On
July 24th,
2018, on ABC's The View,
co-hosts Joy Behar and Meghan McCain had a heated exchange about
socialism, in which McCain criticized the “normalization” of
socialism which she felt is coming from supporters of Vermont Senator
Bernie Sanders and New York U.S. House candidate Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez, often described as “democratic socialists”.
McCain,
the daughter of late senator John McCain, claimed that socialism has
never worked, asserted that Venezuela's problems stem from socialism,
and said that Democrats will lose if they continue to run “radicals”
like Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez. McCain also echoed late British Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher's line that “the problem with socialism
is that, sooner or later, you run out of other people's money”.
When
McCain challenged Joy Behar to name a country in which socialism has
worked, Behar surmised that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez admires the
“socialism” attempted in Scandinavian
countries, rather than the Chavista
variety
in Venezuela (which Nicolas Maduro is trying to carry on).
As examples of such European “socialist” countries, Behar named
Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Iceland. After that, the two
debated tax rates and the Trump tax cuts.
Although
Behar is correct to point out that those five countries are doing
better than Venezuela, the countries Behar named are not
socialist. They merely
administer some socialist-inspired
social
programs. In
reality, no
European country is fully “socialist”. Until Catalonia becomes
independent, it will be difficult to argue that there is a true
socialist state in Europe.
However, you could argue that the "communism" of the Soviet Union still exists, and never went away. The tiny nation of Transnistria never shed all of the Soviet symbols on its flag, passport, nor many of its buildings. Transnistria, also called Pridnestrovie, straddles the Dniester
River between Moldova and Ukraine. Transnistria declared independence as a "communist" Soviet socialist republic in 1990, but the following year, it became an ordinary republic. It is now governed by a liberal-conservative (or center-right) regime, and is not officially communist, nor Soviet. However, it is not a state, because it is not recognized as a state by the United Nations. Transnistria is only recognized by three nations which, themselves, also lack U.N. recognition. Moldova considers Transnistria part of its territory, despite the language differences between the two regions. Although Transnistria is arguably occupied by Russian "peacekeeping" forces, it is considered wholly self-governing.
Many opponents of the welfare state criticize the British N.H.S. (National Health Service) for being "socialized medicine", while also describing the same program as a case of "nationalized health care". The United Kingdom, and the various European political and economic
and trade alliances, are commonwealths (at least in name). However, British and European commonwealth feature much more free trade, and nationalization (that is, centralized administration of social programs) than they feature socialization or
communization. But on the other hand, it would be difficult to argue that the
so-called “Euro-socialist” nations are any different from that model (mostly because the majority of them are in those economic unions). To be clear, the purpose of mentioning commonwealths and Bolshevik "communism" in the same breath, is not to describe each of them as communist, and therefore the same or similar; but rather the point is to distinguish them.
Norway, on the other hand, practices what is called the “Nordic model”. "Sovereign wealth funds", as they are sometimes called, are funds maintained for the people, collected through the taxation of profits from the sale of oil (or revenues from the sale of energy exploration permits). A similar system is in place in the so-called "owner state" of Alaska (the Alaska Permanent Fund). It could be argued that similar programs were attempted in Venezuela and Libya, in that those states attempted to nationalize their oil reserves and energy sectors. Why is it that the nationalization of energy sources by non-white countries gets described as "socialism" which merits American bombs being dropped, but when an American state and one of our northern European ally do the same thing, it's "public ownership" that's deemed perfectly compatible with capitalist private property norms and the conservative conception of republicanism?
Denmark
and Iceland score much higher on economic equality indices than the
United States does, but they also score significantly higher on
economic freedom,
so their high level of economic freedom make them difficult to
describe as socialist. The term “Euro-socialism” does not
adequately describe even the farthest-left European nations. The
terms “neoliberalism”, “social market economy”, “tripartism”,
“Rhine capitalism”, and “Ordoliberalism” (German for “new
liberalism”), are all better descriptors.
It
is important not to mistake the mere presence of a social safety net,
however large or robust it is, for socialism. As an internet meme
explains, the definition of socialism is not “when the government
does things, and the more things it does, the socialister it is”.
