@ Brian
When my spouse and I were in Paris last fall, we had a charming young French guide who took us around. showed us the glories of Paris from the Eiffel Tower, etc. When I spoke to him privately about life in France, his nation he clearly loves, he shook his head and said, "You know, we try so hard to be like Americans, so inventive, so movers and shakers. But we just can't seem to do it." I told him, forget the moving and shaking. Stick to the wine and cheese -- and life. PLEASE don't become like us. Live!
152
"In Europe, socialism carries no red-scare potency"
It's not so simple. The 1969 West German elections had the center-right CDU campaign against the ruling Social Democrats with the slogan "Freedom instead of Socialism":
https://www1.wdr.de/stichtag/stichtag1548.html
plus ça change...
4
"I don’t think soaking the rich — Ocasio-Cortez’s proposed 70 percent wealth tax — is going to get a Democrat to the Oval Office. "
Nah. Tax the Rich is the big vote winner. It's immigration and reparations which will be the big vote losers.
19
Maybe Mr. Cohen could write a follow up column explaining two things:
1. Why do American journalists always write about Canadian, UK, and German health care systems when the French "socialist" one is vastly superior to these and costs roughly 1/2 of what Americans pay for their hellish care.
2. What happened at your son's Bris? You must know that no self-respecting Parisian Jew would ever consider August for a Bris. Was it a Bris à l'urgence ? Hope the Bar Mitzvah was timed better.
Nice column. My French wife by the way views American doctors as something of a cross between Mengele and Madoff. The French, in general, get this frozen horrified look every time the subject of American health care is raised. They all have a story of some friend or relative who got sick traveling in the US and ended up fighting a $ 100,000 bill.
26
Socialism doesn't save you from working 80 hours a week in a lousy warehouse job for people you detest. The yellow vest protests tell you that.
19
To win 2020, Democrats need to push more tweetable messages:
"Medicare for All. Just Do It."
"Socialist Democrats for Saving Captalism! We don't kill the horse. We Tame it."
-----
12
The next president of the United States, everyone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yV6CiASYH8o
3
We, as a society, should look carefully to the future. We know that the forces of society left alone, will divide into rich and poor which eventually leads to a two class system. We know that when that two class system is broken up, talent from the second class rises if encouraged, or not blocked. We also know that the second class, the working class is not as well organized and is more easily distracted and struggle for self-esteem. Our social contract has unified us until now.
People who lived in smaller, more rural, more self sufficient communities, more common in the early 20th century, have been sucked into the consumption driven urban communities of today. Urban dwellers rely on jobs, provided by growing economies, more than self-sufficiency and local resilience. Social supports, vital for the "workers", are becoming vital for the dwindling self sufficient communities, as well. (think rural hospitals, with local docs, nurses, therapists, established by communities years ago, now going broke because of insurance/medicare payments don't pay for their inefficiencies, and join impersonal systems so now folks must go to a center 60 miles away!) If the jobs go away, there will be disruption, and no path for return to those small communities, which were self sufficient. Socialism in some form will likely be necessary, as automation and AI take jobs. So, we need to think about a solution for the long run, where worker, government and business develop a new social contract.
4
The United States is based in capitalism/socialism history already so we need a new word a new voice asking why when the US is the most powerful in the land our GDP is a little above Russia. I believe the new voices in the Democratic Party is where the 21 century woes will be lanced cleansed and sewn back up. A new word a new voice asking “ how the hell did we get here”
2
There are 2 narratives about Venezuela and one of them is just made up to smear "socialism" and make it possible for the US rich to "invade" and take over Venezuelas oil. The US sanctions on Venezuela are what is killing people down there. The story about the election is a lie. The NYTimes is not pushing the true narrative they are buying and distributing the lie. Whatever brand of "socialism" they have in Venezuela the US rich are determined to mess it up so they can get at the oil. Stop distributing propaganda about Venezuela in relationship to trashing"socialism". We can see this.
5
Roger,
In the middle of an otherwise sensible essay you write a tone-deaf comment that “......worker exploitation” ..... chased Amazon and 25,000 jobs out of New York — a stupid waste."
Really? A stupid waste to whom? What about the senseless waste of giving $3 billion in breaks to the world's second biggest company and world's richest person (by far.) Amazon is an all-devouring predator and it's worker exploitation does not need scare quotes. Don't be fooled. Usually you are not I think but here you are.
12
And Venezuela would not be the mess it is, if the US had not been trying since 2002 to destabilize Venezuela and overthrow first Chavez, now Maduro.
The US with its regime change oriented State Department/CIA and its ability to financially strangle countries is a serious impediment to any country the US does not like.
And you can bet, the US would not like a thriving socialist oriented country, as it would make US eat-your-own capitalism look bad.
NYT articles on Venezuela could be used for classroom instruction on propaganda.
This Guaido guy is a made in the USA puppet.
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/01/29/the-making-of-juan-guaido-us-regime-change-laboratory-created-venezuelas-coup-leader/
the also google the moonofalabama venezuela, a blog that is grat counterpoint to NYT distortions
the article and the blog have links to sources
3
How can anyone compare what France and the U.S. do with their national budgets when the Americans basically provide all of France's national defense for them?
Yes, you can sell their socialism all day long as long as you admit not caring whether they disappear in a military holocaust flying in from points east.
The key to understanding Democratic socialists' dreams of the future is a word they NEVER use: control. Socialism always puts the national government into TOTAL control of every impart of the workers' families' lives.
Tell you what socialists: dream on all you want but just remember the guy who will be calling all the shots will make Donald Trump look like Santa Claus.
And isn't if funny how NO ONE at the Times ever brings up the truly goofy-stupid stull Macron has been rattling off lately?
7
The Democratic Party is falling apart form the inside, as many of us predicted. They need no help to self destruct.
Keeping banging that socialist drum and hand the keys to trump.....
News flash: most Americans are not socialists! Lol
7
Cohen: "This French tax revenue is spent on programs — universal health care, lengthy paid maternity leave, unemployment benefits — designed to render society more cohesive and capitalism less cutthroat."
And ours is spent on the military/industrial complex and welfare for the rich and well connected.
The words socialism and socialist have probably been subject to more Orwellian abuse than any others in our language:
Hitler's party: "National Socialist German Workers' Party".
The USSR: "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics".
It is convenient for the billionaire libertarians who control the Republican Party to demonize Democrats by continuing to connect the terms with Fascism and Communism.
9
The NYT is going to use the words socialist/socialism over and over.
They know that democratic socialist/socialism is the correct descriptor for Senator Bernie Sanders and AOC.
The NYT is going to be as negative towards Senator Bernie Sanders as it can be while trying to maintain a dignified veneer.
Imagine, in the article "A Beat Trump Fervor" they describe Bernie's huge enthusiastic rallies as "showy"...
Only in the NYT.
11
Thank you for not climbing into the Omar bashing bandwagon, in this column.
3
Ask any French citizen if they would trade their healthcare system for ours and they would uniformly answer "NO!" Same would be the answer for trading for our our debt ridden higher education system.
Nothing is perfect, but to act like the U.S. is not broken is to live in the upper class. It is one thing to read about poverty, yet another to live it.
Our system is unsustainable and immoral.
315
@ScottW
You are right, our system is broken in more way than one. Last night I heard the head of the Cpac group deny the corruption and baseness of Trump on the Bill Mahar, while Mahar tried desperately to get thim o condemn Trump's follies and arrogance and violation of the American Constitution and spirit, and replacing it with his own individual version of his "winner gets all" approach to life. . The rich and those who control our corporations, let's face it, have had a very good run and have a champion in the white house that guarantees the old order. Many Americans, whether they voted for Trump or not believe that they too can and should be able to get their own goal-leafed way of life. They are invested in their own version of bootstraps success, and will admire the rich for what they think is just within their grasp. It is even difficult to talk about class in America because it insults our "higher"sensibilities.
So much of what we are struggling with economically in this country has a deep psychological component at the level where most of us are unwilling or incapable of insight about who and what we are as a people. Democrats must recapture the left of center proposals, without scaring the heck out of the Center, And, they have to do it by pushing the notion that social security and medicare are a good thing for Americans.
44
Hear, hear.
19
Mr. Cohen is delusional on two points. First, the Democratic Socialist parties in Europe, exactly like the American Democrats, have for decades abandoned their working class base to eagerly serve the capitalist elite. This has left the workers with no one addressing the crisis of their mass impoverishment but the racist Fascists there, or the racist Trump here. If the French workers are in less desperate straits than the Americans, it is only because the French workers are class conscious and militant in fighting back against their rulers, not because of any national French characteristic toward "fraternity". . . . . .
Second, his depiction of Americans as somehow inherently capitalist is exactly the kind of pernicious and false stereotype that has resulted from seven decades of the Marxist-banning McCarthyism that is only now ending. For decades, not only have Socialist ideas been banned, but equally harmful, the history of the American working class, and its proud history of fighting for Socialism--as Wobblies or Socialists or Communists. When the students who today are taught to idolize the likes of Carnegie or Ford overcome their ignorance and learn instead about working class heroes like Eugene V. Debs, Joe Hill, Ben Davis or Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, than the US working class will be on the road to power and yes, Mr. Trump, a Socialist USA.
4
The Republicans have an excellent propaganda machine that they have used for decades to make socialism a dirty word. Their ultimate goal is to protect their wealthy patrons from taxation. The first thing they always do is to give the plutocrats a tax cut. Social democracy is preferable to republicanism.
12
An excellent, insightful article. Required reading for Democratic strategists. But I fear you may be under-estimating the extent to which Trump and the Republicans are going to go down-and-dirty with lies, smears and distortions to convince just enough middle-of-the-road voters that "the Democrats want to take away your freedom and your money."
111
we democrats must stop undermining ourselves.
“democratic socialism” —to pretend the phrase does not terrify the majority of US voters is idiotic. OAC and group: lets work on fair economic and health care policies for all but drop the moronic rallying cry for socialism. It will completely doom us. And please learn from the european nations that have wide safety nets AND embrace capitalism.
3
Get business to buy into social reform? Are you still living in France. The business community is on a rampage to privatize as much of life as possible, while reducing services foor the moost needy among us. Why not try switching your dog to a diiet of grass?
Ken Margolis
3
The word "socialism" has appeared as the bogeyman for the 2020 election, and I give credit to the GOP. They can't govern to save their lives, but they do know how to fashion a marketing platform that would appear bulletproof. Of course, pandering to the fears and ignorance of their followers doesn't raise the living standards of those followers, it just wins them elections as those followers are willing to take the bullet that allows their "betters" to suck up most of the oxygen in the room, and most of the cash in the banks.
6
You know our “intelligent electorate “concept is in Trouble when you realize you are at a Central Florida Unitarian Universalist Church that has racists and trump lovers and immigrant haters in its mist at coffee hour and group discussion!
My hubby and I snowbird to the Ormond / Daytona area each winter and I am a Unitarian of the Ct. New England .
persuasion.
We embrace “ Sanctuary “ for immigrants and peaceful demonstrations for equality.
Not so the particular UU’s we encounter in Florida!!!
An anomaly !
trump has creeped into all the southern states and we see the resurgence of hate daily
On winter vacation !!!!!
Vote and repair our voting rights in all states for people of color and those set upon by this era of RICO type governmental creep into our society.
2
I have often thought that American opposition to socialism is a consequence of its racism. Rich white people simply do not want to have the same health care as poor black people.
8
It’s obvious out education system has failed us. Our citizens are too dumb to deserve democracy. We are too susceptible to demagoguery and fear mongers. We don’t the time to understand nuances. Sad
7
Say it loud, say t proud: the U.S. military is socialistic.
Very possibly the most massive socialized program on earth
4
“The basic issue before the Democratic Party now is how far left to go.” … more narrow thinking. The issue is not left - right, it’s humane vs self centered materialism uber alles. The issue is, where do we stop calling someone family, neighbor, one of us? What is mine, what is ours? Careless, mindlessly framed questions give like answers. Received wisdom prevents innovation.
I amazed at how narrow most NYT commentators are. My shortcoming.
4
Hysteria! The Socialists are falling! The right wing has perfected turning benign labels into perjoratives. The capitalists would have made great fascists and Soviet apparatchiks. The chicken little gop insidiously and constantly whining about "identity politics", the twenty-first century version of dog whistle of bigotry. They constantly bloviate about the "others" claiming to be victims but never pause at being victims themselves: They daily tell their "base" that it is they who have been victimized by liberal elitists, intellectual eggheads, minorities, civil rights laws,voting rights, and regulations. Yet, they knowingly support an obviously ignorant,stupid,bigoted, defective autocrat. And they yell, "socialists!" If socialism is wrong,then we shouldn't want to be right.
1
It’s remarkable how Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, bartender turned legislator, is scaring the bejesus out of Republicans. It only shows how fragile are the minds of Republicans and their policies.
5
The US has ALWAYS been a mixed economy--some public, some private enterprise. So is everyplace else. We are all looking for the best balance. Some public utilities and services some private.
The GOP turns it onto a battle of religions--Capitalism vs Socialism--My mythology is better than your mythology--convert or die. That's probably due to the closed minded support Trumpies get from religion.
But everybody loses from blind brand stupidity.
The other US delusion is "Leader of the free world!"--that makes them refuse to learn from their superiors. American is best--necessarily.
Trumpies seek to eviscerate social programs--giving the tax money to the already rich. It's as though they wish to be Lords of the slums. Ah--But then they can and will live in civilized Europe.
2
Roger, you did not write the headline "Socialism and the 2020 American Election" but you made clear in your first sentence that you see France as a truly socialist country.
In that sentence you describe your experience with the French health care system that sounds exactly like my long experience, individual and family, experience with the Swedish Universal Health Care system.
I see by sampling the 106 comments that we are many who fault you for your identification of European countries as socialist and your apparent belief that what Ocasio-Cortez and others want is a truly socialist America.
We object. You quote Representative Ocasio-Cortez as saying:
"The definition of democratic socialism to me, again, is the
fact that in a modern, moral and wealthy society, no American should be too poor to live,”
That statement works very well as the goal of Sweden as nation, but Sweden is not a socialist nation, so if Ocasio-Cortez has Sweden in mind then I would be happier if she would characterized herself as a social democrat.
In my now 19 years as a volunteer at the Red Cross here in Linköping, I have met 100s of young to middle aged people new Swedes who whatever their employment status seem never to be "too poor to live".
So I, also an American citizen, see before me Bernie's baseball cap: Make America Sweden. Perhaps AO-C should get one.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
7
One of the evergreen tricks of propaganda is "demonization," and the Republicans have mastered it, honed and refined it with Big Lie and unified talking point techniques. They demonized Hillary, Nancy and Elizabeth - and now AOC - to a fare thee well, but LO! "socialism" is the new target. Awful, scary, crushing, Venezuelan/Cuban socialism... under your bed, sharpening its fangs, a super demon! The apex predators who live in the jungle of unbridled capitalism are the ones with the real fangs, claws and insatiable hunger.
If Democrats - or anybody really - try to restrain the plutocrats and stand up for economic justice they are surely demons and Big Bucks will be spent to prove it.
2
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité? You may pick 2 out of 3.
3
The Great Red Scare of 2020.
Word-to-the-stupid: America has always implemented Socialist policies along with our Capitalism. I just wish the NYT would clearly convey this fact.
The scary boogeyman of Socialism is the GOP's newest trope to scare its rabid MAGA base who need something to be afraid of:
Donald "I-Will-Protect-You" to the rescue.
Let's just take away the millions we pay in SSI benefits that so many of Trump's base lives on and see what they think about Socialism then?
Quite frankly, I don't want to figure out how to get city water to my taps. I don't want to find a way to haul my weekly garbage and build an outhouse for my sewage. I don't want to find an alternative to my local Fire and Police departments. I don't want to pave my own sidewalks and roads.
These and hundreds (if not thousands)more examples of American socialistic policies are what we rely on.
Hopefully enough voters in crucial Electoral College states will get smart because this is who the current Socialism-is-evil is targeting.
2
A conversation about socialism is meaningless because the term means something different to different people. I'm amused by people who insist on a marxist definition and will accept no other. But often, people who are defending socialism vs. those assaulting it have two entirely different definitions in mind. Calling a way of government "socialism" often has nothing to do with the way that most people would define it. May I point out that one of the largest examples of a socialist party and movement of the twentieth century was the "National Socialist German Workers' Party" (also known as Nazis).
2
The American dream isn't Trump's dream. His dream is our nightmare. April in Paris was socialism in flower. April in America will be Trump's dream of a rich white nationalistic country that has thrown democracy and equality to the wolves.
Alexandria Ocasio Cortez favors intervention in our economy -- is it wrong to want "a modern, moral and wealthy society" for our beloved country? Progressive socialism is a label for Bernie Sanders and A.O.C., and Democrats and Independents caught up in the 2020 viral nightmare of our time.
Nations exemplify their cultural essence. Our cultural essence is -- alas -- Donald Trump and the cult of celebrity and reality TV, bigotry and lying. The forgotten American people, the poor who are among us struggling to make it, are our shame.
How can it be that our high school students (who haven't learned, who don't know about American and world history) are using emblems of hatred (swastikas, heil salutes) in our country? We want the invisible, the struggling, the "unequal" people of our society to feel visible again.
4
When Roger writes, “Of the French Revolution’s three-pronged cry — “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité” — the first has proved most problematic, freedom being but a short step, in the French view, from the “Anglo-Saxon” free-market jungle“, my automatic “analogy-thinking” brain compares the FINO (free in name only) “Anglo-Saxon” free-market jungle, with Janice Joplin’s line, “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose”, and goes on to further connect this to the superior skill that the “Anglo-Saxon” partnership of the overt British Empire and its “New World” spawn has shown in running better disguised and long running successful Empires.
As I just commented to Bret Stephen’s column on the differences between capitalism and socialism:
“The most accurate match to capitalism in the economic sphere is Empire in the political sphere.”
I would extend and complete the analogy to Roger’s column:
Whereas, the most accurate match to socialism in the economic sphere is democracy in the political sphere.
We, as child to the British Empire nearly achieved social democracy under FDR, but back-slide dangerously under Powell memo and the Reagan Presidency’s claim of having destroyed the supposedly last Empire on earth — the Soviet “Evil Empire” (aren’t they all, Ronnie?) — and creating “The End Of History” [Fukuyama], only to allow the creation of a far better Disguised Global Capitalist Empire under faux-Emperor Trumpius.
1
BTW, à propos of a big debate Capitalism vs. Socialism, for god's sake call it whatever you want if the system works for a good of the people, it works for me. Capitalism in it's present reincarnation is brutal and unjust, talking about our horrific criminal injustice... that's why we're having this debate on all platforms, since what we have now clearly doesn't work, and the obvious manifestation of our rigged system is trump, Individual1, who is still allowed to preside in a oval office to the disgrace and humiliation of the whole country.
2
Almost this exact same fight was fought in the US more than 50 years ago about LBJ's Great Society. He was unabashed in explaining the reasons for it in the way that Europe has accepted for 50 years. Most of what he championed and signed is still good law today; the civil rights act, the voting rights act, the fair housing act, Medicare, Medicaid, Foodstamps, Headstart, the law which prohibits discrimination in legal immigration on the basis of race, religion or country of origin, NPR, PBS, etc.
Citizens of the US don't realize this for two reasons--one, short memories and two, LBJ is best remembered for his one great failure, Vietnam. But those reasons don't change what happened or what laws remain on the books. Obamacare would have been impossible without Medicare and Medicaid. Just as universal coverage by whatever means would be impossible or almost impossible without them. LBJ was attacked as a socialist, but he managed to pass a tax cut and have a very strong economy, as well. So this is not a new fight and there are very few new ideas being presented. Of course, anything sensible seems new, fresh and brilliant in the era of our bigoted idiot president, Trump.
1
Socialism doesn’t work. Period.
3
In 2016, it was the fear of an impending immigrant invasion by criminals and rapists from Mexico and Central America. It worked pretty well for Trump and the GOP. But now after 3 years, the fear has abated and is now running dry. Look out for a new strategy and fear tactic for 2020: the Socialists are coming for your money and your guns.
1
It is laughable (what isn't) that Trump is the spokesmodel for capitalism and the American Dream. Laughable and, sadly, apt.
Trump never produced anything. He has grifted and manipulated his way to (overstated) wealth. Capitalism can be a reasonably effective economic system, if tempered by regulation and ethical behavior.
Neither AOC nor any other Democrat is really proposing socialism. They are demanding that a collectivist ethic be layered over our capitalist system so that it is not corrupted by charlatans like Donald Trump.
2
I wish people - and especially writers in The New York Times - would soon learn the difference between socialism and social welfare programs. As long as you keep conflating the terms in this way, you keep feeding the fire of the Republicans’ red scare propaganda.
5
Americans, at least the middle class, are peaking in the socialists closet---that is the good news. What the democrats must be careful of his throwing the closet door wide open and turning on the light too quickly.
Seriously? You want to forsake American ambition and freedom for French entitlement and protectionism? No thank you.
And I notice you live here now. Funny how that always happens.
4
And you may have missed it, Roger; (maybe you thought all those day-glow yellow vested hordes in French cities for example were MTA workers fixing the train lines), but Europe is also in slow economic decline.
And I also may add, if you go by the old saying that how a country treats its Jewish population is a harbinger of its future societal health -- the Jews being the West's canary in a coal mine -- than Europe is once again going downhill with more and more of its Jewish population afraid to walk the streets in any manner that identifies them as Jews, as Jewish institutions require 24/7 armed protection, as more and more Jews either leave Europe or at least keep a Plan B in case they need to do so -- and that now includes Britain thanks to its socialist party.
After seeing how difficult it is these days in the US for the Democratic Party to call an anti-Semite in its ranks an anti-Semite -- and btw: self-described democratic socialist AOC's latest PR piece to her worshippers is rousing them with the claim AIPAC is coming for her (translation: anyone who supports Israel is coming for her), there's a bit of rot starting at the fringes in this country now, too.
2
The red scare delirium gripping much of America is first and foremost caused by utter ignorance. Ignorance in what socialism is or isn't; not as an abstract proposition but as a matter of daily reality in much of Western Europe and Canada... I propose we replace socialism with the term commons which really, is what socialism actually is! Commons are those benefits all people enjoy in an evolved society where conscience is mature and reflected in how the state cares for all its citizens! Commons is infrastructure, clean water and air, education and health care, libraries, parks, firefighters and of course social security, medicare and medicaid...
What follows is that not only America is partial socialist already by virtue of the above social benefits but it is handicapped in understanding definitions. Or, more explicitly, by lacking critical thinking and thus the discernment of what something is or ain't, to speak to all. Socialism is not Venezuela, or is, if we talk about rotten apples while Scandinavian apples are delicious and healthy. Or a German BMW is a car just as is a YUGO. And yet oh so different...
In short, for democracy to succeed in its better forms - democratic socialism - it is imperative that we address an issue. That of idiotes, the term ancient Greeks gave to the ones who did not get involved in politics for they did not possess factual knowledge nor did they wish to. Or in current parlance idiots who cannot distinguish betwixt Venezuela and Sweden!
2
Roger, the most insightful comparison you could provide is between the France of a while ago – and the France of now...
"...America can be nudged in a French direction without losing its self-renewing essence...
They didn't even have to be nudged - but still somehow lost the recipe...
These folks had nuclear energy, fast trains, aerospace, and great food all nailed...
Beyond these overtly visible things, they did world-class networking and communications - both theory and practice...
What happened???
PS
At one point in time, my workplace-based health care was every bit as good as this...
Yet - our socialists blather on how (further) destroying this care will lead to free care for all...
In fact, they blather on about how destroying all manner of the workplace will provide all manner of great stuff for free...
Does this blather sound better in French???
2
Does Roger Cohen even read “Reportorials” by other New York Times writers or contributors?
Only a few months ago the NYT published an article about how mayors in rural France were leaving their posts because the socialist government of Macron is providing these rural areas with less resources to manage the basic functions of local government.
So just like AOC’s scourge for power camouflaged with the rouge of equality by socialistic politics, every ideology can only function based on the numbers of winners and losers it produces and as history has showed the world the power of capitalism is the lesser of all the evils. More government intervention is not a resolution towards equality, especially when human nature among the masses does not exist.
4
Mr. Cohen: You refer to the gilets jaunes in a few throwaway thoughts in your concluding paragraph, when this is where your article should properly begin. The gilets jaune, migrant ghettoes, and rising tide of antisemitism are troubling symptoms of a political economy—framed by Brexit and the European Union—in some disarray.
Let us not forget that France is the country where commoners stormed the Bastille and guillotined their King and Queen and hundreds of aristocrats—along with sundry others opposed to the Revolution.
39
The myth of rugged individualism never survives a headline.
Which hurricane or tornado victim rolls up his sleeves and turns FEMA away? Which coastal homeowner opposes the federal government’s subsidized flood insurance? Which industrial farm refuses agricultural subsidies or ignores agricultural trade policy?
I seem to remember the Texas congressional delegation, rugged Republican individualists all, voting for disaster relief in Houston after voting against it for New Jersey. Funny how the shoe fits better in the other foot.
Saving lives and improving the education, health, and economic opportunity of Americans, while sheltering them from the vicissitudes of capitalism, are worthwhile objectives. It doesn’t matter how they’re labeled, unless labeling them helps you to oppose what is otherwise popular.
2
I can’t believe we’re even having this debate. Nobody—not AOC, not Bernie, not a single Dem—is advocating for Soviet-style collectivism and central planning. Not one. The whole “debate” is simply because Fox News and Rush on the Radio spend all their air time fear-mongering people with horror stories about Venezuela (and, by inference, the failed Soviet state). “Fake News,” anyone?
There is a clear correlation between high levels of life satisfaction and high levels of social spending across Europe.
Roger, now that I’ve experienced the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vest) movement first-hand here in France, I think it’s worth pointing out that what they’re protesting for is MORE socialism, not less! Compare that to the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rallies with “good people on both sides.” Everyone around here is very respectful, and 70% of the French people support the Gilets Jaunes. Contrast that with the 40% of Americans who (still) support Trump and his horrid policies. That’s one of the reasons we moved.
2
@David Walker, take a look at the web site of the Democratic Socialists of America, of whom AOC and Rashida Tlaib are members.
"Nations do not cast off their cultural essence. I don’t think soaking the rich — Ocasio-Cortez’s proposed 70 percent wealth tax — is going to get a Democrat to the Oval Office. Nor are the accusations of “worker exploitation” that chased Amazon and 25,000 jobs out of New York — a stupid waste."
I couldn't disagree more. 70% MARGINAL tax rates got FDR elected 3 times and up until St. Reagan they were responsible for helping to keep inequality in check. As for Amazon, when they and many other corporations, can become good corporate citizens, then maybe they'll be invited back to NYC. That means we stop bidding against each other, state by state, to give billion dollar tax breaks to companies that pay NO taxes,and in fact, do all they can to get REFUNDS, $143 million in Amazon's case for 2018!
What happen to Great Society domestic program President LBJ back in 60's . Now Green New Deal change of names from France to America.
America at end rope with party "no can do" only for Rich , Republican party at most have Emperor Donald Trump but France last emperor Napoleon 3. Both are similar of hungry power if Republican are play with fire with this President.
But if America can change this 2020 election by hire Democrats President with Green Deal's.
Here's another way to gauge our economy vs France, or anywhere in Europe. Here in America, we not only have a melting pot of folks from a vast array of countries, we have entire neighborhoods made up of one nationality or another. Many cities have their own ChinaTowns, or Arab enclaves, Irish enclaves, Italian, German, etc. How many AmericaTowns are in any European country? Pick one. Besides the Arab refugees, folks from across the planet are not flocking to any European country. So why is that? They lack opportunity. If your going to leave your home country, your going to do it for safety and opportunity. Europe, with its socialist "everyone is equal" misery, lacks opportunity. They are all flocking to the US, because of opportunity, and only full fledged capitalism provides that. Every move towards socialism, such as socialized health care, and the higher and higher taxes to pay for it all, takes away opportunity. It makes it harder and harder for the lower and middle class to climb that economic ladder. Next time you go to Europe, ask a local to direct you to the nearest AmericaTown. He/she will look at you perplexed, because there isnt any. Hence, the all too predicatble consequences of socialism. People dont want to just "live", as the author portrays of his kids.
