Why socialism is okay now (and, did you even actually listen to some of the claptrap that emanates from Bernie Sanders’ mouth?)
Seems that socialism is no longer a dirty word these days in the US as long as you call it “democratic socialism.” How did socialism get rehabilitated?
I suppose that enough kids have finally matured who got little at school to counter the idea of socialism (or who actually heard it touted), and who don’t personally remember Communism and the Cold War. They think there’s something very nice about socialism; can’t we all just be more equal?
And then in 2016 the candidacy of Bernie Sanders legitimized it. Grandpa the socialist was surprisingly attractive to a lot of young people. He also made the Democratic primaries far more interesting than they otherwise would have been.
I believe that initially Sanders was mostly there to give Hillary Clinton enough competition to stop the Democratic race from being such a big snoozefest that no one paid attention. He wasn’t expected to be competitive–old white Jewish socialist guy–but when he appeared to be developing into a serious challenge to Clinton, it was probably panic time for the Democratic party establishment, who set about making sure he didn’t actually get the nomination. They had no intention of letting him do that, and it didn’t happen (superdelegates, anyone?).
But Bernie’s candidacy was the gift that kept on giving to the growing leftist wing of the party, because his popularity let the Democratic Party know what they hadn’t known up till that point and probably didn’t see coming, either: that it was now possible for them to claim the mantle of socialism and give it voice. No need to hide any more—although they may be a bit premature on that.
If you take a trip back in time, Bernie Sanders used to be quite cagey and secretive about the socialist that he undoubtedly was and is. I find these quotes pretty extraordinary in their open admission of deception:
Sanders, 73, has been preaching socialism for nearly half a century, and he cites Eugene Debs, the five-time presidential candidate of the Socialist Party of America, as his hero. But he hasn’t always embraced the label.
“I myself don’t use the word socialism,” he said in 1976 in the Vermont Cynic, a student publication at the University of Vermont, “because people have been brainwashed into thinking socialism automatically means slave-labor camps, dictatorship and lack of freedom of speech.”
Brainwashed, eh?
Here’s one of my favorites:
“I’ve stayed away from calling myself a socialist,” Sanders said in the Boston Globe in the aftermath of his win in ‘81, “because I did not want to spend half my life explaining that I did not believe in the Soviet Union or in concentration camps.”
Wouldn’t want to actually have to answer any questions about where leftism has so often led, would we?
And here’s Bernie’s definition of socialism. You can see where that “democratic” label came from in the recent move to call it “democratic socialism”:
All that socialism means to me, to be very frank with you, is democracy with a small ‘d.’ I believe in democracy, and by democracy I mean that, to as great an extent as possible, human beings have the right to control their own lives. And that means that you cannot separate the political structure from the economic structure. One has to be an idiot to believe that the average working person who’s making $10,000 or $12,000 a year is equal in political power to somebody who is the head of a large bank or corporation. So if you believe in political democracy, if you believe in equality, you have to believe in economic democracy as well.”
You see? Socialism is just economic democracy, my friends. Nothing to fear.
He’s saying that the individual’s level of wealth determines their level of political power. Does he mean the rich person’s vote counts as more than the less wealthy person’s vote? That’s rather illogical and incoherent; how can one vote be worth more than another in a democracy? I think what he means is that the wealthy person has access and influence into the political process that the less wealthy do not. If true, I’m left to wonder how that happens? My answer is that the access and influence of the wealthy in our political process – which is not a small ‘d’ democracy – is granted by our representatives to them, often in return for financial contributions and favors.
In Bernie’s world, what is economic democracy other than redistribution of wealth and income from one group to another? Nothing, it seems to me. That young people view Bernie’s theme of equality as desirable simply tells me they haven’t spent the time and energy necessary to understand what he’s proposing.
“Seems that socialism is no longer a dirty word these days in the US as long as you call it “democratic socialism”.
Seem to me that a more fitting term would be “National Socialism”……….
That should go over really well (sarc).
For the last half century, Bernie has been a fanboy of Latin American despots. Here is an example from 2011.
