Over the last few years the word "socialism" has become fairly prominent in our American political discourse. It's become fashionable among many Republicans, both elected officials and members of the public, to accuse President Obama, prominent Democrats, or the Democratic Party itself, of being card-carrying socialists of some kind or another (see examples here, here, here, etc.). More recently, Florida GOP Representative Allen West has made explicit accusations of communism toward Democratic members of Congress and the Democratic platform. With the recent Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act, it will be interesting to see how these charges might continue. (Of course, this is not a one-sided problem. Some Democrats have inaccurately used words like "fascist" or "dictator" to describe President Bush just a few years ago...)
Other Republicans, notably including presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney, are more circumspect. For example, when asked in a GOP primary debate on September 22, 2011 if he believes that President Obama is a socialist, Governor Romney responded that he thinks that Obama is "a big-spending liberal, and he takes his political inspiration from Europe and from the Socialist Democrats in Europe" (see the YouTube video of the response here), but he declined to explicitly label President Obama as a socialist.
Big-spending liberal? Socialist? Communist? European Social Democrat? Is there a substantive difference between all these labels that get tossed around so frequently in our current campaign season? More importantly, do any of them accurately characterize President Obama or the modern Democratic Party?
Since the end of the Cold War and the success of the Third Way in England, "socialism" in Europe has essentially meant liberal democratic free-market capitalism (i.e. the exact same type of political system we enjoy in the United States) combined with a slightly more expansive welfare state and a "mixed economy," which is state ownership and management of a few select sectors of the economy deemed to be in the public good (transportation, utilities, telecommunications, etc.). In other words, the only remaining "socialism" in today's world (popular in France, Germany, and much of Europe) rejects 95 percent of the values and ideas that classical "socialist" philosophy is based on and has accepted free-market capitalism as the only stable and reliable means of generating wealth in society.
To repeat, "socialism" today means free-market liberal capitalism + bigger welfare state + "mixed economy." Does this characterize the modern Democratic Party? Let's take the first one: do Democrats support free-market capitalism? Yes. And so do Republicans. Second, most European democracies spend somewhere between 20-30 percent of their GDP on welfare state services. The United States currently spends about 17 percent of our GDP on our welfare state. There's been no serious attempt by the Democrats to grow our welfare state spending by 10 percent of our GDP. Third, what about a "mixed economy"? Is President Obama advocating that the U.S. government take over the airline industry or the nation's Internet service providers? Is he advocating that the government seize the public airways, cell phone companies, or Internet service providers? No.
What about Obamacare? Wasn't that "socialist" to the core? The ACA health care reform bill essentially did three things: 1) restricted freedoms of private insurance companies, forcing them to provide coverage for pre-existing conditions, among other things, 2) increased regulation of these private insurance companies, forcing them to compete in health care exchanges in an effort to lower costs, and 3) mandated that individuals purchase health insurance. None of these actions transferred ownership of the health insurance industry from private firms to the federal government, so there was no new "mixed economy," and therefore no new "socialism." Also, let's not forget that the United States has for some decades owned and operated health insurance programs. They're called Medicare and Medicaid. Even the most ardent opponents of health care reform are hesitant to label Medicare/Medicaid as "socialist."
Now how about the economic stimulus package and the auto/banking bailout packages? After all, the government basically used tax-payer money to save Wall Street and Detroit from bankruptcy. In other words, the government took ownership of some of these private firms. That can indeed be classified as "mixed economy," certainly suggesting socialism. However, there was an important difference between the auto/banking bailouts and European social democracy. Unlike in Europe where this is designed to be a permanent fixture of the economy, the bailouts were temporary measures, designed to end as soon as possible. And the companies are well on their way to paying back these government loans (see here). Also, it's important (and ironic) to remember that these "socialist" measures were first advocated and set into motion by Republican President Bush a few months before Obama's inauguration. So if accusations of socialism are going to fly, let's remember that Republican President Bush would be the original socialist in this case.
More often these days, however, the charge is made that increased government regulation is, by definition, socialism (or even communism). This is especially common amongst some politicians as of late. (See here, here, and here.) This is simply inaccurate. PolitiFact even rated the "Obama is a socialist" charge as a "pants-on-fire" mischaracterization. Increased government regulation of private firms and individuals, with higher taxation rates to pay for them, is more accurately described as modern political liberalism. This is not socialism; it's modern liberalism. Do President Obama and the Democratic Party prefer an increase of government regulation of private firms and individuals in an effort, as they see it, to protect Americans from poverty, illness, and unemployment? Certainly. That's modern liberalism. That was FDR's New Deal and LBJ's Great Society. And that's what President Obama has tried to do with health care reform, with the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill, and a host of other policies. It's politically liberal to be sure, but it's not socialism.
As a final argument, consider the following. If we were to array the various political ideologies and current economic systems in the world on a spectrum from extreme individualism to extreme communalism, it would look something like this:
The important thing to notice is where the red changes to green on the spectrum. Take special note that all "mainstream" ideologies in the world today (American conservatives, American liberals, and social democracy), are all on the individualist end of the spectrum. The great irony is that, in the grand scheme of things, there's not much "socialist" about European social democracy anymore, and there hasn't been for the better part of the last two decades.
