Corporate Socialism versus democratic socialism
Bernie Sanders gave a great speech on democratic socialism. Many of us can appreciate the great idea behind helping one another strengthen society through the majority of people rather than the elite. In that speech he noted that socialism exists now for corporations. That may be the most important thing he said. Rather than confusing the concept for the public with words like oligarchy, national socialism, etc., it is essential to just differentiate between how socialism functions today for the captains of industry versus the people in the street. Unified terminology helps everyone understand that socialism, which is ultimately public help, can either go to corporate interests or collective interests. Uniting around terminology will
Think about it. We have a choice to continue to empower corporations with special privileges and massive amounts of public funding, or we have a choice to put that same public money behind the proverbial middle class. Corporate socialism exists in this country and enables a power structure that many feel denigrates democracy for the rest of us. Perhaps it is time to call a spade a spade, to explain to the nation that corporate socialism is a reality here and now. It is not socialism that is in question, but democracy.
The military and all of government has always been socialistic. When you go to the doctor at a military hospital, you do not see your personal physician. I do not hear people complaining about socialistic medicine in the huge area we already have it. There are pay grades and all in them were paid the same. Military dorms and mess halls are provided free in exchange for service. Yes, it is minimal, but we do not expect soldiers to have to take two and three jobs to provide for their families. Yet, even there in today’s world, many spouses must do that to survive.
We have socialism when we use public dollars in the form of student loans to uphold for-profit colleges, whose students regularly default on loans AFTER the funds are transferred from the government to the institutions. These for-profit colleges are not held to the same standards as other accredited colleges. They have their own “accrediting” bodies. They also account for the majority of defaulted loans, not the honest state college students we might think. As long as public funds are moving into private pockets, big business has a reason to exist. Trump U. missed this chance, but he saw the clear profit incentive.
Millions of public dollars are still going to charter schools that do not even exist! Betsy De Vos is trying hard to move massive amounts of public monies into charters and for-profits with questionable standards and high prices, not to mention fundamentalist faculties.
Corporate socialism is the word of the day. It should be mentioned every time Democrats distinguish themselves from Republicans. In true capitalism and market economies, no public monies should be needed except to provide research and to start up new technologies or ideas that will benefit society in general. Regulation should define when they are no longer new. We have a free flow of public monies to private pockets. It corrupts Congress and Washington bureaus every day. It cannot stop as long as we focus away from corporate socialism.
All people have a choice – vote for democratic socialism which returns tax dollars to public works that aid all of us or continue to vote for the corporate socialism of the deep state link between government and big business.