From Bernie’s Senate website: Close The Gaps: Disparities That Threaten America
(While Bernie didn’t write this, its appearance on his website is an implicit endorsement of what it says. Similarly, politicians do not often write their own speeches.)
The American dream is more likely to be realized in Venezuela than in the United States, Bernie Sanders tells us. As we all want to realize the American dream, we should emulate Venezuela, Bernie Sanders tells us. Just as Mayor Bernie said that Sandinista Nicaragua should be a model for Vermont.
BTW, while Venezuela was purported to have those GREAT inequality statistics that Three-House-Bernie adores, they don’t take into account all the billions that the Chavista insiders are skimming off the top. If that were reported in the income figures, the reported inequality figures for Venezuela would be a lot higher.
The absurdity of Bernie’s claim with regard to Venezuela is rather obvious. Today, no one in his right mind would claim that the American dream is best realized in Venezuela.Nor would anyone in his right mind have made the claim in 2011 that the American dream is best realized in Venezuela.
The World Bank has little GINI data for Venezuela past 2006, so I will merely post data for Argentina, Ecuador, and the US. The lower the GINI, the more equal the income distribution. Let us investigate how accurate Bernie’s claim is about income being less equal in the US compared to Ecuador and Argentina.
Country Name 2007 GINI index (World Bank estimate)
Argentina 46.3
Ecuador 53.3
United States 41.1
Country Name 2010 GINI index (World Bank estimate)
Argentina 43
Ecuador 48.7
United States 40.4
Country Name 2013 GINI index (World Bank estimate)
Argentina 41
Ecuador 46.9
United States 41
When Bernie Sanders made his claim in 2011, he would have had GINI data for about 2007 or 2008. For 2007 and 2010, the US had a lower GINI- and thus more equal income- than Argentina and Ecuador.
That is, Bernie’s castigation of the US was based on a false claim.
Bernie claims, “I know much more about Latin America than you proles.”
No, you don’t, Bernie. You are bullshitting us.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI
Must disagree.
1. Sanders was at age 40 a mess of a man who found his niche in municipal government. He was a seminal figure in Burlington politics. There’s Before Sanders and After Sanders in Burlington. Few politicians made a difference in that way.
2. He may have been inspired by Eugene Debs, but during his time in Vermont politics, he was associated first with the Liberty Union Party and then with a civic association in Burlington he himself founded. The old Socialist Party of America dissolved in 1971 and Sanders ca. 1983 expressed no interest in any of the three successor organizations (he was specifically asked about Michael Harrington’s outfit and pooh-poohed it).
3. Sanders is arguably wrong on the issues. However, he himself is interested in issues and programs over which you can argue. Try tangling with street-level Democrats in fora like this. It’s guises and poses and status-games all the way down.
4. Sanders is an honest man (with the usual qualifications for public figures). There’s a reason HRC’s been called the most morally corrupt presidential candidate of consequence since Aaron Burr.
Sanders is a sign of some green shoots in the Democratic Party. If we’re fortunate, the Democratic Party will be more like Sanders in the future while the Republican Party will be 1/3 Guiliani, 1/3 Cruz, and 1/3 Trump.
Venezuela has price controls on food and agricultural prices. The consequences are food shortages and food lines. The FAO informs us that Cereals (grain) production in Venezuela fell by over 50% from 2014 to 2016. Back in the 1980s, Sandinista Nicaragua had price controls, food shortages and food lines- just like Venezuela today. Mayor Bernie Sanders, as a big fan of the Sandinistas- just as he was a big fan of Fidel- took it upon himself to praise food lines.
Bernie Sanders Praising Bread Lines and Food Rationing.
As Mayor Bernie Sanders liked food lines- and the accompanying price controls in Sandinista Nicaragua, why wouldn’t Senator Bernie Sanders also like food lines in Venezuela? Just sayin.’
Ah yes, radical egalitarianism. Equality means equality of outcomes. It says so right in the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence. Oh wait … We’ll just ignore the words “created” and “pursuit.”
From “Discover the Networks,”
Yes, Sander was only 22 years old at the time. But it sure is convenient that he didn’t want to spend any time subsequently explaining why he wasn’t a pro Soviet.
