Socialism, that scary word
Ted Folkert
October 21, 2015
Bernie Sanders scares some people with his claim to be a democratic socialist. Those who don’t bother to read or listen to the political mindset of others think it is communism, that scary word that inspired Senator Joseph McCarthy to publicly denounce and virtually criminalize those who he thought might be leaning toward communism. Communism in the 1940s and 1950s was such a big fear that McCarthy was undeterred for five years trying to prove that anyone with liberal political beliefs was a communist out to destroy life as we knew it then. McCarthy seemed to believe that anyone who didn’t share his Republican beliefs was a traitor or a spy for communist takeover of the world. I don’t know what he was drinking at the time but it enabled him to have an adverse effect on many good people’s lives until he was finally censured by the Senate after damaging many reputations and lives.
The fear of communism was so prevalent in those days that it nearly triggered a military conflict between the U.S. and the USSR and initiated a 50 year denouncement, embargo and severance of diplomatic relations with one of our nearest neighbors and least feared political or military rivals, Cuba.
The fear of the march of communism in Asia cost the lives of millions of people in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, including more than 50,000 of our brave young people. The aftermath of it all is still being felt today by those countries which were virtually destroyed during those years.
Now those who still fear that scary word, communism, consider it synonymous with socialism, that scary word that they consider synonymous with liberalism.
Most socialistic countries today are not communistic. Most of those considered socialistic today are probably, what Bernie Sanders calls, democratic socialistic. The belief is not that the people commonly own the means of production and share the wealth equally. The belief is that everyone should share the wealth in education, health care and basic means of living. Recent surveys of countries with various forms of governmental and economic systems show that the countries where the citizens seem the happiest are some of the countries considered socialistic, such as: Denmark, Sweden, Norway, countries with high rates of taxation but generous social programs such as: free healthcare for all, free education for all, generous family leave and other programs considered socialistic.
The U.S. could provide these essential benefits to all of us with the proper taxation of wealth and income. Nobody likes to pay taxes. We don’t need to call it taxes. Why not call it paying our fair share of the cost of providing all of the services essential for a healthy society. The taxation now is unfair to the working class and extremely favorable to the wealthy and upper income earners. This must be corrected if we want to enable future generations to prosper and provide the earth-saving decisions imperative for the survival of the planet to support life.
We should do what Thomas Piketty, the noted French economist, suggested: tax the accumulated capital of the nation, which is enormous, and tax income in a progressive way, which we did effectively in the years when the working class prospered. If we tax the accumulated wealth, including inheritance, we could rebuild the infrastructure of our country, putting many of the unemployed back to work so they can spend their earnings and provide geometric growth of the economy.
Of course, this may be impossible with the present campaign finance laws. These laws can be changed with a constitutional amendment. This amendment can be accomplished if we start thinking for ourselves instead of the way the corporate-owned media tell us to think. We need to elect a Democratic Senate, a Democratic House of Representatives and a Democratic president. Then we can make some progress for all the people, not just the rich and powerful. We need to be a country of the working and powerful.
Think about it!