2
In 1945 George Orwell wrote in Animal Farm that “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” AOC, the self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist, has already demonstrated that she fits that maxim perfectly. On March 2, 2019, the New York Post reported that amid her calls a “Green New Deal”, AOC and entourage racked up $20,000 in gas-guzzling cab, Uber, Lyft fares.
The article pointed out that she could have used the subway or even walked to her destinations. So, as she clamors for higher taxes upon ordinary hard-working Americans to pay for her pie-in-the-sky Marxist-Socialist-Leninist agenda, she will not abide by her words; she will do her own thing.
The picture accompanying this op-ed shows a person holding up a sign saying, “End Poverty.” Since FDR’s New Deal and, especially LBJ’s Great Society, America has tried to end poverty, but it still persists. No matter how much money the nation throws at the problem, it does not go away. The best solution to ending poverty is working, finding a job, staying sober, and going to it each day. Except the Democratic Socialists want nonsense such as a living wage or a guaranteed income.
Such proposals echo the Marxist tenet, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs," a redistribution wealth from the bourgeois to the proletariat. I and millions of other Americans do not support that, and we will not tolerate it; our wealth will have to be pried from our hands! Thank you.
6
Americans do not know what "socialism" really is, especially the ones who throw the word around as a curse or a scare tactic. It is nothing more than a way to terrify the ignorant into not voting for Democrats.
1
It is simple: People before Profit. You can't take your profit with you when you leave this mortal coil. Your tombstone will not read: "Here lies Profit." "This life was about Profit." "Let's total up his life's Profit."
What drivel. If you've ever run a business in France, you know that the government is anything but friendly to business. Its Ocascio-Cortez on steroids sprinkled with a dash of French nastiness to boot. What is the result? Limited employment opportunities, stifling of entrepreneurial instincts and a "mother government, give us all" attitude in its populace. No thank you .. America's system is not perfect, but far better than Europe's socialistic tendencies.
5
Appropriate and necessary regulation is not socialism, it is just locking up the banksters and corporatist thieves. Socialism is things like the military (100% socialist!) Medicare, Social Security, "post offices, and post roads" (look it up - start with the Constitution), public education and all the rest of the proper functions of government that keep society (same root as socialism) from collapse and revolution against the oligarchy.
“The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but can not do at all, or can not so well do, for themselves – in their separate, and individual capacities.” -- Abraham Lincoln (the scion of Republicans)
I am bemused by all the comments about socialism but no one defines it. Socialism used to mean that the state owned the main engines of production, such as the railroads, utilities, steel plants, etc. No one today is suggesting that the government should take over Amazon or Google (though some would like to break it up).
Today socialism means a point on the welfare scale. Medicare for all, free colleges, guaranteed income, etc but the means to pay for all this comes from the engines of free enterprise, which provide the tax revenues and employment.
We used to use the term "liberal" but somehow that became a four letter word that was transformed into "progressive". The new four letter word is socialism, which Trump will claim means government intrusion and lack of individual responsibility . IF the coming election boils down to the 4 or 5 battleground states, I fear that the Democrats present course will result in four more years of Trump.
"Self-reliance is to America what fraternity is to France: part of its core. American space — so immense, so un-European — conjures in Americans a bristling independence of spirit that wants government out of their lives."
And yet they seem to enjoy the social benefit of medicare for all for people over 65. And I am sure they would enjoy paid maternity leave and subsidised daycare if they should come to pass in the U.S.
I believe a country needs a balance between social benefits and free markets/capitalism.The lurch to the left of the democratic party is an indication to me something is getting out of balance in the U.S.
I await the moment when the Republicans shrieking "socialism!" as if it were synonymous with "satanism" burn their Social Security cards. I suspect it will be a long wait.
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@WilliamB
You, sir, have a way with words. You said it all with just 29!
20
There's too much fuzziness leading to confusion on this issue and it comes from misusing words. Here's Forbes on this: "The myth of Nordic socialism is partially created by a confusion between socialism, meaning government exerting control or ownership of businesses, and the welfare state in the form of government-provided social safety net programs. However, the left’s embrace of socialism is not merely a case of redefining a word. Simply look at the long-running affinity of leftists with socialist dictators in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela for proof many on the left long for real socialism." Taxing people and corporations to administer social welfare programs, something even the libertarian economist Hayek got behind, is different from "government control or ownership of business," which is socialism. Liz Warren sees the distinction between expanding the welfare state under capitalism vs. government ownership of business under socialism; AOC and Bernie either don't seem to, or truly are simply anticapitalist, If so, Cuba and Nicaragua are the more accurate models than Norway and Denmark.
3
strictly speaking, socialism is WORKER control of the means of production. whether this is organized on a grassroots decentralized level or through a representative democracy is for the citizens to work out. The Soviet structure, for example, is better defined as a sort of state capitalism.
1
This piece glosses over the cultural differences between the US and France. The French trust their government to know what is best for them; Americans far less so.
The problem with the center is that it has not offered any out-of-the-box solutions to the challenges the electorate is - climate change, declining quality of education, income inequality, adults' maintaining their employability with little employee continuing education support, crumbling infrastructure, etc.
I think the rise of anti-semitism, anti-immigrant feelings, and yellow shirts, reflect that the system in France is decaying too.
We need fresh solutions for this global, multi-cultural world we are
2
I believe socialist style reforms are highly necessary. Unfortunately, the conservative misinformation machine has done an excellent job of labeling anything that wouldn't be approved by Ayan Rand as a "socialist nightmare" that will destroy our "freedom." What Democrats need is to sell redefine and sell "freedom." Freedom from high out-of-pocket costs with universal healthcare, freedom from crushing student debt with free college tuition, freedom to take risks and start a new business instead of doing a job you hate just because you need the health insurance. Freedom to actually spend money in the economy rather than hoard it away in a 401k because we can count on a pension when we are old. They need to sell that wealth redistribution creates choice in people's lives, not take it away and that choice can actually lead to a more vibrant free-market not a stifle it.
1
‘The basic requirement of any Democratic candidate is to make the forgotten, the struggling and the invisible of American society feel visible again.’
I would say that Trump, (have a beer with) Bush, Fox makes the ‘losers’ of American Society ‘feel visible’.
I would refer a president that made American Society understand, think and reason? Generally a Democrat.
Capitalist politicians have used fear and exploitation to accrue the benefits of the society. In North America the capitalist class ‘feels’ they should rule, governing being socialist activity to take away my freedum and demockracy.
This is intentional repeated here unknowingly by a very intelligent and decent journalist.
A mixed economy is always the answer. After all no other country lies to its citizens about the label foe social security, vets affairs, food inspection, education and on and on. Socialism.
Have a good day.
The voters of a small District in New York must get rid of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the 2020 Election. Once again American voters have been hoodwinked into voting for a candidate who aims only to damage America.
4
Republicans have branded ‘socialist’ a dirty word and placed it front and center in their strategy, as they did ‘liberal’ in the 80’s. What they have demonstrated with Trump, the fact that they are OK with dictators fascists and oligarchs, is a far a greater threat to our democracy than progressive calls for social justice. Democrat’s should to emphasize this point in response to the new Republican McCarthyism.
Having Roger Cohen write on these pages in his excellent manner is so laudatory. This article sets out clearly the path forward for Democrats via progressive ideas and the dangers as well. The descriptions of Europe and why socialism works there is contrasted by the vastness of this country and the cultural independence of this society that accompanies individualism. Caution to AOC and the 70% tax on wealth is measured and so are the differences in GDP and taxes from European countries, France, for example, and the USA. This week a large discussion on maternal death in this country and state, in particular, is being held during the SXSW festival in Austin. There is much to be learned from the fact that a panel of experts from London, LA, and elsewhere has convened here to address the spike in those deaths and some of the findings are astonishing. Thank you, Mr. Cohen, for your excellent writing that shed light on this most important policy as we move ahead apres Trump.
The problem with Venezuela is not socialism, it’s corruption and authoritarianism. Two subjects close to Trump’s heart by the way.
1
Cohen describes what has worked in Europe, social democracy, and then chooses to incorrectly call it socialism. Social democracy, though both progressives/liberals and conservatives in US refuse to use that correct political term, is what has worked in US. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, VA, USPS, transcontinental railroads, federal interstate highway system, GI bill, NASA, land grant colleges, the first internet (ARPANET), public schools/colleges, public TV/radio (and actual real news/extraordinary, quality programming), DoD, DARPA, NIH, NSF - virtually all basic research, and many more are all government funded - would we be an economic success without that government investment? About 40% of US GDP is currently government spending. Western Europe and Nordic countries government spending is 40% to 57% of GDP. But none are 100% of GDP government spending - full socialism or even 100% worker ownership - Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) - ultimate long-term goal (from their website) - that’s Sanders and AOC. You cannot or should not eliminate capitalism or free markets (not the same thing) - you should tightly regulate capitalism and allow a better free market component of the economy, have taxes to pay for a strong welfare safety net that invests in citizens, liberal democracy that is not corrupt, strong unions for workers rights: that’s social democracy, that’s the Nordic model. It’s not socialism. That’s not just a semantic difference, it’s a real key difference.
2
Only a few years ago I read an analysis, in either the IMF or Economist journals, that on a per capita PER HOUR basis, France is the most productive country on earth. I wish I could provide a link to that analysis for it shows that, in France, they do not work to maximize GDP but recognize that GDP at any price is an absurdly simplistic goal. In short, they do not work until they are exhausted but rather work to be productive. Taken in the context of Mr. Cohen's article it strongly suggests that, in ending the populist Trump era, we will have a chance to find an intelligent and sensible balance between socialism and capitalism.
1
Mr (Roger) Cohen and Prof Monica Prasad are completely misunderstanding the Scandinavian “socialist” economies. Because of lack of extreme inequality, there are very few billionaires. Billionaires, such as the late Ivar Kamprad of IKEA, moved himself and the holding company a long time ago to Tax haves like the Switzer-and Netherlands. There are relatively few mega estates to tax. Thus, the Swedish model for the Death Tax would not be fair here.
The Scandinavian system and culture over at least a millennium prevents extreme inequality from happening in the first place. The low tax on businesses provides, instead of outsized wealth for the shareholders and top executives, for living wages and social security for all. The system is proactive, creating relative prosperity for all, instead of redistribution of incomes through “punitive” high taxes on the rich. I think senator Warren has proposed something like that. But it would need a complete makeover of the American Way. The European “socialism” a culture of equality is harking back hundreds of years and has expressed itself in social movements like the French Revolution, and through parliamentary reforms and modern and constantly updated constitutions promoting social equality through fair taxation and investment in free education, health care and social programs, just to name few, just to name a few. That is the Will of the European People, working through a political will in truly democratic parliamentary systems
2
Socialism in America is a long game and if it takes another 4 years of a republican in office for the American public to see that the current system is not working for them, so be it.
If Americans had to pay for the true cost of electricity production, clean water and sewage treatment, and the highway system we depend upon, then they would see that a system with socialist aspects can actually be a good thing.
1
What is wrong with soaking the rich? They don't have a problem with soaking us. It's our turn to get back some of what has been taken from us. If we don't fight back we lose everything.
5
How does socialism protect a person who must accept a warehouse job if that is the best that person can hope to obtain based on his/her education/qualifications, etc? Are we now to subsidize the idle poor who wait in vain for work they find personally fulfilling? Is that the European socialist model? If so, I want no part of such a system or candidates who advocate for such a system (and I am an ardent anti-Trump Democrat).
2
AOC proposed a increase in the marginal income tax rate of 70% on annual earned income over $10,000,000 (that's ten million). Elizabeth Warren proposed a tax on assets for assets over $50,000,000 (that's fifty million). Please get the facts straight and stop trying to scare people. Homeowners already pay a wealth tax when they pay annual real estate taxes. Warren believes that assets that are not real estate assets should be subject to the wealth tax taxation.
The most important contribution that "the left" is making is that big changes are inevitable and the status quo will not work as a solution. The changes are demographic in that America (and the industrialized West) are getting older with fewer babies being born. It's economic in the sense that 40% of today's jobs could be eliminated by automation and artificial intelligence. It's environmental in the sense that drinking water sources are being made toxic; sea levels are rising; the temperature of the soil is regionally changing so that farmers will have to change what they grow; demands on an old electric grid are rising as fast as temperatures; and, people are getting less healthy as a result of unhealthy foods, stress, and environmental degradation.
The trickle down policies that have been given free reign for more than a generation have failed to address any of the problems we face.
4
@Bill: I am sorry but are Warren or AOC or Bernie suggesting they will ELIMINATE PROPERTY TAXES?
If they are….they are missing an incredible opportunity to run on "no property taxes"! -- especially in very high tax areas like New Jersey and Taxachusetts.
However, property taxes are LOCAL taxes. So I am not sure at all how that would work. Property taxes go to schools, overwhelming, so you'd have to find a new way to fund education.
Socialism is not communism. There is no such thing as pure capitalism. Without government oversight and regulation we get crony capitalism, price fixing. By getting rid of the fiduciary law which states your investment advisor is in it for you-- now its's ok if he/she comes first. And on it goes. Private investment and corporations can make good bedfellows with socialists if one thinks clearly and works out the kinks. But Democrats and Republicans can't even hold hands let alone get in bed together and I just don't see AOC making all that much difference. Trump loves to tell people about the greatness of America because you can rise to any level. He forgets to mention he started at the near top of the ladder and his father cheated the tax man for him to be there. And why in this country are taxes toxic? I like services-- fire, police, safely maintained infrastructure, affordable health care, access to universities without going bankrupt, public education (I got a great one), clean water and air....those still reading you get the picture. I gladly pay taxes because I can't do these things on my own. Europe looks more wonderful by the day and would live in any western European EU country. The exception being the UK that threw itself over the white cliffs of Dover and won't be a EU country in 3 weeks.
2
It’s Time to change the dialog, the Right seems to define all of these issues with their words. Pro Life? Obama Care? Of course everyone’s Pro Life.....and we’re not Pro Abortion. If anything we promote less abortions by empowering woman, sex education and contraceptives. And the social reforms put in place by FDR probably did more to prevent Communisim then the Pro Capitalist ever did. In the 60s when there were some Communist leaning individuals the ones they disliked the most were liberals because they made the system work with socialistic reforms. The biggest friend of Communism is unfettered Capitalism that makes the few wealthy and the many poor. That’s where revolutions come from.
3
“ part of its core. American space — so immense, so un-European — conjures in Americans a bristling independence of spirit that wants government out of their lives”
Yea but this space has become increasingly more crowded over the past 100 years so it’s really silly to base well being still on independence rather that collectivism and finding strength in community.
1
Correction: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez proposed a 70% INCOME tax. Elizabeth Warren proposed a wealth tax which started at 2%, not 70%. One word; huge difference.
AOC is no Democrat; she is a Socialist and wants to turn the US into a socialist country. Her glee over the collapse of the Amazon deal shows her true colors and leads me to think that jobs are not a priority for Socialists, not when there’s plenty of other people’s money to go around.
3
Yes, the Republicans are now tossing the word Socialism around as if its some leftist ideology that came from the Antichrist himself. It would be great to have both Mr. Pence and Mr. Trump sit down like in an old fashion High School essay test and write a two page paper on their definition of Socialism and then share it with the rest of us. Then, maybe then, we'll know if they know what they're talking about.
2
Since 2010, what have Republicans accomplished that would be good for the majority of American citizens? Absolutely not one single thing. It truly amazes me the levels of fear and hate they rely on to maintain their grip on power. The United States of America is no longer a bright, shining star to the world. Yesterday, the President of the United States of America spent over 12 hours tweeting on the subjects of no collusion, fake news, we're building a wall, a book about himself, crooked Dems, dishonest media and on and on and on. 34 tweets. Today he is golfing. This is what the Republican party defends. Mitch McConnell will allow just about anything because trump is the distraction that allows Mitch to get away with things like packing the federal courts.
3
Roger, thank you for writing this. I agree completely.
If you drop the labels, instead of capitalism vs. socialism, we can talk about what things we do as individuals, and what things we do in common. We don't put out our own fires or arrest our own criminals. We don't build our own roads. We don't even buy these services from private companies, we pay tax and expect the government to provide them.
Surprise surprise! Socialism is working, and it helps capitalism along. Think of how much harder it would be to start a business if you had to hire your own police and build your own roads.
When people start losing their homes, living in tents on public streets, and dying for lack of medical care, you have a problem. Waving our fists at each other and shouting like two bands of apes over the local water hole won't fix it.
These things we call socialism and capitalism can work together if we discuss them rationally and make decisions based on the facts and not how we feel about the labels.
1
Roger’s thesis is summed up in the title of one of Robert Reich’s books: “Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few”.
The notion that “socialism”, in the sense of Marx, is behind common sense policies to address widespread problems that me-me-only-me Capitalism never will address is simply billionaire baloney.
Fixing opioid addiction, child & elder care, caring for the environment, acting on global warming, health care, infrastructure... the list of things that help us all and never will be addressed by me-me-only-me Capitalism is very long, and not about “socialism”, but about government doing its job.
Not a GOP priority.
2
Euro-style socialism relies on relatively high tax rates on all workers, not just scalping the top 10% of earners (as proposed by many,) nor just taxing the top 50% (as we currently do here in the U.S.). It also benefits from a large V.A.T./sales tax (which is a most regressive way for a government to raise revenue.) It also provides non-means-tested benefits to all people, rather than just those with lower income.
Perhaps progressives could find a wider base if they asked everyone to pay, and talked of benefits for everyone, rather than talking of taking from one group and giving to another.
2
If Trump can make this a race about socialism, he will WIN! Nothing riles up moderates more than loss of freedoms. The Democratic Party would be smart not to go there, if it can help itself.
2
What several european countries did is really smart.
They didn't reject one system over another, instead they mix the best elements of both and voila!
Not to say that everything is always hunky dory,
but it's much better that our speedy slide to the
Oligarchy and eventual collapse.
After all we're not Russians who never lived in any kind of democracy or socialism, historically always under the czars and now under the same czars, just differently dressed and excel in their propaganda language.
For this country this submission to a system of Plutocracy/Oligarchy is not sustainable.
We have to be smart and try many different ways, and it's not like we don't have Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, all these already socialism that working so far.
2
Surprised that there is no mention that, unlike the USA, France, Sweden et al have virtually NO Defense spending.
1
Look at the Democrats’ winning margin in the House. Where does that come from? Not from the left. It comes largely from conservative, Republican districts, as Tom Edsall pointed out in a recent column. http://tinyurl.com/y2wdg3gv
Roger Cohen can talk all he wants about the energy on the left, but in fact, the Democrats cannot win the Electoral College with that energy, alone. Piling up big majorities in blue districts will not win for them.
To win, the Dems need broad geographic support. To that end, they must forswear the kind of mindless identity politics that has consumed the Democratic Party this past week, and focus on kitchen-table issues that are important to ALL American families, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation.
125
@Ron Cohen I think a longer view is what is being seen by those pushing for more equality reform. It may take 20 years or more, but when enough of the current roadblock in Washington moves on - dirt nap - then the younger, more progressive views will move forward in the minds of America.
14
@Ron Cohen
Add to this comment that if African American candidates like whiny Corey Booker and African American Woman of the Year Kamala Harris think they will appeal to all Americans just because they have special status as African Americans they will not get enough votes to really mean anything.
12
I have been to France. I have been to Wyoming. I'll take France.
Give me Massachusetts not Texas while you are at it.
3
Roger, Peoria is not Paris. It's inconceivable to me that swing voters in the Midwest who will absolutely decide the 2020 election are going to embrace AOC style socialism. They won't. We need to win WI, MI and PA. Not run up the score in CA, NY and MA.
We live in the age of identity politics. Biden will play well in the Midwest. He will take his birthstate of PA. Warren, Sanders even Harris will become punching bags for Trump.
If you want to see more progressive policies, support a sensible middle ground. What is reasonable in Manhattan is radical in the Midwest. I know, I lived in both for many years.
3
There is a reason the EU is busy trying to penalize US-based companies and why their growth is so concerning to Europe - they develop none of their own.
2
Evidently, this author doesn't even know the meaning of socialism. There wont' be any debate about socialism in the 2020 election because it's a nonstarter. The author has mistaken it for something else.
@Stratman
The textbook definition of socialism can be summed up in one word: communism.
None of the countries in Europe that we describe as socialist are communist countries. They are, actually, capitalist countries. However, they put more emphasis on providing social programs for their citizens' well-being, hence the also-used term 'welfare state.'
All of this is just too confusing for our horribly uneducated electorate.
It will be a hot topic and will work against the Democrats. No matter what words are used most people will not look up the definition and if you see how the Trump voters reacted negatively to Obamacare you can see how many people will react to Warren, Bernie positions
2
In the the current political climate, socialism is a term that the GOP is weaponizing in order to frighten Americans. It is used as a tool to further divide and conquer the voters.
In past decades, the term communism was used in a similar manner. It helped get Nixon and Reagan elected, it was used in an attempt to frighten us into supporting wars we did not need, and it was used in order to justify wasteful spending on useless military junk.
We must not let them manulate us in this way!
The European utopia, built on the back of US protection, is just about over. France is dead. High unemployment, no growth, no innovation, no incentive, huge immigration/assimilation problems. The country can no longer afford it’s social largess. Yes, the US could certainly learn a bit from European healthcare coverage. But, that’s about it. France is dead. Long live France.
2
People have been saying similar things about European countries for decades. They never produce evidence and never tire of denying evidence.
The 8% of GDP extra the US spends on defense above what France spends is about the same as the 8% extra the US spends for healthcare. Evidently, then, an economy can tolerate an 8% burden and prosper. France’s prosperity, then, need not be the product of American largesse, if that’s what it is.
Sweden continues to grow, too, despite socialism, and without nato membership. Hmmm.
I commend you to drive the highways and ride the trains in France. A TGV could take you from New York to Washington in 90 minutes. Public money spent for the public good.
The high unemployment is partly a question of what’s measured. Some labor force participation rates in France are higher than here. We mask unemployment with marginal underemployment: our miserly unemployment benefits drive workers to take a job, any job, just to pay the bills. As social Darwinism, very effective. As employment policy, not so much, because it tends to trap workers in suboptimal jobs below their potential.
1
It's not a big secret that the left-center regimes in Europe have become "business friendly". This is probably one reason why a) financial industries in Europe as in the US were allowed to create the bubble which led to the recession of 2009; and b) more people are becoming discontented and turning to rightist parties, which promise to overturn the status quo in which inequality is increasing, though not as much as in the US. In the US the turn to "business friendliness" started a long time ago and inequality has grown much more.
As the country with the lowest per-capita carbon emissions in Europe and among the lowest in the world, France could also serve as an example of decarbonization for the U.S. to follow.
It accomplished that feat with extraordinary dispatch once Prime Minister Pierre Messmer, through parliamentary decree (the equivalent of Executive Order in the U.S.), initiated the 1973 "Messmer Plan" to become energy-independent. Because the nation's electricity was generated by oil-fired plants, the OPEC oil embargo had left Parisians without both transportation and electricity. It had quickly become imperative.
The Plan relied on a rapid buildout of nuclear energy - an abundant source which would leave France independent of both fickle Arab sentiment and fickle weather. Though its lack of carbon emissions wouldn't be appreciated for decades, by 1990 the haze of oil smoke once blanketing France's countryside had vanished.
How do we know nuclear energy could accomplish in the U.S. what sun, and the wind, and batteries, and biofuels have failed to accomplish over the last half century? Because it's already been done, that's how.
1
The sun and wind haven’t failed to accomplish anything for the last half century. Until recently, wind and solar technology were uncompetitive. You might as well point to the failure of railroads in the 18th century to justify canals as the transport of the future.
It’s nuclear that has a limitless record of failure. Despite heavy public investment and federal liability protection, not one nuclear plant has ever been built with private funds. Far from “too cheap to meter”, they’re too expensive just to keep.
Here In Maine we were recently granted $34 million to continue to store spent fuel no one wants. Windmills don’t pose that kind of problem or expense.
I estimate 16,000 wind turbines at $1 million each would produce all the household electrical needs for the entire country. That’s the price of one aircraft carrier. What are we waiting for?
1
Family attorney John Dalton had 2 pieces of advice for me which r engraved in my memory:(1)Take the money and run and (2)You can't beat City Hall.Re the first, it came in handy when re my property a real estate atty. asked me with what number I would be happy with and of course I replied I thought u would never ask. Re the second piece of wisdom, I see handwriting on the wall, that liberal media attacks, which media is also the voice of the Dem. Party, r taking a toll on him and Trump is now, slowly but ineluctably giving in to the pro immigration lobby. Dems have enthusiasm for 2020; Trump supporters not so much!Has been said that those who are the most fervent advocates of socialism are its biggest plunderers as well, and a prosaic example is AOC now alleged to have misused campaign contributions as well as diverting almost 900,000 dollars to her campaign adviser's private accounts which cannot be scrutinized.She also dresses as if she were going to the Academy Awards Ceremonies, so instead of dressing down to identify with those who voted for her, she dresses like a Hollywood starlet. What's going on. JFK said once about John Connolly that he had not been in politics long before he was buying $300 suits, a lot of money for a suit back in the 1950's.
1
The Gop keeps using the word socialism, instead of social democracy, to tie the progressive and democratic socialists to communism. What is communism, a single part state that controls everything. Sounds like the Gop to me.
Coming from Europe (not France), one of the things I've noticed is the strange reaction and relationship Americans have to the word "socialism"-- even though they have demands that might be defined as "socialist".
There's nothing wrong with equality in a society, whether it involves income, education, race or gender, and most agree the world would be a better place if there were more of it.
It's just getting to that point of achieving it that's so difficult.
To a great extent, Socialism is often confused as Communism here --and both are still anathema to this country.
One just needs to read the comments floating about after some progressive or Democrat says something counter to the usual worship of big business or corporate hegemony, which may also explain in part why America still clings onto having only two parties to represent the full spectrum of political interests, instead of a combination of multiple to form a coalition government.
But given the present course of this country and its president who thrives on the exclusivity of great wealth, a bit a social consciousness and equanimity might not be such a bad idea.
3
No countries in western Europe are socialistic in the true sense of the word. It means that most companies are privately owned as in the United States. The difference is the structure of the welfare systems. However one forgets that the United States have the biggest "socialised medicine" in the world, Medicare and Veterans Administration Hospitals. In the global world with increasing power of the international corporate world the governments in the different countries in the world will have an increasing role to play in order to maintain a reasonable welfare base for the people. In a true democracy every person should have access to affordable health care and affordable education including college and university. That is not "socialism".
1
I agree with most of what Mr. Cohen has written. But I disagree on two points.
1. I don't think levying a 70% income tax on the amount people earn over $10 million a year is soaking anyone.
2. No one chased Amazon out of New York; it turned tail and ran. Anyone who expects to undertake a major development project in the city without opposition just doesn't know New Yorkers.
4
Social Democracy is what is prevalent in many of the western democracies he is talking about rather than Socialism. Capitalism and socialism are quite diffferent but social democracy is a hybrid of sorts. Sweden is an excellent example. You cannot have Investor AB, the holding company of the Wallenberg family (as close as you can get to Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway in the world) in a socialist country but it is perfectly fine in a social democracy.
