Written by wendell   

“If you laid all the economists end to end
to tell you which way to go, they would look like
the spokes of a wheel”
Harry Truman

FEAR OF SOCIALISM
Most Americans appear to be more afraid of the word socialism than the plague. So let me quickly explain what I mean by socialism. I am not talking about the old fashioned socialism tried in the Soviet Union where the government owned the land and factories and planned the economy. No, I am talking about a system of social welfare for the common good that also includes corporate, farm and welfare subsidies, as well as regulations.

Specifically, what I mean and advocate is any governmental expenditure where the return on investment (ROI) to society as a whole is greater than the cost to society as a whole. For lack of a better name, let’s just call it “Democratic Social Capitalism.” And by the word “greed” I mean self-interest over any concern for society or the commonwealth as a whole. When people are asked to define capitalism and socialism, they have trouble defining either one, which makes comparing them with each other difficult. However in 2012-14, there is a great
interest among Americans about this subject. Wikipedia reported last year
that the two most often looked up words in the English language were socialism and
capitalism. And why? The American people sense that something is not
working right any more in our capitalistic economic system. They are just not sure
what it is. Furthermore, we need to stop thinking of capitalism and socialism as two discrete options, black or white, as if we are forced to choose one over the other instead of considering a blend of the two; shades of gray if you will. There are gradients between pure capitalism and pure socialism. There is a continuum between these polar
opposites, affording a great many variations by mixing them. We don't need to replace capitalism with socialism. But we do need to “tweak” capitalism with enough socialistic laws to prevent runaway income disparity between the rich and poor.

How did we gradually get to the point where we, a supposedly moral and democratic society, believe that it is morally acceptable for one family, like the Waltons, to have acquired their wealth by paying their employees a near minimum wage that is not even a living wage, while they amass a fortune that is equal to the combined wealth of that of the lower 25% of all Americans. And even though Walmart employees spend the
majority of their day at work, they have no say in the management of the company.
Is that “democratic”? Walmart recently shocked the world by suggesting that their customers donate food to their employees at holiday time. Some women who work for Walmart have to sleep in their cars in the parking lot. Meanwhile the Waltons buy expensive homes, and art etc. In my opinion, the Waltons have redefined what it means to be “filthy rich”. That term used to simply mean anyone with a lot of money. I have no objection to anyone making a lot of money. But when billionaires like the Waltons make their money by paying their employees less than they can live on, forcing them to apply for food stamps as a result, that is, in my mind the behavior of the “FILTHY” rich. The widow of Sam Walton is now the wealthiest woman in America and is building a multimillion dollar art museum near her home in rural Arkansas, buying million dollar paintings. As Jeff Goldberg (The Atlantic magazine ) said, Ms. Walton's response so far to the needs of the people whose sweat pays for her paintings is a simple one, “Let them eat art.” Walmart knows that their employees cannot make a decent living on their salaries and as a result, are forced to use government assistance. But that does not seem to concern the owners. So you and I end up helping Walmart pay their employees. Their actions are the epitome of pure GREED.


SOCIALISM, CAPITALISM and LEMONADE
Of course we already have, to some degree, a mixture of capitalism and socialism with programs such as Social Security, Medicare, farm subsidies, Unemployment Insurance, food stamps, the G.I. Bill, student loans for college and bank bailouts. Ironically, this relatively small amount of socialism is possibly what is preventing a revolution over
too much 'free market” capitalism and a movement towards socialism. That is to say that without these safety net programs, people might be driven to go to the extreme and demand more government involvement during a serious recession, just as we have witnessed in Cuba and Russia. Franklin Roosevelt said that his greatest achievement was saving capitalism by instituting his socialistic programs. Because people tend to think that it has to be either socialism OR capitalism, they get scared even if there is a small movement in either direction. The Occupy Movement stands for a little more socialism, but not the kind that bailed out Wall Street.

When the Republican Governors Association met in November, 2011, one of
their chief strategists, Frank Luntz, said flatly he was “ So scared of this anti-Wall
Street group; I'm scared to death. They (The Occupy Movement) are affecting what people think of capitalism.” So he suggested replacing the word capitalism and calling it “economic freedom” or “free market.” But a rose by any other name is still a rose and even those not connected to the Occupy Movement are questioning capitalism. Many middle class folks are beginning to question where capitalism has taken us. And why not? We question and debate the education and the health care systems and even the American family system. Even many CEO's are growing nervous. They see the excesses of capitalism as unethical. They see that people trust business less and less. States require a “license to operate” a business but they also need a license from the people. And the people are not going to continue to let them operate when the overall wealth of the U.S. is increasing at the same time poverty levels are rising. That isn’t fair or just.

