A small follow-up to my recent column about the Trumpian-Republican effort to run against socialism. Said piece led off with Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer’s definition of “socialism”:
“It’s Venezuela. I mean, it is a complete government takeover. Literally, it’s theft. Socialism is theft. You name your issue. It’s restriction of free speech.”
My point, you noticed, was not whether socialism is good or bad, but that the term is almost meaningless and Republicans are trying to smear it all over Democrats because it fires up the base.
My belief: The S-word has no precise, commonly accepted meaning. The government levies taxes (then borrows to spend more than it taxes) and spends it on things. The magic line where that process crosses the line between freedom and tyranny (or socialism) is in the highly partisanized eye of the beholder.
So today, I pass along a story by Phillip Bump of the Washington Post in which Americans were asked in a YouGov poll whether various categories of government spending constituted “socialism.” The difference in replies across party lines were instructive.
For starters, the portion of Republicans who expressed a “very unfavorable” view of the S-word was huge (60 percent) compared to 28 for Democrats. Surprising to me, but not that surprising. And, likewise, by 64-12 percent, Republican respondents said Democrats are socialists, while, by 51-20, Democrats said they aren’t.
But how much does any of this mean until you know how the S-word is defined across party lines? The amusing thing to me was the difference between what looked like socialism to respondents across party lines. My conclusion, based on the poll results: Republicans think things that use tax dollars to help people like them are NOT socialism. Programs that use tax dollars to help the poor or the non-white ARE socialism.
For example, is Medicare socialism? 44 percent of Democrats said yes, but only 29 percent of Republicans agreed.
Would free health care for all be socialism? Republicans said yes by 77 percent; but only 55 percent of Democrats agreed.
Is Social Security “socialism?” 42 percent of Democrats said yes, but only 27 percent of Republicans agreed.
Is the government owned-and-operated U.S. military a kind of “socialism?” Democrats by 25-10 percent, were more likely to say so. Same for interstate highways (by 32-18). Are federal tax credits to business a form of socialism for the rich? Dems were likely to agree with that, by 22 percent, compared to 14 percent of Republicans.
How about extending free K-12 public education to include college? No surprise: By 69 to 48 percent, Republicans were more likely to view that as a step into S-word hell.
My argument, as in the previous piece, is that these measurements show that the S-word is fairly meaningless except for political purposes, and Trump and Emmer hope to ride that meaninglessness to a big win in 2020. It works, but mostly with their base. It’s easier to argue with hot words, maybe even smear words, than with facts and logic.
So; when the city state, county etc. supports companies/corporations with special tax breaks etc. or taxes on the general population to build a stadium, relocate a Mfg. plant, attract jobs etc. that is not socialism what is it then extortion capitalism?
As a card-carrying republican, let me offer a definition that used to be universally accepted in republican circles if nowhere else.
In a capitalist society, socialism is when the government engages in a marketplace where only private enterprise should be allowed to operate and then FORCES you to participate in its program. For example:
Is Medicare socialism? Yes, if you say that Medicare is a health insurance program that the government has FORCED you to participate in when there are perfectly good private health insurance plans you could have spent your money on.
Is Social Security socialism? Yes, in that it is a retirement plan that the government, again, has FORCED you to participate in when if you had invested that money yourself over the course of your working life, you would have millions in savings.
Remember, the republican opposition to Obamacare wasn’t so much that is was the government health insurance program but that it ws MANDATED to participate in. When the individual mandate was removed, you’ll notice the republicans couldn’t care less whee you buy your health insurance, if any.
I could give several examples but the bottom line is, if the government activity competes with the private sector and the government forces you to participate, then it’s not only socialism but it’s the antithesis of a free society.
Remember, the republican opposition to Obamacare wasn’t so much that is was the government health insurance program but that it was the signature policy achievement of Barack Obama.
FIFY.
Not sure about you, but I chose to sign up for Medicare. No one put a gun to my head. Before Medicare, I was paying over $500/mo for a private health policy. Medicare costs me about $1600/yr. plus about $60/mo for a supplement plan. Medicare was the best choice in the marketplace.
Medicare premiums are withheld from your paycheck throughout your working lifetime. You have no choice. It’s nice that you are happy with the program but my point was simply that you really had no choice. You were forced by law to pay for it whether you liked it or not.
