I think that the definition of socialism is really different to young Americans than it is to the rest of the world. This is the textbook definition of Socialism: It seems to me that when most...
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• In a shift since 2016, young Americans today view socialism more favorably than capitalism, according to a Gallup poll this year.
I think that the definition of socialism is really different to young Americans than it is to the rest of the world. This is the textbook definition of Socialism:
a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.
It seems to me that when most young Americans talk about socialism, they just mean not privatizing every last damn thing, having some sort of funded welfare state, and a reasonable amount of regulation.
The political discussion in the US has gone so far to the right since Reagan that it makes my head spin. It’s like the frog being boiled slowly, so it doesn’t notice. Democrats and US politics at large are the frogs, and the water temp is the libertarian ideal that government is always evil. It blows my mind there has never been a successful push back on that right wing meme.
I think what young Americans mean by socialism is just what post-war America was, a Social Democracy.
Social democracy is a political, social and economic ideology that supports economic and social interventions to promote social justice within the framework of a liberal democratic polity and capitalist economy. The protocols and norms used to accomplish this involve a commitment to representative and participatory democracy; measures for income redistribution and regulation of the economy in the general interest; and welfare state provisions. Social democracy thus aims to create the conditions for capitalism to lead to greater democratic, egalitarian and solidaristic outcomes.
The ironic thing to me is that if you actually wanted to Make America Great Again, then the best way to do that would be to raise upper tax bracket taxes back to pre-1980 levels, dump the naive and extreme libertarian ideals, and re-fund the welfare state - which is not a bad thing anywhere else on the planet. Basically, recreate parts of the post war, pre-1980’s US government.
I had previously put the entire quote here, which included the world-norm, a public option for health insurance. I just mean the last part.
a federally guaranteed job (46 percent, says a Rasmussen survey), tilting the energy in the Democratic Party toward its left wing.
This is a bit nuts and naive, this hasn’t worked anywhere, has it?
• Worker ownership – both partially and through full-fledged worker cooperatives – is growing.
Edit2: When I use the word “naive,” I don’t mean it as an insult, I am naive about all kinds of things.
Also, I really hate it that the US media presents this entire thing as Socialism vs Capitalism when the vast majority of other democracies practice a balance of both.
I'm not surprised, honestly. Speaking as an elder millennial (born in '82), both myself and most of my social group are absolutely sick of the economic barriers to entry, much less the whole...
I'm not surprised, honestly. Speaking as an elder millennial (born in '82), both myself and most of my social group are absolutely sick of the economic barriers to entry, much less the whole college cost situation.
I don't think that many of us want the "classical" textbook version of socialism as we want some kind of hybrid between that and the current paradigm. I know that a lot of us are keenly interested in the system that our Scandinavian friends have. I suspect that a system that socializes things like healthcare, eliminates corporate welfare (WTF, why do Amazon, BP & Apple get multi-million dollar tax refunds???) and takes better care of our elderly, our infrastructure, veterans and actively prevents old white dudes from accumulating billions would work. Hell, any system that allows for billionaires to exist has intrinsic flaws.
I think that the definition of socialism is really different to young Americans than it is to the rest of the world. This is the textbook definition of Socialism:
It seems to me that when most young Americans talk about socialism, they just mean not privatizing every last damn thing, having some sort of funded welfare state, and a reasonable amount of regulation.
The political discussion in the US has gone so far to the right since Reagan that it makes my head spin. It’s like the frog being boiled slowly, so it doesn’t notice. Democrats and US politics at large are the frogs, and the water temp is the libertarian ideal that government is always evil. It blows my mind there has never been a successful push back on that right wing meme.
I think what young Americans mean by socialism is just what post-war America was, a Social Democracy.
The ironic thing to me is that if you actually wanted to Make America Great Again, then the best way to do that would be to raise upper tax bracket taxes back to pre-1980 levels, dump the naive and extreme libertarian ideals, and re-fund the welfare state - which is not a bad thing anywhere else on the planet. Basically, recreate parts of the post war, pre-1980’s US government.
I had previously put the entire quote here, which included the world-norm, a public option for health insurance. I just mean the last part.
This is a bit nuts and naive, this hasn’t worked anywhere, has it?
Contrary to popular knowledge, the USA already has a huge number of employee owned companies. This is obviously just a partial list, and does not include all of the family-based entrepreneurs.
Edit: fixed quote as noted above, other clarity
Edit2: When I use the word “naive,” I don’t mean it as an insult, I am naive about all kinds of things.
Also, I really hate it that the US media presents this entire thing as Socialism vs Capitalism when the vast majority of other democracies practice a balance of both.
I'm not surprised, honestly. Speaking as an elder millennial (born in '82), both myself and most of my social group are absolutely sick of the economic barriers to entry, much less the whole college cost situation.
I don't think that many of us want the "classical" textbook version of socialism as we want some kind of hybrid between that and the current paradigm. I know that a lot of us are keenly interested in the system that our Scandinavian friends have. I suspect that a system that socializes things like healthcare, eliminates corporate welfare (WTF, why do Amazon, BP & Apple get multi-million dollar tax refunds???) and takes better care of our elderly, our infrastructure, veterans and actively prevents old white dudes from accumulating billions would work. Hell, any system that allows for billionaires to exist has intrinsic flaws.