Sanders, Warren and Ocasio-Cortez are all talking about social democracy (or democratic socialism) which is a logical step for the US to take given where we have drifted now (unfortunately very close to fascism of sorts). Medicare for all, universal free public education, trade unions for all, living wages, tax reform and election reform are now necessities. Social Democracy provides all of the above. Funded by progressive taxation, cuts in the military budget and Wall Street reform.
I don’t want to hear about his sons bris in Paris in August but I can tell you that France is way ahead in most things human beings who are not in the top ten percent of income and wealth care about than here in the US.
1
Why is the word socialism toxic, but Putin, Russia, and oligarchy are okay? Someone is not doing their job.
202
@Don
When America had to choose between the left-wing Bolsheviks in Moscow and right -wing Fascists in Berlin who did FDR pick?
Der Fuehrer was far more dangerous than the Comrade.
11
Actually France, Great Britain, and India have smaller economies than the state of California. The economy of Canada is equivalent to the economic output of Texas. The economic output of the state of New York is greater than that of South Korea. The point here is that we have all the money we need in America to better sustain our quality of life through greater investments in education, healthcare, and a Green New Deal. Stop being distracted by naysayers, and start demanding a better quality of life for all American citizens.
3
"Socialism" seems to have come into vogue again, as it was in the 30s. Socialism as defined in the dictionary and as commonly understood, is government ownership of the means of production and distribution. Adoption of socialist systems led to untold misery everywhere those systems were implemented; most recently in Venezuela. When our politicians call themselves sociaists and advocate socialism they should make clear precisely what they mean by it. That would enlighten the discussion.
2
Under Socialism, the state runs the major industries--the "means of production"--to benefit the majority of the population, the workers, rather than to produce profits for the few rich who own them, as under capitalism. Socialism is economic democracy.
@Al
No, Al, that was fascism, and it’s later cousin, communism.
Quite a few folks, who lack clarity in the history of the 20th century — and particularly regarding lack of understanding of the “disease of Republics” (and democracies) which our American founders knew from their deep knowledge of Roman history, was EMPIRE — often get confused about what really happened in the First and Second World Wars of Empires and the collapse of the ‘next to the last Empire on earth’, the Soviet “Evil Empire” (weren’t they all, Ronnie?).
Now, in this 21st century, ‘we the American people’ are the only ones left to fire a; loud, public, sustained, ‘in the streets’, but totally non-violent “Shout (not shot) heard round the world” to continue and complete our original American Political/economic and social(ist) people’s peaceful progressive “Revolution Against Empire”, by simply looking for, ‘exposing’, and expunging any final trace of Empire residue that might be hiding anywhere that the final elements of Ronnie’s “Evil Empire” might still exist in our world abroad or at home — as the late great Jewish intellectual, Hannah Arandt earlier warned her own German people:
“Empire abroad entails tyranny at home”.
So, Al, do you see any signs of Empire (or Emperors) that could possibly be misleading or telling any string of lies about ‘Empire-building’ or “Empire-thinking” fantasies of ‘Greatness’?
1
When people complain about state intervention in a democratic socialist economy, what they are failing to realize is that in our “free market” system there is PLENTY of state intervention.
The state intervention just only benefits the wealthy.
Nothing free or competitive about legalized bribery and corruption.
3
Using the word "socialist" to describe any Democrat does a disservice to the word. No Democrat is a socialist, and Americans need to start taking Political Science lessons. Just because a politician calls for public investment, that does not make them a socialist. A socialist calls for the socialization of the means of production. No Democrat has come even close to saying that--that would be a true economic and political revolution in the US.
4
Overcoming our misunderstanding and stereotyping of
"socialism" and "progressivism", what with the ill-informed and mendacious bullhorn of Fox news and the GOP, will be very difficult. Article like this one over and over again could help, but I somehow doubt it. If we want to simply continue living in the world we've got here, then just continuing voting in trumps and republicans. If you'd like a better anymore equitable world for more opportunity, vote democratic. Voila! Ph, and a cleaner world, too.
1
In order for some Democrats to shed the Socialist label, they need to stop calling themselves Socialist! It's ridiculous.
1
Social democracy is coming to the US and it will be a big improvement.
5
"Self-reliance... government out of their lives."Show us one person that is "self-reliant". Show us one person that: makes their water drinkable; makes the roads upon which they drive; generates the fuel for the mode of transportation they use; makes their mode of transportation; grows their food; makes their medicine; protects them self from foreign enemies and criminals; creates their electronic energy to use the electronic devices they use; actually the list of cooperative events that make life possible is endless, and no one does it alone.
2
Seems to me there is an awful lot of room between pure capitalism and socialism. Ensuring that everybody (including corporations) actually pays taxes would be a great start. Much of what needs to be addressed in the U.S. is a matter of regulation.
My sense is that if we focus on campaign finance reform so that our representatives aren't in the pockets of corporate interests, we'll go a long way to finding the balance between capitalism and socialism.
3
Some "alternative" facts. The French brain drain to the US, including talent in management and technological innovation, is larger than at any time in recent history. Investment in France is inhibited by the virtual inability to fire anyone. French businesses, including those in classic sectors like wine and fashion, are dependent on foreign, often Anglosaxon talent for creativity, modernization and competitiveness. The American hospital in Paris remains the gold standard for French healthcare. So the French model has its strengths and weaknesses, just like any other. But as Cohen says, when it comes to ideas about social justice, we can learn a lot from the French. The challenge Democrats face is distinguishing Social democracies from socialist systems. The ground should be fertile since more Americans than ever before appreciate that the playing field isn't level and that the resulting inequality does not mean that those needing help are losers who only have themselves to blame. Sadly, the voices advocating such changes go too far in their messaging, handing Republicans ammunition and reducing their own credibility.
1
Folks, we've been here before, for example during the 2 terms of T Roosevelt. As Mr. Roosevelt, a Republican by the way, understood (and as Mr. Cohen suggests), there's nothing inherently evil about capitalism. But when left completely to its own devices for a sufficient period of time, it's simply subject to manipulation by those at the very top, resulting in skewed concentrations of market power (then, the Standard Oil Trusts, the Railroads, Big Banks, etc. - now Tech, Hedge Funds, again Big Banks, etc.) that lead to extreme levels of income inequality and segments of the population simply being left behind. The solution then - and now - is not to toss out the entire system, but to introduce some sensible guardrails. Despite howls to the contrary, Roosevelt's legislative initiatives didn't spell the end of American prosperity - nor will similar sensible efforts now. Current trends of market concentration and income inequality are simply not sustainable, any more than those trends were at the beginning of then 20th century. The middle class - the American economic engine - is now, as it was then, at a tipping point - the American Dream isn't quite so dreamy when, for example, large portions of the working class are being priced out of the housing market and unexpected health issues can tip a working family into bankruptcy. This can be fixed - it has been fixed before - and it won't now spell the end of capitalism any more than it did in times past.
1
@Bitsy: And then the next Roosevelt reinvented and reinforced the social safety net, and managed to get us out of the depression and win WW2. Teddy snatched power back from the oligarchs, and Franklin designed a vastly improved system.
Winston Churchill famously said that you can always count on America to do the right thing after they've tried everything else. It's time. We need someone like Teddy or Franklin today.
A small dose of socialism may be acceptable to America. However, combined with extreme political correctness and identity politics we are crossing into a precarious territory. Democrats are sowing seeds of their own defeat in 2020 by giving control of their party to the likes of AOC, Sanders, and Warren.
1
@Jack The moment you invoke PC your credibility takes a hit. Those who bemoan political correctness are merely looking for a pass to be offensive and inappropriate due to their intellectual laziness.
2
@Jack, so you are fine with rampant unbridled capitalism business as usual? Unbridled consumerism, disregard for the environment, not conserving any resources for our children grandchildren?
1
France is not simply a socialist country, it’s a proudly socialist country. That, I think, explains in large part the resistance to Macron’s neoliberalism and his dismal ratings in opinion polls. The gilets jaunes are saying, in effect, let’s move socialism forward, not tear it down. Macron will never be effective as long as he is resisting the will of the people and screwing around with a political economy that expresses their values and defines their identity. Viva la France.
"The United States was founded in contradistinction to, not as an extension of, Europe. Self-reliance is to America what fraternity is to France: part of its core. American space — so immense, so un-European — conjures in Americans a bristling independence of spirit that wants government out of their lives."
This excerpt says so much to me. Democrats need to emphasize self reliance over looking to the government for answers. I don't know how a move toward socialism can be achieved and at the same time, get government out of our lives which is my preference. This is because to raise revenue it must get it from business. To do this it gets too involved in regulating business so that it can tax charge regulatory fees which are simply disguised taxes. The regulations often add nothing to business, but simply it down with costs and slow the flow so that it loses some of its dynamism. Socialism also involves massive government hiring which is counter productive and often a form of welfare. Mr. Cohen goes a little soft to the extent he suggest socialism and capitalism can easily coexist without socialist programs eating away at business productivity.
A 70% top tax rate for multi-millionaires isn't soaking the rich.
The very rich are the only ones who need the massive military to protect their wealth from making the country coveted by others, the law and order forces to keep it from being raided, the private airports and yacht facilities, the huge walled estates, and the Judas politicians to stop everyone else rising to even a small part of their income.
When it's basically all their personally owned country, they should pay for it.
2
Most Americans think that somehow they are going to be rich and so they need not think about health care, child care, college tuition, retirement security, job protection and the other benefits that a social democratic regime would bring. And they prefer to pay outrageous prices for health care and medicine -not to mention child care and tuition- when on balance, they would pay a lot less in the increase in taxes that these reforms would bring. Meanwhile, the rich get richer, the poor poorer, and the middle class slides towards poverty.
2
The social services that are described to be available in Europe but are wrongly not available in the US do not constitute socialism. Socialism is the transitional state form to communism. This lack of accuracy and distinction in terminology plays badly into current political rhetoric while vilifying European social and societal norms and standards.
2
Thank you!
Pure capitalism is not a panacea nor is it beneficial except to the “titans” of industry and their heirs who had the good fortune to be born into wealth and privilege.
Our laws dictate that public companies are to run for the benefit of the shareholders. Logically, if you pay your employees as little as possible, provide little in the way of benefits, cut corners to skirt (socialist??) environmental protections or safety regulations to save money (to mention but a few), you will boost the returns on capital. When this pure capitalism reigned this country worked for a few people but ground down far too many of its citizens. The result was a spurt of populism.
Our laws should be changed to ensure that the worst excesses of capitalism are curbed, that owners and managers have responsibilities to their employees, their communities and their consumers. Safety nets should not be eliminated but strengthened. Fairness, accountability and responsibility should be built into our corporate and governmental DNA.
Call such a model “Scandinavian capitalism” or ”compassionate capitalism”, but understand that unfettered capitalism (coupled with the corruption of government) can be as destructive as what we see in Venezuela.
4
I thought it was only Fox News that calls what the young Democrats in Congress and Bernie Sanders want, and Western Europe practices, "Socialism."
It is NOT Socialism. It is DEMOCRATIC Socialism.
DEMOCRATIC Socialism.
DEMOCRATIC Socialism.
Got it?
2
I think soak the rich would be a winning campaign slogan. Everyone is fed up.
5
That last line of your column will prove to be prophetic. Those Americans who are left out don't vote, get lied to by the Republican Party, and frankly don't care. They do know that America is the greatest country on the face of the earth so why tamper with success?
I just cannot fathom this guy's endorsement of socialism. I simply do not want more government in my life. In fact, I'd like less, a lot less. He gives it away in the opening paragraph when he says that the cost of the birth of his son is free. It wasn't free Roger: You and you fellow tax payers were paying for it with exceptionally (even confiscatory) high tax rates. Man up Roger. Socialism is a scam for the government running everything and taking your hard earned money.
Except, to use your own example, the government does not "run" healthcare in France. The government funds the insurance pool through tax revenue ( you are correct that healthcare is not free), exercises payment oversight, and negotiates drug prices. And, French citizens pay less for their healthcare and drugs than we do. And are healthier than we are. Yep, better care for a lower price and better outcomes - we sure don't want anything like that to happen here!
3
If you feel that way Ed, I am sure you will be declining Medicare and Social Security, right? And fire and police protection?
1
While I don’t agree totally with Ed I do understand where he is coming from. Ed is most likely one of the 52% of people who actually pay Federal Taxes so he is not getting freebies as the 48% of people who do not pay taxes get. 48% of
the non payers are not only the 1%
1
If the nation survives Trump and continues to prosper it will discover a formula for success in retaining a measure of free enterprise blended with a significant measure of remediating democratic socialist initiatives.
The 2020 election is already being driven, however, by what down home we used to call "yella' dawg" Democrats, who will vote for a yellow dog if it is the only way to send the current disgrace in the White House packing.
There you go again. You describe AOC’s proposal as “soaking the rich” and then to add more obfuscation you mention “70% tax rate.” This is intellectually dishonest and you know it. We are currently in a time where the richest Americans pay the smallest percentage in taxes, exacerbating income inequality. Additionally, you must know that the 70% rate is not for all. It is only for the portion of income ABOVE $5million/year. You use these inaccuracies to scare people. How many Americans would be affected by this scary 70%? Less than 0.05%. Wow! That should really scare all the people making even $500,000/year! You skip the entire concept of progressive taxation. Every dollar below $5million/year would be taxed at a lower rate. This would affect a tiny part of the population. You exploit the % to generate fear. The fact that you do it knowing it’s intellectually bankrupt shows how far you are willing to go in terms of morality.
6
Any good idea can be taken to its absurd conclusion. But the devil is always in the details and nuances, some throw-away line gets us nowhere good.
A big lie is that the US is not already a Socialist country. Like France and the rest of modern Europe we enjoy a mixture of Socialism and Capitalism, the differences being the percentages of the mix. History and experience amply demonstrate that either if these two systems practiced in purity are disastrous.
2
" I don’t think soaking the rich — Ocasio-Cortez’s proposed 70 percent wealth tax — is going to get a Democrat to the Oval Office." With an election system dependent on campaign contributions from the very wealthy, and giant international corporations (see Citizens United), that quote is most likely, and most unfortunately, stating the truth.
1
I would like to see our nation become more fair to everyone. Having said that, how do we get from where we are now to where the progressives want us to be? Part of the benefit that Europe enjoys and only pays a fraction of the cost for, is the US defense umbrella. If we want European style benefits, how about we cut our $686 Billion defense budget in half and just spend what is needed to protect the US? Why should we suffer so the French can talk the entire month of August off?
Until we are willing to make serious changes to how we spend our $4.4 Trillion budget this is all a pipe dream. Come back with a spending plan that reallocates our existing budget and a plan for getting that passed and we'll talk, until then go away, you are not serious. BTW we already spend about $2.7 Trillion of our $4.4 Trillion budget on entitlements.
Good article Mr. Cohen. I agree, Dems should not marginalize business. But Dems should not slavishly worship at the alter of greed like Republicans do.
Business’ main function is to ‘make efficient’, ‘reduce waste’, and ‘streamline.’ Period. Pure competition forces the efficient to prosper which makes us all prosper as a result. Furthermore, people MUST work if they are physically and mentally capable. The human spirit is ennobled by work.
The welfare of the PEOPLE is the BUSINESS of GOVERNMENT, laws, schools, roads, etc. Here the human spirit is augmented by care for ones fellows.
Religion, Business, and Government are the three triads of society. Underlaid by the foundation of Family. Each of the Triads has its distinct and limited place in society.
Currently, 90% of the wealth and influence in this country is held by business. This is why our country is suffering.
2
Americans have never had a nuanced understanding of political philosophy which means it is unlikely Americans will realize we are talking about social democracy not socialism. Roger Cohen is describing one of many social democratic countries in the world.
It is hard to find democratic socialist countries In them, we would see not only public ownership of programs and services, such as universal healthcare, but also substantial ownership of many industries and large financial institutions and government democratically elected not controlled by an existing regime. Can anyone name one?
Brilliant!
The so-called rugged individualism of America is a myth. Government policies help the rich get rich and stay rich. Witness the Wall Street bailouts in 2008-2009. Major corporations that make billions of dollars in profits pay no taxes. This is not because of individualism, but it is about government policies that favor the rich.
Income inequality is a dangerous reality, and we have to put policies in place that promote economic justice.
Please visit the Women's March web site and read the policy agenda. Thanks.
2
Socialism in practice is different than the concept.
French socialism will never look like American socialism and to aver that socialist programs should be replicated here because they have been successes in France is hardly convincing.
Having a comprehensive social safety net is very appealing nonetheless and we should figure out how to get there in time.
Until then, current calls for 'socialism' sound like justifications for taking from the productive and giving it to the non-productive. Socialism should not provide the 'freedom from a lousy warehouse job' as the European economist quoted in the article says. The alternative to a lousy warehouse job in America is finding another, better job--not going on the dole.
1
Good, thoughtful piece. The other point to emphasize in European income distribution is the efficiency in which most of their social benefits are delivered, as Mr. Cohen notes in his opening references to France's universal, low-cost health care. The "cost-benefit" argument itself becomes difficult to align with government policy when efficient delivery is not factored into the discussion. In that regard, we could still learn much from our European cousins.
It is also critical to appreciate Mr. Cohen's point about the United States' establishing itself as a "contradistinction" to European governance models of the 18th century. In terms of our national ethos, we not only distinguished ourselves in concepts of self-reliance (which we shall not examine too closely in light of its contradicting dependency on expropriation of other people's lands and on imported slave labor), but also in the concept of state's rights.
Until the Civil War, our national identity was framed in an assembly of largely independent state republics, each with very differing opinions on the relationship of government to business, individual freedom, and social welfare. Many ante-bellum citations used the plural verb construct "the United States are" instead of "the United States is," reflecting a less-federalist national identity. In this regard even today, we face a different challenge than Europe in reifying national policy to address equity around social benefits or civil rights.
Roger—tax rates and actual tax payments are different and when you make the comparisons it would be better to talk about how much tax is paid by US vs. EU corporations.
10% structural unemployment, 20% unemployment rate for the young and Mr. Cohen highlights the French Socialist Economy as a model for the US. Vote Republican and save us from this insanity.
If you forget the labels and look at the proposal "socialist" ideas are wildly popular and far from a nightmare. In contrast Trump's erratic, uninformed and self-serving presidency is what could turn us into Venezuela.
2
Disagree with the "notion that American elections are won in the center was buried by Trump." Trump portrayed himself as a moderate/center person who had once upon a time embraced centrist and even Dem values such as abortion rights, infrastructure spending, etc.
He turned out to be extreme - bearing the extreme flag of his party/base, which was reasonably predictable since the GOP has gone off the rails of good solutions for our 21st century challenges (I quip that the GOP hasn't had one good idea in the 21st century for 21st century challenges). He turned out to only care about his base, and is thus willing to champion policies like environmental degradation that only a small minority of Americans actually support. Or his very likely ineffective border wall, and dramatically reduced taxes on corporations.
I chafe at so much of our Fed govt dysfunction being put on Trump when it really is the GOP base and Congress that is more the problem, and so deserves more the blame. They brought us the Iraq war - probably the worst foreign policy decision in US history. Voodoo economics that tax cuts result in more tax revenues. And poor governance generally - dismissive of fundamental good governance rules about conflicts of interest, etc. They are terrible governmental managers as a norm the last 20 years and voters need to see the GOP for what they are: inept people who deserved to be fired a long time ago.
3
Mr. Cohen proved to be a fine writer when it came to describing the despair of small town France, ignored under Macron who is fulfilling his promises to the rich, the winners, the "grande bourgeoisie" to advance their interests. However, he failed, as Times's Paris correspondent, to detect and write about the demographic shift in the 1960's and 1960's which resulted in middle class and working class folks being driven from the cities in favor of the rich and who were forced into perilous, gruesome housing projects, called euphemistically h.l.m.'s, "habitations a loyer modere,"Macron is so unpopular among working class folks that he cannot return to his home town of Amiens except under armed guard, only a slight exaggeration, because of his promotion of "delocalisation," off shoring which cost thousands of jobs. Folks point to Sweden as a socialist model, but folks forget that socialism means complete government control and in the case of Sweden, hundreds of thousands of Somalians, were allowed to enter by the govt. and there was no referendum held to see whether the average Swede approved. He had no say. Socialism always starts with high hopes, but inevitably ends in a dictatorship, in poverty and despair except for the inner sanctum of the elite which benefits big time.
If you're going to use Sweden as an example, you might do some fact checking as to whether the government there"has complete control". It does not. In fact, Sweden's economy is capitalist - just not the oligarchical capitalist model we worship here in the US.
The United States of America is most definatly a socialist nation: for the wealthy, and for select special interests such as the fossil fuel industry and parts of the agricultural industries.
The goal of American socialism is to protect the wealthy's unearned income, not the common good, like Senator Sanders version, but it is socialism just the same.
MB
4
Socialism no longer carries red-scare vibes in the United States either, at least in that part of our country which is not brain dead nor suckered into adoration of Donald Trump. The McCarthy era is long gone, some of the government's most popular programs, like Medicare and Social Security, are socialist in nature and red-baiting doesn't scare two-thirds of our populace.
3
What's called socialism in Europe is in fact social democracy. Dems should change the terminology. France under Mitterrand was not socialist. It was a democracy where the Socialist party was in power and adopted fairly modest social democratic measures.
1
Words matter, especially in politics. I wish Democrats would start using the term, 'Ethical Capitalism', rather than 'Democratic Socialist'.
2
@Bradleydean, the word floated around previously by Whole Foods CEO and like minded folks here in MA is: Conscious Capitalism.
1
Yes, the Dems are moving too far to the left to allow for a general election candidate who can actually win, which has to be the most important characteristic of the chosen candidate. But every time Trump and the GOP cries "socialism", the Dems need to point to the rising dictatorship in the White House. That's a far greater threat to our democracy.
1
There is only one moral imperative before us. That is defeating Trump at the voting booth. Everything else is secondary.
If Trump loses decisively and takes the Senate down with him, he will go from “savior” to “pariah’” - the Republican who lost the presidency and both House chambers in 4 years. Trump and Trumpism will end up on the scrap heap of history.
But if he wins...
In the mid-terms, the Republican who lost their seats in the house were defeated by and large by moderate Democrats. Significant numbers of suburban woman who voted for Trump came back to the party in the mid-terms. A shocking 85% of Republicans support Trump. But that leaves 15% - presumably moderate and more open minded Republicans - willing to consider alternatives.
We can all learn from 1972 election Then, like now, progressivism was in the air. Young people were mobilized; campuses were havens for progressive rallies. And, the incumbent President was despised by most on the left, and truth be told, most of the media.
Yet Richard Nixon crushed the progressive McGovern in one of the largest landslides in US history.
We must learn from History. We need to select the candidate most likely to defeat Trump.
Period.
That candidate must come from the moderate wing of the Democratic Party; someone at least palatable to those critical voters who voted for Trump in 2016 but are ready to be flipped in 2020.
2
Roger Cohen should perhaps choose another country other than France as a model for socialism in the 2020 US election. Macron complained about France spending too much on social security and sought to overhaul the welfare system in order to keep the budget within the EU deficit, which is on course to overshoot the EU budget deficit ceiling in 2019. There are no new spending cuts after Macron caved in to anti-government street protests. People are angry that he cuts public spending while slashing wealth tax.
Cohen should take a look at the Swiss or German model of “socialism” for the 2020 election campaign. Both countries embrace capitalism and have the most comprehensive welfare systems in the developed world. Swiss and Germans share the same work ethic as the Americans.
The German sociologist and economist, Max Weber, famous for his work – “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism – was much influenced by Benjamin Franklin.
If Americans would heed Franklin’s advice on frugality and thrift, the US deficit might have been much lower today.
1
Mr. Cohen is wrong. The next presidential election will be decided in the center. That's where the Obama voters that late voted for Trump sit. Pandering to the far left of the Democratic party will enable the much more cohesive far-right win another presidential election.
@Yo
It all depends on who, and what, defines the “center.” If we define the “Center” as what the Clintons and Obama represent then we must acknowledge that it gave us growing inequality that funnels more and more wealth to the one percent; it gave us bank deregulation and wild financial speculation that crashed the economy and that resulted in trillions for bank bailouts and nine million home foreclosures for the working class; it gave us trillions wasted on failing wars; it gave us a failing war on drugs and mass incarceration; it gave us a Republican Heritage Foundation health care system that leaves 30 million uninsured and 40 million underinsured with health care profits soaring and premiums rising; it gave us only the barest minimum of regulations to slow the oncoming climate catastrophe; it gave us the continuing destruction of unions and flat wages for the working class; and it gave us a permanent reactionary majority on the Supreme Court because the centrist Democrats allowed Mitch McConnell to steal the seat from under Obama. It also gave us Donald Trump. So thanks, but no thanks, to you “Centrists.”
On the other hand, we have those “far left” progressive policies like Medicare for All, free state college and university tuition; a $15 livable minimum wage; ending our costly and failing wars; and a real response to climate change that actually meets the scale of the catastrophe—all of which is favored by a majority of Americans.
So which “center” do you prefer?
1
@Chris G
I prefer the center of common sense rather than the crazy-left "center" that proposes economically disastrous policies of government subsidies for everything and everyone and the fundamentally stupid policy of immediate and massive demilitarization.
Roger understates the impact of Europe's more socialistic economy, as do all American liberals. He claims France has a capitalist economy at its core, and he is sort of correct. But the French government is highly interventionist, regulates the economy tightly, and owns stakes in many companies. That is more socialist than capitalist, Roger, and the result is an ossified economy that sees Parisian cab drivers rioting against Uber and the creation of no new tech companies in decades. American liberals can complain about the inequality caused by technological innovation in our country, but at the end of the day, we create jobs Europe is incapable of creating. When your best minds flee to Silicon Valley and New York to build a future, as has happened in France with its high taxes and endless regulation, your economy has failed. Indeed, when was the last time an American entrepreneur fled to Paris? The Jefferson Administration, perhaps?
1
"The notion that American elections are won in the center was buried by Trump".
An interesting feature of game theory is that it even outlasts the often-revered "data". Unlike the latter, it is relevant until the system substantially changes, and not reliant on attitudes staying consistent or on assuming a group of things are similar when they may not be.
Would people be making such bizarre claims about the death of the center if Trump had just barely lost instead of just barely won*? (Primaries with a NASCAR-sized field are a different matter.) A two party general election is about winning the median voter. One can move to the center (perhaps in a multi-dimensional sense), generate superior turnout, or cheat, with the first of these being the only one in full control of the candidate.
There are Democrat Senators from WV, MT and AL. Previously there were Democrat Senators from IN, MO & ND. They seem to have won (in part) by being extremely centrist, not with a small but determined band of quasi-socialist voters. Without those 3 seats, a Democratic majority in the Senate might be almost out of reach in 2020.
The center matters and it will always matter. This is a feature, not a bug.
Capitalism and socialism are not the only options we are facing.
Economic policies come on a continuum, with most approaches mixing elements of each. Our economic system includes both communal (e.g. Social Security) and individual (e.g. small business) elements. We need both and we need balance. History has shown that both laissez faire capitalism and Soviet style communism are dysfunctional and cruel. In a very wealthy country where 40 million people live in poverty, almost 30 million lack health insurance, and the top 1% has 40% of all wealth we are seriously out of balance and a correction is in order.
1
Let me ask you this. In the last twenty 25 years companies such as Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Uber, Lyft, Tesla, SpaceX and other were founded and grew to global dominance. Can you name one near equivalent that started in France? As the president of France said when Bill Gates visited in the early 1990’s, ‘a phenomena like MS would never happen in France’. And he was right. Is this what you want?
62
@Brian
Honestly, I would have to say that none of the companies you mention have added appreciably to my net quality of life. They’re not electricity, penicillin, or you name it. So I’d have to answer yes to your question.
85
@Brian You imply that globally dominant mega-corporations are somehow a good thing. Others would consider them monstrosities.
81
@Brian
I prefer activities that are forward thinking and add to the body of human knowledge, things like studying particle physics. France and CERN are interchangeable in my mind. I applaud them.