You’re also forced to pay for roads whether you drive on them or not. Same for medical research. That’s the way society works.
You are forced by law to pay for that new automobile, groceries and that trip to Disney land. Not to mention the Defense Department, lower taxes for the rich, Ethanol subsidies, Congressional salaries and their healthcare. At least I get something for my Medicare premiums. Nothing is free here.
Well Dennis, I agree with your general thesis to a degree, but in terms of having a “free society”, I believe that we have a government that’s heavily controlled and dominated by a number of powerful special-interest families – e.g. – the military industrial complex, wall street, large corporations of all kinds and so on.
Using the military industrial complex as an example, this massive group of corporations that make huge profits off of endless war essentially buy congressmen and senators and influence presidents thru ongoing campaign contributions, so that as a result we spend 6 trillion on a useless hair-brained Bush/Cheney Iraq war based on false intel linking Hussein with 9/11 – which was BS,
And we go into Afganistan to punish Al-queda and the Taliban, and are STILL there 18 years later!
As if we’re suddenly going to “win” there when we couldn’t do it in the previous 18 years!
The only entity “winning” is the military industrial complex group of corporations who make tons of money on endless war.
Both parties are too heavily influenced by the military industrial complex IMO, but I’d say they are especially supported by the republican party, and that’s reflected in the proposed budgets.
The same general concept of powerful influence applies to Wall street’s influence on Washington and the general influence of big money corporations and groups and individuals, who essentially can buy votes and sometimes are even asked to write bills to regulate their own industries, as an example of how corrupt the situation is.
Congressmen and senators leave office, and very often then go to work for lobbying groups, selling their influence on other congressmen and senators to corporations for a very lucrative salary.
So, to a very large degree, we have government by and for the benefit of corporations, not the citizens!
So let’s not kid ourselves that we have a truly “free society”, it’s very much owned and controlled to a large degree by these powerful special interests.
So if you’re thinking that just preventing socialized medicine, (which is working well at less than half the per capita cost in every other industrialized nation) somehow means that we as citizens are living in a “free” society, I think you’re not considering the true state of things unfortunately.
As those big special interests gained more and more powerful influence in Washington over the decades, I think the truth is that our society is not all that free – it’s a society all too often ruled by powerful special interest groups, and their desire for more profits.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m NOT a radical socialist, and have urged democrats to tone-down on some of these proposals from the ultra-left wing that I think is over-represented in the party (as in having a few loud and strident voices drown out a much larger moderate group in the democratic party).
I’m more just agreeing with what Dwight Eisenhower said, a republican, who saw the creeping power of huge military corporations under his watch as president, and who is the one who coined the term “military industrial complex” as he tried to raise alarm bells against the rise of it’s power during his presidency.
IMO, we won’t be “free” until the citizens show enough interest in their own government to monitor their representatives and the extent to which they are just voting for the benefit of these special interests, and not for the benefit of we as American citizens.
And to get rid of those that in fact are just surrogates for those powerful special interests.
Yes, those nasty corporations that employee all those people at decent wages and benefits.
Do they? Then why have wages stagnated and millions of people have lost their benefits? Profits go to shareholders, not the employees. Please spare us the idea of a beneficent market.
Lol, so we should let corporations do whatever they want and dominate our government, and in so doing support spend trillions of dollars and lives on unwinnable and never-ending wars, because they provide some jobs?
As if the 6 trillion dollars spent on the Iraq fiasco wouldn’t have provided FAR more jobs by being spent on rebuilding US infrastructure like roads, bridges, energy generation/transmission, home insulation, building/repairing schools, water projects, and so on?
I believe far more jobs would have been created, and a lot of lives and a tremendous amount of human suffering would have been avoided too.
Do you really disagree on that?
And no, I’m not saying corporations are “bad”, I’m saying their influence in government NEEDS TO BE HELD IN CHECK, which was all Dwight Eisenhower was saying, so that government is being run for the benefit of the country as a whole, not just to make profits for certain corporations to the detriment of the country as a whole.
And I think that’s exactly what happened with the Iraq war – a limited number of military industrial corporations made some massive profits, and everyone else came off very much the worse for it, and far from advancing America’s interests in the middle east, it gave us more radical islam than existed before (because we had invaded a muslim country), leading to ISIS, and an ongoing unstable mess in the region.
