This week’s comedy-and-news segment of Bill Maher’s “Real Time” explains why the creeping socialism of Democrats is good—but for Republicans. who wil exploit it to the max in attack ads. (We now have a socialist mayor of both NYC and Seattle.) Maher quotes Virginia’s new Democratic governor, Abigail Spanberger, saying that “If the party doesn’t shift to the center, we will get fucking torn apart.” Maher argues that the new approbation for socialism by Democrats comes from their failure to get what they want under a capitalist system but, as he notes, the alternative is worse: “socialism doesn’t work.”
Well, of course the U.S. is already partly socialist: we have social security and Medicare, food stamps, and other government help for various groups (Maher describes some of these these). What he’s talking about is the dramatic extension of socialism proposed by people like Mamdani: free bus rides, free childcare, city-run grocery stores, and the like. To show the inimical effects of socialism, Maher uses as examples countries like North Korea, but that is “socialist” only in an extreme sense: it’s really a dictatorship in which a few get all the good stuff and most of the population goes without. But he’s right in general, as we can see what happened when Eastern Europe was under the thumb of the Soviet Union. (Malgorzata used to tell me about queuing up for hours to get a loaf of bread.) The Democratic Socialists of America, for example, call for completely open borders, defunded police, and other policies that would taint the Democrats in an election.
Some clips of the last DSA convention, showing a request for “jazz hands” instead of clapping, as well as for not wearing “aggressive” scents, tell the tale. The DSA is simply too woke for the American people, and it’s best if Democrats separate themselves from this group. Sadly, they’re pushing back on criticisms that they move towards the center, and, says Maher, that will be our undoing. He’s right.
Weirdest point: socialists wanting to defund the police. Really? What is going to enforce the regs and controls of the dictatorship of the proletariat?
I jest.
Socialists/Communists don’t think about how their dreamland will function. They just want to destroy capitalism and private property, and police protect those things.
The defund the police angle has nothing to do with socialism itself per se, it is just a happenance that in the US the supporters of these two things overlap in an extent, for now. Countries that tried socialism as a state ideology never actually defunded their police, typically historical socialist movements did not call for it either.
BTW, I do not think socialists want to destroy private property as it is. Communists maybe, but they barely exist in the modern world, and I’d argue that they were never common, because most of the movements calling themselves communist were actually just socialist.
Indeed. The Marxist “withering away of the state” is very real, as many former Marxist states will attest.
Prison is always needed for political enemies. (Prison abolitionists also propose alternatives when asked about crimes they dislike, e.g. lifelong servitude and execution if the slave runs away[1].)
[1] https://nitter.poast.org/LittleMammith/status/1695287513932517464#m
Recall, also, that the DSA blamed the Russian invasion of Ukraine equally on Russia (for invading) and on NATO
(for existing). An exactly analogous position would blame WW2
equally on Nazi Germany and on Britain. Alas, we do not enjoy any outfit called the Democratic Fascists of America to make this case, although we evidently have its equivalent.
Time for a conversation about whether the U.S. is already too socialist. Too bad the GOP doesn’t want to do that.
And why don’t they want to do it?
“Well, of course the U.S. is already partly socialist: we have social security and Medicare, food stamps, and other government help for various groups (Maher describes some of these these).”
I’ve always understood socialism as government or collective control of the means of production, as opposed to the means of production being private property.
For example, one could have a society where almost all of the means of production are owned by private individuals, but then that wealth is heavily taxed and redistributed. Or, an alternative society where there is almost no private ownership of the means of production.
In the first situation, market forces determine what goods and services are produced, in what quantities, and at what prices. It is a highly distributed form of decision making, taking place across many thousands of companies rapidly in real time. In the second society, the determination of what is produced and for how much is highly centralized, probably much slower in making decisions, and largely shielded from market forces.
To me, that is the fundamental difference between socialism and capitalism, as you should see drastically different economies emerge from these different societies. The amount of redistribution that occurs after the wealth is generated seems secondary.
But perhaps my definition (centered on how goods and services are produced and how wealth is generated) is far too narrow and old-fashioned. Perhaps massive government redistribution programs should be included in what is considered “socialist”, regardless of who controls the means of production.
Your first alternative is, of course, the program of the Nordic Social Democratic parties. They were simultaneously supported and attacked by Left (Vänster) outfits for insufficient Socialism.
In the US environment, outfits like DSA are to be classified as a pose or an affectation, as postmodernism once was in the groves of academe, before it metastasized.
“They were simultaneously supported and attacked by Left (Vänster) outfits for insufficient Socialism.”
