximizes alternatives. That makes any system extremely robust and flexible. (Compare it to the brittleness of centrally controlled, top-down systems.) However, capital tends to concentrate in fewer and fewer hands over time, which ultimately defeats the strengths of the system. Accordingly, it needs to be controlled and regulated for the public good. The easiest way to accomplish this is for a shared ownership in the fruits of the system.
So, to answer the question you pose in your title, I think common sense solutions to serious problems definitely have a place in the Democratic Party!
John,
I appreciate the pushback. There's a real reason I keep saying "we.
If Americans keep treating the government as an "other," then we lose our agency to fix it. Our government is a reflection of us, deeply manipulated and undemocratic right now, sure, but still a reflection of us. Look at the 1960s and 70s. When civil rights burgeoned, the elite weaponized racism, xenophobia, and racial resentment to push the corporate blueprint laid out in the Powell Memo. They tricked us into dismantling our own power. The problem is us. That's the bad news and the good news, because it means the fix is us too.
And that's why we can't give up on words like "socialism" or "public ownership." Every time we run from a word because they scream "communism," we surrender the actual solution. We tried that branding retreat with reproductive rights, healthcare, and infrastructure, and we lost the capacity to compete on all of them.
Capitalism builds great products and turns a profit, but it can't build a society, a community, or a culture. Those investments have to come from us. And if we just outsource those public goods to private corporations and try to "pay the bill," that bill balloons way past the point of reason or affordability. We have to stop letting them dictate the dictionary imo.
Capitalism encourages wealth inequality, and privatizing profit while socializing ‘externalities’. Period.
As to ‘centrally controlled systems’ -
".... every socialist experiment in the 20th century - without exception - has been crushed, overthrown or invaded or corrupted, perverted or destabilized or otherwise had made life impossible for it, by the US. Not one socialist gov't or movement ... was permitted to rise or fall on its own merits; not one was left secure enough to drop its guard against its all powerful enemy abroad and freely and fully relax control at home.
It's as if the Wright brothers first experiments with flying machines all failed because automotive interests sabotage each test flight. And, then the good, God-fearing folk of the world looked upon them, took notice of the consequences, nodded their heads and wisely intoned solemnly 'man will never fly' " .. This is from Wm Blum "Killing Hope: US military and CIA Interventions since WWII" 2004
I think that's what uncontrolled and unregulated capitalism does.
But capitalism is just an economic system. If left to its own devices, it will work to maximize profits for owners, just as you say. But it exists within the context of nations and how they are organized. Seems to me it's up to those nations to decide how the gains from a capital-based system will be applied.
I would argue that it's in the long term interests of the capitalists to make sure that those gains are shared with the nation that nurtures and encourages them. Anything less than that will not be sustainable in the longer term.
Yes, capitalism is an economic system, as was feudalism, and slavery.
We’re at 1.75 earths at present just to sustain our current consumption level, never mind raising that of the global south. Not saying there can’t be elements of capitalism in a new system, but capitalism, even ‘well regulated’ capitalism, as the dominate paradigm, has to go.
I'm open to alternative systems, as long as they maximize options and choices. That's what makes a system robust.
What do you propose in place of well regulated and controlled capitalism?
I would start by socializing, or providing a strong majority socialized component, in every facet of what we would consider the ‘necessities’ of life. Universal health care, housing, federal jobs guarantee, education, public banking, no food deserts, water/sewage systems, electrical grid, broadband, public transit, etc.
Once a baseline of well being for all citizens is established via public control of the ‘necessities’, private components might be allowed, and taxed, but never allowed to eat into the baseline.
The freedom that comes from eliminating economic anxiety trumps ‘maximizing options and choices’, imo.
There will always be someone who can invent a new gadget, and they should be able to be rewarded for doing so, but again, never gaining the ability to infect the public baseline via avoiding progressive taxation or legislative lobbying.
Hi, Tom.
I pretty much agree with you. I think a robust public program to build housing and hospitals would provide important competition to the for-profit, private sector. Same for grocery stores.
At the same time, I'd eliminate all subsidies and incentives for the private sector efforts, so they'd have to be truly competitive.
And while we're at it, I'd make our tax system more aggressively progressive and treat capital gains the same as earned income. Further, I'd remove all loopholes and incentives - they may have had genuinely worthwhile aims at the beginning, but they've all been gamed to a fair-thee-well by now.
Yes, and we also see this inflation in the price of luxury goods and services. So these high-priced hotels and sporting events and jets and homes and cars, which are the playthings of the billionaire class, are where the investment money goes. I mean, if you're a builder, why build hotels that rent for $50 a night and modest homes that sell for $150,000 when you can build hotels that charge $500 a night and luxury homes that sell for millions? The rich have so much money they can afford such things, so they prop up their end of the economy.