Back in the 1980s, when Burlington was about the only city in the US with a foreign policy, Mayor Bernie was a big fan of the Sandinistas. When Bernie Sanders Thought Castro and the Sandinistas Could Teach America a Lesson. Bernie told us:
According to Bernie, as Latin America should follow Marxist-Leninist wannabe Sandinista Nicaragua, Vermont should set a similar example for the US that Nicaragua was setting for Latin America.
Bernie believed that Sandinista Nicaragua in the 1980s was a democracy. However, the Sandinistas endorsed the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan. The Sandinistas did so less than three months after the Soviets invaded in December 1979. (So much for the claim that Reagan pushed the Sandinistas into the laps of the Soviets.) Nicaraguan Biographies/Cadre
How many democracies endorsed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan? None that I know of. The above endorsement is worthy of a Soviet bloc apparatchik.
Mayor Bernie, by being a big fan of the Sandinistas, was a big fan of a government that endorsed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. I have never come across Mayor Bernie- or Senator Bernie- expressing any discomfort with the Sandinistas endorsement of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. (At the time, available in Congressional Record and in the Sandinista newspaper Barricada. Later available in the 1987 publication, Central American Crisis Reader.)
I doubt that Bernie was ever aware of the Sandinista invasion of Afghanistan.
Bernie: “I know much more about Latin America than you proles.”
No, you don’t, Bernie. Once again, you are bullshitting us.
Bernie Sanders can say what he wants.
(Nobody has to listen and nobody ought to, except for a kind head-shaking kind of way, which is good for loosening up tight neck muscles—and also for uproarious laughter, which is good for everything.)
But nothing and nobody can take away from Bernie Sanders the fact that he was instrumental in bringing about a Trump victory in 2016, and in so doing he has redeemed himself for the ages.
In fact, the American people owes him one.
So as far as I’m concerned, he can—and certainly will—continue to be as much of a goofball as he wants. He’s earned that right, helping as he has to make America great again!! (Take that, Cuomo!!)
TommyJay:
Yes, Sander was only 22 years old at the time. But it sure is convenient that he didn’t want to spend any time subsequently explaining why he wasn’t a pro Soviet.
Bernie would inform us that he just wanted to expose himself to diverse points of view. But, in the interest of exposing himself to diverse points of view, would 22 year old Bernie have worked at National Review or at American Opinion (John Birch Society magazine)? I very much doubt it.
Correction
I doubt that Bernie was ever aware of the Sandinista invasion of Afghanistan.
Correct to:
I doubt that Bernie was ever aware of the Sandinista endorsement of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
In 2008 Stanley Kurtz at National Review revealed Obama’s connections to the “New Party,” a some-kind-of-socialist third party, which was sufficiently socialist that Obama and his campaign promptly denied it.
A few years later Kurtz documented Obama’s involvement cold. Not that it mattered.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2012/06/obamas-third-party-history-stanley-kurtz/
My point supports neo’s. Not long ago Democat leaders felt obliged to deny any association with socialism. But home is where the heart lies and Democrats are now over denying their yearnings for socialism.
OMG … here’s Elizabeth Warren proposing a bill euphemistically called the “Affordable Capitalism Act,” which will effectively nationalize all corporations with more than $1 bil of revenue!
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/08/elizabeth-warren-plan-nationalize-everything-woos-hard-left/
It’s time we realized when Democrats say “affordable,” they mean “socialist.”
““I’ve stayed away from calling myself a socialist,” Sanders said in the Boston Globe in the aftermath of his win in ‘81, “because I did not want to spend half my life explaining
that I did not believe in the Soviet Union or in concentration camps.where I spent my honeymoon.” [Bernie Sanders, quoted above]There, fixed it for Bernie
P.S. I’ll take Margaret Thatcher’s view of socialism over Bernie’s any day.
https://youtu.be/pdR7WW3XR9c
“One has to be an idiot to believe that the average working person who’s making $10,000 or $12,000 a year is equal in political power to somebody who is the head of a large bank or corporation. So if you believe in political democracy, if you believe in equality, you have to believe in economic democracy as well.”[Bernie Sanders, quoted above]
So in free market/capitalist societies the privileged few have greater power impact and wealth? How does this differ at all from the common people in the old soviet union waiting in line for domestic staples like meat and bread, while the senior party regulars got to shop at Gum ? The answer: There’s no difference at all. The end result is the same. As Glenn Reynolds is wont to write: “In capitalism the wealthy become powerful; in socialism, the powerful become wealthy.” The only difference is that in socialist societies, someone else other than you is determining what you “need.”