Socialism is the management of the means of production by the whole
of society. You don't get socialism just by adding social services to
a government that protects private property and maintains a
capitalist economic system. Similarly, you don't get a socialist firm, just by taking a capitalist management model, and gradually integrating procedures and practices which were merely inspired by cooperative organizations and horizontal associations. That's because the firm will inevitably use those practices to reinforce pro-capitalist views, and to promote the continuation of the hierarchy which remains in the company.
That
is not to say, however, that a capitalist regime cannot
integrate leftist-inspired reforms, and even have it work to some
degree of success; it can. Franklin D. Roosevelt, for example, drew
inspiration for his socialist-inspired policies from an actual
socialist named Norman Thomas. Thomas was a student of Henry George,
an economist who died during a Democratic run for Mayor of New York
in the 1890s, at a time when the Democratic platform focused more on
classically liberal concerns like monetary reform and antitrust.
Nearly everyone who has drawn influence from F.D.R. or Norman Thomas,
is, at least in some small way, a proponent of socialist or
socialist-influenced policies.
Meghan McCain seems
concerned that growing the social safety net, and electing people
like Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, could be a slippery slope to 90%
taxes and a socialist American regime.
However,
you would be hard pressed to find a socialist who believes in taxing
everyone's
income at 90%. It would,
however, be easy to find a socialist who believes in taxing the
wealthiest
people only
at 90%. In fact, during the F.D.R. and Eisenhower administrations,
that was
the top marginal tax rate (although the effective rate was much
lower). So it's not as though a 90% top marginal tax rate is
completely unprecedented in American history.
Additionally,
growing the social safety net is an attempt to avoid
socialism, by compromising with capitalism instead of replacing it,
abolishing it, finding alternatives to it, or finding other ways to
render it obsolete. Attempts at “state socialism”, such as the
one that existed under Otto von Bismarck, tried to create a robust
welfare state to moderate the excesses of capitalism; not
a
socialist program to replace
capitalism.
Moreover,
socialists – at least Marxists, and other socialists who want
socialism to result in stateless communism – do
not want taxes or money in the first place.
A pure communist society would be classless, as well as moneyless
and stateless.
Socialists would have a difficult time trying to tax people if
neither money nor the state existed.
Additionally,
some socialists – libertarian socialists, and social anarchists,
for example – do not even want to utilize state power. Marx and
Lenin both criticized the political social democrats of their times
as “gradualists” and “reformists”, and even as “social
chauvinists” and “revisionists” of Marxism, due to their
rejection
of revolution, in favor of reform. People like Rosa Luxemburg and
Karl and Wilhelm Liebknecht were open to both,
but that's another discussion.
All
of this should help show that democratic socialists, and
progressives, like Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, are not
socialists, nor are the “Euro-socialist” countries. To call them
socialists is to give them too much credit for being revolutionary
and radical, and also makes us think that a truly revolutionary
regime could simply be voted into power overnight, through the same
mechanisms of electoral legitimacy which previously kept them in
chains. As Emma Goldman said, “If voting changed anything, they'd
make it illegal.”
Contrary
to Meghan McCain's claim, Venezuela is not socialist. Venezuela
is collapsing not because of socialism, but because of the effects of
oil prices collapsing
(after nationalizing oil profits). The existence of the nation, the
profits, and the taxation of those profits in the first place, all
indicate that Venezuela is a capitalist country, not a socialist one.
The
Venezuelan government is doing little to fight organized crime; this
is a problem that is no indicator of either socialism or capitalism.
Another reason that Venezuela's problems are not the fault of
socialism, is that one major reason for the country's food shortages
is that international food and toilet paper monopolies have thus far
refused to lower their prices to something that Venezuelans can
afford. One more reason that Venezuela is not socialist is that it
has not yet abolished private property in the means of production.
Similarly,
Cuba is not socialist; because it is bringing private
ownership of the means of production back.
Neither Cuba nor
Venezuela are socialist, additionally, because Raul Castro and
Nicolas Maduro both seem to have autocratic ambitions. No socialist
society can last as long as they put too much trust in, or give too
much power to, an autocrat; not Venezuelan nor Cuban society, not
Russian society, not American society.