The tech behemoths? Except for Microsoft, which has given me a real product in the form of a computer, and Apple which makes computers and phones as well, I can, quite frankly, do without the Amazons and facebooks. They're just digital mechanisms to get people to buy endless stuff that's of little intrinsic value to humanity and which quickly ends up in landfills. Or, if it's not in somebody's house or landfills it's in some bizarre storage unit complex out in the burbs. Or, maybe, Marie Kondo is at their house trying to pry the garbage out of people's addicted, grasping fingers.
As for Bill Gates, maybe if he used his foundation to make sure people weren't living under bridges in Seattle instead of trying to be some globe-trotting big shot maybe we wouldn't be having some of these problems people like him created.
65
Socialism is a great deal in Europe . . . For the rich. I wonder how much time Roger Cohen has spent in Naples or the seedier parts of Marseilles. I wonder also if he has bothered to follow European elections, in which the socialist parties in France, Germany, and even Sweden have fallen to a fraction of their previous vote. This is a convincing article in 1979, but much less so today.
since france's economy is capitalist, you lost me at sentence one.
and aoc is no better:
"The definition of democratic socialism to me, again, is the fact that in a modern, moral and wealthy society, no American should be too poor to live"
which is also a great definition of capitalism, if one can substitute moral goals for definition of terms.
Socialism in America? It will never happen.
Fascism is alive an well. Donald Trump and his Republican minions have created a climate to nurture the extreme right which have always existed.
2
It's misleading to tar Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez so lazily with the brush of "Corbyn-ism" or even compare the two in the same paragraph. Corbyn is an old-fashioned state-control Marxist replete with the disgraceful anti-semitic, pro-chaotic tendencies of that breed. Ocasio-Cortez is a modern social democrat with inclusive instincts and a willingness to consider and improve new solutions to old problems.
1
I have a great fear that just when we could see off blood and soil, we’ve now privileged a new dimension, cake for all. National socialists were ... if I were the fox guy who’s just moved off to re-elect, I’d be lickin chops.
How does their military budgey as a percent of their total budget copare to ours?
Socialists like to conflate social programs with socialism.
It fools the dull-witted into believeing the siren song that socialism is benign.
Cohen isn't very good at it.
1
"It is a capitalist economy..." says Cohen, as he describes supposed 'socialism'.
I give up. Language today is wholly Orwellian. Social welfarism, or social democracy, is not 'socialism'.
Who cares what words mean anymore? It's all Humpty-Dumpty, all the way down. Or was it the hookah-smokin' caterpillar?
2
Imagine if any of these ‘socialist’ politicians were talking about Universal Basic Income. We’d have riots in the streets.
1
Ever notice that those most vehemently against “socialism “ are wealthy, or paid shills for them ? It’s the new GOP strategy, protect the Rich, it’s the patriotic, American thing to do.
Simple, nasty, selfish Greed.
1
How easy is it to immigrate to France? Can you just cross a border and get the same benefits as French enjoy? You need to mention all of these since I do not think that American taxpayer is eager to pay for global socialism.
Of course you will need to subsidize your socialism with capitalism.
1
@AVR,
Are you being facetious?
Because you just stated the entire point in a nutshell; the thing that so many of my fellow Americans can't seem to grasp.
Socialism by itself is not very productive.
Capitalism by itself is too destructive.
But the combination of the two things, a la Sweden or France, allows for both widespread prosperity and widespread security.
Capitalism "subsidizes" socialism while socialism civilizes capitalism.
I wouldn't say the general election will be about socialism. If Trumps runs it will probably be more about race. But, personally I agree with Washington State governor Jay Inslee who is a declared candidate and focusing his campaign on climate change. I think he is right that this is the last generation that can do anything about climate change. Basically, because of several decades of procrastination it is all riding on the next 20 years. To me focusing on socialism is a distraction from what is probably the most serious problem humans have ever faced. The young people have been protesting for action on climate change get it, they just don't seem to understand the obstacles. I think Inslee's laser-like focus on climate change is exactly right for this time of crisis with rising global temperature and still rising global greenhouse gas emissions.
187
@Bob
Aye, it would seem that Governor Inslee is the only one (at the moment) making climate change a primary plank of his platform, however,,,
IF (A MASSIVE IF) we are to get our act together in the next 20 years, then it will have to be one of two ways- At the very minimum it is going to require a complete realigning of our resources that may be paid for under a Socialist system, but ...
I truly think though that it is going to a require a global effort where ALL governments are working in tandem (whereas we might have to do away with money altogether) to just have a chance to save ourselves.
I am not being hyperbolic.
18
@FunkyIrishman
I would say both of your points are unrealistic, certainly within the time frame of 20 years and having to start pretty much now to get up to speed. Inslee is going to put out the details of his climate plan in a few weeks so I am waiting to see exactly what his plans are. I think the main thing that sets Inslee apart from the other Democratic candidates besides his knowledge of working intensely at the state level on this issue is that he promises to make climate change his number one priority and says literally every federal agency would have be involved. Of course on the world stage he would have to convince other world leaders to make a similar effort. I think he would have a good idea of the challenge ahead of him when he gets to see the voluntary emissions reductions that all countries will make at the international climate meeting in 2020.
7
America always was a problem solving country - it never shy away from challenges, as we see in the story of moon mission, or New Deal programs. The most economically successful country in the world today is China, its economic growth has outshined the economic growth history of America. Let us look how it happened. Daushou Ping looking to very dismal growth rate of communist China in seventies, send Chinese scholars all over the world to find out the different economic models and on knowing these models he concluded that market economy is best for growth. He adopted it, but he did not whole sale abolished the communist state enterprises, he inter twined both of them and created China specific economic model that created this miracle. America needs a Daoshou Ping to get the American system out from Anglo-Saxon economic orthodoxy. The so-called Socialist Democrats today are challenging this orthodoxy and asking the leaders to have open mind to find new way to address American economic and social challenges. World is fast changing and no longer America can maintain its economic power if new ideas do not fuel this economic engine.
1
Republicans drop "socialism" like a four-letter word. Remember how they disparaged the ACA as "socialized medicine," even though it benefits healthcare companies, was based on a Republican concept, and its incipient form was established by a Republican Governor? Unfortunately, this is not a contest of ideas, it's just a war of words here, and the "s" word is a non-starter.
108
@NM Unfortunately the "s" word, socialism, does have a serious negative connotation with many Americans.
They may enjoy their Social Security, and demand better coverage in their Medicare, but they feel they paid into these programs and view them as an investment.
That is why Republicans unrelenting attacks on them have been blunted.
That being said, it is in the boardrooms and executive suites of America's corporations that the alarm at the mere mention of socialism sets of a tidal wave of weaponized money.
Money to buy political "speech".
Until campaign finance is truly reformed progressive politics is facing a daunting battle.
6
@NM They are very adept at this. Frank Luntz effectively created the expression “death tax,” one of the biggest and most corrosive deceptions of the Republican Party. It is and always been an Inheritance Tax, which was designed to collect tax on appreciated real estate and securities that had never been paid and now never will be.
13
@Robert FL
Senator Bernie Sanders campaign will again demonstrate that small contributions can trump big money, and together with a bold message that resonates with the many... if not with the wealthier, status quo oriented few,
THE MANY WILL WIN
President Bernie Sanders 2020!
8
But think, Mr. Cohen, how much more 'self reliant' workers slaving away in 'lousy warehouse jobs' could be if they were paid a living wage, had access to lifelong healthcare, and were afforded opportunities, through world-class public education, to better themselves.
This 'self-reliance' vs. 'brotherhood' argument you're making is beneath you, Mr. Stone. It's not "either/or," it is absolutely possible to have both. Go out there and interview America and I'd bet you find out that what I'm saying is exactly true.
People say they want government out of their lives, yet they love their Medicare and Social Security. Sense any contradiction there?
This 'bristling independence' you speak of is a myth. Once we moved from an agrarian to an industrial economy, independence was dead. We're all wage earners now, not homesteaders living on our little patch of Nebraska heaven, raising our own sheep, spinning our own yarns to make clothes, digging our own wells, and putting up our own turnips for winter. It's just not like that anymore. It's just not. We're not going to be spinning our own yarns, we're going to be working in warehouses.
Can we please, before we utterly destroy ourselves as a nation, figure this out?
3
why go so far to France? look our friendly neighbor, Canada - vast country with resources as good as America. we lived there for 15 years. our two children were born there. nobody asked any question or asked for any medical paper when went to the mergenvcy room in the hospital or the doctor office. both children received children's stipends as soon as they were born - we did not fill up any form. it was the hospital record. the first shocking experience we faced when we moved to Arizona. Our younger son was hospitalized in an emergency dehydrated. before he was seen by a doctor they asked me to produce insurance paper. we had it but was not used to carry it with us. I had to go home and get those paper before our son was released. there are many ways to skin the cat - telling us there are many ways to define democratic socialism. not the scary way mr. Trumps defines.
1
No mention of the VAT that in Europe has replaced most levels of income tax and greatly simplified the system. It has supplied enormous amounts of revenue that has paid for universal healthcare and their modernized infrastructure. How come?
Why is it off the table?
87
VAT should be on the table.
But keep in mind VAT is a consumption based regressive tax which will be a higher burden on the poor.
This and an almost flat income tax is how the Scandinavian countries fund the generous welfare state.
Burden is on the middle class and poor. Not the rich.
8
@JHN: because it falls most heavily on the poor and working class, and lower middle class, as they must spend almost their entire income on necessities????
VATs are the most regressive of all taxes.
5
@JHN European countries also have typically a 30% employment social security tax and a 40-50% income tax that is basically flat and starts typically at about $12,000 per year income levels. Everyone who works contributes very substantially, over 50% of earnings, to the welfare state. For example, a recent Times article claimed that a Spaniard self employed earning 1,000 euro a month took home 365 euro after his social and income taxes, and he will pay over 20% additional VAT taxes on his spending. This is fair taxation for all.
4
Too many Americans are in denial about how "socialist" our history is. This socialism arose because of the obvious harm unfettered capitalism was seen doing to our society. Funny that America was at its greatest as a result of socialist policies.
195
America is already a socialist country as it is. I often like to remind people that the budget of the Department of Health and Human Services is the highest of any Department and of course higher than the Defense Department. Public schools come with zero out of pocket expenses for the parents of students enrolled in public schools all through out the country. The government is the employer of most people in the country. Social security is not really a socialist program because Americans pay into it all their lives except the government manages it.
What is on the table to debate for 2020 is doubling down on socialism by increasing taxes? Most Americans will not mind the tax increases on millionaires and billionaires as that is no skin off their backs. Can government effectively implement programs like medicare for all and green deal would be my question? Optimal Health care for all responsible Americans who do not cause self inflicted harm would be a great goal but without disrupting the private health care in America for those who can afford it, which is world class. A parallel government efficiently managed and run healthcare that is cost effective and without a profit motive would be in order. As far as free college education for all that is a socialist program above and beyond what is currently available. The Federal low interest loan program is quite generous and the loan recovery program quite lenient even though many are saddled with large loans to repay it works.
1
John Marshall said it best, "The power to tax is the power to destroy." The problem with socialism is that rather than having to sue a company to right some wrongdoing, one must sue the government, which, as anyone knows, is quixotic. In France, the yellow vest protests are still ongoing. Petrol is $6.00 a gallon, and the protests were due to an additional tax to be levied on top of the huge tax already imbedded in that $6.00 price. When companies are careless, it adversely affects many people. When the government is careless, it affects everyone. We often forget what the founders of our nation knew in their heart; the greatest threat to democracy is government.
1
"The notion that American elections are won in the center was buried by Trump."
Clinton got more votes than Sanders. Clinton got more votes than Trump.
Without Sanders, Wikileaks, Russia, and Comey, Clinton would have won.
The center is where the power in this country is. The yelling, however, is on the left. But yelling isn't power.
73
@Dan
Had HRC put Sanders or someone like him on her ticket, she would have had a walk, despite voter suppression and the failure to count the provisional ballots in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
She also, in my estimation, dragged under the Senate seats in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. May also have adversely affected Florida.
16
@Daniel F. Solomon
Still can't see that the loss wasn't because of anything Clinton did, can you? For some odd reason there is this need on the far left to blame Clinton when she bravely had to fight back all number of challenges that no man had ever had to face when running for President.
Put Sanders on the ticket? That would have given Trump an even larger victory. And many centrist Democrats would have thought she had lost her mind.
She didn't drag down the Senate seats--instead that was the cumulative effect of Sanders, Wikileaks, Russia, and Comey.
The socialists are a gift from heaven for Trump. Yet it won't be they, in general, who will suffer. Instead, it will be the vulnerable in our society who will suffer.
12
@Dan Clinton's actual platform was the most progressive set of policies of any major party presidential candidate in my life time. Of course, her failure to adhere to IT best practices was deemed more important than her policies, but she was hardly running as a "centrist" in the third way, no labels, and, god help us Howard Schultz model.
5
The voices we are hearing in America these days reflect a growing dissatisfaction with policies that exacerbate income inequality, but do so in a way that for many, the promise of upward economic mobility is now seen as out of reach.
This dissatisfaction, interestingly, is shared by many in Trump's base, as well as by progressives and even social democrats, like AOC. The fact is, it isn't just minorities and poor whites who are suffering from a lack of resources. It also includes professionals and middle and even upper-middle households in the suburbs across America. There is a widespread foreboding -- which Trump's mindless government exacerbates -- that the fix is in for only the wealthiest, the most plugged in, the most influential, the most criminal and civil corrupt. Rules, many believe, don't apply the higher one rises on the wealth wave.
The pejorative of "socialism" is trotted out by the elites (mostly but not exclusively Republican) to make sure this dissatisfaction never reaches the ballot box. Overcoming this hurdle, which Cohen rightly points out is embedded in the American psyche, will require candidates who can lead bipartisan efforts to put things more into balance, as has happened in the other western democracies. Time for America, for once, to learn from other nations, and not keep digging the same hole even deeper.
5
That "bristling independence of spirit that wants government out of their lives" is one aspect of Americans' cultural essence that interferes with the acceptance of socialism.
Another is that Americans feel free of class as understood in Old World societies, and they're not entirely deluded in feeling so. The difference is captured in an old joke:
An American and a Frenchman are walking along a road, when a rich man in a big car roars by and leaves them covered in dust. The American thinks, "Someday I'll drive a car like that." The Frenchman thinks, "Someday I'll drag that man out of his car and make him walk like everyone else."
Americans recognize inequity in their society, but not the codified class structure within which working-class people of some other countries have historically viewed upward mobility as class treason. Where people are class-conscious, socialist ideology is not a reach. Where they're not, it is.
The kinds of economic policy favored by socialists are another matter. They have proven appealing to many Americans in the past when they were offered -- by Democrats -- for the express purpose of relieving hardship and providing opportunity, not for the express purpose of leveling society. If America's Socialists had been content to behave like its Democrats, they might have made more headway.
Even in the current Second Gilded Age, social leveling is probably not an idea whose time has come. But something called enforced fairness may be.
1
Roger, please your your facts right.
Ocasio-Cortez never proposed a 70% wealth tax. She proposed a 70% marginal tax rate on income over $10 million a year.
Warren proposed an annual 2-3% wealth tax on net worth over $50 million.
These are very different things and would have very different impacts on people from Greenwich to Southampton, from Martha’s Vineyard to St. Bart.
I’m not surprised to hear you describe yourself as a centrist (in the pages of the Times, I expect nothing different) but may I remind you and other centrists of 2016, where a credibly qualified centrist lost to the political equivalent of a rutabaga.
So when you say that Democrats couldn’t get elected with a 70 percent tax rate, I say, 70% or higher worked for FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, JFK, Johnson, and Nixon and that’s good enough for me. And centrism is so unappealing that Trump won.
American “centrism” is really just Republican economics married to a Democratic idea of social justice, as long as social justice doesn’t cost anything.
It’s a way for upper middle-class and rich folks to feel good about themselves without paying a dime more in taxes.
There is nothing wrong with centrism. It’s just not particularly noble, and, contrary to centrists self-perception, centrism isn’t necessarily the most reasonable or even the majority point of view.
Trump ran to the left of Clinton on economics and won. Take that, centrism.
11
You are exactly correct, Mr. Cohen. The Fox News Trumpites want, more than anything, "to be known." Might be the siren cry of 2020. When a heartlander dresses in red hat and skips to a Trump rally, he or she is going where he or she is recognized, celebrated, allowed to smile and laugh and clap and boo at what THEY find touching or funny or right or not right.
Trump has them. They are his, and, in their hearts, he is theirs. I don't see Democrats winning over a single one of them...their own sons and daughters have tried and failed.
They are the opposition. The only choice Dems have is to beat them by rousting more voters than they.
So, who are the ones who believe they are "known" by the Democrats? And are they an enthusiastic majority big enough to win in 2020?
1
Do Americans have any idea how frustrating it is be Canadian, sitting next door to you, our dear neighbors, and watching your tired debates of the merits of universal health care and paid parental leave, when we have decades of proof that such “socialist” programs work? Despite being the 38th largest country by population, Canada has the 10th largest economy. On almost all indicators, including quality of life measures, it tops or ranks near the top of global measures. We don’t have quite all of the European social frills, but we have the ones that make the biggest difference (see above), with tax rates that sit just about in the global middle. Why not just settle for some middling, moderate socialism? It’s working in Canada.
16
@Elizabeth Mayer. Elizabeth, how right you are. My Republican friends throw the word “socialism” around like a frisbee without the slightest understanding of its many shades of meaning or manifestation. Very often they misunderstand it to be synonymous with Communism. This had better be straightened out soon.
Mr. Cohen, as usual I largely agree with you here. However, I would like to make two points - first, as Funky Irishman has already commented, if you were to conduct a "man-on-the-street" poll I am sure you'd find that most Americans could not give an accurate working definition of socialism. That's known to the GOP, and the party will surely feast on that ignorance, as it does in so many other ways. Secondly, while corporate tax rates in Sweden are indeed lower than the marginal US corporate rate, the individual rates are far higher. As you point out, European nations fund their governments, whereas in the US we do not. I hope Democratic candidates will be up to the task of explaining all this to the electorate, and that the electorate senses just how far off-track we currently are. If not, I hate to think where we're headed.
6
How socialism is defined or applied is inconsequential. The best definition of capitalism is not what it “is” but what it “is not.” Capitalism is not socialism, communism, collectivism, fascism, Marxism, command economy, etc. Capitalists must ardently defend free markets and the invisible hand while vociferously rejecting these other systems and all their aspects. If socialism embraces organized labor, capitalists must reject it. If communism baited labor equally to capital, capitalists must refuse to give it value. And so on. Anything less risks opening doors that cannot be closed.
2
Utter ideological nonsense. Capitalism and socialism have proved - proved! - perfectly compatible for decades, in Europe, Canada, Japan... and indeed, in the USA. And it's very clear that any decent society needs both. Cling to ideology if you wish, but the actual world if facts and reality - not to mention decency and humanity - decisively contradicts your ideology.
@From Where I Sit: The American version of capitalism is
actually creeping fascism.
More well-being for lower class Americans, yet not too much, kind of not buying beer over food. As long as elites remain at the control hand, everything is fine.
1
What is old is new again..
Imagine an America if FDR's 2nd Bill of Rights had been enacted..
Republicans and the wealthy have been working for over 80 years to dismantel the New deal with the help of the modern Democratic party. Now we are faced with economic inequities that exceed even that of the 1920s.. We should all be ashamed of the America we currently have. Is it any wonder Americans are angry.
FDR second bill of rights January 11, 1944
Among these are:
The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education.
All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.
9
@Rjnick: It was not the New Deal that rescued us from the Great Depression, but rather WWII. By 1938, 6 years after he won, America was still in the grips of a dramatic economic downturn, which is why FDR sought a way around the Neutrality Acts, and a casus belli which would be the excuse to get involved in the Second World War. The casus belli was the Japanese kamikaze attack on Pearl Harbor which some say FDR anticipated and knew about in advance. Take that "oui dire " for what 1 thinks it is worth, but economically New Deal was a failure and it took our entry in the war to rescue the economy!
Thanks Rjnick for this great reminder of America's greatest social democrat's blueprint for a juster and more humane America. The modern Dem Party ought to make frequent reference to this document.
@Alexander Harrison So let me guess you thank S.S. is a scam, Workers rights are a joke, Public works were one big waste of tax payers money.. These are just a few of New Deal programs which changed American lives for the better these past 80 years..
Although I agree with much of the thrust of this op-ed piece, I do think it important to get facts right. AOC’s proposed 70% tax is not a “wealth” tax as Elizabeth Warren’s tax proposal is, but rather an “income” tax that only applies only to annual income over 10 million dollars, which I suspect will not affect a great many people.
6
How marvelous to see the word "socialism" used with understanding. The term as used here to describe the workings of the system is not the same used by traditional, historical thinkers and writers on the subject. As used describing the France of today and other European countries, it implies a democracy with social programs that takes care of the needs of the people, much the same way that Bernie Sanders uses it and has used it in the past.
Fox News and others like it attempt to use prejudices against the term to discriminate against recent Democratic candidates. but as usual are guilty of exaggeration and lying.
3
I am afraid that many people do not seem to understand that there is already an established term for describing "France and other European countries" based upon "a democracy with social programs that take care of the needs of the people." That term is "social democracy," NOT "socialism" (nor is it "democratic socialism"). The Wiki articles on both terms ("social democracy" and "socialism") are illuminating and should really be read by anyone interested in this topic. One can only wonder why Sanders, who must know the difference between "socialist" and "social democrat," keeps calling himself a "socialist," though the policies he currently advances are those of "social democracy." Either he likes confusion, or there is some unspoken agenda.
1
“The basic requirement of any Democratic candidate is to make the forgotten, the struggling and the invisible of American society feel visible again.” Amen. What I do not understand is how the forgotten can forget so quickly where most of the policies that benefit them actually came from: Democrats. And why those who are struggling are so easily taken in by Trump’s false words, which are never supported by his actions. “I will be your voice” very quickly became “let’s cut corporate taxes and screw small businesses with trade wars.” Watch what they do, not what they say.
6
How about corporate socialism as in the tax exclusion given to corporate profits 'allocated abroad" which amounts to billions in saved taxes for US corporates. Wonder why so many US corporations pay no federal taxes for years on end? These corporations not only pay much lower wages in countries like China and Mexico but they are tax subsidized to move factories and jobs abroad and they escape the full rigors of US safety regulations e.g. 80 % of all drugs used in the US are made in China! This is a monumental betrayal of American working families through tax subsidies. So much for Trump's tax "reform".
6
Republican talent for poisoning perceptions of people and ideas has already made "socialism" a dirty word. Dems should find another way to express their beliefs in justice and equity, the lack of which deprives so many of the chance to achieve the "American Dream."
3
“For most people today, socialism is freedom from a lousy warehouse job or working 80 hours a week in a job you detest for people you detest.”
Here is where you begin to lose people. Freedom gives people the ability to make these changes in their own lives. Don’t focus on taking over the means of production. Focus on making it easier for people to strike out on their own. And yes, this means cuts in regulation. I don’t have the time to expand on this thesis, but many will get the point.
4
""Like Britain’s leftist Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, she favors significant state intervention in the economy. Trump, unerring in his instinct for the jugular, declares, “We believe in the American dream, not the socialist nightmare.”"
Odd words for a president who was coddled from birth, subsidized by his rich father, and now in the center of power, spends most of his t erm killing the American dream for anyone other than his billionaire friends.
I agree, socialism has a terrible sound, and an even more terrible reaction in our polarized society. I would much prefer avoiding labels, and actually going back to some of the themes of the 2016 campaign developed by none other than Donald Trump.
Level the playing field, fight rigged systems, drain the swamp, what ever--these were Trump's promises as he picked off disenchanted Democrats tired of corporate money staining top Democratic echelons.
But words are just that--words. Look at what Trump does, and you'll see we're way worse off in terms of the forces crying out for socialism as they seen solutions for the fact that only one small segment of the population is getting rich at their expense.
12
@ChristineMcM, well said, so can you please, belatedly, get behind Liz Warren and Bernie Sanders! Pretty please.
1
Chat is useless if you do not define what you mean by socialism, communism and progressivism. As I understand it, only communism involves total ownership of the means of production, so the Soviet Union was not socialist, it was communist.
2
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.
1
Well ... social democracy is not socialism and although there is a tendency to mix the two it is wrong.
What is called social democracy are actually countries with a capitalist economic system based on private enterprises and more or less free market with a generous welfare state.
This welfare state is funded by a high tax burden on the middle class and poor (not the rich).
1
Merriam Websters:
Definition of socialism
1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property
b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3 : a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done
This articles makes the logical point that the reason these psuedo-socialist countries in Europe exist is only because they’ve had extended periods of capitalist growth. Politicians like AOC forget why there’s wealth to redistribute in the first place. They want all the tax revenue but don’t want the people who create it...
4
I am surprised and disappointed that Cohen, typically so astute, is helping perpetuate the confusion between "socialism"(including "democratic socialism") and "social democracy." France is not a "socialist" nation, but a "social democracy." When Sanders referred to Denmark as a "socialist" nation a couple years back, Denmark's prime minister went out of his way, in a speech at Georgetown University, to correct him. Denmark, like France, the prime minister explained, wishes to have, and has, a vibrant private ("capitalist") sector. The "socialist" name of several European parties is merely a legacy from origins those parties have long since abandoned. The Scandinavian nations, France, and others determined long ago that "state ownership and control of the means of production" is not a viable road to prosperity, and instead adopted the program of a vibrant private sector carefully regulated to protect workers' rights and insure the general well-being---i.e., "social democracy." We cannot have a reasonable debate in this country about our preferred political economy if we keep referring to those who hate "capitalism" (i.e., private enterprise) and those who believe (with the architect of Swedish social democracy, Taje Erlander) that "the market is a useful servant but an intolerable master" by the same catch-all term, "socialist."
15
Loose definitions of Socialism are muddying the entire discussion. Thanks for delineating the real meaning. Schools don’t seem to be teaching this anymore.
1
The column compares tax revenue as a percentage of GDP between the US and France. But perhaps it should have compared government spending, or government spending excluding debt service. In a few years, we will be borrowing over 100% of GDP each year, and using most of it to pay existing bondholders.
1
I am troubled how easily and comfortably, Cohen compares AOC to Britain's Corbyn, without mentioning that both show tendencies toward anti-Semitism. If he is her role model across the pond, we as American Jews should be very concerned with these new voices being raised. When socialism, even in its mildest form begins to include anti-Semitism as one of its whispered cornerstones, there is a great reason for concern here and anywhere that these voices drown out reasonable and needed progress.
5
@June Hersh, you are playing right into Trump's games of equating socialism with anti semitism. I would state the opposite is true, that all those who did not vote for Bernie in 2016 primaries, were actually being anti semitic, because they could not see themselves voting for an old angry Jewish Uncle like figure.
Not voting for Bernie is first and foremost an anti Jew sentiment (never mind socialism capitalism), no matter which way you spin it. Fortunately, our youth do not see it that way, they were drawn to the old Jew from Brooklyn because he portrayed a vision for their future like no other candidate, opening their eyes to reality and truth however harsh it might seem.
1
Although interesting to read, I am not sure the author understands much in regards to health care costs and delivery in the US compared to countries like France.
4
Amen. Just don't play into Trump's hands and call yourself a Socialist, even a Democratic Socialist. Social-Democrat is better, and more accurate.
4
@Rjv, you are absolutely right. All those crying foul post Omar episode are playing right into Trump's hands. Watch and see how he equates socialist with anti Israel anti Jewish narrative. Just as the black congressional caucus made sure blacks would not vote for Bernie in the democratic primaries in 2016, so is Trump attempting to draw American Jews towards him and the republican party by playing word games (very effective) with the sensitivities of the easily rattle-able American Jews in this country. Watch how he manipulates them. Already republicans are succeeding in playing older democrats against younger ones, just as the DNC was able to manipulate older democrats to vote for Hillary, ignoring the needs vision and wishes of the youth who were backing Bernie.