Bill Gates' net worth is about $50 billion and is equal to the total wealth of 23 countries.
We continue to worship at the altar of capitalism to the point of blindness. No
one ever questions the ever-increasing unregulated capitalism at the expense of greater numbers of people. And we go to war to protect it. We have proven over and
over that we will support a malevolent dictator who runs a capitalistic economy over
a benevolent democratically elected president who has a socialistic economy.
The two main ideas dominating our foreign policy since WWII have been stopping socialism and acquiring natural resources like oil, and both have been fueled by our blind worship of capitalism. We do not hesitate to go to war to further these two causes.

Meanwhile, the world keeps changing and so all systems should be questioned
and debated, even capitalism itself; otherwise we will overlook the changes that might improve them. In a way of thinking, everything that the government spends money on is socialism isn't it? All expenditures are meant to help SOCIETY some way or other,
aren't they? Unfortunately it is assumed that the economic systems of capitalism and “democratic socialism” are necessarily mutually exclusive. Although it is true that these
concepts are polar opposites in their purest form, consider that it is possible for them to
be mixed together in just the right amounts as to maximize the “general welfare.”

Excuse a trite example but lemons and sugar are polar opposites, and yet when they are mixed JUST RIGHT, they make delicious lemonade. And you can vary the balance of the two to suit your taste, making the drink more tart or sweet. Not only can capitalism and socialism be mixed but they MUST be mixed.

Similarly, we can have as much or as little socialism as we choose; the amount
is not carved in stone. Congress, if they are awake, can always increase or
decrease the mix of the two as economic conditions change.

RUGGED INDIVIDUALISM and GOVERNMENT
Please understand that I clearly believe in individual responsibility, first and foremost. As Thomas Sowell said “No society ever thrived because it had a large and growing
class of parasites living off those who produce.” Rugged individualism has made America great. But we often forget that our greatness is also a result of being a society of cooperating communities. That's how we built the transcontinental railroad, won World War II, built the interstate highway system, put a man on the moon, developed the worldwide web and so on. It is also true that no society ever thrived when the disparity between the rich and poor was too great.

All of us, from individuals and corporations to our foreign allies need a little bit of temporary economic help from time to time. And “temporary” is the key word to emphasize. Federalist Paper #62 said “A good government implies two things: First, fidelity to the objective of government , which is the HAPPINESS of the people; secondly, a knowledge of the means by which that objective can be best attained.” Note that the objective mentioned is HAPPINESS, not GDP, not security, nor equality.

The means by which that objective can be best attained is the subject of this ESSAY.



SOCIALISM IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

The American “empire” is in serious decline. We have a chronic recession, structural unemployment, growing poverty and a gigantic foreign debt and trade deficit. The Department of Education says that there are about one million school children who are
homeless. How can we possibly be proud of our country?

Computerization and robots are displacing middle class jobs in the factory
and in the office. Additionally, jobs continue to be shipped overseas. These trends
will not change. This is partially why the employment rate is not improving at the same speed we've seen after past recessions. This truly is a national emergency, the first symptom of which is the Occupy Movement, and requires no less than an all-out war on joblessness and its resultant poverty. We have big economic problems and big problems require big government. This is not just another recession; there is a “sea change” in our economy which requires a sea change in government policy. So what I am trying to do here is open up the space to discuss socialism in a new way.

SOCIALISTIC REVOLUTION?

“If a free society cannot help the many who are poor,
it cannot save the few that are rich.”
John F. Kennedy

Notice that I did not say “SOCIALIST” revolution. I am talking about a revolution
WITHIN the capitalistic system toward a greater degree of socialism but still
preserving the basis of capitalism. One of the problems that those who mindlessly worship capitalism don't stop and think about is that capitalism does have some rules
imposed upon it. There is no such thing as pure laissez-faire capitalism.
When they say “Just leave the market alone and everything will work out best in
the end,” they forget that the rules (taxes and regulations) are now tilted to help
the rich. That is of course because the big corporations are controlling Congress.

The system is no longer fair. It naturally allows the rich to grow richer and the poor,
poorer. This is truer now than in the 1920's. There is growing misery among the exploited middle class. Masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized, including a lot of college graduates without jobs, without hope and without a possible means of escape. Class struggle defines most of human history. Unfortunately we keep repeating it.