Yes, that is the crux of it. I probably am politically a “Social Democrat”, as I realize the dynamism and productive power of capitalism, while also being leery of its potential to create vast chasms in wealth among its citizens and leave a lot of people in the ditch. Thus, the need for some redistribution and social programs.
PJ O’Rourke once quipped that Scandinavian “socialists” made socialism work by the novel expedient of not introducing much.
FWIW, “Communist” China has about 50/50 Public/Private owners of the means of production, and the huge US defence industry is Private in name only.
No aggressive scents, please. 🙂 This crap kinda stinks already.
The poor souls who are allergic to everything are allergic to fragrances, too. “We share the air. Go scent free.” is just another one of those little daily hectorings we have become used to.
Hopefully there was no Taco Bell franchise at the convention venue.
I am very glad I never encountered such a policy, since it would have been a sore temptation to spray myself with trimethylamine (synthetic vomit smell).
By the way, what is an “aggressive” scent? Some sweet scents can really make me aggressive. However, I usually find tart scents pleasant. 😉
Commie Canadian here. There is much room between current US politics and a distorted view of socialism that virtually equates it with communism. Universal health care comes to mind. Cheaper per capita and better outcomes by at least some measures (e.g., life expectancy). And equating moderate, largely economic, socialism with wokeness is as bad as equating moderate, largely economic, conservatism with Evangelicals (Christian Nationalism?). Rather than state ownership of industry, socialism in most western countries is about how the wealth generated by private industry and workers is distributed across society through taxation and government programs.
Canada’s life expectancy at birth is higher because it doesn’t have a large black underclass that has more smoking, homicide, idleness, and early teen pregnancy dragging down the average, none of which is ameliorated by free health care. You want to see the “two Americas” phenomenon at work, visit any Canadian Crown Indian Reserve, where all the denizens have the same free health care as all the rest of us do, and then multiply the per capita by five.
Another (Polish) Canadian here. 🙂 The trouble is it’s all in the details. The major peeve we had in 1980s Poland that led to the demise of “socialism in the making” state-run-everything was the econo-joke it created. But the other one was the existence of a privileged class of “prominents” as they were called, basically the Socialist management class. Another was the propagandized successes in the face of real-life failure across the board. Yet another was the pretend elections with all candidates pre-approved by “Front of National Unity,” an agency of the forever-governing party. And of course we all realized Poland was NOT sovereign, and Russian agents had the last word on everything Government did or planned. Compared to this the social democracies of Western Europe were capitalist to the core.
I don’t for one moment think that allowing market to take over every aspect of life including housing, education, and health care, ever made any sense. But there is a crucial question of how and by what means. There is I am sure a happy, practical middle-ground. The polarization of political life is basically making it impossible for people to even contemplate that as a solution.
You are right. It is really not the case that everything to the left of laisser-faire capitalism is socialism, let alone communism. Social capitalism aka social market economy (capitalist market economy + social/welfare state) is endorsed by social democrats, social liberals, ordoliberals, and Christian democrats (as moderate conservatives).
Moreover, there is a pro-democratic market socialism that is further left than social capitalism but still far away from the anti-democratic governance and state-planned economy of Soviet-style communism.
Personally I don’t get why people in the USA feel like socialism is a bad word other then the demonization of it from the right. As you note the USA already has several socialist programs, to me the discussion is where on the spectrum of socialism do people in the USA want to be at. No one is seriously advocating for complete laissez-faire capitalism on the right nor is anyone seriously advocating for Communist style socialism on the left. The argument IMHO should be about where the line is drawn.
As a Canadian, which is more socialist then the USA but less so then European countries, I feel like Europe does get a lot of things right like work/life balance, public health care, public childcare, less inequality, etc. It still boggles the mind that the USA is the only major industralized country that doesn’t have a public health care system which is of course a socialist program.
Maybe it’s too late to save the word “socialism” from an electoral point of view in the USA but I hope Democrats continue to advocate for the ideas.
I agree with your overall point. But about no one seriously advocating for complete laissez-faire capitalism on the right, I infer you have never encountered a committed Libertarian or Randian Objectivist, who definitely do seriously advocate it even if by doing so they don’t seem to be serious people.
Anarcho-capitalist libertarians such as Murray Rothbard (1926–1995) and Hans-Hermann Hoppe (*1949) make no bones about what they want:
“…2. Slash Welfare. Get rid of underclass rule by abolishing the welfare system, or, short of abolition, severely cutting and restricting it.
