We are told that we can’t have all the things that most voters want - universal health care, free public college, a fair tax policy that is truly progressive, and a higher minimum wage.
We can’t have these things because we are capitalists, not socialists. And doing all these things that benefit the American public would be socialism.
Yet we hear very little about socialism for large corporations - tax-payer funded prescription drugs given to pharmaceutical companies so they can profit, oil and gas subsidies for well-established businesses, taxpayer financed employer health insurance (they write this benefit off). The military-industrial complex is one big slush fund for contractors. Corporations receive hundreds of billions of dollars of federal support every year. Yet many extremely profitable companies pay no income taxes (Amazon, for one).
Capitalism really seems to be the realm of small and midsize business. Once a corporation becomes large enough to hire armies of lobbyists, they throw bundles of cash to protect their edge and thwart their competitors. Small businesses go bankrupt; large ones get bailouts.
The Wall Street fiasco of 2008 destroyed eight million jobs, while individuals lost trillions in pension and mutual funds and millions of families lost their homes. The financial firms were bailed out to the tune of trillions of taxpayer dollars. Where were the cries of socialism from the Republicans?
The concentration of wealth, which translates into political power, is enormous. Just six capitalists own wealth equal to half of the world population.
So the corporate safety net is just fine, while Republicans continue their destruction of the middle class one.
Ronald Reagan led the charge of tax cuts for the rich and attacks on unions and social programs. Since then America has gotten richer but vastly more unequal. Today’s Republican Party makes Reagan look moderate. Where was the “center” then, and where is it today?
However, all we seem to hear is that the Democrats shouldn’t nominate a “far-left” candidate; the electorate won’t vote for anyone advocating these “socialist” solutions. We don’t hear about the need for the Republicans to move leftward although the Trump party has become the most reactionary, soulless cult ever witnessed in this country.
40% of Americans struggle to pay their bills, but the stock market is looking rosy. A record number of Americans want to leave the country, including 40% of women under 40. I’m sure that Trump influences this number; however, many young Americans see no opportunity in the United States. Many are living with a mountain of debt.
Prospects for the younger generation have deteriorated over the past few decades. The Equality of Opportunity Project in 2016 found that trends of upward mobility have declined sharply “over the past half-century because of the growth in inequality”. The report went on to say “If one wants to revive the “American Dream” of high rates of absolute mobility, one must have an interest in growth that is shared more broadly across the income distribution.”
The slew of problems in our country requires bold solutions, not half-measures.
JFK didn’t say “maybe we’ll go to the moon someday; we’ll take a look”. What he said instead was “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.”
Democrats have been asked to move to the center for the past 40 years. It’s time to move the goalposts!