EARLY SIGNS OF A REVOLUTION IN THE MAKING
As a result, the country is now like a tinder box waiting for a spark, as evidenced by Occupy Wall Street. The rich and most members of Congress seem to be out of touch, although they should have had a wake-up call when Romney lost the 2012 presidential election so badly. The American people know something is very wrong but they just don't know exactly what it is. Well it is very simple. We've gone to the extreme with laissez-faire capitalism. Socialism used to be a “dirty word” but now capitalism is
considered more and more a dirty word.

In 2013 the conservatives in Congress were trying to cut down the social safety
nets, by reducing Social Security, food stamps and unemployment benefits.. The rich don't seem realize that those programs are the only thing keeping the poor from “picking up their pitchforks” and storming their gated communities. Their ideology has gotten in the way of their common sense.

Thomas Jefferson said something to the effect that we should have a revolution at least once every century. The last one was in the late 1960's.
But as I said earlier, I think we still just have too many socialistic safety net programs already in place which will prevent people from being hungry enough to use violence to change the system radically from capitalism to pure socialism. And that is a good thing, because if things get bad enough to cause a violent revolution, chances are that the new system would be TOO socialistic. It is unfortunate that human nature tends to bounce from one extreme to the other.

One of the ways to know if a revolution is coming is when some of the top
people in the power structure start to defect. In recent revolutions in the
Middle East, military generals and ministers previously aligned with the dictator in power, started defecting to the revolutionaries and that was a sure sign that the dictator's days were numbered. In our case, we have a multifaceted oligarchic dictatorship composed of the “Military-Industrial-Banking-Mainstream Media-Big Corporation-Political Lobbyist Complex.”

Warren Buffet, one of the principal benefactors of the oligarchy has defected.
He shocked Wall Street and the capitalists in Congress by saying that income taxes should be RAISED for him and his wealthy compatriots. For some time the rich have been accusing the poor of class warfare every time Progressives in Congress advocate
that the rich need to be taxed more. But since it is the cabal of rich, powerful people and institutions that have slowly tilted the economy, thru taxes and lack of regulation, towards favoring the rich, in reality it is the rich who have started the class warfare. So as Warren Buffet aptly stated, “There IS a class warfare all right, but it is my class, the rich class, that is making the war.” Then his son, Peter Buffet, recently said in a New York Times Op-Ed piece that capitalism needs a lot more humanism (read empathy). He said we need SYSTEMIC change and that it's time for a new operating system, not a 2.0 or a 3.0 but something built from the ground up. New code.”
He continued, “What we have is a crisis of imagination. Money should be spent trying out concepts that shatter current structures and systems.” In Buffet's NYT’s piece, he stopped just short of saying capitalism needs to go. But in a later interview with Laura Flanders of Grit-TV he did say that capitalism as we know it must be radically re-worked. He was careful to not use the “S” word, but a wink and a nod between Laura and Peter told it all.

To the chagrin of many American conservatives who are Catholic, the new Pope
Francis is now hinting at an economic revolution. The Pontiff's criticism of the modern capitalist economy is succinct and powerful. The Pope said “We need to reject the absolute autonomy of markets and confront the structural causes of inequality.”
And that until we do this,“No solution will be found for the world's problems.”
He asks the oligarchs to realize that to “Not share one’s wealth with the poor is to steal from them.” He further advises that “Thou shalt not have an economy of exclusion and
inequality because such an economy kills.” He laments the deified (capitalistic) market. and says that “ Unregulated financial capitalism causes a selfish and individualistic mindset.” He calls for a “NEW ECONOMIC MODEL.” He even explicitly criticized the “trickle down” economic theory. And then he fired all of the Cardinals managing the Vatican Bank when he found corruption. (Our oligarchy just gave our corrupt banks more money.) Finally he states that “No law enforcement or surveillance systems can indefinitely guarantee tranquility until we reverse the exclusion and inequality within society.”

The Pope is clearly hinting at the possibility of a violent revolution of some kind.
Then shortly after his speech, wealthy American Catholics like billionaire Kenneth
Langone attacked the Pope saying that if he did not stop “bad mouthing” capitalism
he would stop donating money to the Catholic Church. See how the oligarchy works!