Yet
oddly, President Trump
is enabling and buddying-up to autocratic strongmen around the world,
while trying to stare them down (as if to consume their power). I
predict that the more people notice this autocratic behavior
from the president, and the more people come to see measures like
farm aid to fix ill effects of tariffs, the more people we will see
describing Trump as a socialist. I am not
saying, however, that Trump actually is
a socialist for supporting farm aid; I'm only saying that most
Americans view farm aid as a better example of a “socialist”
social service than the tariffs (but in reality, both of those
measures are simply bailouts for different industries.
Cuba,
China, North Korea, Vietnam, and Laos are often referred to as “the
last remaining communist countries”, but in reality they have not
achieved full communism, because the state remains, and because they
have not undertaken any real steps to abolish money or currency.
Additionally, North Korea has distanced itself from Marxism-Leninism,
and North Korea and China clearly have no intention of allowing their
state apparati to wither away (in the fashion of Engels).
Both
that insistence on retaining state power, and
the insistence on socialist reform through legitimate electoral
victory, are revisionist distortions of each Marxism and
most radically anti-statist socialist schools of thought.
Many conservatives, capitalists, and anti-socialists
in general, would like you to believe that these five “communist
nations” are the best examples of communism or socialism.
Additionally, that you should be very afraid, if the United States
ever becomes socialist; because similar outcomes will be the
inevitable result. However, that is not the case.
The
Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.; Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) is not
the best example of communism, nor of socialism. Nor is it the only
example of either of those systems; far from it. Many reforms
inspired by Marxism or socialism have been tried, to varying degrees
of success. But the Soviet “communism” of the Bolsheviks
was not full anarcho-communism. because they did not attempt to
abolish money, nor the state. They only attempted to abolish
private ownership of the means of production, and the only thing they
fully collectivized was the farms.
Early
on, the U.S.S.R. made great achievements in the fields of
agriculture; industrialization; aeronautics; and the rights of women,
gays, and working people. However, critics of the U.S.S.R. called
Stalin's regime “state monopoly capitalism”, believing that the
autocracy and the state-directed economic planning of the regime,
merely replaced the feudalism and the tsardom of old Russia with a
new tsar (in Stalin) and an authoritarian government, bent on
economic control every bit as much as the capitalistic, feudalist,
and monarchist regime which preceded it. In fact, that autocracy took
hold of the U.S.S.R. less than two years after the Bolsheviks took
power.
Better
examples of socialism than the Soviet Union, China, Venezuela and
Cuba – that is, examples of libertarian
socialism,
not authoritarian socialism -
include the Paris Commune of 1871. The Paris Commune lasted two
months, succumbing to defeat due to collaboration between French and
Prussian governments which had previously been fighting one another.
More recent examples of libertarian socialism working out for some
period of time, include the regions of Catalonia and Aragon in Spain
in the 1930s; the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation in Mondragon,
Spain, since the 1950s; and the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of
Rojava in Turkey over the last decade, where a women's military
column seeks to establish Bookchinist libertarian communalism.
It
is ironic that some supporters of Israel criticize socialism from a
conservative standpoint, while simultaneously extolling the virtues
of the current regime governing the State of Israel (now under the leadership of Benjamin
Netanyahu and the right-wing Likud
party). I say that because the modern Israeli nation arguably began as a
decentralized network of autonomous, libertarian, anarchist communes
(that is, the kibbutzim).
To the extent to which they were self-governing, and independent from
Arab rule, it could even be argued that pre-independence Israel was
practically stateless.
Additionally, the State of Israel's first prime ministers were Labor
Zionists; whereas Benjamin Netanyahu and the rest of the Likud party
are the legacy of the rise of the Israeli right wing during the 1970s
and 1980s. Some may criticize the kibbutzim
as a failure
of communism, but they are part of Israeli heritage nonetheless, and
to what extent libertarian socialism is to blame for their failings
is open for debate.
As
we might expect, many people struggle, through all this, to
understand what socialism actually is. In my opinion, the best
definition is “the management of the means of production – land
and natural resources, farms, factories and plants, productive
machines, etc. - by the whole of society”.
