Rasmusssen's polling tells us that 51% of Democrats, 26% of independents, and even 21 % of Republicans have a favorable impression of socialism. Let's assume that there is something out there beyond the desire for open borders and free stuff; something beyond a charismatic candidate from an anomylous Congressional district; something more than an antipathy for President Trump. After all, surveys of millenials frequently show greater support for socialism than for capitalism. It is worth a primer.
Formal definitions don't always catch what is really in people's heads, but they represent a good place to start:
Capitalism: An economic system based on private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Characteristics central to capitalism include private property, capital accumulation, voluntary wage labor, voluntary exchange of goods and services, a price system, and competitive markets. Versions include pure free market where supply and demand set prices without government, monopolies, or other interference; welfare capitalism which includes welfare services provided by the government or employers; and state capitalism where some of the economic activity is directly managed by the government, as in China.
Socialism: Collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods in which there is no private property and the means of production are owned and controlled by the state. Versions include different scopes of what is owned by the state (factories; farms; small stores) and the amount of central planning. Wages are based on work performed.
Communism: The highest form of socialism. A society without class divisions or government, in which the production and distribution of goods would be based upon the principle “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”
In the early stages of the 2016 presidential election, Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont brought the far left wing of the Democratic Party to life, ranting against millionaires and billionaires while promising free healthcare, free college, and free child care; he certainly had the crowd energy, and might have won the Democratic nomination had not the party machinery put a heavy thumb (in the form of super delegates and debate management) on the scales for the more mainstream Hillary Clinton. Over his career Sanders, once a member of the Young People's Socialist League and an admirer of Socialist presidential candidate Eugene Debs, has advocated for just about every liberal cause possible, but has, in truth, not focused on government takeover of private enterprise. While frequently enjoying being called a socialist by his supporters, he has tried to identify more with welfare capitalist Scandinavia than with communist Russia - with a few forays into praise for Castro's Cuba and the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.
The next iteration of leftist activism is younger and less circumspect about identification as socialists. Brooklyn Congresswoman-in-waiting Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the current star of the Democratic Socialists of America, but she is a beneficiary of the organization rather than its leader. Founded in 1982 as an amalgum of aging socialist and communist organizations, the DSA left the Socialist International in 2017 because it was endorsing mainstream liberal economic policies such as deregulation and free trade. The largest socialist organization in the United States in over a century, membership in the DSA has risen to 47,000 by mid-2017 - sparked largely by the Trump election - with 181 chapters and a median member age of 33 as compared to an age of 68 in 2013.
It is worth digesting a few pearls from the Democratic Socialists of America web site:
- We are socialists because we reject an economic order based on private profit.
- We are socialists because we are developing a concrete strategy for achieving that vision, for building a majority movement that will make democratic socialism a reality in America. We believe that such a strategy must acknowledge the class structure of American society and that this class structure means that there is a basic conflict of interest between those sectors with enormous economic power and the vast majority of the population.
- We believe that working people should run both the economy and society democratically to meet human needs, not to make profits for a few.
- Like most political organization websites there is also a store selling swag - "Medicare for all" cups; "Abolish ICE" tee shirts; "Karl Marx 200th Birthday" tote bags.
In some regards it is good to have Ocasio-Cortez as the poster child of this race to the Left. Despite her degree from Boston University with emphasis in economics and international relations, she cannot get beyond DSA talking points, even when interviewed on sympathetic programs like the Daily Show. Unemployment is low because everyone has two jobs; last year we gave the military a $700 billion increase (actually the total military budget); she favors a two state solution for Israel and Palestine - until liberal activists get her to talk about the "massacre" in Gaza and the Israeli occupation. A couple of generations ago an international relations degree would have implied understanding that tens of millions were killed by Stalin, Mao, and Castro for their opposition to the imposition of socialism; today one would expect students would be taking the same lessons from Venezuela: not everyone is willing to give their posessions to the state, not everyone is willing to let the state determine where they work and live, and few central government bureaucrats are willing to really give "power to the people".
Conservatives expect that a clarion call from the Left will fall flat as it did with candidates such as George McGovern (who carried Massachusetts and the District of Columbia against incumbent Richard Nixon in 1972). They should not be so confident. The pendulum swings - Donald Trump reflects to some extent a reaction to the globalism and smooth-talking liberalism of Barack Obama. Ocasio-Cortez will have a platform, and the mob crying "socialism" will have a voice in the Congress in 2019, potentially as an unruly part of the majority. To make it through the primaries and caucuses in 2020 the successful Democratic presidential candidate will need to sound like the Bernie Sanders version of socialism; to be elected they will need to convince the public that they believe in capitalism.
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This week's video is a New York Times story designed to promote the recent campaign visit of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders to Wichita, Kansas, as evidence that the whole country is turning left.
bill bowen - 8/3/18
SOME THOUGHTS ON WAGES AND JOB NUMBERS
There is a lot of guessing going on right now as to why wages are not dramatically increasing. Here is what we really see in the search business:
1 The July number is likely skewed by the Toys R Us closings.
2 The American worker figure is still effected by the huge 50% decrease over 10 years in the number of single family homes being constructed. Until that number of houses begins to dramatically increase the skilled laborers (blue collar and Hispanic) will not put pressure on wages. The truth is that this 10 year decline preceded by 30 years of illegal immigration have killed the wage pressure on the millions of laborers who built houses. The move of the higher skilled workers into house repair and expansion businesses has put them in positions where they are secure and not ready to return to the lower security residential building market. Throughout the lives of the baby boomers residential real estate was the foundation of the economy slowly replacing manufacturing as the place the blue collar workers could earn $50k plus. And, an industry that was not invaded by the women who entered the workforce. Now baby boomers are retiring at 10000 a day. The skilled workers are disappearing. Fewer are being trained (training in supervisory positions is basically experience). We can place, for higher money, all the estimators, project managers, superintendents we can find. At the C suite level it is even worse. Wages are beginning to increase dramatically. But it takes time. We have only seen the economy accelerate for about 6 months.
3. Right now people working 2-3 jobs are moving to 1 job. They are trading off income for benefits. Benefits become the pay raise. If you go from 2-3 1099 jobs to 1 w-2 job with benefits /Social security you don’t get a big raise.
4. Major corporations are taking advantage of the retirement of baby boomers at the higher end of the wage scale to promote others at lower wages and hire on the low end. The net effect is less cost of benefits and lower average compensation.
5. There are still a lot of skilled workers who will trade their 2-3 jobs for 1 once employers become more desperate. And, they are beginning to do so.
6. The rising real estate prices will eventually allow more workers to relocate. For many years they have been frozen in place.
Posted by: Bill McCormick | August 03, 2018 at 10:12 AM