So is it accurate for Republicans to characterize the Democratic Party and President Obama as socialists? No. They're liberals. (And if you don't like liberalism -- and that's okay! -- then being a "liberal" is certainly a bad thing.) Are they, at least, "more in the socialist direction"? Sure, just as much as Republicans are "more in the fascist direction" or "more in the anarchist" direction.
It's entirely fair to call President Obama a liberal. It's even fair to call him a "big spending" liberal (assuming you're willing to call our previous president a "big spending conservative"). It is inaccurate, though, and a little disingenuous to call him a socialist. Liberalism and socialism are not the same thing.
Sound familiar? Yes, make no mistake they are Socialist. They will deny it endlessly, but it doesn't change what they are.
You've conveniently left out people like the Koch bros. who create groups like Alec to work against our common good, Rupert Murdoch who uses misinformation to control public discourse or Romney who uses his business acumen to suck the wealth out of companies for his personal gain while destroying good paying jobs.
Look at it this way: in 1945 when tax rates for top earners exceeded 75%, the taxes were used to develop infrastructure, invest in education and promote home ownership fueling the greatest prosperity our planet has ever witnessed.
With the tax rates now at historic lows, the 1% does not use their wealth for the common good which we can see in our crumbling infrastructure, stagnating education system and a loss of many middle class people being moved to the lower rungs of the economic scale.
If you were bring honest, you could acknowledge this trend.
A huge problem with our country is we still believe we are the greatest country on Earth. that was true at one time but instead of fighting for the good and freedom of all, we have become obsessed with individual septic greed and the good of some, the particularly wealthy some.
The GOP sling fear mongering words like "socialist" to round up the ignorant, the uneducated, the evangelicals, the scared, the elderly that remember when Socialism correlated to the Soviet Union, and scare them into believing that their policies are good for them.
In fact they are only good for those who already have it all.
Herman Cain talked about Democrats wanting to keep individuals on the social handouts to keep and maintain thier votes. This keeping people down ensures thier votes when they are dependent on the gov for thier life.
Did you know the first woman millionaire in the United States was African American? Look up Sarah Breedlove. She was the first child in her family born into freedom after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. That's capitalism. That's the Ameican Dream- NOT the nightmare of food stamps sold by the Democrats. The American Dream is possible becuase there is capitalism-you got a good idea and want to put in the hard work you can acheive anything.
President Obama's policies of wealth distribution is socialism? What policies? He has no policies of wealth distribution. He seems to think that as long as Wall Street is good, everybody in America is good. That's why his cabinet looks like a banker's convention. If he has promoted any policy, it is to feed the bankers whatever they need, supply the car manufacturers a nice chunk of the American Pie and hope that the rest of us will be nourished by what comes out the other end.
As far as your "freedom" goes; you gave that up a long time ago when the United States of America became the Federal Reserve of America.
If we could focus all this anger to stop the draining of America's spirit by financial interests pretending to help us, we might have a chance to make our country great again. Then people like you could work their fingers to the bone and be successful instead of blindly hating "socialists" for grabbing a chunk of the fruit of your labor. The Tea Party is the "me" party. It's time for U.S. to find our voice again!
Unbridled capitalism is a different thing.
Society needs goes beyond the profit motive.
Those activities should be controlled in the public domain.
Health Care for one.
There is also another segment of the 1%. These are people who don't take Stimulus checks or look to the Government for Bailouts. The kind of people who can create a service or product so enticing that people are willing to trade money for it. They serve society by creating jobs, investing and handing out pay checks. These 1% are your allies. Remember them the next time you rally for Capital Gains tax increases on American investments or make calls to "take back" money that had never belonged to the public in the first place, they are your allies.
To style them job creators is a lie..
They wish to create wealth for themselves regardless of the costs to society and our country.
They use their wealth to get special treatment. that the average American doesnt have,
They are going berserk because one of the SC actually did his job.
They thought it was in the bag.
Hogs are hogs because they are hogs.
Its in their nature.
Some fine examples:
Microsoft Co founder Paul Allen, helped fund and design the first private sector space program, creating the first privately built Spaceship 1. White Knight space craft to venture space.
Paypal founder Elon Musk started the private space company SpaceX, which successfully launched its first Falcon 9 rockets and Dragon Capsules to fulfill the tasks of the canceled Constellation Program with lower costs and faster development time.
John Carmack, Co designer of Doom & Quake video games created a company called Armadillo Aerospace, designing plans for their own private sub orbital vehicles.
Amazon.com Founder Jeff Bezos created the company Blue Origin, also in the business of building new sub orbital space vehicles.
Hotel chain owner Robert Bigelo funded the design of the first two orbiting space habitats..or space hotels.
Each one of these people blessed society with their convenient and entertaining creations..and when they got rich off of it, they blessed society with more creations... not to mention the high paying jobs and salaries all those new companies created. These are the 1% that you wish to punish.
You see many of them claim Obama is a Marxist and a Fascist in the same breath, showing they are totally clueless what the terms mean.
It’s a meme, a buzz phrase. They have no real policy agenda except wealth transference to the top 1%, increased military spending and theocratic based big government control of people lives, so OF COURSE they can only blow out catch phrase and doggerels.
It’s like their whole Libertarian Ayn Rand obsession?
Ask any one of them “give me an example of a libertarian government any place in the world….”
It stops them cold in their tracks.
They simply go back to the talking points, as in all things Far Right today, they can only sing one tune, and they do it over and over and over and over….