So: ” In a capitalist society, socialism is when the government engages in a marketplace where only private enterprise should be allowed to operate and then FORCES you to participate in its program.”
And where is that written? Article what? of the constitution.
“if the government activity competes with the private sector and the government forces you to participate, then it’s not only socialism but it’s the antithesis of a free society”
So why don’t we have free market defense, buy your own protection? Why aren’t all the roads and bridges free market toll ways? Why aren’t all our public works free market, you want sewer and water go buy it in the market place? Theoretically everything and anything can be driven by the so called free market. Why don’t we just abolish all the governemnt(s) city, county, township, state etc, as they exist today and sell it off to the highest bidder? Seems to fit the Trump agenda!
You’re describing valid costs for government … where, like the military, it would make sense for central government to field an army to fight the foreign invaders than for individuals to stand and fight using their privately owned armaments. Roads and bridges are covered under the Commerce Clause so they are a valid role of government.
By the way, did you know that over 90% of the nation’s firefighters are volunteers? And many communities have private police forces. So there’s that.
DT (What makes sense, what’s valid is the conversation) where does it come off, where is it written, that defense makes sense and things like health care, fresh air clean water and education doesn’t? PS: The “general welfare” is covered in the preamble to thew constitution, as requested, where in the constitution etc. are we bound to a free market(s) and what are those guidelines?
PS: Don’t you think volunteer firefighters are “Socialistic” in nature? Private police forces, according to wikipedia no that is not that! Don’t think private security forces form the back bone of our state patrol, FBI, city forces etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_police_in_the_United_States
These are the most cherry picked examples, by the way which the majority of Americans support.
Let’s talk about socialism. Bailouts for farmers, along with the farm bill, is socialism.
Government investment in high tech research is socialism. If this was capitalism, taxpayer funded research into high tech would be paid back to citizens in things like Apple stock.
Socialism is tax cuts for the rich, while everyone else is thrown table scraps. I suppose you follow what you consider conservatism in the Reagan mold. He was anything but conservative.
You’re right about the bailouts and you could have included the bank bailouts. But tax cuts for the rich or anyone else are not bailouts nor are they socialism. You assume that people’s earnings belong to the government and the benevolent government then decides how much you can keep. That’s not what the Founders had in mind. A truly fair tax system would be for the government to figure out how much they need to operate and then we all would pitch in a % of our earnings to cover the expenses necessary to protect our freedoms … the only true purpose of government.
A truly fair tax system would be to authorize our democratically elected officials to apply the rules / guidelines of the constitution and subsequent legislation and judicial decisions to establish a legal and fair tax system for our country.
Whoops! That’s what we already have!
Which would make it a falsity to describe our system as some kind of Robin Hood like robbing of the rich to give to the poor. And along those lines, Mitt Romney’s “47% pay no taxes” is more right wing legend as those in the 47% likely pay more a % of their income to things like sales tax, gas tax, property tax than the 1% pay as a % of their income.
We can agree that the tax system should cover the expenditures authorized by these duly elected officials.
There we go: We just solved Medicare, Social Security, the deficit and the debt in a few posts: A pleasure working with you….
Thank you for that. As noted in the article, you are in a small minority of Republicans capable of recognizing Medicare and Social Security as socialism.
So, you are calling for the terminations of Medicare and Social Security?
Too many “card carrying Republicans” hate foreign socialism (easy, because they hate most things foreign); but, go mute when it is our socialism: Medicare and Social Security.
And of course you know that the socialist health care coverage mandate in ObamaCare was originally thought up by the conservative Heritage Foundation?
Ever notice that when “card carrying” Republicans are in the sheltered environment of, say, a cigar lounge, that are capitalistic purists, ready to purge the system of all traces of socialism. But, when they are actually given the levers of power they pledge to protect to their last breath Medicare and Social Security.
Which, of course, explains why Republicans are so good at winning elections and bad at actually governing.
Social Security and Medicare are so embedded in our system that any politician who wants to get elected or re-elected has to vow to protect them. That’s the trap they’ve fallen into and why republicans are loath to add to the list of government mandates because a majority of the sheeple believe they are entitled to the free stuff now and once they have it they don’t vote for anyone who has the temerity to tell them it’s not the role of government to have those things. It’s sad, really when you think of what the Founders envisioned.
