Your 401 K on Socialism. In Sacramento News and Review.  12/11/08.

The Light hearted essay  by Bob Schmidt: Your 401K on Socialism  (P.14) raises some interesting comparisons of how big business has failed and how government might fail in the current economic crisis..   What it did not do, however, is provide a reasonable and rational definition of socialism.

We are unfortunately seeing today the disastrous results  of crony capitalism and the  looting the U.S. economy.  Nobel Prize winning economists such as Joseph Stiglitz and others have described how Congress has allocated over $700 billion and the Federal Reserve has promised another 300 billion in reserves.  Democratic socialists seek to strengthen our society by extending democracy to our major economic institutions so they will be accountable and work for the good of all rather than for the profits of the current  small elite.

Socialism, including U.S. based socialism is not so far away.  For example, consider credit unions, that is people owning their own banks. There are over 9,000 credit unions in the U.S., serving over 50 million members and holding over $700 Billion in assets.  I belong to one and it works just fine.

What  else is socialism presently ? Well, how about Sacramento Municipal Utilities (SMUD), and public schools, and public universities.  Which can you afford- Stanford or Sac State?   That is socialism at work. And, how about Medi-care for the elderly?  Medicare is a single payer health system for those over 65.  It is too limited.  It should be more generously funded. But, it is a form of socialism as are major HMO’s such as Kaiser.

Democratic Socialists of America, including the Sacramento local (http://sites.google.com/site/sacramentodsa/), are members of the Socialist International, a worldwide organization of more than 140 organizations, that includes currently or recently governing parties in Great Britain, Germany, France, Spain, and other nations that are allies of the United States. Only in the United States have right-wing propagandists been able to confuse the public about the nature of democratic socialism by equating it with authoritarian communism.

Democratic socialists have consistently defended political and civil liberties and argue that only by extending democracy into economic life can the full promise of democracy be realized.

Recently the McCain campaign inserted socialism into the political debate.  Thank you. The recent financial bailout -- something designed to preserve the basic capitalist structure of society (a bailout socialists opposed) -- has been routinely described as socialist. The progressive income tax, a reform instituted during the time of Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, is now being labeled as socialist. Refundable tax credits -- signed into law by Ronald Reagan in the form of the earned income tax credit, are described as socialist.

IF JOURNALISTS are going to use the socialist label as something more that a curse word, they ought to learn just a little bit about what socialism means today. There exists a rich but often overlooked democratic socialist tradition in the United States, upheld by such staunch democrats as Eugene Debs, Helen Keller, Norman Thomas, Walter Reuther, Michael Harrington, and Marin Luther King Jr.

Socialists played a key role in the building of the labor, civil-rights, and feminist movements -- all of which enriched our  democracy. Throughout the 20th century many U.S.  cities elected socialist mayors who were known for good government.  And today  U. Senator Bernie Sanders, who identifies himself as a democratic socialist, is considered his state's most popular elected official.

So, what is on the agenda today?  Well, most socialist  and social democratic countries have some form of universal health care, such as Great Britain, France and Canada.  Meanwhile  the U.S. has been talking about health care since 1948.  These programs have raised the quality of life for all people in those countries. The United States suffers from a shorter life expectancy, higher rates of infant mortality, and far greater economic inequality than exist in the countries with strong democratic socialist parties.

Readers who would like to learn what U.S.  socialists believe in and work for today, should visit our Web site, www.dsausa.org. 


Duane Campbell is the Sacramento Chair of Democratic Socialists of America.

He can be reached at the Sacramento DSA web site listed above.

Q 

Doesn't socialism mean that the government will  

own and run everything?  

Democratic socialists do not want to create an all-powerful government bureaucracy. But we do not want 

big corporate bureaucracies to control our society either. Rather, we believe that social and economic 

decisions should be made by those whom they most affect. 

 

Today, corporate executives who answer only to themselves and a few wealthy stockholders make basic 

economic decisions affecting millions of people. Resources are used to make money for capitalists rather than 

to meet human needs. We believe that the workers and consumers who are affected by economic institutions 

should own and control them. 

 

Social ownership could take many forms, such as worker-owned cooperatives or publicly owned 

enterprises managed by workers and consumer representatives. Democratic socialists favor as much 

decentralization as possible. While the large concentrations of capital in industries such as energy and steel 

may necessitate some form of state ownership, many consumer-goods industries might be best run as 

cooperatives. 

 

Democratic socialists have long rejected the belief that the whole economy should be centrally planned. 

While we believe that democratic planning can shape major social investments like mass transit, housing, and 

energy, market mechanisms are needed to determine the demand for many consumer goods