I am lifted up by your informed support for contemporary Democratic Socialist forms of government, and happy to learn of the newfangled (for oldsters like me) forms which support their success and flourishing. For decades now we have had available easy-to-access and verify success stories for Demorcratic Socialist societies like Finland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, every one of which boasts higher happiness, health and economic satisfaction scores in international surveys than countries with any other form of government. And yes, there are dark, call them karmic, forces within our society ('rugged individualism'--that old canard, toxic notions about what it means to embody masculine capacities, anxio-religious cultism, perennial greed and the admiration of excess--the list goes on), but we are human beings, confused and creative, hamstrung by ego and liberated by insight-- and we have a chance now to learn from our successes and our mistakes and begin building toward a truly just and equitable society which embraces our responsibility as members of the web of life and celebrates all of that as our truest potential. And as for Trump, Yates, Thiel and all the rest of the nihilists, let them eat darkness. BTW, the current Democratic Socialist Party of the Americas still suffers from some old-timey conceptual language, but is full of enthusiastic young folk ready to bring it into the 21st century by any and all legal means possible. (If anyone's looking for a platform to stand on.)
The public dialogue around capitalism has been warped by a convenient dualism emerging from the Cold War and perpetuated by Right Wing media. The assumption is that fairly pure capitalism is the only way to structure a market-based economy, and anyone who critiques it or uses the term “socialist” is advocating 5-year-plans and a centrally controlled economy like the old USSR.
I think the more we use the terms like “New Deal” rather than freighted terms like “Socialism” the less reactive people will be. Economic reforms should be seen as resetting guardrails against predatory and monopolistic practices and protecting workers, and tax increases just a return to earlier eras where the rich paid their fair share. Social benefits can start with expansions of existing systems like Medicare, which is very popular. If collective benefits are seen as part of a continuum of New Deal protections, they’re more likely to be embraced as part of the American project. Our goal may be to achieve European-style benefits and protections, but getting there soon requires finding roots in American cultural history.
Start by pushing hard on a few of the most familiar programs that will help the most people , the low hanging fruit, so moderate people can regain confidence in collective action as things roll forward. More radical proposals can be tested in smaller communities, like the UBI experiments going on now. With all the poison spewing from the right and enemies abroad, we have to be strategic.
Democratic socialism demands an educated electorate. Half of Americans read at a grade 6 level.
It’s going to take leaders — what Occupy lacked and what the Civil Rights Movement had in droves — to effect change.
Crucially, the US (and due to hegemony, the world) needs a very clear, credible, unifying strategy that doesn’t pit winners against losers or defame people with different cultural priorities, but instead posits achievable economic goals and means that serve the interests of all.
In doing so, the technological transformation needs to be embraced and shaped rather than feared and resisted. It should be harnessed as a creative expression and wielded to serve Life and regenerate systems.
"...allow workers to take control over production and citizens to take control over government...."
The latter would be great if not a pipe dream. The former sounds good but likely not practicable as it suggests that workers own the company therefore control production. In most cases though they don't so it's unlikely that a company's owners would relinquish control over production.
There's no question that collective interests are under siege in a hyper-capitalist state and that the only way to reverse that is by advancing them. But there's a prominent strain of individualism in American society that will not permit collectivism to be advanced beyond a certain point. I would identify that point as allowing for the people to wrest the means of production from private proprietors. Most artists and craftsmen and small business owners I'm aware of would lose a great deal of their incentive to produce if they had to cede control to the proletarian elements engaged in their respective enterprises. No writer, such as yourself, wants his editorial content decided by the group think of his publisher's printing press union. No small cafe owner wants to change his business practices due to the collective will of his kitchen and maintenance staff. I don't see your "democratic socialism" taking hold without a significant degradation in innovation and enterprise. The society should ensure human dignity, means, resources, voting rights, access to power, etc. for all citizens, but turning over the means of production to the collective is not going to take hold in the popular imagination of our society. My preferred model is my wife's native Denmark, which is said to be the most competitive economy among the OECD while guaranteeing and providing shelter, living wage, health care, pensions, and education. I'm hoping we can harness the sort of individualism that you yourself represent, Daniel. Balancing the interests of the individual with that of the collective is difficult. In the US, that balance is grotesquely tipped toward the interests of a few treacherous men. Toward the goal of righting that balance, we don't want to go the way of the nascent Bolshevik state and trample the Kulaks.
Get your head out of the past, Charles. Democratic socialism is a living force for change and although there are some who continue to buy into rigid concepts like'the proletariat' and other such antediluvian terms, those concepts are going the way of the dinosaurs as D-S evolves with the times. I can't imagine, btw, any cafe owner being pushed around by his kitchen staff. If you watched Bear, I think that would provide a decent model of how close communication and respect between staff and ownership can lead to great outcomes. And you're so lucky to have a personal window into Denmark, where almost everyone is well served by a Democratic Socialist government, and people are as happy as people can be about it. More about that, my friend, more about that.