…
5. Take Back the Streets: Get Rid of the Bums. Again: unleash the cops to clear the streets of bums and vagrants. Where will they go? Who cares? Hopefully, they will disappear, that is, move from the ranks of the petted and cosseted bum class to the ranks of the productive members of society. …”
(Rothbard, Murray. “Right-Wing Populism.” 1992. Reprinted in The Irrepressible Rothbard: The Rothbard-Rockwell Report Essays of Murray N. Rothbard, edited by Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr., 37-42. Burlingame, CA: Center for Libertarian Studies, 2000. p. 41)
“…Eight: Get rid of all welfare parasites and bums. …”
(Hoppe, Hans-Hermann. Getting Libertarianism Right. Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2018. p. 95)
People in the United States don’t want any more socialism than they already have. Richard Hanania writes that one benefit of mass immigration, of poor people especially, is that diversity corrodes the social trust and cohesion that welfarism germinates in. Since the U.S. was already more diverse (i.e., black) all through its history than any other country, Americans have always been uniquely immunized against progressivism. They won’t embrace universal free healthcare because they won’t agree to impose the same mean and niggardly limits on their own health consumption that they must impose on poor people. Even Americans can’t afford to shower health largesse to level them up. Or they don’t want to, which is the same thing.
Public (socialized) childcare is a simpler example and has been the subject of a natural experiment.
Why does Sweden subsidize childcare and not, say, children’s shoes?
Sweden wants mothers to work, so they will pay income taxes to support the welfare state. It is more tax-efficient if each spouse has a modest income than if one earns a large one. Both parents respond to the childcare incentive by sending Ella out to work. The second rationale is that Swedish mothers will have more children if they don’t have to pay for childcare, and don’t have to stop working, sticking Nils with the entire tax burden. Unfortunately for Sweden this, like all measures to increase fertility tried all over the OECD, has failed.
Yet many women say they would have more children if childcare wasn’t so expensive. Why doesn’t free childcare incent Swedish women? One reason is that each couple figures out that they, like all working people, pay the cost of free childcare through their taxes. The more Swedish children in daycare, the higher everyone’s taxes have to be. The longer hours Nils works, to compensate for the tax and to afford the other expenses of an additional child, still higher go the couple’s taxes. Free childcare might increase fertility if Somebody Else paid the taxes for it. But alas, they don’t, not all of it. Swedish women collectively settle for one or two children as the sweet spot where the benefit of free childcare is just enough to make them Pareto optimally well off. Staying home is not an option, but neither is having four children. That would be possible only if billionaires stepped up to pay for the childcare benefit. Tax incentives are efficient only if people do change their behaviour. If people just reap a reward for doing what they were going to do anyway – have 1.4 children –, it is a deadweight cost to the Treasury.
Now look what happens when Somali migrants arrive — the experiment. The labour unions nobbled the government to not let migrants work. No taxes from Somali mothers or fathers. Maryam can stay home and have 10 kids while Shidane chews qat and both collect benefits. Yet Maryam can still enroll her kids in free day care because the benefit isn’t tied to an actual job. (If Ella gets laid off, she needs to continue with childcare so she can go out diligently to look for another job, right?) Taxes to pay for childcare for the very un-Swedish free riders have to skyrocket, causing public support for the socialized benefit to collapse.
Free riding that can’t be ostracized (because that would be racist or lead to violence) is green kryptonite for welfare states.
There’s an argument that the ‘wealth pump’ moves money from the poor and delivers it to the the wealthy.
Socialism aims to end ‘unfairness’ but historically just changes one set of the wealthy for a different one. The poor remain poor, if not poorer.
Yes, the poor have demonstrated by their failure to become wealthy that they shall remain poor. Q.E.D. You can see why the poor not only stay poor but get poorer. The wealth pump moves people out of poverty. So the top echelons of the poor, new immigrants, say, get into the wealth pump and succeed, moving out of the “poor” category. This leaves behind the lower, recalcitrant echelons who, by definition, are on average poorer now that their initially somewhat better off relations are now much better off and out of the “poor” category. Even if the income of no individual in the “poor” category has fallen, the aggregate income of the “poor” category falls, hence the average must, too. But the “poor” category doesn’t shrink to zero over time because it keeps getting replenished at the bottom to replace the ones who succeed their way out of it at the top.
Wealth raises all boats, too, and not just through redistribution. Even if the wealth pump moves only money and not people, poor people stuck below the poverty line in America have SmartPhones, medical care — uncompensated or Medicaid reimbursed –, too much food to eat, and they can afford cigarettes and liquor, the prices for which do, yes, make sellers and producers richer at the expense of the poor consumers.
Yes, if on average the poor had some different attitudes and preferences then they would more readily become ex-poor.
But at the other end, if the rich on average fetishised their net worth (e.g. their place on “rich lists”) somewhat less then they would put less of their considerable financial and other resources into keeping hold of as much of it as they possibly can (e.g. vs taxes, wage rates, etc.) and acquiring more, despite the obviously lower marginal utility of the next truckload of quatloos.