Often,
management of the means of production by “workers”,
“collectives”, or “cooperatives” is given as the definition
of socialism, as opposed to “societal management”. So too are “worker ownership” and "worker control".
However,
I feel that to refer to “workers”, “collectives”,
and “cooperatives” - as well as to “ownership” or "control" - is to imply that socialism would involve the same types of exclusion and domination which are characteristic of
private property ownership under capitalism. Ownership of resources by some particular group, stands in stark
contrast to management by the
whole of society.
A vision of “socialism” which is not inclusive of all members of
“society” is not true socialism; it is workerism, or
collectivism, or cooperativism, or a state of ownership or control.
That is not to say, however, that securing ownership or control of means of production by workers, collectives, or cooperatives, wouldn't make societal management more likely; in some cases, it almost certainly would help make that possible. But it is no guarantee.
Right-libertarians will sometimes strawman the position of libertarian socialists, by assuming that they believe cooperative ownership to be the same thing as socialism. Right-libertarians say that libertarian socialists should not expect to be able to achieve a socialist society through their own actions, because right-libertarians believe a socialist society necessarily involves socialism everywhere. But additionally, right-libertarians will conveniently "forget" this idea immediately, when they realize that it doesn't fit the narrative of another critique of socialism they make; that libertarian socialists can achieve the society they want, simply by earning property under the onerous conditions of capitalism, and then by pooling what little property they manage to scrape together.
That is not socialism, nor is it a state of liberty. It is "socialism", but only on the conditions set by capitalists. Right-libertarians, on the other hand, would probably never accept "capitalism" spelled out according to socialists' terms.
Believe
it or not, markets are not incompatible with socialism. Economic
systems like Mutualism, Georgism, and left-wing market-anarchism (also called free-market anti-capitalism) - and, most importantly, market socialism - prove this. That's because each of those systems would retain market
systems and voluntary exchange, while aiming to increase collective
and cooperative ownership until most property is collectively owned. Indeed, that was the idea behind Deng Xiaopeng's reforms which China administered during the 1980s (to much economic success).
Competition
is not as necessary as we think it is. First, because cooperation is
always
a more equitable method of distributing and allocating resources than
competition is, whether the resources are nearly scarce or
extremely scarce. But secondly, distribution and allocation are
themselves
not as necessary as we think they are, because not as many resources
that we think
are scarce, are actually scarce. Abundant goods do not need to be
distributed, nor allocated, in the first place; not by government,
not by markets. When economizing
is
unnecessary, economics
is
unnecessary. That is, allocation
and distribution become
unnecessary when people realize that a good is so abundant that there
is no logical reason to charge anybody anything
for it.
Those
who believe “free-market capitalism” and “socialism” are
incompatible – often because “if you want something, you're
supposed to work for it – are wrong in their assessment. Nature
gives us all the “free stuff” that we need to
survive. Government isn't the only way to get free stuff, despite
what conservatives say. There's
nothing about “free markets” that says people have to be against
free stuff, nor against freely taking what's freely given. A world in
which nobody is free to receive something they didn't work for, would
be a world in which nobody is free to give gifts to other people.
Furthermore,
if you understand anything about markets and the pricing mechanism,
free markets are supposed to
result in “free stuff” (that is, if they're allowed to work
properly). If speculation were eliminated or punished or deterred,
and markets were allowed to clear, then everyone could afford what
they need. No good whose supply far outweighs the demand for it –
like housing – needs to be economized;
because it's abundant, not scarce. Nothing matching this description
ought to exist on a for-profit market mode.
Low-price
and zero-cost goods can be achieved through eliminating unnecessary
government measures, and letting the market work the way it is
supposed to. Specifically, through eliminating corporate subsidies
and unnecessary sales taxes, reducing the terms of patent
protections, and letting technology take its course. And by
technology taking its course, I mean allowing automation to develop;
thus unleashing mass production to produce goods more cheaply each
day, by reducing both production costs and the demand for manual
labor.