You prove my point saying that no workers group should hamper the cafe owner's business model, and you don't disprove my point about the collective taking over "the means of production." By what you said about the cafe, I take it you agree we don't want to see "the people" taking over the means of production.
I honestly don't want to quibble about what seems to me semantic arguments. I'm trying to look past the knee-jerk reactions which people still fall into when their understanding of democratic socialism is associated with the work of 19th century thinkers and the conditions they were reacting to. I honestly believe that conditions today are quite, quite different, for a host of reasons, including technological ones. What interests me is equity, justice and opportunity for the most people possible, the leveling of the playing field and the recognition that 'we're all in this together,' inseparably, and that exploiting others in the name of one's personal enrichement is just plain wrong, as it results in unnecessary pain and suffering. The old factory model (think Manchester and Leeds circa 1885) is dying, as robotics takes over. And that's not to mention AI. I imagine an open conversation with your wife about whether or not and to what extend the "state has taken over the means of production' in Scandanavia. Um, IKEA?
Denmark is an affluent, homogenous society with a prominent collectivist ethos. Workers have more rights, means, and status than their American counterparts. No one is tied to his job because of the existence or quality of a private insurance plan, so workers are more content and productive, and they live better and longer. It's not my impression that workers "own" the means of production there. Certainly the society at large should have more say about who is entitled to the means of production and what is produced and how it is produced. An overemphasis on individualism has lead to wealth disparity and fascism in spite of our enlightened Constitution. An overemphasis on the collective leads to totalitarian rule and the stifling of enterprise. There must be a balance. Denmark, to my mind, exhibits this most instructively. We could and should model ourselves on their system to some practical degree.
We are in total agreement about that, and I thank the gods we are in a position nowadays to imbibe the ways and means employed by Denmark et al as we begin the long task of reinventing ourselves and preserving the great values emodied in our Constitution. Peace.
I think you misunderstand “collectivism” with regard to small businesses and artists. Yet, the cafe example, worker-owned and co-op structures (and there are many), thrive due to the input of workers, their inspired creativity and when there’s ownership involved, it makes it possible for all to thrive. Bernie is a democratic socialist.
I am lifted up by your informed support for contemporary Democratic Socialist forms of government, and happy to learn of the newfangled (for oldsters like me) forms which support their success and flourishing. For decades now we have had available easy-to-access and verify success stories for Demorcratic Socialist societies like Finland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, every one of which boasts higher happiness, health and economic satisfaction scores in international surveys than countries with any other form of government. And yes, there are dark, call them karmic, forces within our society ('rugged individualism'--that old canard, toxic notions about what it means to embody masculine capacities, anxio-religious cultism, perennial greed and the admiration of excess--the list goes on), but we are human beings, confused and creative, hamstrung by ego and liberated by insight-- and we have a chance now to learn from our successes and our mistakes and begin building toward a truly just and equitable society which embraces our responsibility as members of the web of life and celebrates all of that as our truest potential. And as for Trump, Yates, Thiel and all the rest of the nihilists, let them eat darkness. BTW, the current Democratic Socialist Party of the Americas still suffers from some old-timey conceptual language, but is full of enthusiastic young folk ready to bring it into the 21st century by any and all legal means possible. (If anyone's looking for a platform to stand on.)
The public dialogue around capitalism has been warped by a convenient dualism emerging from the Cold War and perpetuated by Right Wing media. The assumption is that fairly pure capitalism is the only way to structure a market-based economy, and anyone who critiques it or uses the term “socialist” is advocating 5-year-plans and a centrally controlled economy like the old USSR.
I think the more we use the terms like “New Deal” rather than freighted terms like “Socialism” the less reactive people will be. Economic reforms should be seen as resetting guardrails against predatory and monopolistic practices and protecting workers, and tax increases just a return to earlier eras where the rich paid their fair share. Social benefits can start with expansions of existing systems like Medicare, which is very popular. If collective benefits are seen as part of a continuum of New Deal protections, they’re more likely to be embraced as part of the American project. Our goal may be to achieve European-style benefits and protections, but getting there soon requires finding roots in American cultural history.
Start by pushing hard on a few of the most familiar programs that will help the most people , the low hanging fruit, so moderate people can regain confidence in collective action as things roll forward. More radical proposals can be tested in smaller communities, like the UBI experiments going on now. With all the poison spewing from the right and enemies abroad, we have to be strategic.
Democratic socialism demands an educated electorate. Half of Americans read at a grade 6 level.