1
Life under socialism has forced the French to define public good. If people who want progress in America continue to obsess over the word socialism, instead of what public goods government should deliver and how best to deliver, we drown the fish.
5
"Two of my children were born in socialist France. They survived. In fact, their births were great experiences: excellent medical care, wonderful postnatal follow-up, near-zero cost."
Near zero cost? No, not zero cost. Or near zero. Or even close to zero.
It's just that somebody else was paying for it.
So much for the French paradise.
5
@John Xavier III I don't honestly think thatanybody seriously advocating for these systems truly thinks these things are 'free'. But the fact is that when everybody pays a little into these systems- suddenly nobody has to worry about dying because they can't afford treatment.
4
@LSFoster
Well then why are they calling it "near-zero cost"?
And your other fantasy is unjustified. The fact is, yes, the fact, that under a socialist health care system everybody has to worry about dying, because there aren't enough beds, enough doctors, enough medicines, and enough instruments. The market does not allocate resources, the government decrees resource by fiat, and the government is either wrong or engages in triage, because there are no price signals.
You think I am wrong? Giving birth is a trivial procedure. Try a kidney transplant. Try a heart transplant. Try a quadruple bypass. Try dialysis. Try a major operation. And then try any of these when you are 80 years old: the socialist death panels start crinkling their noses - yeah, but we have 50 year olds waiting, you get to the back of the line. And back. And back some more. Don't you see that we have limited resources? You've had a pretty good long life ... why not be a nice guy and make room.
No, thanks. Never.
1
@John Xavier III
American selfishness rears its ugly head....again. Heaven forbid that we should contribute to someone else's well-being. That would go against our "Christian principles", aka
hypocrisy.
Socialism is pro-business but also pro-regulation. That is one of the reasons big agriculture does not poison Europeans with their food "products" the way they do U.S. citizens. That's the reason big pharma can't charge whatever price they want in European countries the way they do in the U.S. That's the reason corporations can't pollute the environment in Europe the way they do in the U.S. That's the reason European laborers have job security while U.S. laborers have none.
U.S. capitalism is anti-regulations. Corporations will do nothing voluntarily which will adversely affect their profit. They must be regulated and that includes imposing anti-trust regulations.
Neither the GOP nor the Democrats have regulated corporations as they should have over the past 40 years. Times up!
5
When I think about a lot of the issues the Mr. Cohen talks about here, the words that come to mind are "…but not at any price." For example...
Do I support capitalism? Absolutely, but not at any price: if the price is a few obscenely wealthy oligarchs and no middle class, that price is too high.
Do I support the vaunted American self-reliance Mr. Cohen mentions? Of course… but not an any price. If that price is tossing people who haven't had the best of luck onto a human scrap pile, that price is too high.
Do I support government staying out of peoples' lives? You bet… but not at any price. If that price includes letting you abuse women or children, I darn well expect the government to intervene, because that price is too high.
Do I support "business-friendly" government ? Yes, but not at any price. If the cost is worker exploitation, pollution, impure foods or ineffective drugs, that's too high a price. (But that doesn't preclude treating socially responsible companies with respect.)
I think I pretty generally subscribe to all of the notions we commonly think of as "American", but not at any price. And this sure feels a better way to frame conversations than arguing about drivel like whether someone's a "capitalist" or "socialist".
395
Very well said! This is the best comment I have read this week, maybe this month.
43
@GH Excellent! Shows how you can get to the same place with better framing.
29
This is brilliantly and elegantly stated.
33
Taxes for most people in Europe are no different than what those in the US pay. The difference is that in the US they hide all of their taxes beyond the basic income tax in the form of fees, local taxes, sales taxes, parking passes. Even US state and national parks charge for access.
4
Scandinavian income taxes raise a lot of revenue because they are actually rather flat. In other words, they tax most people at these high rates, not just high-income taxpayers. The top marginal tax rate of 60 percent in Denmark applies to all income over 1.2 times the average income in Denmark. From the American perspective, this means that all income over $60,000 (1.2 times the average income of about $50,000 in the United States) would be taxed at 60 percent.
So in essence the middle class and poor have a much higher tax burden than the rich.
4
@Jon Well done. Most people here in the US don’t realize that our taxes are typically more progressive than a lot of European nations.
3
And that does not include the extremely high value added tax (VAT) which is a tax on consumption. This is a flat tax that does not burden the rich. It is a burden on the middle class and poor.
But this is what enables the generous welfare state.
2
@Jon
See Mons’ comments one level up.
I don’t think we have to go “left” at all. Let’s fix our capitalist system with capitalist adjustments. For instance. If there a product out there that is causing harm or creating future cost that are not being captured in the current production and consumption process that future cost must be charged and collected at the time of production or consumption. Oil and gas are good examples. Their production and consumption comes at a cost to future generations in the form of climate change. That cost must be estimated and added to the prices consumers pay today. This is not radical socialism. It’s just a common sense adjustment to capitalism’s obvious flaws.
5
@may21ok
Perhaps another example of (or extension of) your idea: a 'public option' competitor. In various domains: health insurance, employment, education, drug manufacture. Thus indirectly setting a floor to wages and delivered value for cost that private offerings would have to beat. And diminishing to the extent that they do.
I agree with some and I say some of the Democrat Socialist ideas their name choice will scare people away and used against them as a scare tactic by the Republicans. For New Yorkers the Amazon fiasco was a defining moment and clearly took the Progress out of Progressive and made people in the middle realize that they have to make a political choice
4
Universal healthcare and government-paid college education would help to ensure a healthy, well-educated citizenry. Why is that not a reasonable goal?
11
"..Everyday I become more convinced, there is no doubt in my mind, as many intellectuals have said, that it is necessary to transcend capitalism. But capitalism can not be transcended through capitalism itself; it must be done through socialism, true socialism, with equality and justice. I’m also convinced that it is possible to do it under democracy, ..."
Sounds good, right?
Ask Venezuelans today what they think about the author of that quote, Hugo Chavez
11
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.
And usually this comes with a brutal authoritarian government which forces the population to comply.
Good luck.
9
@bruno
So the vast poverty and hunger, poor economic growth and absolute refusal to share the oil wealth in the pre-Chavez era was a testament to the greatness of capitalism, as currently seen in the other vibrant capitalist economies in the region --paradises like Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador?
Or, if you're going to argue that Venezuela really was a paradise, why was Chavez so popular with the poor -- meaning a large majority of Venezuelans?
@jrd
Venezuela was by no means perfect. BUT it was orders of magnitude better than the failed state that it is now.
Poverty rate in the 70-80 was around 20% and there was no hunger. Now it is about 90% and people are dying of hunger and lack of medicines.
Contrary to what most believe oil was already nationalized and the oil company run by Venezuelans way before the Chavez/Maduro regime.
- You could get a top-notch college education fro free in a public University (I did).
-Elections were free and fair and new presidents were elected every 5 years.
- We had people all over the world migrating into Venezuela. Not like now when more than 10% of the population have had to escape the country.
21 century socialism has not been kind to Venezuela
1
I read an article in a prominent left wing magazine the other night. It was about the differences between "Social Democracy" and "Democratic Socialism", and how the latter should be the goal of the left in America.
They were advocating for things like the public ownership of businesses and saying that European and Scandinavian systems weren't socialist "enough."
This was not a fringe magazine but one widely read on the left and with prominent contributers.
Both my family and my husband's family rose from poverty through starting businesses. They put into these businesses hard work, capital scrimped and raised from their own labor (in some cases hard, manual, hands on labor), and years of their lives. My family employs about 100 people in the community with good, living wage with benefits and PTO, manufacturing jobs. My husband's parents were immigrants from a European country where socialism kept people in their place and bled citizens to America, where, as my father in law says "you can work as hard as you want and eat steak every night" which is exactly what he did, after a childhood of malnutrition and poverty.
And there are Bernie Bros who think this EARNED wealth should be stolen and "democratized?"
I voted for Hillary in 2016, for Democrats in 2018, and I am currently registered as a Democrat. I am pro-choice, pro-GLBT rights, pro-Obamacare, and pro-environment.
But I will vote for Trump before I will vote for any candidate that even smells of socialism.
17
@A F Hard work always pops up as an excuse to abuse fair treatment of other humans. I have no doubt that tens of millions of citizens work just as hard for many times smaller wages than their bosses but an unbalanced system still leaves them unable to keep up with the economic demands where personal wealth is the goal of capitalists at the expense of the rest of society. There are just too many citizens in society for rock hard cynical individual capitalists to do the economic decision making for the rest of society. Prior to the Twentieth Century the labor of agriculture was the mainstay of survival for the masses. Few survived if they could not find a way to live in an agricultural society so there were plenty of rugged individuals because there was plenty of land ways and means to survive off of the land. Those days are long gone and the thinking about human survival has changed significantly since.
1
I am interested in reading the article to which you referred. What magazine was that?
1
Socialism puts the dignity of the individual in peril. It is a power grab that leads to authoritarianism.
15
Describing political parties.
Reasonable people will conserve what works, and implement change where progress or improvements can be made.
Both natures are present in reasonable people. People who are opposed to progress, or opposed to preserving what works are extremists. Purity is not a virtue in this context.
Names or descriptions of political parties that don’t clearly identify what they would conserve and what they would change just contribute to more confusion.
4
Corporations don't pay taxes. Ultimately the incidence of corporate taxes falls upon some combination of workers, owners of capital, and consumers. So why not set corporate taxes at zero in the U.S. and raise the necessary government revenues with a value added tax? (Under world trade agreements, a VAT is rebated on exports and imposed on imports, itself a major selling point that is not lost on our competitors.) Those worried that a VAT or any other form of consumption tax is too regressive can mitigate that shortcoming via a guaranteed minimum income of say $2,500 or $5,000 for every American adult citizen.
3
Socialism is beyond caring about the size of the welfare safety net - it comes with a strong element of government compulsion and force. It's not a coincidence that the rise of socialists in the democratic party has come at the same time that freedom of speech and freedom of religion are up for debate on the Left. Rep. Omar's antisemitic statements were no worse than anti-catholic bias certain Trump judicial nominees have faced in the Senate. Progressives being triggered by perceived micro-aggressions and tarring opposing views as racist or sexist is a daily fact of life.
Mr. Cohen may think this can all be portrayed as some sort of normalcy, but I doubt a majority of Americans will support more and stricter government overlords controlling their everyday lives.
9
The new democratic socialists embody your "independence of spirit." They may be under the thumb of the fossil fuel companies and behemoths like Amazon, etc., but they have decided to fight.
Bernie laid out the "socialist" agenda in the last election and now it has become the democratic platform, endorsed in whole or in part by every democrat running for the presidency.
The Green New Deal is like that. At first it looks like a bridge too far because it demands a reorganization of the fossil fuel industries' plans to export oil and natural gas by means of fracking. But the people see that pulling out of the Paris accords leaves us as the only country still calling climate change a hoax instead of trying to fix it. Do we dump Trumpism while there still may be time, or do we condemn the coming generations to a world so polluted that they may not survive.
Now do we run with our independent spirit? The alternative is to nominate a candidate who will clip our wings and go along to get along. Enough, already.
9
"Socialism is no silver bullet." He at least got that right. So we should leave our most successful form of gov. EVER..for THAT? (BTW, he conveniently forgot that we're spending 3x per capita of France to protect the world)
10
@Bob:
"we're spending 3x per capita of France to protect the world"
Yes and Trump added billions to that cost. Billions that the Defense department didn't ask for.
Meanwhile, he rages about the cost of the US being the defender of the free world.
None of which makes sense, unless of course the reason for it is corruption. And if you've read "Fear" by Bob Woodward, you would know that many of the former military brass that hold positions in or provide advise to the Trump Administration have deep ties to Defense contractors. Coincidence? I suggest not.
You make many good points but realistically we will never have a perfect society. For me perfection would be a country where we try to get along, recognizing that it cannot be perfect. That would entail having respect for one another, something I have not seen in the country for a very long time. Perfection would entail satisfying everybody as much as possible: government provided healthcare for those who are in need—but not healthcare rammed down the throats of everybody; an immigration policy that allows safe entry for all who want to come but not criminals and misfits who would do us harm; that of course requires border security; taxation policies that taxes billionaires more than the pittance they now pay but certainly not a tax policy that works as disincentives for citizens who feel unrewarded for hard work and education; an abortion policy that protects mothers but only for a while and certainly not post birth; a place where everything is not cast in racial terms—we need to talk about it less but punish those more who are guilty of it; a place where we do not dole out every last need to those who refuse to be responsible; and lastly politicians who are compassionate but also realistic and certainly not power hungry. In the end if we can achieve only the last of these goals we might be able to achieve them all. Sadly I do not currently see a presidential candidate for whom I would care to vote.
5
@Confused
I hear you. And perfection is impossible. While I don't see my dream candidate yet, I am listening carefully to all of them. They each bring good ideas and fresh thinking to the public square. The process will play itself out.
And then, you will vote for ANYONE other than the Liar in Chief. If you decide not to vote for that anyone, you are guilty of voting for the monster. It's pretty simple.
Not a perfect world. Sorry. But you can help improve it. Vote!
Sorry continue using the word socialism as opposed to social democracy (which is what they have in Europe) and be ready to give Trump another term.
17
The "unbridled capitalism" the characterized our country in 1989 had stronger environmental regulations than we have today, less disparity in income than we have today, and--- most importantly--- more democratic discourse than we have today. The Senate majority leader in that era, George Mitchell, was partisan but would never have dreamed of declaring that his goal was to make George HW Bush a one-term President. He, like his Republican counterpart at the time, Bob Dole, kept their focus on the well-being of the nation and not the well-being of their party. The GOP's decision to gut the regulations that contained capitalism's tendency to separate the super-rich from everyone else and their ability to brand anyone who opposes them as a "socialist" is damaging our democracy. There can be no middle way when the leadership of one party seeks political domination at the expense of the well-being of the country.
29
Safety nets and focus on social welfare are not socialism. They are political policies that value the rights of all to basic minimum needs - food, shelter, health - that if not provided by the workforce are provided by the state.
People still get rich; still own assets; still have the opportunity to self direct their talent and investment. They just don't get to accumulate so much at the expense of others' necessity. People who get rich owning the assets that sideline a huge portion of the workforce can either use it to invest in employing people in new work, or in distributing it to a safety net through taxation.
Redistribution is not socialist when the rules dictate the initial distribution monumentally asymmetrically. European socialism is the product of that sort of philosophy.
Venezuela is not. It is the product of an authoritarian who uses the rhetoric of socialism to steal from everyone.
26
When the City College of New York was at its peak, it was a tuition free school. Admission required good HS or community college scores. It had the most Nobel Laureates of any public school. Socialism at its best.
27
I’m a City College student. At its peak, it was also 95% white. Now it’s a third of that. I’m getting a great education at no cost thanks to federal and state grants.
My high school grades were not great due to mental health issues. I had something like a 2.6 GPA.
Now I have a 3.9 GPA after returning to school last year and I couldn’t be more grateful to have been given a chance. I’m glad minorities and immigrants are given the same chances. My education only improves with a diverse student body.
4
@DavidJ
not socialism: capitalism in a democracy that took care of its people by investing in education.
2
@GG, City College had a W.E.B Du Bois club forever, long before I attended in 1962. The low black attendance had nothing to do with CCNY, it had to do with poor schooling in poor neighborhood.
I’m glad is it as diverse as it is now, and that you are satisfied with the education you are receiving.
The American problem on further thought, seems less rural vs. urban, left vs. right, capitalism vs. social democracy (please, socialism is not even on Bernie's table), and more we've simply run out of room. There was always a place to go, but the American west is increasingly pricing out those of modest means, and you can only get so excited about moving to North Dakota to farm snow. No, the traditional American sense of freedom has been fenced in, and the modern, digital state and its ever present drones and cameras has meant there is really no way to truly get off the grid. So we suffer, and we turn inward, and against one another. We need a new frontier. I say we turn our attention, our resources, and our energy to a new venture: landing humans on Mars and having them stay there in the new Far-Out West by 2030. The money spent in this venture here on earth would produce a new economic boom, new technological and environmental technologies (think more sustainable and lower carbon footprint technologies) and there would be hope for the restless American wanderers - a new world to explore, a place to get even further from government.
This op-Ed is disingenuously trying to talk young Democrats out of seeking a path to a just economy. The goal here is not to make “the struggling and the invisible of American society feel visible again”, but to give them a just wage and access to reasonably priced benefits packages so that they can put their children through college and live comfortably in their old age. For decades now Republican operatives have been roaming the country ensuring that the country’s wealth got more and more concentrated into the hands of a few. Even more sadly, money still buys votes. In an age where anyone can walk to a library and read up on any topic or political candidate, it appears that snake oil salesmen still snooker the American public. But Republicans beware- even the disenfranchised are getting woke to what’s been happening and starting to get desperate enough to consider new ideas; yes, even the dreaded concept of minimal living standards which have been so well modeled overseas in our country’s parent Europe. Mitch McConnell may still be the ringmaster of this show but the tightness of his grip on the whip is loosening by the year.
15
@Djr
"...put their children through college"
I don't disagree with most of your goals, but I would urge that we need an economy where college is not mandatory for everyone. Flourishing trades, in other words. That would tend to lower the cost of college by lessening demand, as well as promote employment of those for whom college would be a difficult or financially risky path.
So many presidents have proven to be a "gorilla in a china shop," abusing their immense powers to disrupt our democracy and to harm people at home and abroad. What we need in a president is a chief executive who ensures that the machinery of government is at full capacity and running smoothly according to the rule of law and the will of the people as expressed through their representatives. This requires a president who understands the complexities of our federal government, reads briefing books instead of throwing them in the trash, who refrains from abusing the powers of the office, and has the ability to bring people together and build consensus within a huge organization. It will be yet another tragedy brought upon our democracy by the wiley lurkers within the white house if the democrats are forced into choosing a presidential candidate who represents a chaotic menu of aspirations (or policies) instead of an adult who has the intelligence, experience, moral compass, and skills of a leader and consensus builder who will fill all of those empty federal positions with good, capable people and go about the task of rebuilding the government that the white house has been steathily dismantling for the past two years. The democrats know this to be true but may fear that such an intuitively correct and centrist vision may not have sufficient appeal to win an election against a "deal maker."
4
The New Deal created millions of jobs and saved communities here and abroad. FDR is though of as our greatest President next to Lincoln. Today income inequality is as bad or worse than during the Great Depression. The Green New Deal aims to create jobs and save the planet through laws, public private agreements, pump priming funding, and a robust private sector. How is this socialism?
33
The problem is perhaps that (at least some of) the architects of the "social democratic" program you describe insist on calling themselves "socialists." Why? What are they trying to convey? Why not simply call themselves "social democrats," or "FDR liberals," if they don't want to implement "socialism?" Why take up membership in the "Democratic Socialists of America?" Why doesn't Bernie join the Democratic Party, for crying out loud, since he wants to hijack its resources and run on its tickets?
2
@Bill Smith, the democratic party too is beholden to Big Money, special interests, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, Hollywood, etc etc...long long list of folks who have raised obscene amounts of money for the party. That is why Bernie distances himself. And Liz Warren although a part of the democratic party has vowed to not take corporate money or hold huge funding parties.
2
@jonathan berger, as we get closer to elections, the Republicans will transform socialism into communism. Another scare tactic.
We must learn to look beneath the labels and communicate simply. The right is already labeling socialism as the evil empire
An example of a counter narrative would be to quote the Bible about he who is without sin .....the progressives should ask he who would return their SOCIAL security check and refuse medicare and Medicaid and veterans benefits to cast their vote for the right wing candidate.
11
I must respectfully disagree with Mr. Cohen. It's not that Americans object to "socialism". At least half of us understand that "socialism" as it is instituted in Western Europe, is a model that is much superior to ours, especially with regard to health care.
So why aren't we moving toward this model? The reason is simple, and it has nothing to do with Americans being fearful of the Venezuelan experience, nor is it a vestige of the "Red Scare". Rather, the reason is that Trump voters cannot stand the thought of anyone other than themselves living a more humane life and with a decent standard of living in this country. The fact that ethnic and religious minorities in America would benefit alongside themselves, literally sickens them. This is echoed by one Trump voter interviewed in this publication some months back, when she said "He's not hurting the people he's supposed to be hurting", meaning, of course, that Trump's policies are hurting whites, and that was not what they elected him to do. Rather, their thinking goes, he must continue to hurt only brown-skinned or non-Christian citizens.
If a national, affordable healthcare program were offered to only white Christians in this country, Trump's base would be in the streets with their guns, demanding it.
And because they are a hateful minority of us, Trump voters' actions will mean that most of us will live indefinitely in a mean-spirited, willfully ignorant country.
14
An interesting column, but with serious shortcomings.
Europe, France, is not socialist. The Socialist Party is not socialist. Anyone who even glances at its logo now will see the words “social-écologie”, with ecology in bold, social faded.
The parties of Europe are social democratic (SD). And SD, to my personal chagrin, is in a historically tough spot.
What Americans want is SD, not socialism. Democrats who allow the far-right Republicans to label them socialists are letting them lie.
Will America get social democracy? No. A resolute no.
Vested interests, the mentality of individualism, the prosperity gospel, and the deep, deep animosity between the communities that make America make SD impossible. To have SD, you have to have a majority of the people willing to pay taxes for services they may not necessarily benefit from (even though they might, most social services in Europe aren’t means-tested, this ensures that the middle class have a stake in the welfare State). Is there such a majority in America? Probably not. Especially if the one receiving assistance isn’t like me and mine.
Americans shouldn’t aspire to social democracy. America was the mother of the New Deal, which leftists in Europe admire. Emulate that. Aspire for that. FDR and his coalition, historic anomalies that they were, were figures that changed History.
You needn’t look to others for improvement, just look back to your own roots, before greed and “voodoo economics” became as American as apple pie.
21
Thanks, Laïcard, for this much-needed objective perspective from someone with experience on the "other side of the pond."
FDR is the great avatar of the American version of social democracy, and I agree that we modern Dems ought to orient ourselves toward taking up his unfinished work.
@Un Laïcard Well said.
Cohen is flailing wildly in his attempt to make sense of the rapidly changing world of the 21st century.
It's becoming rather uncomfortable to watch.
The fact that someone of his formidable intellect is so thoroughly overwhelmed and over-matched is a measure of our times.
France is imploding. Cohen's bromance with Macron showed rather poor judgement, and revealed in stark terms his desperation.
And Cohen's beloved EU won't survive the end of Trump's second term as President, or his first prison term, whichever comes first.
The post-WWII era Cohen knows and describes is no more, and will never be again.
It's time to move on.
Seriously. Time for some fresh thinking.
2
Does anybody expect that our present social problems such as income inequality, labor disenfranchisement, unqualified workforce for the jobs of 21st Century and beyond, inadequate K-12 education system etc. is going to somehow disappear or resolved if we continue on the present course?If you do, I hope you wont find your way to the decision making positions in the US Government. Capitalism of the past 100 years has run its course. It has certainly done magic by creating immense wealth for the Country and established a solid industrial infrastructure but now is the time that Capitalism will start rearing its ugly side, that is everything I cited above as our problems. It is now time to mix it up with some Socialism as the Europeans have done. The difference is that Americans have been brainwashed against Socialism as a necessity to counter Communism, and more specifically The Soviet Union, for the past eight decades. Only a small percentage of the American Public knows exactly what is meant by Socialism and Social Democracy. The sooner "Educating America" about Socialism starts the sooner we will be able to embark on our evolutionary journey towards a Social Democracy that I will call the "Promised Land" for the US of the 21st Century and beyond.
5
Indeed, the biggest vacuum in your country is the political middle ground. Trump did kill it, one tweet at at time, pulling his base not just to the right, but to the crazy-right, with one lie after another.
It is one thing to grow your economy, create jobs, but ruining the moral and social fibre of a country to do so is quite another. When the democrats talk about evening the playing field, closing the growing economic gap, Trump immediately goes to Venezuela, not France, not Canada, or any of the other socialistic-leaning country with thriving a capitalistic economy.
When you have some people believing that socialism means no more airplanes or cows, I would say the democrats have to find someone who can quickly find (or recreate) that middle ground again. The question you have posed though is whether that middle even exists anymore, and that really is the question. The divide may just be too deep and wide to close and that is exactly what Trump wants and what gets him out of bed every morning.
4
As a 17 year American expatriate in France I can attest that this country’s balance between capitalism and social welfare protections is close to perfection.
The minimum wage is too low and too many employers underpay their employees resulting in a struggle to make it to the end of the month.
Otherwise, the comparison with America is striking. Trumpism is destroying a sense of decency making Americans feel that the country is led by a greedy fascist instead of a role model for decency.
Imagine what today’s American children are going to believe when they grow up. Incivility is normal and the devil take the nine most.
6
What the more left-leaning Dems are aiming for is social democracy, not "socialism". The ongoing Republican fear-mongering about measures like universal healthcare and higher education and more revenue redistribution is intended to entrench the current system, a plutocracy. An entire simplistic and not fact-based set of slogans has been developped and drummed into the heads of the electorate for decades to this effect: government=bad, wealth=merit, poor=lazy and stupid, and so on. The US now matches Brazil in inequality levels, so it is predictable that the road towards a less unequal society will be an arduous one and will be fought tooth and nail (and gun?) by the rich white old males who symoathize with no one but each other like, just to pick a few, McConnell, Lindsay Graham, Trump, Manafort, and Judge Ellis.
7
All the Democrats need to do is focus on the economics of social democracy, and the corruption of the Trump-led Republicans, while rejecting over-to-top political correctness and they can't lose in 2020. Offer better health care, make inequality a target, push to enforce anti-trust legislation and get the money out of politics. Stop the calling Trump voters racist and acknowledge that many have gotten the shaft-- and let them know that lobbyists are the real enemy, whom both the left and right should be standing together to fight.
They'll surely blow it.
7
@Mike Rowe
Agree totally with Mike. Keep msg simple and to the point and speak to the disenfranchised no matter who they are.
Poor whites are getting screwed by DT. Point out the facts and do t get sidelined with identity politics.
1
America was built upon the blood, sweat and tears of enslaved black Africans on land and resources stolen from brown Native Americans by white European Judeo- Christians colonizers and conquerors.
No Americans ever worked harder and longer for less return than enslaved black Africans.
No Americans had more land and resources stolen from them than the aboriginal brown Native American pioneers.
On the eve of the Civil War the 4 million enslaved Africans in a nation of 30 million were worth more than all of the other capital assets in America combined. Except for the land.
Prison is the carefully carved colored exception to the 13th Amendments abolition of slavery and involuntary servitude. And 40% of America's 2.3 million prisoners are black.
See " The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism" Edward Baptist
25
No one can dispute that people of African ancestry have been treated horribly in America. However, the phrasing, now popular among some, that "America was built upon the blood, sweat and tears of enslaved black Africans," suggests that no white Americans ever did any work, or had anything to do with building the American economy.Tell that to the ancestors of most white Americans who toiled on farms, in workshops, on construction sites, and on factory floors for meager wages over the course of many, many generations (including my own). The idea that blacks solely (or even primarily) built America is a canard on its face, I'm afraid, one easily demonstrated by any basic economic analysis. The impulse among some, to constantly fuel racial animus, will not help solve today's problems, nor will blatantly erroneous characterizations of American history.
1
I hate when people say that a 70% tax rate is somehow un-American. IT WAS AMERICAN POLICY FOR FIFTY YEARS.
7
@J many people don't understand how this works...that the person that would pay (or paid at one time--"the good old days" when America was great) the 70% pays the same tax rate everyone else...the 70% just kicks in on the very highest of incomes...
