It's Still Socialism, Stupid

Back in the early Clinton era, some waggish Republican created a political button that read "It's Socialism, Stupid," mocking the notice about the economy that famously hung in Clinton's campaign office. I wasn't clear which part of President Clinton's business-friendly agenda constituted socialism, but I was delighted to buy the button and wear it on my jacket. The notion that socialism was being mentioned at all cheered me up.

A decade and a half later, I'm still waiting for another button to mention the "s" word. In the meantime, I'm happy to report that DVD copies of my documentary The Internationale, about the song of socialism and communism, have recently started to sell briskly again. And emails about the film have been arriving from teachers, union members, students, and even someone that told me she was giving out copies of the DVD as house gifts.

I like to think that a renewed interest in an obscure film about a left-wing song suggests a positive leftward trend in the public's thinking. Why do people still care about such a seemingly outdated notion as socialism in this era of triumphant capitalism? Maybe it's because capitalists in China are putting poison in pet food and toothpaste because the market will bear it, or maybe because people are appalled that oil companies are raking in megabucks during a time of war, or that giant food producers are causing obesity and disease in the name of higher earnings, or that health insurance companies are making fortunes by denying people the care they need. Or maybe it's just that capitalism is proving again and again to be a catastrophically failed experiment.

Mind you, there are those who will say that socialism failed, too, and that the brutality of the Soviet Union proved it to be an unworkable system. Which is sort of like saying that democracy is a bad idea because sometimes people steal elections.

As we enter another presidential season, I wonder how Eugene V. Debs, the perennial Socialist candidate for president back in the early 1900s would do against the present crop of moderate Democratic hopefuls. Wouldn't the ideas expressed by socialists ring ever more true today: that that society's resources should be equitably allocated, that poor and working people from different countries often have more in common with one another than they do with their rich countrymen, that wars generally serve the interests of the elites and are fought by everyone else, and that food, housing, and health care are basic human rights that are too important to leave up to the cruel machinery of the marketplace?

I'm hoping that among the present crop of candidates, someone's vision inspires another lapel pin about socialism. In the meantime, I'll wear my old one, and will keep singing "The Internationale" and hoping that others will join in.