Chances are, if you bring up the word socialism in a room with ten other people, seven will greet you with destain, two ambivalence, and one, for a lack of a better word, comradeship. It has been twenty years since the end of the Cold War, and yet we still hear about socialist conspiracies to suppress individualism for the sake of equality and political correctness. Over the past four years, a largely moderate and corporatist minded president has been accused of being a socialist radical bent on forcing all Americans to gather under the iron fist of the state in order to be crushed by the economic oppression of healthcare mandates, exercise, energy saving lightbulbs, and broccoli. Former Florida Congressmen Allen West labeled all members of the Progressive Congressional Caucus as card carrying Marxists whose primary objectives included the empowerment of radical teachers unions and undermining the foundations of the great American capitalist enterprise. It's as if you can't be American, or a member of a Democratic society while simultaneously identifying with the moral or economic prescriptions of socialism.
As I see it, with the recent reelection of the so called Comrade Oba-Mao, its time to put the myths of socialism in America to rest. First, the collectivized definition of all leftists subgroups is incredibly simplistic and misleading. Of course, thats the point of generalization when preforming the act of scapegoating. nonetheless, socialism only can be identified with the regimes of Soviet Russia, Maoist China, Cuba and the like in an economic sense when referring to state planning. Land collectivization, state management of industrial input and output, and the homogeneity of labor compensation were the policies prescribed by a socialist economic system. This did result in massive starvation, poor work ethic, and political purges. However, what must be understood is that these examples employed an extreme level of socialism known as Communism. Communism, unlike socialism, is not an economic system but a political system of state enforced equality.
Not all models of socialism are the same as Soviet style Communism. In fact, there are plenty of successful socialist economic models such as that of Scandinavian countries, Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, Canada, Costa Rica, and Germany. Germany has one of the strongest economies in the world, top of the line education, and a world class transportation system. While France's economy isn't nearly as successful as Germany's, it's healthcare system is ranked as the worlds best by the World Health Organization. Canada employment rate recovered from the global economic recession faster than any other G7 economy and Canada's national deficit has been decreasing, unlike America's which has remained stagnant. Costa Rica has the highest literacy rate in South America with an average life expectancy of 79 years, partly due to the abolition of the military in 1948. In Sweden, employers not only grant maternal but also paternal leave for families with newborn children.
I must not forget another very important country that has employed socialist policies many times over, the United States. Yes, throughout the 20th Century, America has implemented a range of socialist economic programs such as Social Security the most popular entitlement program amongst Americans which provides citizens with a generous stipend after retirement, the FDIC which insures the security of the bank accounts of every American during a monetary/fiscal crisis, federal highway systems designed and funded by the American government to provide convenient infrastructure to advance business efficiency and safe travel, national landmarks and parklands protected from the purposes of mineral exploitation and reserved for the recreation of American citizens and the preservation of the natural beauty of the American heartland, Medicare another popular entitlement that provides economic aid for the elderly through a system of socialized medicine, and a public education system which provides the important service of preparing the next generation for crafting a better tomorrow for future Americans. In reality, under the recent definition of socialism, America has been a socialist country for the past century.
Now lets consider the grievances held by the so called patriots defending America from the the dark cloud of socialism. First, the 2010 Healthcare reform act is a socialist law that will erode freedoms that make the American way of life possible. Is healthcare reform socialist? To the extent that it calls for some state involvement in the healthcare industry yes. But the American government already plays a large role in managing utility services, airline travel, pharmaceuticals, and banking. What makes the healthcare industry any different? Furthermore, America has had a socialized medical system since the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s, so the idea of America having socialist healthcare system isn't anything new. The bill passed in 2010 provides no government ran healthcare program, not even a public option. In fact, it was originally proposed by the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation during the healthcare debate in the 1990s which ended in disaster. Only in a marginal sense is healthcare reform socialist, and Medicare and Medicaid negate the accusation that the 2010 Affordable Care Act has made America more socialist.
Second, Americans are being overtaxed by a socialist president who hates individual ambition. Taxes are lower than they have been since the 1950s. Tax relief for middle class Americans has expanded under President Obama with the implementation of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as well as the Payroll Tax Holiday. Under this President, taxes haven't been raised on anyone and deficit reduction proposals have been largely dominated by spending cuts as opposed to tax increases. This is largely due to a vigilant and illogical pledge that was signed by a majority of Congressional Republicans not to raise taxes on the American people ever. The ability to keep such a promise is akin to being able to remove the threat of terrorism from the world entirely. It simply can't be done, especially in a time of economic weakness and record high deficits. Raising taxes isn't a socialist idea exclusively. In fact, in a Soviet style socialist society, taxes would be irrelevant since the state already owns all means of production, it can't very well tax itself. Taxes are the product of capitalist democracies, not socialist command economies. Even conservative small government crusader President Ronald Reagan believed that the tax code should be progressive and that it was necessary for the wealthy to pay a fair share in order to craft a balanced budget. Following his reelection in 1984, President Reagan called for the closing of "crazy" tax loopholes for wealthy Americans. This is a direct quote from a speech President Reagan gave on the subject,
"We’re going to close the unproductive tax loopholes that allow some of the truly wealthy to avoid paying their fair share. In theory, some of those loopholes were understandable, but in practice they sometimes made it possible for millionaires to pay nothing, while a bus driver was paying ten percent of his salary, and that’s crazy."