Bill Moyers said recently that the oligarchs “Fix the system so multimillionaire hedge fund managers and private equity tycoons pay less of a tax rate on their income than school teachers, police and fire fighters, secretaries and janitors. They give subsidies to rich corporate farms but cut food stamps for working people facing hunger. They remove oversight of the “Wall Street casinos” but bail out the bankers who torpedo the economy, fight the modest reforms of Dodd-Frank, prolong tax havens for multinationals, and stick it to consumers while rewarding corporations. And who pays? We pay. We pay at the grocery store. We pay at the gas pump. We pay the taxes they write off. Our low wage workers pay with sweat and deprivation because Washington- aloof, self-obsessed, bought off and doing-very well-thank you, feels no pain.” He then ends by saying that “If the details of our corrupt system were exposed for what they are, outraged citizens would descend on Washington D.C. and tear it apart with their bare hands.” That is pretty strong language from this mild mannered Texan and minister’s son. And that sounds like revolution to me.

There will be a lot of marches in the streets, like Occupy Wall Street and the Million Mask March in 2013. They will come in “fits and starts” but they will continue, hopefully not violently. Presently fast food workers are marching in the streets to protest their average pay because they just cannot live even humbly.

Unfortunately, Congress never has done anything important until there were
marches in the street. A woman's right to vote and to choose an abortion were both
preceded by big marches. The 1964 civil rights bills and the end of the Vietnam
War followed big marches. There is the story about a woman telling FDR
that she appreciated something he was trying to do and he replied, “Yes but you (the
people) must MAKE me do it.”

There have always been politicians who are afraid to do anything controversial out of fear of losing their jobs. But it seems that nowadays most members of Congress are afraid, and the few that are not, are marginalized by their congressional peers and by the mainstream press. Congress has become ossified and writing to your congressperson will do little good. S/he will not do anything significant unless hundreds or thousands of people descend on their office, demanding change.

There is a general feeling that we need to change not just our politics, but also
our collective consciousness and our whole social and economic system.
A recent Rasmussen survey found that 53% of Americans say that America's
best times are behind us. And another 17% are not sure. That totals 70% having
no confidence in our capitalistic and governmental systems. We have swerved from the angles of our better nature. We are headed for a cliff. We simply can do better than the kind of capitalism we have been practicing which enriches the few at the expense of the poor and middle class.

We need to use socialism intensely during a recession and then scale it back when the economy returns to normal. Not only is that the morally right thing to do, it is also the right economical thing to do. Socialism is the antidote to laissez-faire capitalism and capitalism is the antidote to too much Socialism. Another way of putting it is to say that capitalism is basically good but it isn't ALL good. And socialism is not ALL bad.
Albert Einstein ,among other notables we admire, was a socialist.
Plato said “Necessity is the mother of invention” and it is becoming clearer that
we need to invent something better than the capitalist or socialist models.
The unification of these two (which I am advocating) almost needs a new lexicon,
a new name.

We are reaching a tipping point and are at an historic moment. We have become the government of the few, by the few and for the few. Our congress is of the wealthy,
by the wealthy, and for the wealthy. We are now ruled by an oligarchy. As Chris Hedges said “Oligarchs do not believe in self-sacrifice for the common good. They never have. They never will. They are the cancer of democracy.”

But as Bob Dylan, the troubadour of the 1960's revolution, said,
“The times they are a changin
Cause the waters around you have grown;
and you'd better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone,
for the times they are a changing!”

And we had better start changing by judiciously applying more socialism. That is the key to, preventing recessions and depressions and thereby bringing about a “sustainable” form of capitalism and in so doing, keeping the peace domestically. As Chris Hedges put it, “We are the most illusioned people on the planet. The sooner we realize that we are locked in a deadly warfare with the oligarchy, the sooner we will realize that these elites must be overthrown.” He says that “Our inability to grasp the pathology of our oligarchic rulers is one of our gravest faults.” Then he ends by saying “Let’s get this class warfare started.”

And it doesn't take that many people to start a movement; as Margaret Mead said, ”Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the ONLY thing that ever has.”

The tinder is very dry and ready for a spark.

We have nothing to fear from socialism, unless we let it get out of hand.
And we have nothing to fear from capitalism, unless we let it get out of hand.
The greatest guarantee of freedom is TRUTH.
In the land of lies,
The TRUTH IS ALWAYS REVOLUTIONARY,
and soon it will be realized that our oligarchic emperor has no clothes.


GREED IS GOOD-SO IS SOCIALISM: A UNIFICATION MANIFESTO

WENDELL H. WILLIAMS