‘Socialism’ is a US bogeyman. It doesn’t scare countries combining it with democracy

It has been noted by one distinguished observer of America that one of the chief ambiguities of our society is that its most privileged individuals hate and resent the very social structure which makes their privileged lives possible, while, at the same time, professing to love their country. What they really love is an imaginary human situation invented by their own and their fellow privileged compatriots’ genius, and which they have grown to believe is the only true human reality. This means that the best-treated, most favored and ostensibly intelligent part of our society is the most ungrateful. Indeed, ingratitude has become integral to its social functioning.

This, at least in part, explains why, for them, “socialism” has become a bete noire and an obscenity.

But then, how do we explain the attitude of your typical John and Jane Doe in America?

Let me at least offer you my thoughts.

In my pre-adolescent years, parents would half-jokingly use, as a scare tactic to ensure compliance, the threat of a bogeyman. Luckily for most of us, we would eventually outgrow that scare (coincidentally, at just about the same time, we outgrew Santa). Today though, with the aid and abetting of those previously mentioned privileged few, that early bogeyman has morphed into something even more pernicious, more effective and more lasting: the dreaded socialist.

This new bogeyman has served to stunt the intellectual growth of John and Jane Doe. Luckily, that scare tactic doesn’t play as well in Canada, Australia and Europe, but its effect here has been devastating.

And, equally harmful, as we grew up, our old reassuring Santa was replaced by a new effigy: the rugged individual — a creature who wants from his government only that it get off his back. Unfortunately, this attitude makes any sense only if you happen to be one of lucky 2% and you disdain giving anything back to the very society that was good enough in the first place to throw open its vaults to you. This self-centered attitude is not only nonsensical, but also counterproductive (especially, but not only, if you are not in that group).

The attitude itself stems from first a murky understanding of history, along with ignorance of just how socialism has helped the other advanced nations become so much more viable and livable in today’s world.

Soviets brought communism to autocratic country

The problem here is that an old abomination, communism, is seen by many Americans as socialism run amok. But this is a false read. While in its early germinating period, Soviet communism ostensibly borrowed socialist concepts when it was implanted in Russia. Unfortunately it was implanted in the worst possible soil — in a country whose people had never known anything but autocracy.

Both socialism and capitalism need the reins of a free, participatory populace in order to work and to avoid evil pitfalls. Russia never had even the concept of democracy. We in America were lucky to have had it (to some degree) among our founders. Unfortunately, those vitally important democratic reins became tattered when, in the early 20th century, corporations were given the same legal rights as people by a very shortsighted Supreme Court. From that point on, capitalism simply ran out of control — and it has never slowed down.

Hence, we now have a society where the balance between the rich, politically powerful and the average citizen has become the most dangerously out of whack of all developed countries.

Fortunately for us, before the new ersatz bogeyman scared us all into mindless obeisance to the new real monster — the untethered capitalist — we managed a few attempts to find some balance.

So, let us take democratic socialism out of the dark corner into which it has been shoved by the fearmongers, and examine how at least bits of it have already seeped into our culture and affected our way of life. You can decide whether it’s for the better or worse.

First of all, it is important to understand the actual mechanism of socialism. Primarily it involves taxing the populace fairly — in proportion to actual ability to pay, not in reverse proportion to political clout. Hence we have the graduated income tax. These funds are then used to provide basic social needs and services to be used by all, especially those who would not easily afford them.

Trains, post office, fire departments

Example 1: transportation. The reason we now have great interstate highways is because that old hard-line socialist in military clothing, Dwight Eisenhower, pushed through a massive infrastructure bill in the 1950s (although in some regressive states such as Illinois and Oklahoma, major highways are toll roads). We also have a relatively decent transcontinental railroad in Amtrak because it is underwritten by the government. It’s still inferior to rail systems in Europe and Japan and subsidized less here — and the capitalists have tried to abolish even this support.

Examples 2 and 3: Social Security and Medicare. Before these programs were put into place by the quasi-socialists of yesteryear, everyone over 65 without means may just as well have been dropped onto the Arctic ice to spend their very few remaining days.

Example 4: a very low-cost postal service, introduced in the days of the Revolution by another old socialist, Ben Franklin. Do I even have to remind you how critical this is now to our daily life?

Example 5: public libraries. They make knowledge and information available to all, for free, through books, periodicals and the internet. We’re once again indebted to old Ben here.

Example 6: National Public Radio, which thankfully makes objective, balanced and researched news reporting and quality local programming — as opposed to hysterical, dangerous propaganda and commercial-glutted airtime — available to all. Again, NPR is something the capitalists have tried hard for years to kill.

Example 7: publicly run police and fire departments — not private militias and privately-owned fire departments, which is what these were in the early days of the republic: “Show us your money and we’ll save your house.”

Example 8: public schools. We really take these for granted, and don’t fund them adequately, but remember that they weren’t even here for the first part of our history.

Now think about these things objectively. Have they improved life here or not?

Well, I have news for you. We are still at the bottom of the barrel among major countries. In even more “socialist” countries, especially in Scandinavian Europe, Canada and Australia, they have, among many other things, better poverty programs, unemployment insurance and, above all, these countries have universal health care systems, which provides care at a fraction of the cost here.

It’s deeply ironic that when polls are taken to measure the national sense of happiness and security, countries that come out on top — Iceland, Sweden, Norway — just happen to be the ones not only with some form of democratic socialism, but also with the harshest weather. Obviously social climate is much more important than physical climate.

So, are we ever going to grow up, and get beyond bogeymen and Santas? Just remember the next time someone tries to scare you with that socialist mask: You are not a gullible child anymore.

This story was originally published March 14, 2022 at 5:00 AM.