My acid test for socialism, which I here put to Bernie Sanders is: In a society that preaches from each according to his ability, to each according to his need, explain to me why Leonid Breshnev had an antique car collection and why you, Bernie, need three rather expensive homes and a million-plus dollar net worth.
Steve Walsh,
Thatcher’s observation about running out of other peoples’ money gets to the heart of why socialism inevitably fails. It’s not because it hasn’t been correctly implemented. it’s because it demise is part of its very creed.
Socialism deals with wealth redistribution and (at least in principle) power redistribution, but it eschews wealth creation. You can only redistribute wealth as long as wealth exists and the socialist system has no mechanism for the creation of new wealth; in fact, it is opposed to the creation of new wealth.
Like Thatcher, as the economist Herb Stein said, something that can’t go on forever . . . won’t. That is why socialist systems never did work and never will.
+The answer: There’s no difference at all. The end result is the same. As Glenn Reynolds is wont to write: “In capitalism the wealthy become powerful; in socialism, the powerful become wealthy.”
The only differenceis that in socialist societies, someone else other than you is determining what you “need.” [T @ 2:56]Sorry, poor choice of words. “The distinction is that in socialist societies . . .”.
Fixed it (I hope.)
Socialism=We take your stuff and give it to somebody more deserving
Democratic Socialism=We take a vote then we take your stuff and give it to somebody more deserving
As Frédéric Bastiat pointed out, socialism is theft, it is based on plunder your neighbor. Naturally the socialists don’t tell people they are going to steal their stuff. They put it much more euphoniously, from everybody according to their ability, to everybody according to their needs. In the late great USSR that was part of the constitution. If you were a citizen of the USSR, where it said from everybody according to their ability, that meant you. Where it said to everybody according to their needs, that meant the nomenklatura.
In reading this post, I found myself reacting with wonder to the cognitive dissonance in Sander’s prior comments… is Sanders simply an incoherent fool or a scheming knave?
In reading the comments, T’s proposed question to Sanders crystallized it for me; “In a society that preaches from each according to his ability, to each according to his need, explain to me why Leonid Breshnev had an antique car collection and why you, Bernie, need three rather expensive homes and a million-plus dollar net worth.”
That brought to mind Pres. Harry Truman’s acid comment about the Bernie Sanders of the world; “Professional liberals are too arrogant to compromise. In my experience, they were also very unpleasant people on a personal level. Behind their slogans about saving the world and sharing the wealth with the common man lurked a nasty hunger for power. They’d double-cross their own mothers to get it or keep it.”
This would be so much easier if they would lose their pro-choice religion, their twilight faith. Deny your diversity. Deny your abortion rite. Embrace individual dignity. Acknowledge evolution of human life from conception. Then reconcile.
T: “Socialism deals with wealth redistribution and (at least in principle) power redistribution, but it eschews wealth creation. You can only redistribute wealth as long as wealth exists and the socialist system has no mechanism for the creation of new wealth; in fact, it is opposed to the creation of new wealth.”
Just so. Could not have been more clear and succinct myself.
Check the date here.
(From a comment on a series at Sarah Hoyt’s blog fisking Sanders’s campaign biography. Seriously.)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/billflax/2011/09/01/obama-hitler-and-exploding-the-biggest-lie-in-history/#2584691a47a6
“The line between fascism and Fabian socialism is very thin. Fabian socialism is the dream. Fascism is Fabian socialism plus the inevitable dictator.” John T. Flynn
“Interestingly, almost everywhere Marxism triumphed: Russia, China, Cuba, Vietnam, etc., all skipped the capitalist phase Marx thought pivotal. Instead, they slid straight from pre-industrial feudal conditions into communism; which essentially entailed reversion back to feudalism supplanting the traditional aristocracy with party cronyism – before dissolving into corrupted variants of state capitalism economically similar to fascism.