“That’s the trap they’ve fallen into and why republicans are loath to add to the list of government mandates”
Unless, of course, if you can score a 2 fer like Medicare Part D: An unfunded mandate for the masses and a pure giveaway to the Pharmaceutical industry through “no negotiated prices”.
Also, of course, the GOP has conveniently forgotten 2 steppin’, Dance with the Stars, Tom Delay who held the vote open until he got what he wanted…
If this test “used to be accepted by republicans”, then that says something about what a poor test it is. How much “force” is required before something becomes “socialist” under this test? And why aren’t a lot, if not most, of the goods and services offered by so-called private corporations not “forcing” any less than government programs. One is “forced” to pay extortionate amounts for electric, gas, telecommunications and many other services. E.G. Windows 10 “forces” any PC owner pay for internet access to operate the system. You are “forced” to buy auto insurance, just as you are “forced” to own a car unless you live in a city where you can walk or ride you bicycle to shop, work or play.
Eric is right. For Republicans, “socialist” is a meaningless polar word that only means “I don’t like it”. It is meant to imply to whomever it is spoken to they shouldn’t either because it is “un-American”. In other words, a way to try to smear an opponent.
Bill Gates or Betty Crocker can’t put you in jail for refusing to buy their product. Uncle Sam can.
There is no ‘Uncle Sam’.
The enabling legislation is passed by elected representatives.
You can only be jailed for evading taxes. When has anyone ever been jailed for failing or refusing to pay their “socialistic” water and sewer bill to the City water utility?
“Perfectly good private health insurance plans”…haha, and not in a funny way, for many.
Several the programs mentioned in this article are currently going broke. Medicare – Social Security.
Other programs mentioned will go broke when the Government and it’s special interest take over – healthcare – education (free college).
All these programs desperately need reform. Most democrats would say the reform needed is more government and it’s built in special interest having more control and more money – – of course there will never be enough money to satisfy these special interests.
I believe that most Republicans would want more private control and innovation (hope and real change) and private management of these programs with the government serving as a back-up and providing oversight.
Of course if any reform is suggested or new ideas that hampers the government special interests – we will have commercials suggesting the GOP is pushing grandma off a cliff and that the GOP do not care about healthcare and the kids. You know – – politics as usual.
In the end, the government special interest will be enriched while these programs will continue to go broke and the programs beneficiaries impoverished.
Why is the private sector not one of the “special interests” that need ever more money to satisfy them? Put bluntly, isn’t private business all about lining the pockets of the owners of the businesses? Why is that inherently better than any other interest group trying to turn a buck?
Sure – private business can be called a special interest. However – it is not “part of” the government like education – public employees – etc.
We all know that the teachers union and the public employees unions own the DFL in MN. Dems get their campaign donations – and then negotiate the contracts with them – and the cycle continues. No new ideas – no reforms – just empower the unions and the DFL will pay for it with increased taxes to fulfill their negotiated promises.
And we know wealthy individuals own the Republican party. There are no ideas in the Republican party, only to do whatever it takes to gain power, so they can return to absolute servility for corporations and the 1% while stabbing the rest of America in the back.
What difference does it make that private business is not (formally) part of the government? Private enterprise still exerts a great deal of control over our lives. The only difference is that many of us have deluded ourselves into thinking it’s alright because it’s the “private sector,” and we think we have a choice in the matter.
“We all know that the teachers union and the public employees unions own the DFL in MN.”
And who owns the GOP? Who gives it its campaign contributions?
The Koch Boys and the rest of the fossil fuels lobby.
Social Security is not going broke. If Congress does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING then eventually benefits will be cut by about 25%. There are several simple fixes Congress could pass that would keep Soc Sec paying full benefits far into the future.
“simple fixes”? – – – ya, right.
like not borrowing from the trust fund
Or raising the income deduction cutoff.
I wouldn’t call that “going broke.” At 75% benefits it can sustain itself indefinitely. To maintain 100% benefits it will have to expand funding, and there are several pretty good options for doing so.
You forgot the defense department! Or are they entitled? How about the farmers? Entitled? Seems the GOP are the ones running the $Tril deficits during the good times. To your point its OK to push grandma off the cliff, but god help us if we don’t build that $500B submarine!
