"Under socialism man exploits man, under capitalism it's the other way around." — unattributed saying
The conservative outcry of socialism in response to Obama's policies has been intense. We haven't heard this much mention of socialism in politics in decades. It's been so long that socialism has been seriously discussed in American politics that most people don't even know what it is--including nearly every pundit that is talking about it. So are Obama's policies socialism? If so, is that horrible or anti-American?
According to Wikipedia, "socialism is an economic and political theory based on public ownership or common ownership and cooperative management of the means of production and allocation of resources." In a nut-shell, under socialism goods are produced and allocated under some sort of communal or governmental system (rather than private businesses) that promotes or enforces shared or equal distribution of wealth. Is socialism the same as communism? In contemporary America, the face of communism has been the Soviet Union or Communist China. As such, we associate communism with dictators, government secrecy and heavy-handedness, godlessness, concentration of power and wealth to a commanding few, and government control of industry. Only the last of these has anything to do with socialism. American socialists never supported the USSR or other communist countries. The
Socialist Party of America (SPA) was out in front as a fierce critic of Stalinism (and fascism). In fact, the SPA was the only political party in the 1940 election that was openly critical of Stalin. The contemporary
Socialist Party USA argues that socialism has never been tried by any country. So to be clear, we are talking about socialism and NOT communism--or at least communism as we are familiar with it.
Is socialism horrible or anti-American?So often you hear people say that "America is a capitalist society." Is it? Capitalism isn't anywhere in the United States Constitution. So what makes us a capitalist society, if we are one? The only thing that could make us a capitalist society are policies of the United States Government. You see, the United States is a Democracy (conservatives would "correct" this by saying it's a republic, but a republic is a form of democracy). Our founders worked hard to make it clear that the U.S. is a democracy. They didn't work hard to make it clear that we are capitalist. Nor did they make us socialist. We are a democracy, simple as that. So constitutionally, we are neither capitalist nor socialist. And that is largely the way America operates.
The American economy has been a hybrid of capitalist and socialist policies since the beginning. The balance in this hybrid has always been based on what's good for America and the American people. Public schools and the U.S. postal system? Good for the American people. Private hardware stores and Microsoft? Good for the American people. We've always had a hybrid here in America, because we live in A DEMOCRACY. And we always will have a hybrid here, as long as Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness drives our political ambitions.
So how prevalent is socialism in American? Dan Carlin, in "My History Can Beat Up Your Politics," argues that while a socialist political party never really got a foothold in American politics (peaking in 1920), socialism has had a profound influence on our politics and day-to-day life. For example, he points out* that most of the issues laid out in the Socialist Labor Party 1896 political platform eventually became law or policies, including a reduction in hours of labor (e.g., 8 hour work day), retention of public lands (e.g., National Forests), the federal reserve (a partial victory), a progressive income tax, compulsory school education, repeal of pauper or tramp laws, prohibition of child labor, equalization of women's wages (not met, but positive steps), and legality for unions.
I think most reasonable historians would agree that neither pure socialism or pure capitalism would be good for America. We have had periods in the U.S. where we have shifted more heavily toward Capitalism (the Gilded Age in the late 1800s, 1920s, the recent Wall Street/real estate boom/busts) and suffered for it. And though there was much more going on, I think it is still easy to conclude that the USSR experience did not indicate that a socialist-like system (without balance with capitalism) would work. The best model is a democracy where the people can willingly choose what works for them. [Which is why I really like the quote at the top of this blog]
So are President Obama's policies even socialist? Probably the biggest cry of socialism resulted from the Health-Care Reform Act of 2010. This bill is diverse, but in general (and most relevant to this discussion), it requires all American's to purchase health care insurance, established cooperatives to make it easier for individuals to get affordable health care insurance, and provides health care insurance to millions of American's in poverty. All health care will be purchased from private insurers. It is this latter point that makes the health care bill decidedly NOT socialist in nature. Many liberals wanted a
Single-Payer System, which, in my opinion, would have been socialist in nature, but this was never given serious discussion and never appeared in any of the various health care bills that Congress considered. The Public Option, which was favored by most democrats, would have given American's a choice between purchasing insurance from private insurers or from a public insurance program. In my opinion, this version would have been the most American version, because it would have provided the American people with a true choice. But conservative democrats sided with Republicans and this public option was not in the final bill. So, the health care bill was decidedly not socialist.
What about the Troubled Asset Relieve Program (TARP), better known as the bank bailout. First of all, this was a program developed and passed by the Bush administration, so even if it was socialist, it wasn't Obama's. But after he took office, he continued to administer it, so let's look at it anyway. I see little socialist about this. The government certainly didn't distribute the wealth of the banks among the people. The only thing even approaching socialism is that the government is temporarily holding stocks of many of these companies, and therefore are partial owners, in an attempt to compensate the American taxpayer for the bailout. TARP is not capitalist either. However, the deregulation of Wall Street that lead to the bank and real estate crashes were decidedly capitalist, and it is foolhardy to disassociate TARP with the financial crash that lead to it. So I would definitely conclude that TARP had much more to do with capitalism than socialism.
How about the Recovery Act of 2009, which was an attempt to use federal money to provide jobs throughout the nation and stem the tide of the recession. This certainly would have been something that many socialists would have promoted--they promoted the jobs programs that were part of Roosevelt's New Deal during the depression. However, this action is totally a
Keynesian economics move and Keynesian theory is not considered socialist, but rather a form of capitalism. So no real socialism here.
I could go on, but these are the most common Obama Administration actions that are cited as socialist. I think it is fairly clear that there is little that is socialist about them. Perhaps more importantly though, if these actions benefit the American people in our pursuit of Life, Liberty and Happiness, then who cares if an Obama policy is socialist. This is a democracy and it should always stay that way. Any move toward too much socialism OR capitalism threatens our democracy and should be rejected outright.
*"My History Can Beat Up Your Politics" episode entitled "
Socialism" that aired in November 2009. This is a highly informative podcast and undoubtadly influenced numerous perspectives in this blog.
[Note: I don't have enough time to do this subject justice, but I'm tired of people that don't know what they are talking about crying out "socialism," so I had to at least weigh in.]