Jeremy
Rifkin has written a book called The Zero Marginal Cost Society
on the topic of technology improving production, and Kevin Carson's
article "Who Owns the Benefit?: The Free Market as Full
Communism" touches on similar
themes. Additionally, numerous other libertarian authors have
weighed-in on the stifling effect of intellectual property laws on technological innovation, including Gary Chartier (who has come to many of the same conclusions as Carson and Rifkin) as well as Stephan Kinsella.
Competition
supposedly offers an “incentive” to do better than others, but in
reality it only affords the winner special privileges; including, all
too often, the privilege of becoming the only game in town: the
oxymoronic “only
competitor” and “only
choice”.
As
long as workers are somehow compensated for the loss in jobs due to
automation (which I hope would occur through ownership of their own
tools, part ownership in their workplace, and personal 3-D printer
ownership) – and as long as cooperation and competition are free,
technology and automation are allowed to flourish, and patent law is
either nonexistent or not too restrictive – competition to provide
better products at lower costs will
not result in harm to workers.
Additionally,
the rise of automation may also result in robotic assistants in the
home, which could lead to reduced stresses on the body, as well as
other health benefits, and savings of health costs, which would come
with that. If our wants can be ordered without invading our privacy, and delivered to us by machines that are designed not to be our rivals for any resources we need to survive, then mass production and automatic distribution working together will significantly reduce the need to travel in order to shop, as well as the need to work hard (or at all) in order to acquire one's needs and wants.
The
result, and lesson, of all this, is that - eventually - free
markets lead to free stuff.
Many
conservatives, and even right-libertarians, will claim that
“socialists don't respect private property”; or that they don't
respect individual rights, nor free markets, nor have any concern for
big government coming to tax us. But the opposite
is
actually the case.
Socialists
care more
about private property than capitalists do; because socialists
believe that people have the right to the full product of their
labor. In an odd sense, the propertyless care more
about property than the propertied; for the simple reason that
“absence makes the heart grow fonder” (or, more appropriately,
absenteeism of private
property ownership).
Additionally,
socialists
– or, at least, libertarian
socialists
- care more about individual
rights
than libertarians do, because socialists believe that people are
better than to sell themselves into wage-slavery conditions and long
employment contracts. If you believe that you “own” “your”
body, and that owning that property is important, then why would you
believe that it should be permissible, or even possible, to alienate
yourself from your property (by selling or renting your body, or the
work of your hands, to another)? Isn't it theft
to take the earnings of another through labor, for the same reason it
is wrong to take another's earnings through enslavement or taxes?
Furthermore, what jury, in a free world, would agree to make a
contract binding which compels a person to labor for another for
decades or more?
Socialists
care more about free markets
than capitalists do, because socialists reject the subsidies,
bailouts, corporate privileges, and special favors which distort the
free market. And socialists
care more than libertarians do about the fact that “taxation is
theft”, because of all of those protections, privileges, and
favors.
These
special favors and privileges include intellectual property
protections, legal and financial L.L.C. protections, police
protection, utilities discounts, and professional regulations that
unfairly put their competitors at an advantage. These favors would
not exist without people begging government to use force on their
behalf - force against hard-working taxpayers – and moreover, it
would be easy to argue that they are not even constitutional in the
first place.
Libertarians,
and libertarian socialists alike, rightfully regard the mechanism
which pays for those processes as based on theft. Especially
considering that working taxpayers are occasionally obligated
to buy the products of some of the firms their taxes help keep
afloat (through purchase mandates and taxpayer funded subsidies, while those firms enjoy impunity while discriminating against
people who have no ability to fully discriminate against them
by withdrawing their tax money.
It
is true that drastically lowering taxes - or even eliminating them
altogether, by eliminating the state's power to tax and spend –
could help solve these problems (and make those subsidies disappear
in the first place). However, it is also
true
that workers are exploited, through surplus profit and wage theft,
such that the value taken from the worker by bosses and managers, as
well as landlords, is much
greater
than the value extracted by the government through taxes anyway.
Originally
Written on July 4th, 20th,
26th, and 27th, and August 1st through 4th, and 6th, 2018
Edited
and Expanded Between September 4th and 6th, 2018
Edited on December 5th, 2018