As usual, Marx got it backwards.”
“While political correctness as manifest in the West is very anti-Nazi and those opposing multiculturalism primarily populate the Right, it’s false to confuse fascism with conservatism. Coupling negatives is not necessarily positive. Because the Nazis would likely detest something that conservatives also dislike indicates little harmony. Ohio State hates Michigan. Notre Dame does too, but Irish fans rarely root for the Buckeyes.
America’s most fascistic elements are ultra leftwing organizations like La Raza or the Congressional Black Caucus. These racial nationalists seek gain not through merit, but through the attainment of government privileges. What’s the difference between segregation and affirmative action? They are identical phenomena harnessing state auspices to impose racialist dogma.”
“Mussolini recognized, “Fascism entirely agrees with Mr. Maynard Keynes, despite the latter’s prominent position as a Liberal. In fact, Mr. Keynes’ excellent little book, The End of Laissez-Faire (l926) might, so far as it goes, serve as a useful introduction to fascist economics.” Keynes saw the similarities too, admitting his theories, “can be much easier adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state than . . . a large degree of laissez-faire.” Hitler built the autobahn, FDR the TVA. Propaganda notwithstanding, neither rejuvenated their economies.
FDR admired Mussolini because “the trains ran on time” and Stalin’s five year plans, but was jealous of Hitler whose economic tinkering appeared more successful than the New Deal. America wasn’t ready for FDR’s blatantly fascist Blue Eagle business model and the Supreme Court overturned several other socialist designs. The greatest dissimilarity between FDR and fascists was he enjoyed less success transforming society because the Constitution obstructed him.
Even using Republicans as proxies, there was little remotely conservative about fascism. Hitler and Mussolini were probably to the right of our left-leaning media and education establishments, but labeling Tea Partiers as fascists doesn’t indict the Right. It indicts those declaring so as radically Left.”
Sometimes I agree with Conor; other times I just want to shake my head.
This is sort of in between.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/08/a-risk-that-democratic-socialism-poses-to-all-minorities/566528/
Democratic Socialism Threatens Minorities
Nothing better protects victims of bigotry than a system where they can pursue their needs and wants outside the realm of popular control.
CONOR FRIEDERSDORF
AUG 9, 2018
“Instead of individual capitalists deciding what to produce in their endlessly varied, constantly competing private businesses, “without any democratic input from the rest of society,” control over industry and decisions about what to produce would reside in state planning agencies. And imagine their decisions perfectly, if improbably, reflect the actual democratic will of workers, whether in the nation; or a state, like Ohio or Utah; or a metropolitan area, like Maricopa County or Oklahoma City.
Popular control is finally realized! So: How popular is Islam? How many Muslim prayer rugs would the democratic majority of workers vote to produce? How many Korans? How many head scarves? How much halal meat would be slaughtered? What share of construction materials would a majority of workers apportion to new mosques?
Under capitalism, the mere existence of buyers reliably gives rise to suppliers. Relying instead on democratic decisions would pose a big risk for Muslims. And Sikhs. And Hindus. And Jews. And maybe even Catholics.
Right now, under capitalism, vegetarians and vegans have more options every year. But there aren’t very many of them. Five percent of Americans are vegetarians. Three percent are vegans. Would “the workers” find a societal need to produce vegan meat or milk substitutes? No one knows the answer.
How important would worker majorities consider hair products for African Americans? What if a majority of workers decided that only English-language commercial reading material should be printed in the United States? Would planning bodies decide for or against allocating materials for sex toys? Or binders for trans men? Or sexually explicit artwork?
The birth-control pill has “massive public implications.” And remember, “Only when the private decisions that have massive public implications are subjected to popular control will we have a democratic society.”
Is Trump ending free birth control?
So, young leftists: Would you prefer a socialist society in which birth control is available if, and only if, a majority of workers exercising their democratic control assents? Or would you prefer a society in which private businesses can produce birth control, per their preference, in part because individuals possess economic rights as producers and consumers, the preferences of a majority of people around them be damned?