1
@Jim, agree wholeheartedly, and it’s because many Americans don’t bother to read more than a tweet here and there. The lack of critical reading and thinking in this country is pathetic.
First, the US is too diverse for socialism to work. Second, it’s a place of ambition. Conclusion: it’s never going to be appropriate here.
Will “socialism” ever counter America’s distinctive robber-baron capitalism? How could it as long as the following principles guide GOP and Democratic neo-liberal politicians' economic policies?
The principles:
(1) competition guarantees equilibrium among all market factors, including prices, wages, rents, job availability, etc.;
(2) nonetheless, too-big-to-fail enterprise are preferable to government regulation of the market;
(3) the chief objective of corporations is to enhance shareholder value, and success in doing so should be the justification for increased executive salaries, stock options and other bonuses; the interests of employees and consumers are wholly subordinate to this primary aim;
(4) if it is politically expedient to put a public-private initiative in place--say for healthcare reform or infrastructure repair--make sure the initiative is complex, and assures the socialization of all risks and the privatization of all benefits;
(5) always exaggerate the dangers associated with government debt—whenever Democrats control the purse—and minimize those accompanying all ballooning private sector debt.
How long before Trump’s and the GOP’s middle class and working class supporters acknowledge that the foregoing principles assure that the economy will serve the interests of the already wealthy, and will result in ever increasing income and wealth inequality?
Perhaps such acknowledgment will surface in the wake of the next Great Recession.
3
Seems that the Roger Cohen and each comment's author has his/her definition of socialism . Since almost all Democrats including Sanders and AOC do not want to dismantle capitalism for socialism (whatever that is) , the Democrats should co-opt and use Trump's war cry that America will never be a socialist country, maybe even putting such in their 2020 platform
2
The word socialist is still radioactive in U.S. culture.
Democrats need to accept that fact, and place more emphasis on producing electoral gains than on trying to rehabilitate a politically poisonous term.
3
Socialism is a stupid and evil ideology. It’s only those who haven’t lived in socialist states and have no memory of socialism that can claim that it has any kind of value. I can tell that - having grown up in dirt poor socialist India, where you waited for 15 years for getting a scooter.
People talk as if France is a great economy. And yes, it has its strengths - most notably a fabulous education system that at its best produces people who have a combination of top rate numeracy and liberal arts skills. But unlike the USA, it does not offer opportunities to immigrant kids from the banlieus to break into the elite, and has been growing slowly for decades (despite the benefits of European integration and the availability of low cost labor from Eastern Europe).
And even France does not have 70% marginal tax rates or wealth taxes such as those being proposed by the Democratic “Socialists”. I do hope that the American people have the sense to reject these stupid ideas in the Dem primaries. But if that does not happen, the best bet for America would be a second Trump term - despite the non zero risk that he could end up blowing up the world.
4
@RB, need to come up with a different name if the association is so traumatic.
1
Socialism is not an alternative in the US. France is economically impoverished as all socialist states are in Europe relative to GDP. We have an economic model based on Capitalism that works. If the Democrats push Socialism, I go back to the GOP regardless of the Grifter president.
6
This article has a nice balancing act to it... it’s neither to one side nor the other. Next.
1
There is no such thing as "equality". Everybody in the world is unique, and nobody is equal to anybody else.
3
The United States spends more on national defense than China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, France, United Kingdom, and Japan combined.
Is it time we stop being policeman of the world?
2
Maybe and I know it won't happen for a simple reason Americans love slogans so there will be little serious looking at not socialism in Europe, but social democracy. A strange idea where the citizens believe they live in a community. Things get done in the Nordic countries and many others since there is not one major party and the groups have to come together and form a coalition. In America two parties so there is no real democracy. On a simple note maybe it is time for the media to do a full series on where America ranks in the world in poverty, homelessness, health care, infant morality, education, quality of life and contentment. America leads in murder, gun death and also suicide. Indications of an unhealthy society. Mr. Trump who was bankrupt four times and left the little guy holding the bag is a great example of capitalism in its pure form of where America is. Yes, America has a giant defense system and this is not to protect other nations, but because so much of its jobs are connected to it. I am sure that "socialism" will take a beating in the election for a simple reason Americans are to stupid to actually sit down and read a book on the subject. America is the land of the uneducated rube and in reality they like it that way. Me, I am an American who lives in a country where at least I get health care and not just a pension, but other senior benefits. Greed and nonsense is what drives America. Giving billions to farmers guess what that is socialism. Jim Trautman
5
Sorry, but the Socialists and Liberals do not drive the Democratic agenda, they are only the minority within the party. They mainly talk to themselves and shout at everyone else. In order to win the election and run the country you need center-left moderate Democrats, especially the millions of union laborers who are mostly white middle class.
From the Wash Post;
A recent Harvard-Harris poll finds that the percentage of Democrats who think of themselves as “Obama Democrats” (49 percent) or “moderate Democrats” (38 percent) vastly exceeds those who think of themselves as “progressive Democrats" (22 percent) or “Democratic socialist” (13 percent)
3
And therein lies the whole point. We cannot eschew a more progressive philosophy if we are to succeed in REAL change. This frantic clinging to the past is where "centrism" hijacks itself, and is the breeding ground for stages and action along the lines of, "the more things change, the more they stay the same." Ask a politically serious young person about "centrist philosophy" and they'll likely brush it off as a kinder, gentler corporate whoring of America.
At 58, having lived the morphing evidence of that indictment for the last 1/2 century to see how we could possibly be in the fatal state we are now, I no longer disagree.
5
“In fact, their births were great experiences: excellent medical care, wonderful postnatal follow-up, near-zero cost.”
Oops...that can’t be right, there is no such thing as a free lunch.
2
What might work well in small, relatively homogenous countries like Denmark and Sweden, where most citizens share the same language, culture, and values, will NOT work in a massive country like the United States, with our ethnically, culturally, linguistically, politically, economically, and ideologically diverse and discordant population.
We have more than 20 Million foreign nationals living in this country illegally, exploiting our public services and birthright citizenship laws. Do you think American citizens want to pay for their free healthcare and the education of their foreign and American-born children?
3
Democrats already have the blueprint from FDR and post WWII controls of Congress into the 1980's. They are blowing it with identity politics and a new cult of personality approach to the destiny of the Congress. Keeping a Republic is hard work. Just ask the Romans.
4
Continued:
Capitalisms over time: Slavery, sweat shops, child labor, extremes of poverty and wealth, monopolies, conquest (colonization), genocide (of indigenous peoples), depressions and extreme unemployment, WWI and WWII, are all part of capitalism's history and practice at one time or another, yet are not accepted by proponents of capitalism as part of its core history. Instead they cherry-pick its history to present a picture of some Adam Smith-type division of labor, self-interest linked to social benefit, efficiency, comparative advantage, etc.
Socialisms over time: Similarly socialisms have ranged from attempts at the withering away of the state (the means of production owned and operated by communities, communes, workers, monasteries, cooperative enterprises, intentional communities), to state-owned industries and authoritarian regimes. Altruism, generosity, sharing 9of natural resources and benefits inherited from our common past) are also part of this. It has led to praise when associated with Sweden or looked at with horror when associated with Venezuela.
Praise of capitalism ignores its evils, denunciation of socialism ignores its benefits.
We are prisoners of confused, ambiguous language as we discuss these complex issues. Clear language will not solve our problems, but it will help us understand them better.
Let's talk of our challenges, goals, and options. To do so we must be clear about our language and history.
1
How odd to learn here that "growing inequality and marginalization" in the U.S. are "byproducts of financial globalization."
Gross income disparities apparently have nothing to do with taxes, spending, wide-scale corruption of the American political system and concerted efforts over 40 years to redistribute income upwards -- to wit, the neo-liberal program Roger Cohen has lauded for years as mankind's best invention.
What next? Blame the robots?
1
It would be great if we could transport some of the European values to the USA, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. We are far too “Anglo-Saxon” for that. We are of a more raw, cut throat and war like form of capitalism. We are not French, we are English. Forged in genocide and built with the warped cruel, actually sociopathic, efficiency of slave labor, we made this country great. Predatory Capitalism is in our blood. It is who we are. If a few of us are homeless, or get sick, or die, it is not our problem. It’s their’s.
4
i've been waiting for somebody--anybody, to explain to the dummies yammering about the horrors of socialism to explain what exactly it is--and isn't.
western europe, australia, nz, canada are all socialist societies.
not exactly horror shows.
venezuela is not exactly any of those countries.
finally, does the usa have public schools, roads, highways, fire departments, police departments and more....
sounds like socialism to me.
4
As a lifelong Democrat I am truly afraid that the extreme left wing of the Democratic Party will push us into another 4 years of Trump.
Look at all the reasons Ocasio-Cortez and her merry band of socialist Congresspersons (and quite a few announced Democratic Presidential candidates) are giving the electorate to vote for Trump in 2020: free Medicare for all, free college for all, confiscatory taxes, open borders, late-term abortions, anti-Semitism, a Green New Deal, reparations, the list goes on and on.
The ultra-left Democrats (socialists) seem to think that those in fly-over land (and quite on few on the elite coasts) are dumb as a stump, and won't realize that these pie-in-the-sky opium dreams are fiscally and politically impossible.
The old-guard Democratic leaders (the really old ones, you know who I mean) seem totally flummoxed by the likes of Ocasio-Cortez; I sincerely hope the centrists can take back of our party's platform and return the Presidency to the Democrats.
Isn't it time we should all admit that "progressive" really means "socialist?" And, as Margaret Thatcher so aptly put it, "The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money."
4
@Mal T Did you read the column?
France is NOT a socialist country. For examples of socialist countries, you need to look at Venezuela and the Soviet Union. France is a capitalist country with a stronger social safety network. One that is collapsing under the weight of the massive immigrant population.
4
The secret of "socialism, European style" is that benefits are universal, not targeted to the poor.
Not many red state voters oppose Social Security or Medicare (although the Randian politicians are still trying to cut them to give more tax cuts to the plutocracy). But they oppose, strongly, programs for the poor such as Medicaid and "welfare."
Lesson learned (hopefully).
4
A government handout whatever it's for is still a government handout.
Whether it's more money for the military, or for a child's school lunch.
The term "socialism" becomes meaningless.
1
A few points:
1) Trump actually campaigned from the center by the deranged standards of his party. He was the only Republican loudly defending SS and Medicare, and his promises, that is his lies, that he would restore manufacturing by dampening globalism were to the left of even Bernie Sanders.
2) Social fragmentation had no role in provoking the world wars. The 30 Years War began because rapidly shifting power balances gave Europe's last autocrats the idea they could assert themselves against the republics, and continued because the Kaiser's fall created a power vacuum in an increasingly industrialized Germany, which was filled by a mad dog who persuaded the country's elites that he could pull off what the Kaiser had failed to do.
3) Europe's welfare states weren't built "to avoid the social fragmentation that had fed violence." They were built to persuade voters that the Anglo-American model had more to offer them than the Soviet model.
And, BTW, it's ironic that one activist in the photo is holding a sign saying "End Poverty" while another holds a sign saying "Immigrant Rights."
Those are conflicting goals.
1
"But growing inequality and marginalization — byproducts of financial globalization — have thrust socialism center stage."
Inequality and margination are not byproducts of financial globalization - they are a result of democracy gone astray.
So it is not capitalism vs. socialism; it's democracy vs. plutocracy.
The wealthy and the corporations through special interest groups including PACs pay huge sums of money to put their representatives in Congress and the Executive Branch. And now the Federal judiciary as well.
Tax, trade, labor and other economic policies - even environmental protection, conservation and climate science - are responsible for the inequality and marginalization that feels so pervasive in America today.
Overturning Citizens United, reforming campaign finance, and putting corrupt politicians in prison must take place so that our elected officials represent We, The People.
9
Narrowing the ever growing chasm between the rich and everyone else, and taking collective action to save our one and only planet will be labeled socialist by those who benefit from the status quo. But, like the situation faced by FDR, millions of Americans are currently in economic crisis- losing homes over medical debt and huge college debt, foregoing health care, as well as the ever growing housing affordability crisis. Every one of FDR's most popular reforms are still called socialism by the right, who continue to benefit from them.
A deluge of young people are getting it: we need to change our energy policy and life style to save the planet. It is crystal clear that the corporate interests will not be saving us and our world from climate destruction, but we need laws, regulations, and subsidies to make big changes. The Republican party is already hollering about socialism regarding saving the earth.
Time to move on if we want to be a part of the sustainable world, instead of being an economic and environmental example of how to create a dystopia.
8
@Nancy Braus, Bernie opened the eyes of millions and millions of his followers in the 2015 election. They got educated on what was really happening in America. The media won't talk about it. But here are the facts, right before our very own eyes, we have a federal judge deliver a very lenient sentence to a guy who is white rich privileged and a "friend" of Trump's. The fact that he committed white collar crimes does not matter at all, in fact someone who has committed 1/10th of his crime but is not rich white or friend of Trump's would receive much more severe punishment, with or without gout (which is a condition of overconsumption as Manafort lived his life).
Similarly, let us all watch how this goes down. Trump watched superbowl with the owner of the spa in Florida, the same spa that the feds were watching, where they picked up Robert Kraft for frequenting. The owner happens to be a huuuge donor of Trump's, the fact that she engaged in human trafficking will not matter, just because she is a friend of Trump's. Countless such examples. So what are we fighting for? We are fighting for inequality, for injustice, for unequal treatment...
1
Mr. Cohen hits the nail on the head. France/Europe had no external enemy, neither did it have a Native American culture to 'subdue', nor a Wild West to tame. It had no Civil War, Colt, or Remington. So the mirror Americans look in is vastly different than Europe's. The reflection we see is rougher and more independent than theirs. They gave us the Statue of Liberty not the other way around. So we'll never fully embrace the European Socialism, like everything else, we've got to forge our own.
5
The democrats are highly skilled at choosing the absolute worst choice to run against weak republican candidates. Think John Kerry v. W. Bush as a rerun of Dukakis v. GHW Bush, and Hillary Clinton, totally out of her depth in managing media image, compared to Bernie and Trump. The embrace of progressive social democratic values is already being spun as socialism by the republicans is easily conflated by red state republicans as communism and will result in giving Trump, should he survive, more than the edge he had against Hillary. It is not enough to have the majority of the country to disapprove Trump, or his stand in. You must put together a coherent platform and policies and select amongst your party who would be best at communicating those things in an appealing way. Our elections are now determined by choosing between who is likely to hurt us less. AOC, Omar, and the other strident voices that are getting a lot of buzz are being supported in their efforts by Fox News who feature them regularly as part of their effort to establish them so they and the democratic party that harbors them can be easily beaten in the red states. The news that Biden is likely to declare is not comforting. His age and speckled past that is likely to arise (history of plagiarism and role in the Anita Hill fiasco for starters), will cripple him at the polls. He should assume the elder statesmen role of the party and help the democrats get focused on things that support winning in 2020.
6
@Zinkler, Liz Warren and Bernie Sanders are patriots, intellectuals, they are on the side of the poor the middle class and the forgotten. The media won't cover them, because they are not tabloid material. Perhaps that is to their advantage, they can get the most done while no one is watching. Let us elect them, they are what our kids and grandkids need and wish for, a bright clean environment friendly future, a country where basic needs are met, health and well being is protected and no one is left out hungry unclothed uncared for. Is that too much to ask?
6
@petey tonei I do not dispute that Liz and Bernie are not well intended or patriotic, I just am pointing out that who runs should be based on their ability to articulate a coherent and achievable goal and be able to mobilize the voters in the red states. The democrats have persistently put up candidates that lose to relatively flawed and weak republican candidates. That is a fact of recent history. Embracing a pragmatic approach to addressing specific problems and running candidates that do not alienate the red states is the key to success. Do not confuse the number of people who voted against Trump as being the same as true democrats regardless of how you define democrat.
Trump and others have successfully muddied our language by co-opting much of the media, in spite of the media's attempted resistance.
"Socialism" like "capitalism" are terms used in varied ways at different times and places. Our language is fluid, evolving, and often quite ambiguous. We misunderstand each other often.
The most basic idea associated with socialism is the belief that we are primarily social beings, not isolated individuals, even as we recognize that sometimes one and sometimes the other of these poles predominate.
Those who see us primarily as individuals deny the significance of the groups of which we are part (and of those of which we are not part), they deny the existence or importance of privilege derived from family and history, they minimize the actual reliance we all have on each other and on group activities (infrastructure -- transportation, electric and gas grids, sewerage systems, defense, police, and the whole range of social services for people as well as corporate welfare), all of which makes us what we are.
Terms like "Self-reliance" and "soaking the rich" are just mindless phrases that mislead more than clarify.
To further clarify our use of language about socialism we might also distinguish "socialism" from "actually existing socialisms", just as we should distinguish "capitalism" from "actually existing capitalisms".
continued . . .
3
American space? Does he mean that over-represented area that, due to the Senate and the Electoral College, has a strangle hold on politics in this country? Romanticizing American foundation myths is what got us into the mess we’re in. The common welfare would arise naturally if our political system were not skewed toward the values of our deified Founding Fathers and their holy book, the Constitution. The latter needs a major overhaul but we are stuck with former due to people’s need for an all powerful guiding hand, not much different from the patriarchal creeds that the scared multitudes cling to.
3
80 Percent
80 Percent Of The American People Are On The Wrong Side Of Power And Money.
How Many Journalists Will Carry Their Flag To Uncover How To Add to Mix Capitalism and Socialism To Make For Dealing With Such Things As income and wealth inequality, support for public universities, family leave, health care, free college, affordable housing... and lets say, in general, a rise in the standard of living for the bottom 80 percent?
3
Our current economic situation closely resembles the Gilded Age of unfettered capitalism and harmful monopolies. Many of our companies are too large. Many of our new economy companies, mainly high-tech and social media, dont employ enough people. Now AI and robots will be taking over more jobs. People want to work, they don't want a hand out.
A large group within our country are looking for change. That is why so many people voted for Trump and earlier voted for Obama. Both ran on a theme of change---one, Trump, loed about working for change, and Obama had the financial crisis to deal with and a do-nothing Gop congress.
Good article.Being 'business friendly ' is not the same as weak or non-existent regulation and a pliable political system captured by special interests.
1
Republicans must be praying that the Democrats keep moving left. Can you imagine arguing that people should receive a salary from the government "if they don't choose to work" as the Green Dream plan outlines.
2
How disparaging to have to work when you don't have to. Just channel prices,, wages and profits fairly. What is wrong with that!
@JPE Your reply says it all. It is not a 'salary from the government' but a stipend from the society.
I could not agree more, that "the basic requirement of any Democratic candidate is to make the forgotten, the struggling and the invisible of American society feel visible again". And importantly this includes those in all 50 states not just those in states needed to get over 270 electoral votes on election night.
9
France does "check all the boxes" for good quality of life, including healthcare, education, worker's rights. We pay higher taxes for this, yet somehow, the E.U. is second only to the U.S. in wealth and trade. We work hard and save a lot.
We are unconstrained in trading partners, having "worked around" Trump's sanctions. Americans are the only victims of his trade wars and tariffs, all passed on to the American consumer.
Socially, we look out for one another. Our constitution puts the average person's welfare first. Our laws forbid gun ownership, except basic hunting rifles--for hunting. Violence is very much frowned on. France is a safe place.
Our revolution fought a high-taxation monarchy which let people starve. The aftermath resulted in a government where "the people" came first, literally, and in basic terms. Even now, our bread stores and pharmacies must be open 7 days a week, to keep even the poorest fed and healthy. Our taxes actually help the citizenry, with healthcare, education and housing.
America's revolution was to escape paying taxes without representation. Americans weren't starving. The founding fathers, well-educated and wealthy, created a government that eventually, shielded money, not people, leading to a more "me, me, me" mindset.
If Americans want to have better education, healthcare, less violence, and catch up with other Western nations, they must pay higher taxes, and think "us" not "me".
27
@Lilou I agree, and loved the Peugeot 403 wagon diesel. The food, culture, countryside and Paris, plus the Peugeot-viva la France. Ah, Je ne sais quoi!
@Lilou: OK, then explain to me why French unemployment rates are almost triple what they are in the US -- and at depression levels for young people under 30.
2
Mr. Bruni writes that "The United States was founded in contradistinction to, not as an extension of, Europe.”
Hmmm. While true, the distinction was much more about revolting against inherited power based upon divine right and asserting the inherent rights of the people (well, men). At the same time, we need to remember that half the founders held slaves, quite a "distinct" system of labor as opposed to capitalism or socialism.
The United States’ founding was a break from the landed gentry of our colonial masters, in large part by the landed gentry/slaveholders on this side of the Atlantic. Capitalism, in its industrial form, did not emerge for decades.
Finally, socialism—the real variety—has persisted in America. This despite being directly attacked by government action or tainted with the red smears of McCarthyism.
There’s a red center in the heart of America. If you want to find it, just propose abolishing Social Security and Medicare.
5
Progressive ideas are not radical; they combine New Deal and progressive Republican trust busting/infrastructure building. Roger is correct that advanced nations have mixed economies that differ only in degree. So address impediments to capitalism - monopoly, oligopoly, and barriers to entry to new small enterprise, &c., and intolerance for poverty, ignorance and sickness. USA could have done all this in 1970; education, retirement, healthcare, predatory lending, tax fairness, toxic wealth disparity (now the hot topic at Davos), transforming the energy sector, job growth/ custodianship of the environment, 1 man-1 vote, living wage, crime reform. There was enough wealth then, so it can be done now that wealth has multiplied - the safety net cost is nominal. If USA had taken the lead, it would be best positioned now to lead the world in providing the best safety net at the lowest cost with the least intrusion into productive forces, minimizing intergenerational forces and intrusion into the sovereignty of the individual.
But Roger is wrong that France holds answers. Jillet jaune proves again that neoliberal globalism, like the predatory forces that caused WWI, fails the hope of gains from trade under a Heckscher–Ohlin model conditioned by a Social Accounting Matrix that preserves cultural and economic diversity under a Wilsonian aggressive moral diplomacy. The Friedman/Chicago Boys seem intent on proving we cannot raise all ships, Lenin's prediction. I cannot not accept that.
Capitalism vs. Socialism today?
Capitalism corresponds more than Socialism to physical, biological and historical fact for successful development of society but at the tremendous price of being quite a tragic view of life. Raw Capitalism, dog eat dog, is tragic enough, but refining the view makes it no less palatable. Here are Isaac Newton's words: "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulder's of giants". Reflect on that for a moment. To have Newton first there had to be nature/society throwing up/cultivating minds superior to the rest of society, and after societies prior to Newton collapsed there were just these minds in a line of transmission to Newton.
What this means is even if Capitalism is refined to a concentration on best minds and an unbroken line of transmission down through the ages of these minds it's no less tragic and arguably more so than raw dog eat dog Capitalism. Now consider all this in relation to Socialism. Socialism appears a contrary phenomenon, a concentration on the masses, and to be fair to Socialism seemingly opposite movements such as Fascism are no less mass movements, just more exclusive ones.
So much of the tension of our age is that we have a good idea of how we got to successful societies (always improving cultivation of and historical transmission of genius) but this view is tragic compared to the optimism and promise of mass movements of left or right, the movements which promise the people everything now, The World.
I will visit my native land, the United States, a place where I was born and lived from 1961 to 1998.
It will be a fun trip. Eight days.
But the cherry on top at the end of the voyage will be coming back to Europe.
3
@David Martin And coming back to the 1978 Peugeot 403 diesel wagon. C'mon, light blue before they start to rust. Drive that around the French countryside-now your talkin. Worth coming back to Paris for is right!!
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a member of and supported by the Democratic Socialists of America, whose goals don't appeal to most Democrats or any Republicans; two of many from the DSA website:
1. "...direct ownership and/or control of much of the economic resources of society by the great majority of wage and income earners." This is plain old Marxism/Communism; it hasn't worked elsewhere and won't appeal to US voters.
2. "...massive redistribution of income from corporations and the wealthy to wage earners and the poor and the public sector, in order to provide the main source of new funds for social programs, income maintenance and infrastructure rehabilitation...." As Margaret Thatcher so aptly put it, "The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money."
And, as academics know, socialism is supposed to be an intermediate step between capitalism and communism.
"Free everything for everybody" is a great slogan until people realize that it has to be paid for--via increased taxes.
Abolishing ICE, open borders, Green New Deal, Medicare-for-All and turning the means of production over to workers are suicidal platform planks for the Democratic Party and can only lead to another four years of Trump.
5
@Mal T It will be really interesting to see the D's stick with her goal of providing a good living for all those who don't want to work, as her initial Green Dream press release indicated, and to see how union leaders deal with it.
@JPE, give it a few more days, all those against rep Omar, will bounce back to support the democrats...
What was MOST revealing about the Omar flap was the reaction from the media and readers who jumped high and hysterically because something bad (but true) was uttered against Israel and Aipac). That episode alone exposed the fact that rational thinking is not to be expected by people who cannot stand any criticism of anything remotely Jewish or Israel related. The episode itself was exactly what Rep Omar was saying in the first place. Readers who were opposed to what Rep Omar said and all those who defended her, now become hostile to her and those who dare to sympathize with her.
1
just reading an article in Vox, emphasizing the profound and underrated influence of luck in our lives....
socialism versus capitalism really highlights it...
In others, if they succeed we attribute it to circumstance.
If they fail, it is due to a character flaw.
If we look at ourselves, at our own lives, we almost always
do just the opposite- if we succeed it is due to our own
hard work, our sacrifice and intelligence.
If we fail we are a victim of unfortunate circumstance.
Trump as a perfect example of this, and with our long list of giant fortunes that move almost untaxed through inheritance, just a few advantages pay-out over a lifetime and make a huge difference in outcomes.
Who really deserves anything?
No one deserves to starve, or be homeless.
No one deserves huge fortunes either.
Democratic Socialism is protection against these excesses.
6
The S word strikes once again. Can we dispel this notion that Democrats have gone too far to the left? The fact is that Democrats of the past 25 years have drifted so far to the right, that they seem to have forgotten the place from whence they originally came, and from whence they were significantly more popular vs today.
Democrats used to be for things like Universal Health Care via Single Payer, higher taxes on the wealthy particularly to reduce the deficit, worker benefits, consumer protections, etc well into the 90’s. Democrats seem to have forgotten their original positions on the issues as they’ve moved to the right over the past 25 years.
9
Good column Mr. Cohen, but what Americans are actually demanding is reforming the American style mixed economy so that it works for most Americans once again. Most dictionaries define socialism as something like "an economic and political theory advocating governmental ownership of the means of production and distribution of goods". Exactly no one is advocating that. What Americans are looking for is a fair set of rules for the economy and legal system that at least tries to approximate equal opportunity for all, equally just treatment under the law and an equal voice for all in our political decision-making. Among the rules that made the American mixed economic system work was the understanding that the more successful you were, the greater contribution to the public treasury would be expected. We abandoned that understanding in the 1980's, for the competing theory that lowering the taxes of the "job creators" would benefit all. That experiment has been a tragic, epic and near total failure. It needs to end. Now. And that means higher taxes for the wealthy. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
3
Dear Mr Cohen,
Thank you for your column, but please avoid a few ideological traps. "Rugged individualism" is one. Don't we instead have a kind of communism-for-the-rich in the US and bootstraps for everyone else? We also have a deep history of hard-left struggle in the US that has been crushed, suppressed, red-scared and forgotten out of existence. May 1st was invented in Chicago. Did you know Marx wrote personal letters to Lincoln? Perhaps this repressed tradition is finally, after one hundred years, returning? On the books, corporate taxes are high, but do they pay them? No they don't. Lastly, France had a functional socialism, but has taken a steep neo-liberal turn dedicated to stealing value from socialism. Chirac's fire-sale of the national tollway system, Sarko's cronyism and Jupiter's reform of the SNCF are all examples of neo-liberal theft from across the ideological spectrum. Perhaps France needs a return to socialism just as much as the US?