It’s going to take leaders — what Occupy lacked and what the Civil Rights Movement had in droves — to effect change.
Crucially, the US (and due to hegemony, the world) needs a very clear, credible, unifying strategy that doesn’t pit winners against losers or defame people with different cultural priorities, but instead posits achievable economic goals and means that serve the interests of all.
In doing so, the technological transformation needs to be embraced and shaped rather than feared and resisted. It should be harnessed as a creative expression and wielded to serve Life and regenerate systems.
"...allow workers to take control over production and citizens to take control over government...."
The latter would be great if not a pipe dream. The former sounds good but likely not practicable as it suggests that workers own the company therefore control production. In most cases though they don't so it's unlikely that a company's owners would relinquish control over production.
There's no question that collective interests are under siege in a hyper-capitalist state and that the only way to reverse that is by advancing them. But there's a prominent strain of individualism in American society that will not permit collectivism to be advanced beyond a certain point. I would identify that point as allowing for the people to wrest the means of production from private proprietors. Most artists and craftsmen and small business owners I'm aware of would lose a great deal of their incentive to produce if they had to cede control to the proletarian elements engaged in their respective enterprises. No writer, such as yourself, wants his editorial content decided by the group think of his publisher's printing press union. No small cafe owner wants to change his business practices due to the collective will of his kitchen and maintenance staff. I don't see your "democratic socialism" taking hold without a significant degradation in innovation and enterprise. The society should ensure human dignity, means, resources, voting rights, access to power, etc. for all citizens, but turning over the means of production to the collective is not going to take hold in the popular imagination of our society. My preferred model is my wife's native Denmark, which is said to be the most competitive economy among the OECD while guaranteeing and providing shelter, living wage, health care, pensions, and education. I'm hoping we can harness the sort of individualism that you yourself represent, Daniel. Balancing the interests of the individual with that of the collective is difficult. In the US, that balance is grotesquely tipped toward the interests of a few treacherous men. Toward the goal of righting that balance, we don't want to go the way of the nascent Bolshevik state and trample the Kulaks.
Get your head out of the past, Charles. Democratic socialism is a living force for change and although there are some who continue to buy into rigid concepts like'the proletariat' and other such antediluvian terms, those concepts are going the way of the dinosaurs as D-S evolves with the times. I can't imagine, btw, any cafe owner being pushed around by his kitchen staff. If you watched Bear, I think that would provide a decent model of how close communication and respect between staff and ownership can lead to great outcomes. And you're so lucky to have a personal window into Denmark, where almost everyone is well served by a Democratic Socialist government, and people are as happy as people can be about it. More about that, my friend, more about that.
You prove my point saying that no workers group should hamper the cafe owner's business model, and you don't disprove my point about the collective taking over "the means of production." By what you said about the cafe, I take it you agree we don't want to see "the people" taking over the means of production.
I honestly don't want to quibble about what seems to me semantic arguments. I'm trying to look past the knee-jerk reactions which people still fall into when their understanding of democratic socialism is associated with the work of 19th century thinkers and the conditions they were reacting to. I honestly believe that conditions today are quite, quite different, for a host of reasons, including technological ones. What interests me is equity, justice and opportunity for the most people possible, the leveling of the playing field and the recognition that 'we're all in this together,' inseparably, and that exploiting others in the name of one's personal enrichement is just plain wrong, as it results in unnecessary pain and suffering. The old factory model (think Manchester and Leeds circa 1885) is dying, as robotics takes over. And that's not to mention AI. I imagine an open conversation with your wife about whether or not and to what extend the "state has taken over the means of production' in Scandanavia. Um, IKEA?
Denmark is an affluent, homogenous society with a prominent collectivist ethos. Workers have more rights, means, and status than their American counterparts. No one is tied to his job because of the existence or quality of a private insurance plan, so workers are more content and productive, and they live better and longer. It's not my impression that workers "own" the means of production there. Certainly the society at large should have more say about who is entitled to the means of production and what is produced and how it is produced. An overemphasis on individualism has lead to wealth disparity and fascism in spite of our enlightened Constitution. An overemphasis on the collective leads to totalitarian rule and the stifling of enterprise. There must be a balance. Denmark, to my mind, exhibits this most instructively. We could and should model ourselves on their system to some practical degree.
We are in total agreement about that, and I thank the gods we are in a position nowadays to imbibe the ways and means employed by Denmark et al as we begin the long task of reinventing ourselves and preserving the great values emodied in our Constitution. Peace.
I think you misunderstand “collectivism” with regard to small businesses and artists. Yet, the cafe example, worker-owned and co-op structures (and there are many), thrive due to the input of workers, their inspired creativity and when there’s ownership involved, it makes it possible for all to thrive. Bernie is a democratic socialist.