SALINA, Kan. - Recently I came across a quote by a Republican politician who was lamenting the success of Democrats in a recent election. He said, "I don't know what caused it ... voters must be tending more towards Socialism or something."
At first glance the remark sounds like a contemporary one about President Barack Obama and his political allies. But it actually came from the November 5, 1958 edition of my hometown newspaper. That particular year Democrats won three of the then six congressional seats in Kansas, elected a Democratic governor and gained fourteen seats in the Kansas Legislature.
The more things change the more they stay the same. Hardly a week goes by these days without a commentator, either professional or one on the street, issuing dire warnings about how President Obama has us on the path towards Socialism. If history has anything to teach us that complaint is becoming passé.
In the lead up to the 1958 elections President Eisenhower warned that the election boiled down to a "choice between left-wing government dominated by Democratic radicals, or sensible government under Republicans." Ike, of course, was the same President who pushed through a Democratic congress one of the largest public works projects in our nation's history, the Interstate Highway Act.
Critics see President Obama's so-called affinity for Socialism in his two biggest legislative accomplishments - The American Recovery and Reinvestiment Act 2009 and the Patient and Affordable Care Act of 2010. In the first case, Obama looked at historical precedent and chose the economic course pursued by FDR over the one followed by Herbert Hoover. Hoover's infamous quote in response to the stock market crash of 1929, "Business is fundamentally sound," portended his strategy of doing basically nothing in the aftermath and leaving the marketplace alone to sort itself out. The country tried his laissez faire approach for three years, with disastrous consequences, before opting for FDR's interventionist policies.
Even more ridiculous are the criticisms of the most conservative in Republican Party ranks who view Healthcare Reform as part of a grand scheme aimed at bringing Socialism to America. The Patient Care and Affordability Act is actually a very private-insurance driven plan to bring healthcare coverage to those without it. The website Politifact named the phrase "Government Takeover of Healthcare" as its political "Lie of the Year" in 2010.
Currently the uninsured use the Emergency Room for their primary care, and the rest of us indirectly pick up the tab. It's no wonder why Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusettes, and his allies in the Legislature like then State Senator Scott Brown, dubbed the idea of making insurance coverage mandatory as the "Responsibility Principle." They argued that every citizen should take some responsibility for their own healthcare instead of relying on the taxpayer. The President and his allies used Romney's Massachusetts' Healthcare Reform as a model for the rest of the nation.
History provides other prominent examples of charges of Socialism aimed at Democrats. Alf Landon based his 1936 Presidential campaign on a promise to repeal that sinister socialist invention known as Social Security. Ronald Reagan gave a famous speech to the American Medical Association in 1961 in which he claimed that if a program similar to Medicare were to be enacted citizens would one day tell their grandkids what it had been like to be free in America.
If Rip Van Winkle were to wake up today after a half-century snooze he would find that a lot of things haven't changed. Some Republicans are still fretting over the drift towards Socialism. But America wasn't on that road back then, and contrary to rants from the far Right it isn't now.
The 'Scrooges' on the coservative right will label any act of compassion for anyone below their level as a socialist threat to their maintaining or increasing their financial positions.
People who say the U.S. is moving toward socialism don't understand socialism. It's pointless to try to explain it to them, though. They live by the FAUX News version of events and ideology. I wish the U.S. were moving toward socialism. We would be better for it.
The mentality of too many in the US these days is bi-polar, and much of that is the work of the "Architect" Karl Rove. US capitalism (actually state supported/corporatism) has its virtues, but its vice is to value financial profit over morals and stewardship. The operative strategy of corporate capitalism is to "privatize the profits" and "commonize" the costs--which means that the taxpayers and citizens are expected to chip in with government subsidies and endure any enviornmental damage. That is, the cost of environmental withdrawals/pollution/devastation are not in the corporate ledger as a debit. "We" pay that cost in various ways.
Socialism has the imperfection of assuming too much virtue from human beings, but the best of socialism equates to cooperation for the common good, and the recognition that the love of wealth and power over others is the root of all evil. Many of those who use "socialism" as a pejorative term enjoy the benefits of social security, Medicare, public schools and libraries, membership in rural utility cooperatives, etc.
There is a place for both competition and cooperation. The best society (from which the words socialism comes) makes use of both. Competition and cooperation. Competition is essentially selfish, cooperation is about working together
and sharing.
I think it is amazing that the arguments never change and yet they are never sound arguments to begin with. Republicans always pull socialism/communism out without mentioning that the intent of those systems is good. It just hasn't always been implemented for the common good.
A major misconception in the American public is that Marx believed we should have communist societies, and that isn't true. Marx believed that communism was the inevitable result of capitalism. In his view, at some point capitalism must collapse and communism would be the result of that collapse. Socialism/Communism shouldn't be a bad word in the US like it is.
Alan, you are absolutely correct. The real answer, as with many arguments, lies somewhere in the middle. We just need to convince people that the middle is worth pursuing.
One thing's for sure. Whenever social programs are successful, the corporate capitalists see them as a threat and do all that they can to defeat them with whatever it takes. At the moment, their push is to repeal any and all New Deal gains--whether that has to do with social security or unions, including fair wages and decent benefits. There's also a propaganda campaign designed to privatize education by discrediting public schools. Their think-tank propagandists are damned good at what they do, but if that doesn't work they'll resort to more primitive means.