5
"Self-reliance is to America what fraternity is to France: part of its core.
That's another word for "individualism" or self centered- ness as opposed to community oriented. But it's hardly an inherent characteristic of American or human nature but a necessary collary of a competitive economic and social system. It's cultural value that was born with and will die with capitalism.
2
Socialism has a brand image problem in the US, even as we socialize basic functions like education, defense, and even health care. If electability matters, and it does, it's not going to help any candidate to tagged with this label.
Social Democracy does a better job of describing how a strong social safety net can be combined with private ownership in most industries.
Personally, I like Progressive the best. It's less likely to get pilloried and stereotyped by Trump and his ilk.
In elections, these semantic difference are going to matter.
17
@Michael, democrats ought to hire a good PR agency, one that is embedded within communities, speaks their language and has a finger on their pulse. Anything short of that, won't be helpful. The biggest thing going for Trump is his lack of nuanced and complex vocabulary, because he is plain speaking he is able to communicate to a person's 5th grade self. He can say anything he wants (repeat lies like Democrats are anti Israel, democrats are anti Jewish) and get away with it, because he uses just those words and not sophisticated language that shows off one's command of the English language.
Odd that the author picks France (a country where the Socialist party was destroyed in the last election) to illustrate his point. In fact, their healthcare system is based on compulsory insurance. The only socialist (i.e. state run, free at the point of use) system in any major European country is the NHS in the UK.
The problem with this debate is that everybody in the US seems to have a different definition of socialism. But unless a system has an element of state owned means of production, it ain't socialism.
9
@BRENDAN BRUCE
The problem is that US understanding and use of political terms is far different from the agreed meaning of these terms in international language of politics This not English but specific US because UK understanding of these terms is exactly the same as it is on the Continent and Overseas. The well known perfect example is " liberal". This means "somewhat left" in US only.
The term "socialist" is twisted in US by extensive use as political combat term by hard line RW against all kinds of leftist policies including typical social democratic approaches in Europa and Asia. So this term has lost all tangible meaning in US and stands for "something bad"
I think the emphasis of the term socialism by most US social democrats is a big political mistake but as long as they do this this term is coined this strange - and dysfunctional - way in US devotes. From this point of view the social policy of France is understood as "socialist" indeed.
All others, particularly Europeans, are right to roll their eyes and point out the counterproductivity of such misunderstanding of clearly defined international terms I think but as long LW Democrats don't get this confusion straight we all have to cope with this effect in US - the columnist included.
Why is it that we are unwilling to face the truth of life in western democracies? They embody social capitalism — to one degree or another. There is a role for competitive markets and a role for collective action undertaken in the public interest by officials who are — theoretically at least — accountable to citizens. Unless we can be honest with ourselves about the way things are in the real world we inhabit from day to day, we are unlikely to rise above the battle of the bumper stickers. Democrats could simply explain to the public that social capitalism describes our economic system.
8
There are philosophical differences but the biggest difference lies in communication. Most Americans would associate socialism with communism and dictatorshop (of the proletariat).
If you described the German system of "social market economy" which Ludwig Erhard (first Minister of Economy and then the 2nd Chancellor) after WWII conceptualized and implemented you would never think of it as a socialistic, communist system but rather a capitalistic system that is based on Christian values of caring for weaker people, coupled with the overall principle of "support and demand".
If, for example, the Christian right in the US faithfully applied their own credes and principles they would push for unionization, health care for all, mother/child care, access to adequate affordable education for everyone. But, these Christians are Christians only by name, not by the substance of their actions.
21
“If you don’t want your tax dollars to help the poor, then quit saying you want a country based on Christian values. Because you don’t.”
Jimmy Carter
@W. Yep...Bogus Christians...poseurs who are clearly not on the path w/ Jesus. Beware of them, hello American Talliband.
Of all the arguments I’ve heard for socialism, this was the most recent.
Still not convinced. Perhaps using France, a country on the brink of revolution, was not the best choice to hold up as an example.
Capitalism is not America's problem, corruption is, and socialism simply gives the corrupt government more leverage over the citizens by making them more dependent on the state.
This appears to be what the far left wants. The recent push for Universal Basic Income is evidence of that. What else is UBI if not a cynical attempt to bribe the electorate?
The only more effective campaign tactic than the promise of free money would be the threat of having the other party take it away. And once reliant on politicians for income they are no longer your servants, they are your masters. The unbitable hand that feeds you.
Blaming the election of Trump on centrism is crafty revisionist history. Trump’s victory was the inevitable reaction to the overreach of the far left. The worst case of blowback since 9/11. Now, recognizing that to get rid of Trump Democrats are stuck voting for whichever candidate wins the nomination, the liberal fringe is looking to double down.
It’s a risky gamble. Not only could a seismic shift to the left motivate Republicans, it could force Independents to the right and perhaps even anger moderate Democrats enough to abstain.
Any half-decent moderate would win in a landslide, but the Democrats seem determined to make 2020 a nail-biter.
10
@Gary Taustine
Conservatives fear Social Democrats, that much is obvious.
Roger Cohen put this in terms of socialism. It's not. It's about Social Democracy. His example of France is a poor one given that the social democracies of Scandinavia have proven to be the most stable economies and truest meritocracies in the western world.
Their economies are not STATE-RUN; only their healthcare and educational systems are. And there's a reason for that. They are considered human rights.
On a practical level, by seeking equity in both regardless of where one lives (urban vs rural), top quality healthcare and education are provided to ALL. Consequently -- and this is significant -- children are not DEPENDENT upon the socio-economic status of their parents. Think about that.
In the U.S. the socio-economic status of one's parents has, over the past 40 years of the Reagan Era, become the single biggest factor determining future success, effectively increasing entrenched, inter-generational wealth and privilege while at the same time dramatically reducing economic mobility and a vibrant middle class.
Talk of socialism is really about social democracy, smart governance, virtually free universal healthcare and education, and higher taxes for everyone (and eliminating loopholes) but the poorest Americans (netting out LESS cost than we pay now).
That's not SOCIALISM -- that's caring about our children, our future, and our competitiveness in a global economy.
And it's smart!
12
@John Crutcher
I appreciate what you’re saying, and I agree that healthcare is a right, but when you talk about higher taxes for all, you lose pretty much everyone. Most people support higher taxes on multi millionaires, as do I, but that's not what happens under the Democrats, Like you said, everyone gets a tax increase except the very poor. Middle class families are barely making ends meet now, and expecting them to pay more is a non-starter.
The social democracies of Scandinavia enjoy the luxury of not being a global superpower. That’s our job. They can rest easy knowing that America’s power keeps their enemies in check. They don’t need to spend trillions on a formidable military. So I don’t think the comparison is fair.
I also have a hard time trusting in our government’s competence. Just about everything run by the government, at any level, is a mess. The only exception is the IRS, which for some strange reason is remarkably thorough and efficient. Take a look at public transit, or our infrastructure, or Medicaid. How about public schools? They have raised an entire generation of people who don’t know the difference between the words literally and figuratively.
Capitalism is the baby, corruption is the bathwater. The government should focus on breaking up the monopolies that allow private industry to set whatever rates they want in the absence of competition.
"Self-reliance is to America what fraternity is to France: part of its core. American space — so immense, so un-European — conjures in Americans a bristling independence of spirit that wants government out of their lives."
Cohen and most Americans, especially Democrats, underestimate the importance of his observation above. It would behoove coastal liberals to travel across America at ground level, north, middle, and south, talking with, not at, folks along the way. If you want to make change, especially change for the better, you need a realistic and visceral understanding of what it is you are trying to change, not just abstractions derived from pundits, statistics, entertainment pretending to be news, and the internet's endless aggregation of anecdote into a unquestioned mass reality.
Part of the problem -- and one Cohen inadvertently contributes to -- is the recognition that "socialism" and "capitalism" are, for most people, symbols, not thought-out constructs with coherent substance. He describes some of the mixed economic/cultural systems in Europe, but fails to provide a vocabulary of nuance that would facilitate discussion of both where we should go and how, in the real world, we might actually get there.
What we need in America is a common language of substance and a commitment to expend the significant personal energy involved in not seeing other people and their beliefs as bumpersticker slogans.
3
@Steve Fankuchen: “Coastal liberals” (or “Coastal Elites”), is a bumpersticker slogan too. Not all “coastals” are liberals and not all “heartlanders” are conservatives. Not all liberals are “elites”, and not all conservatives struggling blue collar workers, on the contrary, I’d say. If “coastals” should travel to understand the “heartlanders”, so should “heartlanders” visit the coasts and see for themselves.
1
It's all well and good to be "independent" and I think the author is correct that nations don't tend to shed their core identities. That being said, "independent" does not have to mean, "I care only about me, and I don't care about you!" There is room for caring about all, and especially for people who claim to be "people of faith" the ability to care for one's self and for others as well would seem to be the fulfillment of whatever scriptures they put stock in. Sadly, though, we live in a time in which to treat others as you would have them treat you is seen as weakness, while loving yourself over others appears to be a major component of the drive that being "independent" demands, and is contrary to sacred teachings around the globe. So the "isms" play their part, "capitalism" being the raising of capital (a greater purpose beyond that being unnecessary), and "socialism" being the care of society (a purpose being the recognition of something social, an appreciation of and for others as human beings with inherent worth). The 2020 election is not just about politics per se; it is about whether we, as regular citizens, have inherent worth and should, therefore, be as deserving as the well-heeled and powerful of the goods, services, and resources presently available only to the few in the 1%.
3
Hélas, France is hardly a model to follow. It is true that high taxes need not hamper economic dynamism, provided government spending and regulations are efficient and stimulate rather than hamper incentives and growth. But that is the great weakness of the French economy. There is too much wasteful spending, too many underworked public employees, and still too many regulatory obstacles to growth and to a stronger labour market.
There are much more pertinent models that show that “socialism” in the form of high taxes levied as part of a social concensus can be perfectly compatible with economic dynamism and low unemployment. Sweden is mentioned in the article, but Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, and the other Nordic countries are also cases in point.
6
All social democracies have problems they have to work through.
But I’ve wondered what France’s Yellow Vest protests really mean about their society. France has a long tradition of street demonstrations when they see their govt is not serving their interests.
Compared to Americans traditionally, the French get out and march more easily to demand redress and reform to get their interests represented. Macron has responded to an extent.
Americans haven’t normally had that street protest tradition, though after Trump we’ve done much more.
France is used to universal health care for generations. If any French party wanted to dismantle it, and change to America’s high profit system with taxes subsidizing insurance/drug profits, the French wouldn’t put up with it. Same with other EU nations.
Years ago Americans should have been marching in the streets nationwide, protesting against the millions of medical bankruptcies and too-early deaths. Then later to force ACA to be a truly universal, low cost system, instead of leaving millions out, with costs rising.
But too many US voters have been conditioned to accept 2nd rate representation for our taxation. Our corporate propagandists use the "American Freedom" slogan.
So the US wealthy can pay low taxes and get out-sized representation from our govt---the govt we stand in long lines to elect, hoping for the best.
9
Donald Trump should teach the Democrats that fear is more powerful than any other motivator. If he and the Republicans can make the 40% of moderates fear a socialist like AOC or Bernie Sanders, he will win again. While it is true that the majority of millennials may feel that the way to a better world is through European style socialism this will not work where the majority of voters live and vote. We baby boomers may soon die off but in 2020 we will still be the largest block of voters and we will not vote for the French vision of government. The Democrat who can beat Trump needs to inspire both leftist and moderates who fear four more years of Trump. Remember the candidate who most recently met the requirement of Mr. Cohen's last sentence--The basic requirement of any [Democratic] candidate is to make the forgotten, the struggling and the invisible of American society feel visible again--was Donald Trump.
4
It's true Sweden has a low corporate tax rate but that is balanced by much higher tax rates on upper incomes. I'd be happy to see such a "compromise" here in the USA. Keep or reduce current corporate tax rates but raise the top income bracket to at least 50%, include all forms of compensation in that, have a wealth tax of a fraction of a percent on huge fortunes, and a transaction tax on stock trades for equities held less than 1 year.
"...no American should be too poor to live.”
Bravo, AOC! You couldn't have said it any more succinctly. Apparently Trump thinks the American dream is to build a country in which the poor perish.
"My own inclinations are centrist, but not a “centrism” that cares more for Goldman Sachs than the opioid crisis."
I feel the label "centrist" has lost its usefulness, ever since the rise of populism in 2016. When a self-declared "socialist" like Bernie Sanders proves more popular with swing states like PA and OH than Clinton (see Quinnipiac polls from April-May 2016), with all her ties to the banking industry and support for mass incarceration, something important has shifted in the political landscape.
People no longer align neatly into 3 categories, Left, Right and Center. Populism has changed that.
1
@J Jencks
Why does Roger Cohen leave out the important fact that Sweden's low corporate tax rate is balanced by much higher tax rates on upper incomes? That helps finance their HC and safety net.
And why doesn't he say that Ocasio's proposal is not just a 70% tax rate to 'soak the rich', but a MARGINAL tax rate, not on the whole income, but only above a certain high level. That makes a big difference. The rich would still be rich, but also contribute to society.
That's what the US had in the '50s under GOP Eisenhower---a 91% marginal tax rate on a certain very high income level.
In those times, rising wages and job security led to high consumer demand, so business was profitable.
And Ike financed the biggest infrastructure project in history--the US highway system from sea to sea. WE can't afford that now--they say.
Seems Europe today keeps their roads and bridges repaired, while ours are crumbling and receive a D rating from the Engineers Society.
12
Good piece, thanks, nice to see the upside of France (it's humane medical care for all at affordable prices praised again).
However about Amazon, you're off base -- it wasn't "worker exploitation" that was the main outrage; it was enough already with filthy rich corporations playing cities off each other to extort the most favorable tax breaks for themselves from municipalities that can ill-afford to loss that tax revenue. The idea that those lost revenues are made up for by the many jobs created has not been borne out time after time. It's the same racket that stadium builders have used so effectively over the last several decades and I say bravo to NYC for standing up to Amazon and saying enough already.
5
Cohen says---American business’s ‘self renewing essence’? What does that mean?
Seems what keeps renewing is the increased profits and political power stemming from big money dominance of our lawmaking. Could that be why we’re the only modern nation without HC for all in the 21st C, to name just 1 example?
It's we the people who need a 'self renewing essence', as our economic equality and opportunity are worsening.
The GINI Index and OECD intl rankings show the US behind other nations in economic mobility.
Hoping to get our politics unstuck from big money, the vast majority of US voters want to reverse Citizens United.
We can't compete with the wealthy to influence our govt we stand in long lines to elect.
Seems EU social democracies have fulfilled America’s ideal better than we do—Representation for Our Taxation---that the colonies demanded when they revolted from King George III and his aristos.
Now we’re dominated by our 21st C corporate elites, King Trump I and his courtiers.
Yes we can elect a new president, but how can we detach politicians we elect from big money influence that shuts out the voice of the citizen majority?
Can we manufacture our own yellow vests for our street protests, or do we have to import them from France? Or Asia?
Any positive role models we can learn from, Roger Cohen?
Underlying this discussion of "capitalism' and "socialism" is something far more fundamental. It is that America is fast losing its sense of identity, of collective purpose, of faith in itself. Rather, we are seeing what I would call "group identity individualism", where every cohort -- whether self or other-defined -- believes its particular identity is more important than the collective identity, American.
Who, if anyone, has the credibility today to say what Benjamin Franklin said two hundred years ago and be listened to? "We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately."
3
Now we know how Republicans will try to win: Scare people with a word most have no clue what it means. It's really the same thing they used to call "the welfare state," with a big difference. It's not for the poor and "lazy" who don't pay taxes. It's for working people who do pay taxes finally getting something they and their children need for the taxes they pay. Everybody needs healthcare. Everybody needs at least two years of post-secondary education for those good-paying jobs that require specialized skills and more education for careers that require it. With government (aka all taxpayers) offsetting some of the expense of those two necessities, it leaves more money in the paychecks and pockets of working people and helps their children get ahead faster by their own hard work.
2
A correction: AOC didn't propose 70% "wealth tax." She proposed a 70% marginal rate on >$10million (taxable) income, which was far easier on the affluent than the 70% rate existed until 1981, when that 70% rate was on $215K (about $660K now).
Elizabeth Warren proposed wealth tax of 2% on $50million & up, & 3% on >$1billion.
Bernie Sanders issued a detailed taxation proposal in 2016, where the top rate was only 54% on >$10M. Robert Reich proposed 70% rate on over $15M in 2011.
All these proposals are initial suggestions, which would be debated & amended. And none of them are that drastic/radical. They aren't anticapitalistic. If socialism is an abhorrent term, call it progressive, or by any other name.
Back in the New Deal days, FDR said, editing what his speech writer wrote, paraphrasing "We're going to make society where no one is left out," which was even more "revolutionary" than what AOC told Chuck Todd, "in a modern, moral and wealthy society, no American should be too poor to live.”
My two cents' worth: Remunerations are essentially & vastly discordant, the rationale for progressive taxation: Top 25 hedge-fund managers made an average of $550million/yr, from 2009-16, for trading in Wall Street, with limited social value, while teachers, nurses & firefighters made broadly around $65K.
A less known simple fact: if progressive income taxes are cut, as in 2016, the rich benefit while bottom half EVENTUALLY suffer. "Broadening the base & lowering rates" are terrible.
4
@A.G.
Unlike cutting the income tax, if the income taxes are raised, the rich will pay more. Close to half doesn't pay federal income tax, so when federal income taxes are raised it wouldn't affect the low income groups, but they would benefit eventually in a variety of ways with better safety-net programs, etc.
Indeed if (progressive) income taxes are raised it benefits the society as a whole with all kinds of social spending. Local taxes like sales taxes, which are stealth taxes, need not be raised to fill shortfalls in federal grants, etc. Inequality will also come down.
Regular garden variety tax-hikes wouldn't affect the bottom 90% or so.
Somehow the right-wing propaganda has brainwashed the country. People in general ought to root for (income) tax-hikes.
3
@A.G., you are absolutely right. Right wing propaganda has brainwashed the country because it has put words into their heads. The progressives have to find the right words and vocabulary to market their messages. It is not a matter of who speaks the loudest, it is who speaks the right message, because in these times of social media, words can be used and misused to one's power and strength. Facts do not matter anymore, only messaging does, people are getting away with blatant lies, our President is exhibit A.
2
So many good comments on this excellent, thoughtful piece. There are coming (or come) many big changes to how we organize a "civilized" society - or it may collapse under it's own contradictions. As a life-long UK labour supporter, of the "centre left" style, I am troubled be how we may best resolve this. I worry about distorted reports of how crazy "lefties" will ruin us, and it IS impossible to get a quart out of a pint pot. We must retain a vibrant "capitalist" system to ensure there IS a pot to share; the trick is the balance between rights and responsibilities. Please keep thinking, talking, but soon acting to make life better for more - as it has been for a long time, but is now under threat.
1
"Self-reliance is to America what fraternity is to France: part of its core. American space — so immense, so un-European — conjures in Americans a bristling independence of spirit that wants government out of their lives."
Cohen and most Americans, especially Democrats, underestimate the importance of his observation above. It would behoove coastal liberals to travel across America at ground level, north, middle, and south, talking with, not at, folks along the way. If you want to make change, especially change for the better, you need a realistic and visceral understanding of what it is you are trying to change, not just abstractions derived from pundits, statistics, entertainment pretending to be news, and the internet's endless aggregation of anecdote into a unquestioned mass reality.
8
Part of the problem -- and one Cohen inadvertently contributes to -- is the recognition that "socialism" and "capitalism" are, for most people, symbols, not thought-out constructs with coherent substance. He describes some of the mixed economic/cultural systems in Europe, but fails to provide a vocabulary of nuance that would facilitate discussion of both where we should go and how, in the real world, we might actually get there.
What we need in America is a common language of substance and a commitment to expend the significant personal energy involved in not seeing other people and their beliefs as bumpersticker slogans.
To a step past the essence of this column, I would add that America is fast losing its sense of identity, of collective purpose, of faith in itself. Rather, we are seeing what I would call "group identity individualism", where every cohort (whether self or other defined) believes its particular identity is more important than the collective identity, American.
3
It is a sad fact of US politics that universal health care is promoted by leftist radical Clinto-Sandersites and their hatched disciples, of the type of Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, attached to their elders' coattails and wallowing in their intellectually muddy wake.
The much higher ratio of tax revenues to gross domestic product in France than in the US may well be responsible for a better on average medical care in France, but God help those who have to go to an emergency room of a French hospital at night. The French who can afford it, always choose private hospitals.
On the political spectrum, socialist and, untill recently, communist core parties were the main opposition to the center and right. Chaos is growing by the splitting of the left and right into folkloristic groups, and the multi-party result is not any better than the US cabal of the two-party system.
There will be no resolution of the national health system in the US until the lead is taken by a party that enjoys the trust of the voters.
2
@Tuvw Xyz you dismiss "better on average medical care in France" as if it isn't worth considering. Until we start thinking of the needs of the entire population, we will not get anywhere. Is it not better that those facing dire diagnoses do not have bankrupting medical bills to worry about in addition to their health struggles? We have such extremes in the US. If you have the right insurance, there is no end to the amount of money a hospital may be willing to spend on your care. If, however, you do not, a hospital may provide severely deficient care, if at all, and then send you the bill. But how can you pay that bill if you've been fired from your job for being sick in the first place? The system can be made better, and looking to and learning from Europe is a good place to start.
2
Absurd. Most French people are perfectly happy to get cared for at public hospitals. It is not because a number of wealthy people always preder to go private (for any number of reasons, not just the quality of the care) that this invalidates the entire public system. The most financially inefficient health system is the US one when considering its total cost versus the healthcare outcome for the entire US population, including those who have no coverage at all. The aim in a wealthy (the wealthiest!) developped country like the US should be to offer affordable healthcare its entire population.
2
Donald Trump is the ethically challenged master of oversimplification and name-calling nastiness. In the 2020 campaign, Democrats cannot be cowed by having Trump brand them as “socialists.”
Democrats will need to blunt that charge by stressing the advantages of the social programs which they promote.
Ironically, that means that Democrats will have to engage in some oversimplifying of their own.
The key is productivity, and Roger Cohen is correct that enlisting support from some well-known, respected business leaders would be beneficial.
The subtleties of economists in university settings, explaining how improvements in health care financing and longer vacations are good for everyone, will be no match for Trump’s mocking rhetoric.
Straight talk from successful corporate leaders who know how to make a profit and meet a payroll will be persuasive.
3
Western Europe is not socialist today.
These are welfare states with a capitalist economy.
The below definition does apply to France Sweden, Germany or any other Western European country.
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.
3
Part III of my comments.
Overall, the tax and benefit systems mean that one does not spend energy worrying about these issues, or worry about unexpected costs: things are predictable, your back is covered. It is a stress free and hassle free way of life. This brings me to my final point: there are around 1.300.000 active companies in Sweden, for a population of 10 million. The tax and benefit systems are on balance hardly undermining entrepreneurial initiatives: to the contrary (of standard moral hazard theories), the systems provide predictability and a basic safety net in case things do not work out, and it make people willing and able to take risks and try new things in order to improve their lives. But as in any other area of government, there is continuous public discussion on the need for tweaks, nip and tucks in the area of taxes and benefits to reduce unintended consequences and loopholes, reduce fraud and waste, reduce any disincentives to work, and promote various forms of societal goals and implement social engineering to create public good in the long-term. While not perfect, in this regard Sweden is an example of European country that has come a long way since the first in a series of small and large tax reforms starting some 30 years ago.
6
Rebus, thank you for this excellent summary. Yes, Sweden has performed excellently over the past 15-20 years, and it is the showcase economic model for a high tax, high welfare system.
Similarly, Singapore’s economic performance has been exemplary, in many ways exceeding that of the Nordics and Sweden, although with much lower tax rates (low 20s percent for salary tax, 0% capital gains tax, although mandatory high savings rates for retirement planning purposes) and nowhere near the welfare state that Sweden supports.
Singapore also has a history of large military / defense spending, similar to the US, while the EU countries, including the Nordics, spend relatively very little on defense.
And of course Singapore has the added complexity of governing a multi-racial society.
In other words, there are different models of success for the smaller population countries, such as Sweden and Singapore.
But as applies to the larger population economies, such as the US and the EU-5, it seems readily apparent that the large state / large tax systems in the EU-5 have led to a high level of bureaucracy which inhibits entrepreneurialism and new capital formation. For the US to follow this path would be quite risky, almost foolish, in my view.
1
Hi Chin, many thanks for your good comment. Yes, there are challenges to applying the Swedish system (which has indeed evolved in measured steps over a long time) in a short while in other countries. But I do feel more optimistic in that it is possible for tax and benefits systems to be more comparable across countries than they are now, regardless of country size and other differences. But still, change takes time, and to change the US system will need to evolve in thoughtful steps over some 25 years: it cannot be changed over night (or election!), and I feel that well-intended persons like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ need to apply more temperance and think about steps over a longer period of time.
As for the link between large tax/state and bureaucracy, I think the link is not inherent. Take Sweden: through a cross-agency website, you can register a new company in 5 minutes: that is all it takes to have all government permits, registrations, tax numbers, etc., after which all those formalities are done. Easier than to shop at Amazon. But in Austria (where I currently live as an international expat), Germany, Italy, etc., it is a complete bureaucratic nightmare. But again, that nightmare is a "choice", I believe, and not inherently linked to high taxes.
4
Turning from taxes to benefits, students grade 1-12 can choose any public or private school: the government picks up 100% of the bill through school vouchers, it has been like this since 1996. It creates competition among schools, but undermines co-operation, and I find it to be a dysfunctional system, since co-operation among schools is more efficient and beneficial for students and society than non-co-operation. One of many examples of a single payer system with multiple providers. Healthcare and dentals work the same: single payer system, but multiple providers of your choice, with regulated prices. Thus, healthcare is not “socialized”, choices are immense (you are never limited to a certain health provider, whether public or private): only the payments are “socialized” in that the government acts as the sole insurance company. There is a deductible for healthcare, around USD25 per visit (for ER visits it is USD45) regardless of treatment or surgery provided (whether private or public). However, if you are admitted to a hospital, then the daily extra cost is USD12 (yes,12). Annual cost for prescription medicines is capped at around USD250: beyond that, without charge. Similarly, costs for visiting doctors are capped at USD150 per year: thereafter all visits without charge. Dental care is without charge until the age of 23. Maternity care: no charges. All these benefit examples are tied to a single condition: you have to be part of the national population registry.
4
Being a Swede, allow me to add some tax and benefit related details about Sweden. First, fortune/wealth tax is. 0%. Second, inheritance tax is 0%. Third, property tax is 0%. Property sales gain tax is 20%. Maximum income tax rate is 55%. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ proposal of a 70% tax bracket (for extreme high-income earners) in the U.S. would not get more than a sub-microscopic level of support in Sweden.
In surveys, the government agency that year after year comes out as most liked by the population is the tax agency. It provides great service, information and advice, is approachable and professional, and the webpage is filled with clear information and self-service functions. The tax code is simple, without obvious loopholes (let alone designed with loopholes for interest groups…), so there is no need for a tax advisor when you file annual incomes and taxes, which is an easy task: the government has pre-filled your form with income and tax data, data on any interest payments, taxable sick-leave pay, etc., (collected from employers, financial institutes, trade unions, government agencies, etc.), then added your deductions, and calculated the final tax; if something is amiss, you just revise the information. Taxes can be filed via an online service, which was used by 77% of the tax subjects last year. Taxes are filed by May 2, and tax returns/bills show up early June for all but those with the complex and revised tax forms, who get their tax returns/bills in August.