And of course that $1.5T tax cut to the uber rich, hey grandma only needs a couple K the uber’s all need hundreds of Billions, kick grandma.
Since we now know that the Trump tax cut did not produce returns nearly matching its’ tax expenditure, maybe we should have said:
“Gee, Social Security could use a little support, let’s take those Trump tax cut dollars and apply them there.”
After all, Trump did campaign on his commitment to the working person and their need for Social Security.
But; that would fly in the face of the GOP goal of strangling SS and Medicare to force huge cuts rather than working to sustain what they always promise.
Socialism has a commonly accepted meaning. It is a system in which the means of production are socially owned, controlled or regulated for the benefit of the society. This is a very broad term, but still a useful one.
Just because Republicans want to misuse a word doesn’t mean that it is undefined or useless; they’re just wrong. (Side note: I doubt if Emmer can define capitalism very clearly either.)
Socialism is not capitalism’s opposite. Note that all successful socialist societies have very substantial capitalist elements. There are no successful, entirely socialist states.
There is a corollary; that all successful capitalist societies have major economic sectors that are socially controlled. There are no successful economies that are free of any social control.
Maybe it’s more useful to think of socialism and capitalism as two competing impulses that must coexist in tension, but that depend upon each other.
Totally agree! I wish we would be talking about how we can have the best of all worlds rather than an assumed rigidity to one extreme or the other. IMO: All of us paying for basic needs stuff (security, healthcare, education and infrastructure) is just a smarter way to meet the cost of things we all need.
MN folks should tell the world about coops.
Much rural gas and electric come from MN coops.
Consumers share the profits, but have small influence die to the flat voting structure.
It wasn’t capitalism that provided electricity to rural Texas. It’s wasn’t capitalism that built the interstate highways. It isn’t capitalism that educates our children. Capitalism does provide health care but not enough of it and it charges way too much for the health care it does provide.
One thing capitalism is unrivalled at is providing multi million dollar pay packages for executives. What I have wondered is, what is it that they actually do with all that money? I mean, how many 52 inch tv’s does one need?
Next time you go into the grocery store and see that you have several different choices of every product on the shelf, like 100 different breakfast cereals and a dozen different brands of bread, you can thank capitalism because the real power of capitalism is consumer choice. With socialism, you get the government’s brand and no one else’s.
With socialism for auto makers, there is no free market for myself, and other Americans in how we get to work. Sure, I can buy a Ford, or Toyota. But is that a free market if there is no accessibility to modern public transportation? I think not. No one cares about cereal anyways.
I think the citizens of countries like Norway and Sweden would find your idea of a “socialist” grocery store very strange.
That assumes that amongst all the hundreds of options, one better than “the government brand” exists. If all choices are inferior, what good is being served?
The “good being served” is that you have a choice. I actually know people who complain when they have “too many” choices. It makes their head hurt. Most people aren’t like that.
“The ‘good being served’ is that you have a choice.”
Not really. Our choices are circumscribed by what private enterprise wants to offer us. I recommend Tom Slee’s book “No One Makes You Shop at Walmart” for a good discussion (as well as an introduction to choice theory).
Most consumer choice is meaningless, in any event. There really isn’t that much variation in the products we buy on a regular basis. Why do you think marketing departments exist?
Why do companies worry about market share? The problem with Google and Amazon etc., is emerging because they have no competitors and the consumers have no choice. That’s a problem in capitalist societies. Even some leftists oppose monopolies, as long as the entity is not sanctioned by the government like local cable TV service, electrical power, water, etc. Until Google, Facebook, etc., came along, the monopolies in the economy were those sanctioned by government.
“Until Google, Facebook, etc., came along, the monopolies in the economy were those sanctioned by government.”
When did Minneapolis become a one-newspaper town? How did the government have anything to do with that?
But that’s not “serving good”. All you’ve done is state your value preference, that of “choice” over quality. Why should all others in society be forced to share in your assessment of value, shouldn’t they get their own “choice”?
Choice can also be made based on price. One of the problems with government taking over the marketplace is that the consumer can’t buy the less expensive option. Some people need price points as an option because they can’t afford the higher priced option or simply don’t want to pay that much. If the only choice you had in cars was a Mercedes, some people would have to go without because they couldn’t afford it. That’s why we have Kias, etc.