Hearing these words it sounds as if the former president is making a proposal for the Buffet Rule.
Third, this administration has violated the Freedom of Religion in our Constitution due to his secular socialist ideology. In regards to religion criticisms of the president I get confused with the lack of clarity in the narrative. Is Obama a secular heathen or a Muslim extremist? In any case, there has been no attack on the freedom of religion in this country by secular elements of society, at least not any that are remotely relevant. These accusations have been primarily derived by the president's support of women's health coverage in employer based healthcare insurance, namely birth control pills. Furthermore, for no direct reason, the meager percentage of the federal budget given to Planned Parenthood has also been drawn into the conflict between women's' health converge and religious freedom. I don't see how this has anything to do with an individual's right to worship, but it appears to me that the threat to religious freedom is largely being advanced by social conservatives by scapegoating atheism and Islam as threats to the American way of life. Furthermore, just because their is a right to religious freedom doesn't mean that right should be employed to oppress others who chose to take birth control in order to avoid a number medical conditions, one of which is an unwanted pregnancy. Such an opinion does not represent socialist ideals but democratic ones.
Fourth, Obama is a socialist because he hates the free market. If he believed in the free market he wouldn't chose winners and losers by bailing out GM. First, no nation has a true free capitalist market economy. As I explained before, America has a lot of socialist elements embedded in its societal infrastructure. In reality all countries are mixed economies with some free market elements and some government involvement. Second, simply bailing out companies is not an example of socialism. It is an example of corporatism which is another word for state capitalism, a model currently employed by Japan, Russia, and China. While I have my reservations to corporatism, I will say that the bailout saved millions of jobs that would've been lost in the economic recession which would have certainly led America into a depression. A socialist response would have been to put GM under government control until further notice. Instead the American government continued to allow GM's management to make business decisions without hindrance, although they expected the bailout money to be paid back. This again is not socialism, it is corporatism.
So what do socialists really believe in? Primarily, socialism is an economic system that perceives government as the most efficient mechanism of ensuring economic fairness by crafting a robust progressive tax system to provide a safe and swift public transport system, a quality primary education system, an affordable and sometimes free secondary education system, and a government healthcare system to insure that the health needs of all citizens are provided for. Socialists believe that economic rights such as right to healthcare, right to work, right to education, and right to housing are just as important as political rights. Socialists believe that a healthy and educated populace will promote overall happiness as well as economic growth. Socialists believe in the public promotion of the arts, for a society without arts would be void of life, color, and creativity. Socialists believe that certain industries such as agriculture and utilities should receive public subsidies based on the needs of the citizenry. Socialists believe that community responsibility for securing the welfare of children, the poor, the elderly, and the sick is not only ethical but a matter of common sense. In other words, a society is only as strong as those who are left behind and a society will suffer from the blind eye it turns to the downtrodden. This is a concept known as economic security which is at the heart of the socialist mantra. A nation where the individual citizen has no responsibility towards his neighbor is not a nation worth fighting for or believing in. Therefore the socialist message is a patriotic one. But it is also a universal one. After all, the worlds most socialist countries such as Norway and Finland are also the most active in international institutions that fight against global poverty, hunger, and the subjugation of women.
Often times I wonder what the founding fathers would have thought of the concept of socialism. It was a political theory that developed at least 50 years after their time, and whose to say whether Thomas Paine would've adapted his Pamphlet Common Sense to include some socialist perspectives in his treatise for a new society governed by the people? Whose to say that Ben Franklin, a man who founded civic institutions such as Philadelphia's first post office, fire station, and the infamous Pennsylvania Gasset would have been attracted by socialism's value in community strength through solidarity and action? Whose to say that the secular Thomas Jefferson might have admired socialism's prescription for a firm wall between church and state? Perhaps they would have remained ambiguous on the subject, but keep in mind that these were some of the most progressive and open minded figures of their time and it would be silly to think that they would not have at least given the subject some consideration. In conclusion, Americans shouldn't have to accept socialism as valid, but at least they should try to understand what it is before they sound completely ridiculous.
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