“Money doesn’t always bring happiness. People with ten million dollars are no happier than people with nine million dollars.”
(attributed to Milton Berle, many years ago; the numbers should be updated for inflation)
An old friend has a building in Manhattan; passed down in his family since the 1930s, when it was built by his grandfather. It is rent controlled now and it is bankrupting him. He cannot collect enough in rent to even cover taxes much less upkeep. He is quite literally waiting for a couple of old ladies to die. Until then, he’s stuck. He can’t even sell it; who would buy it knowing they’ll go broke?
That’s socialism in a nutshell. Despite some successes in some areas, it is best at destroying wealth, driving up costs, and making shortages (housing, commodities, whatever) worse.
Oh poor friend there EdwardM. When I worked on Wall St one of my jobs was a Registered Investment Advisor – you needed a fancy license for it – so sometimes I’d basically tell people how to not get poor.
Like… NYC rental real estate. You’ll loose money quicker by owning a restaurant, or going to a casino, but you won’t get to see your wealth decline so SLOWLY and ASSUREDLY as owning a rental property here in NY.
Aaaa..nd with Comrade Mandami …. it looks to be getting worse as he’ll (try to) double down on rent control.
D.A.
NYC
The Democrats mostly embrace the ideas of their activist and naïve young females—and the straphanging males. The Republicans once promised us a chicken in every pot; the Democrats now offer a man in every ladies’ room. The party advances this nonsense because the older and better-educated Democrats will continue to support Democratic candidates no matter what folly the youth and the primaries thrust upon the party.
Meanwhile, the Republicans battle over whether to embrace, punch, or evict their stupid young males—and cheerleading females. Basically, the “no enemies to the left” disease migrated to the right. The right has more antibodies against it, but the prognosis remains uncertain. If this cheers you because it could undermine Trump, you haven’t been paying attention to the reactionary vileness and aggressiveness arising among a subset of young white men. It’s still a minor movement, but it’s growing in places one wouldn’t expect.
I understand the urge to eye roll whenever complaints take a “kids these days” tone, but I think it a mistake to assume concerns are always nothing more than generational reflex. We have a concerning number of “young” people, mostly under the age of 40-45, who are embracing the vilest, stupidest, and most harmful ideas of the 20th century. We need to ask ourselves why. The “things are hard these days” excuse only carries one so far. I don’t dismiss it entirely, but economic struggle is not uncommon in life—and many times have been far more difficult than today. Strong social fabric can resist the shearing force of economic hardship.
What else do these younger generations share—both male and female, left and right? Social media immersion? Check. Declining rigor and increased indoctrination in their K-12 educations? Check. Delayed—or forever postponed—onset of traditional adult and family responsibilities? Check. We could multiply the list with pet peeves both right and left. The solutions—whatever they are—would have to come from both left and right. I am not hopeful we have the bipartisan resources. Trump’s grip will loosen soon enough, but institutional capture is the new normal on the left. I am skeptical that we have seen the fever break.
You’re correct – here 85% of women 18-19 voted for Mandami. (a bit more than in NJ and VA).
But not all older, sane democrats (like me, my politics are similar to PCC(E)will stay loyal. I’m probably going to start voting Republican (with Trump gone…): Trans, BLM, socialism and Palestine are all deal breakers for me Doug.
All the best,,
D.A.
NYC
Thanks for the vocabulary addition. GPT-5 tells me: “Straphanger. Connotations: Passive, dependent, defeatist, unambitious, or complacent. Tone can be mildly teasing or sharply contemptuous depending on context.”
More by a disillusioned former Democratic Party member:
https://www.thefp.com/p/why-i-dont-regret-leaving-the-democratic?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Always remember how Trump got his political career going. Not by coming up with cogent policy arguments or sound ideas on how to change things. No, it was by questioning the citizenship of Barack Obama. A complete and utter, ridiculous lie.
If he actually believed that Obama is not a citizen based on the flimsy evidence, then he’s not very bright. If he knew that Obama was a legitimate natural-born citizen but cynically lied about it anyway, which I suspect is the case, then he’s deeply unethical.
Before he started lying to get into politics, he was a fraudster, failed businessman, and harasser of women. But the so-called party of morals and ethics and good-old fashioned Christian values chose one of the least Christian, least moral people in modern American public life as their standard-bearer.
So I really question what is going on in the heads of anyone who supports him, particularly a young woman who used to be a Democrat. What is the thought process? Yes this man is a scumbag, but he’s our scumbag? That still doesn’t get past the complete incongruence of his behavior with Christianity.
I will never understand the appeal of this man. The average person clearly goes by emotion in determining who and what they vote for, not rational analysis.