Government taking over healthcare in other industrial economies is a problem for sure. Healthcare is free, and the cost of treatment is half what it is in the US.
Wow! The hospitals, doctors and nurses work for nothing? Amazing.
Literally, of course, health care in Europe isn’t free, any more than a reliable currency or fire and police protection is. However, it is free in the sense that the cost is equitably distributed among all members of society, rather than paid for directly by users. No one gets stuck with a million dollar medical bill.
It really is coming to the point where the best argument that gets put forward for capitalism is that it allows us to choose between a multiplicity of Oreo cookie versions.
Considering all people who are employed and pay taxes, etc., pay into social security from the first day of employment until they retire at age 62 or later, would that really be considered “socialism”? If you pay into something all of your life, doesn’t that make it different? I would think so.
See what happens when you ask to opt out. Tell your employer you’re not interested in paying into social security because you’ve got a better idea on how to save for retirement. If you’re lucky, the HR person will just laugh.
Actually, some people ‘opt out’ by working for cash only.
They don’t pay income taxes and don’t receive social security.
See, this is a perfect example of the kind of dystopia Republicans and Libertarians promote. Social Security is oppression because it’s mandatory and you can’t opt out?
First, if you’re the financial wiz kid you claim to be, you can afford to pay Social Security AND pursue you’re own great ideas for financial security. Second, you may THINK you have better ideas, but if your schemes go bust (as they often do) and you end up more or less broke, your government still has to take care of you, because civilized societies don’t let old people starve to death on the streets. In YOUR scenario, you end up collecting Social Security payments without have made any contributions… how “fair” is that?
To get back to the subject: It’s wonderful to see the Democratic Party presidential candidates–and the U.S. House of Representatives–get back to being Democrats! That is what worries Donald Trump and the Republican party, and why the GOP and Trump are so fiercely pushing “socialism” in the political arena as definitional of their opponents’ philosophy.
We have to remember that it’s been a long time since Democrats were really Democrats, and that’s why some Democratic programs sound a bit frightening to Repubicans and other uninformed Americans. We have had the almost-a -Republican conservative Bill Clinton and the center-right Barack Obama, who pushed a Republican heath insurance program as the only way he could get coverage for most people. No public option, but health care improved (I voted for Obama twice).
Democratic policy, as policy that carries the label of Democratic, is and should be on the left, leaning toward social benefits for the masses rather than for corporations and the wealthy. We’re now getting back to that.
Hooray! And let’s hear the Democratic debates–at least there, there is policy to consider. Unlike the policy desert of the GOP, where Trump has converted our political discussion to nothing but name-calling gutter ugliness. BORING! (Isn’t anybody else bored with Trump?)
Wow. A lot of folks have taken the GOP bait on socialism.
Let me know when we get back to real issues.
Ok, last night’s debate kind of made my point about socialism being about government mandates versus giving people a choice.
In the debate about Medicare for All, People like Warren and Sanders said they want a system where everyone was on the government plan and private insurance would be eliminated, i.e… no choice.
The alleged “moderates” pushed back and said you can’t kick 180 million people off of their private plans and force them onto the government plan, that it would be a electoral disaster. One (Delaney?) even used an analogy by asking Warren “What would have happened when the government implemented social security and told everyone they had to give up their private retirement plan?” I thought that was an excellent example of why Bernie’s plan and Warren’s plan would be socialism pure and simple as defined in my first post above.
Finally, I saw a poll this morning of democrat voters who were asked:
Are you in favor of MFA to include eliminating private insurance”
Yes – 43%
No -57%
Coincidentally, the 43% who favor it matches the number of registered democrats who are self-described socialists (Des Moines Register poll)
And, of course, nothing will happen of any significance without a 60 vote Senate majority. Which has occurred 18 months in the last 50 years. Medicare For All, just we have seen with Trump’s repeal and replace plans, simply will not happen without this majority.
So, it’s time to cut the noise on this, admit ObamaCare is the basis and modify/improve from there as best one can with Moscow Mitch or his 2021 successor, D or R.
Medicare has not abolished private insurance so I doubt that “Medicare for all” would either. So I suggest the polling question as polled is misleading. My premiums for supplemental medicare insurance are a fraction of the premiums I paid under the ACA for much worse coverage and much larger deductibles. People are right to be wary of plans that imply they would “abolish private insurance” since it sounds like another GOP scam to overthrow the ACA.