If contraception at every CVS and Walgreens sounds better than “popular control,” you may be a laissez-faire capitalist, or at least recognize why democratic socialism can be a nightmare for many sorts of people.
As the economist and philosopher Friedrich Hayek put it, “Our freedom of choice in a competitive society rests on the fact that, if one person refuses to satisfy our wishes, we can turn to another.” But, he added, “if we face a monopolist we are at his absolute mercy.” Socialists are attuned to the ways individuals are vulnerable in capitalism but blind to ways that it frees us from the preferences of the majority. Nearly all of us would hate abiding by the will of the majority on some matters.”
http://thefederalist.com/2018/08/16/intellectual-dark-web-stick-culture-not-shift-politics/
“We don’t live in a totalitarian society, but institutions that accept identity politics ultimately obey a totalitarian logic. “The personal is political” is essentially a totalitarian idea, even if it sounds nicer when the left calls it “holistic.”
…
The only political idea that should be central to the Intellectual Dark Web is the rejection of identity politics and its implicit totalitarianism. Simply re-popularizing the idea that not everything is “politics” is political enough for them for now. “
http://thefederalist.com/2018/08/16/support-socialism-arises-ingratitude/
“In the twentieth century, there were three great attempts in the West to replace the social order created by the Enlightenment. Each was an attempt to put the government back in charge. The Germans and the Italians tried national socialism; the Russians and the Chinese tried Communism. Both systems brought ruin and catastrophe.
The third version, the American one, called itself Progressivism. The Progressives realized the American people were not ripe for the kind of revolutionary upheaval that had worked in Germany or Russia. Consequently, their plan was to introduce government control of the American people little by little, progressively.
You have to give them credit: They have made remarkable “progress.” Today, in moments of candor, they come right out and state that they intend to regulate every aspect of people’s lives. That is, of course, precisely what the Nazis and the rulers of the U.S.S.R. aimed for. Is regulating every aspect of people’s lives going to work any better this time simply because it is being introduced step-by-step instead of suddenly?
By failing to appreciate the free market’s gift of prosperity and by failing to appreciate the American founders’ gift of liberty, we put ourselves in jeopardy. We risk losing our inheritance by cooperating with those who want to take it from us.”
The Pilgrims couldn’t make socialism work. The Pilgrims!
Case closed.
In Venezuela, Hugo Chavez rebranded Socialism by calling it “21st Century Socialism”. Exactly how it was supposed to be different from the old variety was never clear. Nevertheless, enough Venezuelans were clear that it meant more free stuff for them, that he was elected over and over again.
By the time the economy and the country were in ruins, it was too late. The thugs running the government had already destroyed all the institutions of democracy and had consolidated power to where no democratic means of regime change remain.
Bernie Sanders was a huge fan of Hugo Chavez. Although he no longer points to Venezuela as a successful model, like he used to, he has also never repented or apologized for his former lavish praise and support.
Given a chance, Bernie Sanders and his ilk would do exactly the same for the U.S. that Hugo Chavez did for Venezuela. I have lived in Venezuela for the last 12 years, a witness to the slow motion train wreck this formerly beautiful country has experienced. Believe me when I tell you that you really don’t want to experience this first hand.
“So, young leftists: Would you prefer a socialist society . . . . Socialists are attuned to the ways individuals are vulnerable in capitalism but blind to ways that it frees us from the preferences of the majority. : [Aesop Fan @ 12:20 am]
What a superb paragraph! Three comments: 1) it’s so succinct that even an ardent leftist has to work hard to deny it; 2) it underlies the capitalist leanings inherent in those who espouse socialism (see my question to Bernie Sanders above @ 2:56 pm); 3) the Hayek quote restates the same principle as the well-known C.S. Lewis quote:
It amazes me that there are so many ways to state and re-state the sane principle, over and over again, and yet the adherents to socialism constantly refuse to understand. It truly has become a belief system (i.e., a religion) rather than any form of economic theory.
“It amazes me that there are so many ways to state and re-state the sane principle . . .”
“Same principle”.
Sorry, but I suspect a good Freudian slip anyway.
100+Million Lives taken in Gulags, Land Reform Famines, mass executions, prison dungeons, slave colonies…. How’bout those Lefty Snowflakes of 20th Century Progressivism??!!