If people were asked: “Would you be i favor of replacing the present system of health financing in favor of a government supported health care system where you paid nothing for health services”, I suspect most people would say yes. That’s a form of socialism, democratic socialism that exists in countries like Sweden, Norway and Denmark. In my experience of living briefly in Sweden, it’s literally true: if you are ill, you just show up at a clinic or doctor’s office and you are treated without all the payment insurance coverage rigamarole. I asked many Swedes about how to buy “health insurance” and they looked at me like I had asked them where I could buy unicorns. Even after I described what I meant and what we do in the US, they had no idea of what I was talking about.
As Trump says, if you don’t like the system you’ve got a right to leave it.
And of course large manufacturers profit more from roads, water and sewage treatment than the average citizen. In fact their trucks and effluents are the source of much of the cost.
As just about any Democrat you meet would say, if you don’t like something you can work to change it. The Republicans solution is to famously move away from it.
Yeah, but we notice they don’t move away… Somalia beckons as the land of no government and unlimited potential… yet they stay here and complain about all the Libtards.
Human being have been forming communities and pooling resources for thousands of years. This is one reason our species has survived and thrived. You can call that socialism if you want and you may even be right to do so, but really it’s just intelligence.
The problem with Republicans is that their concept of society is primarily drawn from an incoherent model based on Libertarian nonsense more or less invented by Ayn Rand. Basically Libertarians have no coherent concept of society, rather they have a dysfunctional model of individuality that pretends that the mere existence of communities is oppressive. At the end of the day it’s a teenage declaration that no one’s the boss of me pretending to be a legitimate philosophy or ideology. Asking these people to define socialism or decide which program or idea is or isn’t socialism is like asking a ten year old to plan your retirement. My experience is that at the end of the day many of these folks don’t even understand how their own private sector insurance policies work, let alone farm subsidies, Medicare, or Social Security. The funny thing is when you try to explain these things… they guys will argue with you. Whatever.
I don’t why Eric seems to be so obsessed with the “S” word but I think it’s really kind of irrelevant. The question with Medicare for All (or any other policy proposal) isn’t whether or not it’s “socialism”, the question is whether or not it makes sense? Is it an intelligent proposal that works?
I don’t why anyone would spend so much time trying to classify proposals rather than analyzing their credibility. This interest in classification is taxonomy pretending to analysis. I think it’s pretty obvious that Americans and human beings in general to care very much whether or not something or someone is a socialist, they just want things and people who work for them. Almost everyone applies for Social Security benefits whether they think it’s socialism or not. Farmers apply for bail-out money, businesses apply for TIFFs, etc. etc. etc.
One quick observation regarding the dysfunctional nature of libertarian hostility towards communities and “collectivism” of any kind actually points the American myth of rugged individualism.
A while few years ago there was something of a fad in public television and the BBC producing shows that took families and put them in historical living conditions. One of these put families in 1800 Western homestead conditions. This was actually a government program (Was THAT socialism?) that gave something like 5 acres of land to anyone that could homestead it for a year or two or something like that.
Here’s the thing… the homestead program was by-and-large a failure. Only one if five settlers managed to survive the required length of time. Likewise in the television programs most of the families would have been starved out of their homesteads, they fared no better than their historical counterparts.
This was interesting television that demonstrated how hard life was for settlers of era; but it also demonstrates the fallacy of libertarianism. The people who thrived and survived in the American West were those who formed communities and lived together in villages, not those who built a cabin in the middle of woods or prairies. The “homestead” model, as romantic as it may be, probably leads to extinction. The “community” model ends up populating the planet and putting men on the moon.
If there were such thing as a “free market” today maybe the idea of Ayn Rand’s, “Anthem”, would indeed be scary. But, alas, the “free market” is no longer alive and well–it’s very much controlled and monitered by those few who feed ravenously at the trough of privilege and throw itty-bitty scraps at the rest of the world. And even then sometimes the scraps get scrounged over lest, Heaven Forbid, they hold a bit of kindness. I have nothing good to say about those few who would demand many to go without so that they may live as they wish–all the while blaming the victims of economic deprivation for their own sufferings. Hogwash and we all know it.
To paraphrase Mother Theresa…