Bernie Sanders was a huge fan of Hugo Chavez.
Citation please.
Various commentators have been for years recycling one passing remark he supposedly made in favor of Venezuela a number of years ago. Where did that meme originate?
He’s been quite explicit in the last 3 years that he has no admiration for Venezuela or Cuba.
Molly Brown on August 17, 2018 at 2:56 am at 2:56 am said:
The Pilgrims couldn’t make socialism work. The Pilgrims!
Case closed.
* * *
A lot of religious communities, especially in the 19th century, tried the “sacred socialism” of having most public* goods (and a lot of private ones) in common, with variations on the democratic / oligarchic nature of the persons authorized to make plans for production & distribution (it can range widely, even in a theocracy ostensibly governed by God, because someone still has to be His intermediary to the whole group).
Despite high motivation, sincere charitable intent, and cohesive operation, most of them went under, and all of them only “worked” in very small groups.
* not just the infrastructure we recognize today, but also including land, food, housing, and clothing — which would be private goods under capitalism / free market / individualist ideologies.
The following link gives a pretty good list, but it leaves out the Hutterites, the Amish, and the Latter-day Saints’ attempts to institutionalize and live in what they called “The United Order”, which is supposed to prevail in the Millenium.
The first group is still operating, in very small societies (45,000 total at last count in Wikipedia); the second is only quasi-utopian and quasi-socialist, if that (not all cooperative communities are communist; the element of central planning and direction has to be present as well); and the third foundered on the usual shoals as all the other utopias: even highly religious people are still subject to human frailties.
https://www.history.com/news/5-19th-century-utopian-communities-in-the-united-states
Here’s an interesting comment on the Amish that calls to mind the frequent observation that socialists can only survive to the extent that they live in a predominantly capitalist world. (Venezuela shows what happens when they try to go it totally on their own.)
https//mises.org/library/economic-lessons-amish
“The Amish live in an agrarian economy. It thrives in the midst of modern society, not because of inherent advantages, but rather because it borrows much more from that society than meets the eye.
Most third-world countries are also agrarian societies, mired in a state of misery, reflecting the primitiveness of their economies. What they don’t have, that the Amish in America do, is economic freedom, secure property rights, a well-developed system of trade, legal protections, fairly reliable money and access to the fruits of capitalist society. “
T on August 17, 2018 at 10:39 am at 10:39 am said:
“It amazes me that there are so many ways to state and re-state the sane principle . . .”
“Same principle”.
Sorry, but I suspect a good Freudian slip anyway.
* * *
Indeed.
Here is an interesting series of articles on what Peter Burfeind at the Federalist sees as the root problem of socialism, in that it is a secular form of religious gnosticism, and has many of the same flaws and failures. More can be found in his archive.
http://thefederalist.com/2015/06/29/gnostic-mysticism-grounds-modern-progressive-ideology/
http://thefederalist.com/2017/09/18/word-woke-encapsulates-evil-self-defeating-ideology/
https://thefederalist.com/2018/08/15/leftism-can-never-truly-support-concept-free-speech/
Roy Nathanson on August 17, 2018 at 8:49 am at 8:49 am said:
Given a chance, Bernie Sanders and his ilk would do exactly the same for the U.S. that Hugo Chavez did for Venezuela. I have lived in Venezuela for the last 12 years, a witness to the slow motion train wreck this formerly beautiful country has experienced. Believe me when I tell you that you really don’t want to experience this first hand.
* **
Thanks for the report from the field.
That’s one of the things I love about Neo’s blog & commentators.
PS I used to employ the term “commentariat” for the blog-reading community, but in the context of the post and the realization that “-ariat” is a distinctly Soviet terminology, I looked it up: the common use is to designate the members of the media pundocracy as a class, with connotations of power and influence that we obviously don’t have. In this era of fake news, a Soviet-style label is particularly appropriate.
AesopFan,
Thanks for that link describing the socialist utopias in the USA. My favorite is New Harmony which lasted until Robert Owen ran out of money. That proves Margaret Thatcher’s saying that socialism is wonderful till you run out of other peoples money.
AesopFan,
Also thanks for the links. Read one of the three (on being “woke”) and found it quite fascinating.
I actually partly agree with some of the Gnostic observations; reality being “out there” and our perception of reality being self-specific and internal. My admittedly superficial observation is that the Gnostics see these things as changeable simply by changing their perception; for them perception is reality. Conversely, I see reality, “out there”, as something immune to change from simple observation; one can change the word “down” to mean “up” but that doesn’t change the direction that water flows. You can invent a thousand genders as evidence of your freedom and “wokeness” but that doesn’t change the fact that there are only two sex-specific types of human beings. Thus, we perceive reality but reality is not real because of our perceptions, it is real because it is real; it is a tautology. To paraphrase that great philosopher Popeye: it is what it is and that’s all that it is.
This, I think, is where the Gnostics and the Progressives fail completely. It helps to remember that the Progressives think they are evolving toward establishing a Utopia; in other words, Progressives want to create a “No Place”, a place that doesn’t and that can’t exist.
Art Deco
Bernie Sanders was a huge fan of Hugo Chavez.
Citation please.
My comment : August 16, 2018 at 12:04 pm at 12:04 pm.
Granted, Bernie merely posted a newspaper article on his Senate website, but his doing so implies approval of what it said.
Bernie Sanders and Maduro made rather similar statements about the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff in Brazil.
Venezuela’s Maduro: Brazil impeachment is a ‘coup’ that was ‘made in the USA’
Sanders Condemns Efforts to Remove Brazil’s Democratically Elected Presiden
Wiki: mpeachment of Dilma Rousseff
A 61-20 vote is a coup? Neither Bernie nor Maduro are fans of a 61-20 vote, as such a margin is prima facie evidence of a right wing minority oligarchy running things. 🙂
BTW, the “new, unelected” president was elected vice president on Dilma’s ticket. Why did Dilma have a “right winger” as her vice president? Whatya say, Bernie and Maduro?
Since you could basically interchange Bernie’s and Maduro’s statements on Dilma’s impeachment, that is evidence to me that they their thought patterns are rather similar.
Art Deco
He’s been quite explicit in the last 3 years that he has no admiration for Venezuela or Cuba.
Are you referring to Bernie’s calling Hugo Chávez a “communist dictator?” For decades, Bernie has had the warm fuzzies for “communist dictators” like Daniel Ortega and Fidel Castro. As I have already given sufficient evidence of Bernie’s love for the Sandinistas in the 1980s, I will confine my comments here to Fidel Castro.
Bernie Sanders of Democratic Socialism fame has done his fair share of defending Totalitarian Socialism as practiced in Cuba. For example: When Bernie Sanders Thought Castro and the Sandinistas Could Teach America a Lesson.
As Bernie has had a half century of being a fanboy of communist dictator Fidel, his calling someone a “communist dictator” is not, from Bernie’s point of view, necessarily a bad thing.
There is an interesting comparison between what Bernie Sanders said about a “revolution in values” and what a “Liberation theology” priest stated in Naipaul’s prescient 1972 article on Argentina. The Corpse at the Iron Gate.
Recall what Bernie said about Cuba.
Muddle-headed Bernie echoes a muddle-headed priest from the aristocracy. Both full of fantasies about totalitarian communist dictators.
The muddle-headed priest ended up going the guerrilla route, and was killed in combat. Two decades later, Naipual met one of his acolytes. (Parents of a childhood friend were friends with another aristocratic priest turned dead guerrilla- Camilo Torres.)
It doesn’t say much for Bernie Sanders that at times he sounds like a Liberation Theology priest.
Gringo,
Socialism has long been promoted as a religion. It’s a religion with no morality.
http://www.heavenonearthdocumentary.com/resources/commentary_socialism_vs_religion_07-14-02.pdf
See my comment here on socialism, progressives, and gnosticism.
AesopFan on August 17, 2018 at 12:10 pm at 12:10 pm said:
Socialism is like a religion. Liberation theology is perhaps another name for socialism the religion.
However, that means that Counter Reformation Jesuits were ahead of the curve. They developed intellectual and anti intellectual weapons way before socialism was invented.