54
@Rebus
It's good to know how civilized societies handle their taxes.
1
We can’t possibly implement a system like that in the US. It would throw half the CPAs out of work and kill H & R Block. The horror!
4
France has prospered? Really?
- in the past ten years, aggregate GDP has been flat. No growth.
- unemployment is close to 9% and youth unemployment is twice the national rate
The reality is that over the past 15 years (right after China was admitted into the WTO), only two countries in the world have generated any aggregate economic growth: the US and China.
These two countries are by far the most entrepreneurial countries in the world.
- each year its estimated that 25mm new businesses a year are created in China and 7mm in the US, far overwhelming the socialist countries of the EU
- of the largest e-commerce companies in the world (a representation of ‘new businesses’), all of them originate from the US and China. None from the EU.
- And the biggest venture capital markets and IPO markets? China and the US.
- the best graduates in China and the US are likely to work at new, entrepreneurial companies (think Alibaba, Tencent, Facebook, etc). And the best graduates in the EU - likely to join 100 year old companies, such as BMW, Siemens, Allianz, etc etc
Try and start a new business in France....can you hire people - with the flexibility to fire if you make a hiring mistake? Raise capital? The one sure thing is there will be ample paperwork!
Of course, both the US and China have issues they need to tackle, but far better to have the benefit of some growth vs the stagnant EU.
5
Yes and they have the luxury of having the USA spend its money on military in case France needs to call up the US for help again. If not for that difference we wouldn't be calling this area France since 1943.
4
The comparison of tax revenue as a percent of GDP in France and the United States (42% versus 26%) is misleading, because it does not count U.S. private expenditures paid by taxes in France (and other European countries). When public and private expenditures for health, education and retirement are compared for France and the U.S., as a percent of GDP, differences are not as great: 49% for France and 42% for the U.S.. According to OECD data, Germany's expenditures for health, education and retirement (public and private combined) are actually less than ours (40% for Germany versus 42% for the U.S.). Europe is not perfect, but they get a lot more for their money than we do, largely because our politicians do nothing to control health care costs.
5
Rather than debate about the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin, or as discussed here, whether it's socialism or capitalism... or any other "ism", let's stop for a moment. It reallllly doesn't matter what we call it. Call it whatever, even "UNsocialism" or "UNcapitalism", the fact remains we have some work to do... we need massive improvements in the roads, the utilities, the rivers, the railroads, the healthcare system, the tax system, the debt load, the immigration process, the information networks, the education processes... the list goes on and on and on. Most of which are being ignored by the very people that could do something. So carry-on with this endless debate but in the mean time the climate system continues to accelerate toward an unknown condition and we barely notice. We're headed for what, 10 Billion humans on the planet and we do not know how to feed that many humans and many are already starving around the planet.
Maybe, just maybe, it could be the time to work together for a while... regardless of labels.
16
Thank you for this excellent column, I continue to be grateful for legitimate newspapers and journalists, even though they appear to be on the threatened and/or endangered list.
"Trump, unerring in his instinct for the jugular, declares, “We believe in the American dream, not the socialist nightmare.”"
His "American Dream", I fear, is something actually quite horrifying: Less justice, more inequality; immoral and perhaps illegal business practices; return of Jim Crow and other hatreds; questionable and obstructionist elections; inappropriate or outright harmful political appointees; unaddressed, indeed protected, gun violence; demonization of the press and silence and acceptance [approval?] of the brutal murder of a Washington Post journalist.
That 'immense space' of America will grow smaller and more crowded and uncomfortable and unfamiliar as climate chaos claims our coasts, and we continue to be decimated by wildfire, flood, hurricane, tornado, freeze, and loss of our potable water and clean air. I'm old, it would almost be worth it to watch Mar-a-Lago sink beneath the waves. But my heart is breaking for the little children...
6
"Socialism, a word reborn, has none of the Red Scare potency in Europe that it carries in the United States." We need to remember that Socialism came to Europe and Japan after the war when most of the people were nearly starving. I've lived in Japan for years. It is without doubt a near Socialist utopia of Medicare-for-all, an 80% middle-class, virtually no homeless, few if any billionaires, a birth to death nanny state, devised largely by Uncle Sam. It could easily be described as a nightmare. There is little or no job changing, no career changes, no life-long learning, no second chances, no middle-age do-overs; most people live in the same apartment they bought or rented out of college. 900 square feet is considered large. No swimming pool homes, no two-car garages, no 5,000 square feet McMansions. Homeroom teachers choose student colleges; you get one chance to pass the entrance exam. If you don't pay your medical insurance fees, you go to forced labor camp. Romney said 47% of Americans pay no taxes; here, 100% pay or else. Government offices dock a full day's wage for 1 minute tardiness. Schools and business run 6-day weeks. In most jobs, it's a 12-hour day. Socialism is a blast but don't confuse it with the American way of life.
4
We are not talking about socialism, whatever that now means, but rather social democracy, a mixed economy which still relies on private property and free markets. Also, a 70 percent marginal tax rate on the highest incomes is not excessive. In fact, it was 90 percent in this country in the 1950s, under a Republican president, and the country prospered.
60
@James Ward
Right. And the Dems need to make these ideas CLEAR to voters.
2
Basically, we seem in sync when talking about a social democracy, a capitalist system that works hard in getting rid of the awful economic inequality (currently), one that provides to all and everybody of the basic necessities of modern life; this requires a non-ideological pragmatism based on ethics...so to modulate (if not eliminate) an unhinged capitalism where greed and selfishness predominate. We ought to expect a well regulated equilibrium between private enterprise and the public good, as they must work in solidarity. This, the Trumpian mentality could not understand, due to the vast social distance from the poor, even from the middle class. Needless to say, a savage capitalism with free markets divorced from governmental control, may be even worse than communism, a constructive criticism for those that demand license to exploit us...instead of freedom to excel, and to restore social justice. This, if peace in our midst is to become reality.
5
So well written - and such a breathe of fresh air when compared to the usual soak the rich / corporate greed drumbeat we hear from the left. If the progressive wing of the Democratic Party wants to be taken seriously they should take notice of articles like this. Centrists and moderate Republicans will actually listen to well reasoned compromise.
3
In 1989, as the Soviet Bloc collapsed, I told a very Republican co-worker that I expected communism would look attractive again to many people in a couple of generations. We might first see a resurgence of right-wing populism, but communism would make a reappearance in some countries. The reason, I continued, was that the laissez-faire capitalist types like him would inevitably overplay their hand, causing real pain to the majority of people. The coworker was uncomprehending and gobsmacked. My hope today is that a return to socialism (really, social democracy) will give society a safe and productive off-ramp before the world gets to that point.
8
At this point in the debate, progressives seem to have more of a critique of capitalism and elites in charge of society that seem to motivate yellow vests in France and left of center democrats in the U.S.
This occurs at the same time for conservatives, including Trump, to pull out the new response about socialism, a step up in rhetoric from more old fashioned attacks against ‘liberals’.
For democrats trying to unseat this president, splintering support and votes and looking for ‘pure’ candidates will make for challenges and increase the chances for Trump to win a second term.
2
Comparing France to the USA is like comparing wine to a supersized, Diet Coke.
New Amsterdam, Tejas , Ponce de Leon and Joseph Smith are very unlike the Gauls and Marie Antionette. There is little unity and less humanity in our "What have you done for me lately, culture."
Yes, things need to change for the bottom 90 plus percent. Not to many folks at the top, especially "The Street" want to admit that the policy of ignoring inflation, and extremely low interest rates will prove in the end, that it was all about the top one percent.
My father used to say, "You don't go on forever." That's both people and markets. We shall see!
5
This column presents another "either-or" approach which, like the idea that a far left Sanders/AOC approach reflects the views of a majority of Americans, fails to reflect the very diverse views of Americans. We need balance, the kind of balance that will appeal to Independents and the many former Obama voters who abandoned the Democrats in 2016. Yes, we need reform in our tax structures; much stronger environmental protection (especially in light of continuing Trump rollbacks and Climate Change denial); we need to improve access to healthcare--and our "healthcare" system, which still is rooted in treating illness rather than preventing illness and promoting health. "Free" healthcare and education is not really "free," for everything has a cost and this needs to be addressed beyond simplistic statements about taxing the rich (yes, we need to raise taxes on the rich, but this will not alone pay for all these promises). We need a balance of government intervention and free market, personal choice and commitment to the community. America is not Europe. The near-obsession with AOC in the Times drowns out the concerns and views of many Democrats with more moderate leanings. Remember the Democrats one the House in part by taking Republican-held districts by more moderate Democrats. A sharp turn towards Sanders/AOC style "democratic socialism" will not only lose the presidency but probably the Democratic majority in the House.
5
Yes, Les Gilets Jaunes seem quite happy with the system; and let's not overlook the 35% or so of happy voters that regularly vote for Marine Le Pen. Indeed, the French system delivers the goods; especially if one is at either end of the economic system, the rich or the poor. It's the tax paying middle that struggles; but c'est la vie. You can't have everything.
7
Yes, Les Gilets Jaunes seem quite happy with the system; and let's not overlook the 35% or so of happy voters that regularly vote for Marine Le Pen. Indeed, the French system delivers the goods; especially if one is at either end of the economic system, the rich or the poor. It's the tax paying middle that struggles; but c'est la vie. You can't have everything.
2
Government should function so that it best serves the interests of all it's nation's citizens. A free market economy has been shown to be the best system for economic growth,
With regard to healthcare, many people in this country, mostly the less well off and those with poor health are left behind.
Such horrors as losing one's home due to illness and huge medical bills, is probably unique to the US among wealthy nations. That is why we need to have a healthcare system where everyone has access to healthcare. This could be through single payer or a combination of government and private health insurance.
Some might label this as "big government' or socialism, however, providing healthcare for all is simply the right and fair thing to do and ensures a healthier nation.
6
"My own inclinations are centrist, but not a “centrism” that cares more for Goldman Sachs than the opioid crisis."
This is the sentence that most speaks to me. I considered myself a centrist for my entire life until 2016. I was raised Catholic, with a Republican father and a Democratic mother. I ended up closer to her side, but still close to both.
Now I realize, like you, that centrism as it once lived is dead. It needs to be resurrected as a centrism that cares for the most people it can, which means it can't be a top-down 1% centrism. True centrism must be center-left, not the center-right slippery slope we've been sliding down for 40 years.
Centrism is dead! Long live centrism!
13
You cannot have a robust safety net and low taxes. When Americans hear 70% tax they swoon, never mind that it applies only to any income above $10 million. Only a very small % would ever see that tax. But that tax will still not raise enough to provide the kind of services most Europeans expect from their government. The main reason for such a tax is not economics but preventing the concentration of wealth in few hands that is the main reason the US has the largest income inequality among developed nations. The experience from other nations (and of the US prior to the Republican mania of cutting taxes) is that high taxes on large incomes do not hurt the economy and do reduce inequality. But big fortunes are already the norm in this country and the only way to prevent inequality to persist for generations is high taxes on large inheritances and a yearly tax on wealth (that tax need not be higher than 2-3%, in keeping with GDP growth).
Much noise has been generated about the latter forgetting that we already are taxed on wealth (property tax) but that tax is a burden mostly on the middle class as a home is most of their wealth. The wealth tax (unlike property taxes) has to be a Federal tax, otherwise wealthy people can move to the state next door that does not have such a tax.
3
What so many people fail to understand is that socialism is not the enemy of a free market economy... It is actually its saviour.
FDR recognized that the way to stave off a communist revolution or a facist uprising was through social welfare and very high taxes on the wealthiest.
17
I was in France a year ago and talked to young people who have never had jobs and will never have one. They are not starving. But they are angry and depressed. I read about the Yellow Vests movement, as tainted by antisemitism ad Corbyn’s Labour in the UK. And I was born in the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics. So I know what socialism is. If the Democratic nominee is a socialist, I am voting for Trump. Incidentally, just to correct the record, no democratic socialist party is anywhere in power in Europe except for Spain where the next elections are going to bring in a right-wing coalition.
20
@Mor "So I know what socialism is. "
By visiting France and being born in the USSR? How does that follow?
I agree with much of what you say here, but it’s important to remember that even “conservative” parties in Europe wear red socks.
@Mor, discontent is human nature. No matter what, even the wealthiest becomes discontent with their fortune...if only I had more...etc etc.
2
Climate change will be the defining issue of the 21st century. I imagine a student (survivor?) in the 2150 CE reading a column like this in history class (if there still are history classes) and exclaiming, "Isn't it amazing what some people thought was important back in those days!" AOC will qualify for at least a footnote, being one of the minority of politicians who saw what was coming and tried to do something about it.
2
Would Mr Cohen please clarify the statistic he cited on tax collections: were they at the federal/national level, or at all levels of government? France is a very centralized nation-state, with almost all revenues collected at the top level. The United States has a federal system, and many states and municipalities collect revenues that would be collected at the national level in France (state income taxes, property taxes, gas taxes - funding roads, schools, and many other services). Thus our federal taxes appear very low, but I would venture that total revenues are not as disparate as claimed.
The statistic Mr Cohen cites would be much more informative if he were to explain exactly what is being compared. As it stands in this article, and in the Reuters article he cites (I did look through), these numbers are pretty useless.
4
Mr. Cohen says, “The notion that American elections are won in the center was buried by Trump.” Well, in 2016 Trump did get most of his 48% of the popular vote by appealing to fringe voters on the right, including using thinly-based appeals to racism. But what enabled his razor-thin victory was capturing swing voters in the center, mostly disaffected working people who fell for his bogus appeals of how he was going to do things like rebuild the steel mills. The Democrats helped by failing to address their woes of these workers.
So our last election WAS won in the center. And the next one will be also—and probably will also be won by Trump—if the Democrats persist in this insane belief that this is a good time to for us to adopt socialism.
Yes, France is a wonderful country. Except this isn’t France. This is America. For a long time we’ve been the #1 country in the world in industry, technology, and agriculture. This is largely due to our unashamed embrace of capitalism. Capitalism has benefited not only Americans but people across the world. In our global economy things aren’t working so well for us now. But the way out is hardly socialism. The way out is to regain our lead, partly through more directed federal government policies and investment for technology, research, and infrastructure.
Our voters know this. And if the Democrats try to say no, socialism is the way, they will be certain to get slam-dunked in 2020, and the Trump disaster will spin off into insanity.
16
The poor, the unemployed, and those with varying degrees of disability have Medicaid. I would like to see Medicare for everyone who works for a living. Let's call it Medicare Work. The new Democratic left should make this their priority. They should put together a health care program for working Americans and start signing up new members.
That is the kind of socialism I can live with.
7
This ignores the fact that we already live in a socialist country in many ways -- we just can't get ourselves to admit it. And the biggest denial is the denial of country club socialism that dominates our economy. The Repubs tar the Dems with socialism, while they are constantly appropriating assets of ordinary Americans and redistributing them to the wealthy. They are borrowing money from our children at a negative interest rate to pay for their tax cuts and tax breaks. Trump wants to appropriate border lands from landowners to build his wall. The Repubs are appropriating our clean air, clean water, and clean land in order to pollute them with industrial waste in order to off-load costs onto the general population and future generations, thereby increase their own profits and wealth accumulation. These costs include appropriating people’s health and happiness and increasing the population’s costs for health remediation. The country club socialism regarding the environment also results their negligent acceleration of climate change – again, an off-loading of costs and appropriation of future generations’ assets.
And Americans generally love the the socialism of Social Security, Medicare, and the military -- yes, if you honestly look at how the military is organized and run, it is about as socialist organization as you can find.
Repubs are not real free-marketers. Besides their country club socialism, they support monopolistic dominance of markets that impede capitalism.
153
@Michael
Exactly! Let's not forget all the seed money the government grants to research, which often, results in the scientists making millions from the research.
5
@Michael
Earlier generations of Americans borrowed -- from their children -- to pay for roads and hospitals and schools; later, the children could use those roads and hospitals and schools. There is nothing wrong about investing (not "spending") in the future -- all families do it, and the state should too. The trick is to find the right proportions and punish corruption.
Many have pointed out that Europe has social democratic or "social market economies". Capitalism is on top, but the governments supply a safety net so that people don't have to chose between bread or bed.
4
Your military critique should be used more often. It is true that military members are paid according to their rank and time served, not their skill...which means the computer programmer gets the same pay as the receptionist. You’ll never hear republicans complain about that system.
6
“American space — so immense, so un-European — conjures in Americans a bristling independence of spirit that wants government out of their lives.”
Except that 80% of Americans live in urban areas. Same percentage as French, while all of Europe is at 74%.
Even in the west, where urbanization was at 50% nearly 100 years ago, is now nearing 90% urban.
2
The battle between socialism and private enterprise markets has a moral component and an economic one. Morally, there are two ways to pose the essential questions. The socialist side asks whether it is better help others, which they find easy to answer: Of course we should help others. But people who are freedom-oriented pose a different question: When and where should the physical/police powers of the government be used to adjust relations among citizens--ie, morally, when does one use force against one citizen to benefit another citizen? The reason there is no reconciliation between socialists and capitalists is that the two sides see two completely different moral questions in the policy differences.
Economically, it is clear that free market capitalism is the greatest engine of wealth creation--from an historic perspective, it has brought great wealth to a dark and impoverished world. It is also clear that those who cannot or will not participate by contributing to private enterprises will not be direct beneficiaries of free markets--they will, in some sense, be left behind. Socialists are focused on this group of people.
I have grown tired of the endless "debates" among the two factions which never get to the real issues because neither faction recognizes the real moral and economic differences in the two positions. Can we all try to think a bit more clearly?
2
Of course everyone should work, though those who are dependent on those who cannot or will not work should not suffer needlessly.
Pari passu, those who have benefited through no effort of their own from ZIP code, genetic endowment, or a nurturant upbringing should be grateful for the further good fortune that their work can be recognized and rewarded. And their gratitude should address the fact that they can repay their debt to God/fate/nature and to society by something as sweet and gentle as taxation.
Morality is not free-dumb but instead this: “Of those to whom much has been given, much will be expected.”
I’d be careful about drawing conclusions from the 2016 elections like that US elections are no longer won in the middle. I know many people who held their noses and voted Trump because they couldn’t stomach Hillary. Remember, these candidates were the most disliked in polling history. So, there is hope for a middle consensus.
2
Another very helpful change in Progressive's language would be to stop calling for "Free" college and to stop labeling Healthcare a "Right".
Of course college can't be "free". The Left is are proposing that as Americans, we pool our resources (via taxes) for the betterment of society as a whole. Make THAT case and I think the public will listen.
Similarly with Healthcare. How is compelling the tax base to pay for one's healthcare a RIGHT, such as would be in the Bill of Rights? It isn't, or at least that point can be argued vigorously, as many are doing.
Instead of demanding a "right", the Left should promote the benefits of living in a society where everyone can receive healthcare. Promote the cause, argue the case, but stop making demands.
Demanding something "free" and demanding some new "right" is off putting to many individualistic minded Americans, the demands sound needy and childish, and much of the public can close their minds when they hear demands.
Make the case to Americans of what WE should do TOGETHER, and stop demanding - as if someone else should give you something.
42
It is not in the Constitution, but I would think health clearly is vital part of "certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
8
@ImagineMoments, First of all, no one has called for free colleges; Bernie and others have called for free community and local colleges. You cannot tell private colleges how to handle their finances (unless they are Trumpette fake colleges that defraud people. But free community-supported colleges are neither socialist or "left". They represent pure capitalism as long-term investments. I grew up in the south Bronx in a less than well-off family. My father had to quit school at 12 to help support his mother when his father and grandfather both died in 1915. There were no "socialist" programs such as Social Security or Survivors' benefits. The ONLY choice I had was to go to a free college (City College of New York). I graduated, continued on, and eventually retired as a medical school professor. Many of my college friends followed a similar path with a big give-back to society. Ultimately, during our careers, we paid far more in taxes than if we had been denied the chance to go to college. The support for us in college is known as a long-term investment with a large payoff for the investors. What could be more capitalistic? You simply do not understand how it works.
26
@JerryV
Let's start with accepting to college only those students (or at least a significant majority) that can handle the college material without requiring remedial classes. Once done we can magically find out that what the country now spends in Pell grants and other aid is enough to everyone attending public schools (at least the 2-year ones) to go for free.
1
In a free-market economy, there are winners and there are losers, and in general the winners have the buying power to win more and more - and so we have the inequality we see in America. This is the mathematical outcome from control-theory 101.
Government intervention is needed to break this destructive feedback loop and to maintain an equilibrium. The people who oppose this are the ones who assume they will be winners (or already are) - but it would be far safer to design a system where there are no losers. Not all attempts succeed, but it remains the better, more realistic, goal because being a loser is more likely than you like to believe.
3
France’s economy generates 2/3 the wealth, per person, than does the US. French taxes extract investment capital from the economy, so that the economic pie is much smaller than that of the US. Income is more equal in France but is far less substantial across the board. Generally speaking the free market generates the largest pie and the government distributed. France’s economy is inefficient because the government has too many fingers in the pie. The US economy, on the other hand, has too few government programs. The ideal answer is somewhere in the middle.
7
@michjas
but the French work less (hence the lower wealth generation per person) and live more (hence the joie de vie)
18
@Gerard. But they can’t afford their own wine.
@Gerard
Tell my wife and sister in Paris that the work less. What the French do, is shut everything down from Sat afternoon to Monday, except the tourist aras.
“... bristling independence ...” to keep government out of their lives. So: are such folks willing to give up police, fire departments? National security and defense? Public education? Medicare? Social security? Medicaid? The CDC to protect against epidemics? The NIH to help find new cures for diseases? And so on.
If people who want to jettison government in favor of the private sector are then prepared for public sector services, then okay. Pony up!
It will not be possible, however, to maintain an American lifestyle that way, regardless of how much it skews to the benefit of the wealthy.
So those who want government out of their lives should think long and hard about the tradeoffs and whether they are prepared to pay their own way for what they now take for granted.
U
3
What's in a name? Stop speaking of European "socialism". Socialism is state ownership of the means of production; it reduces free market competition. The European Union and its Member States are NOT socialist. They are social democracies. They have "social market economies,"
Article 3 section 3 of the Treaty on European Union says it explicitly: "a highly competitive social market economy."
It's not that hard to understand: a market economy, but when it fails to produce social results, government use of social laws, e.g., universal health care.
To call the European Union socialist helps the anti-social forces in our country.
392
@JR Social democracies are socialist (partly) as are social dictatorships. The difference is in the second part of the phrase, not the first. The most successful economies are mixed ones.
12
@JR
Amen and amen. We'll be a lot better off if we quit twisting the meaning of words, to endless confusion.
12
@JR
The average Trump voter is too uneducated to understand anything you said. Nor would anything Roger Cohen wrote make a dent. And Trump and his political hands know it, so the misinformation and scare tactics on "socialism a la Venezuela."
That is why the Dems who call themselves "democratic socialists" made a big mistake. Why they did this, I don't know since the proposals they have come up with are not "democratic" nor "socialist" per se so much as more "equal" government for all Americans.
Bernie Sanders, of course, can never win the presidency since he has labeled himself a "Socialist" for over thirty years. Gosh, I hope the Dems are foolish enough to name him as their candidate.
AOC and those other "democratic socialists" need to come up with another label for their approach to government policy/services and make that a rallying cry for the 2020 elections.
And Progressive doesn't cut it.
9
I just want to point out to Roger that the 70% tax rate on the rich proposed by AOC is not on all income but only income above $10,000,00. It is not a radical-socialist-soak-the-rich policy. In fact, a 70% tax rate was applied as recently as 1981 to income above $215,000 for a married couple. For the last 40 years, though, conservatives and the radical Right have conspired to formulate policy that soaks the poor and the middle class. We now have the greatest income inequality since Robber Baron days. A substantial correction, not a mealy-mouth one, is in order.
569
@Deborah Klugman
This is a critical point and most regular people do not understand it. Those left of center must do a better job of explaining what a marginal tax rate is. The Right has its minnions believing it means the rich pay 70% on everything, which of course would be very unfair and unproductive. Politicians of the Left never explain it properly.
As for "socialism", the Left should stop using the term. Immediately, right now. For completely irrational reasons it is poison among at least half the country. Stop, and just call yourself a progressive, the issues are the same, and the American people support them overwhelmingly. Since the days of Eugene Debs the affluent right worked day and night to denigrate "socialism" as something completely un-American - this cannot be reversed in short order, so sacrifice the term to the ignorant and stop using it.
95
@Deborah Klugman
You’re exactly right about AOC’s tax program. It doesn’t soak the rich. It merely scratches the surface. It gets good press but it accomplishes next to nothing.
11
The term “socialist” is more commonly used by the Republicans as as insult. They are the evil geniuses of shaping the dialogue by choice of words. The Democrats need to up their game in that area.
42
Regarding the doubt that AOC’s proposed “70 percent wealth tax” will get a Democrat in the Oval Office: she has proposed a 70 percent income tax rate on the highest income bracket, something the U.S. has had in the past, under Eisenhower I have heard. I have also heard that under FDR the highest income tax rate went up to 90 percent, and that FDR’s second election, at the height of the New Deal, was by popular vote the biggest landslide in U.S. history.
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@Sarah Actually, the 90 percent rate was in effect under Eisenhower, and the country prospered.
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@Sarah - The 70% rate lasted up until Reagan came into office. He had it reduced to 50%
I'd be happy just seeing it raised back up to 50%. We could say to the GOP as they scream bloody murder, "Well, if 50% was good enough for Saint Reagan it's good enough for me."
Combine that with a few other tax adjustments and we'd have a huge increase in tax revenues.
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@Sarah
No one paid thst. Ever hear of Tax Loopholes? Accountants? I was one. I KNOW no one paid the official rate and neither did I.
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Bullseye, Mr. Cohen.
“Self-reliance is to America what fraternity is to France: part of its core. American space.” Unfortunately, so true. But it is important to recognize that self-reliance is a myth along with meritocracy, America as the “Chosen Nation,” capitalism as a rational, natural phenomenon, the Protestant work ethic, religion, “All men are created equal,” “Of the people, by the people…,” American exceptionalism, Manifest Destiny, Thanksgiving, Trump is acting in the best interest of the people who voted for him - and on and on. America runs on myth.
In contrast socialism offers reality. It will be difficult to face the challenges we have with nothing but myth as a strategy.
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I think one of the most telling remarks Bernie Sanders made during a town hall was, to paraphrase, college must be free because past generations' high school education was comparable to today's college education. What he implied is that we're really not paying for a "college" education for our kids...we're really paying for a completion of high school education. We've dumb-downed our 12 year education system to the point that kids are graduating with a high school diploma that does not encompass the quality of education that we assume. This is the real tragedy!
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@J. G. Smith
It's the greatest unspoken tragedy of all. I'm high school class of 1966. Our public schools then were superb. My teachers were WWII vets of real intellectual distinction.
One small example: my senior paper in Asian History class (an actual high school class) was on the Maharata Empire of southern India. This is the kind of stuff we did.
All trashed for political 'non-elitism' reasons starting in the early '70s. So many 'reforms' since-- but you can't put Humpty-Dumpty together again.
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@J. G. Smith your premise is wrong. Bernie said college now is equivalent to high school then because work has changed. With few exceptions, you can’t get a good job with a high school education; most of them have been automated or are swamped with low-skilled applicants. Good-paying jobs are now in knowledge-sector fields like coding, health care, or finance. These jobs require at least some college.
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@J. G. Smith. I agree with the sentiment, but not your hypothesis of dumbed down K-12 education. The rest of the developed world now has equal or better K-12 education. Couple this with automation removing opportunities for low skilled workers and you need a higher level of capability for a competitive work force.
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For Democratic Socialism, the question isn’t Whether, it’s How Much. We already have socialized roads and bridges for the most part, socialized education for the most part, socialized fire fighting, socialized food and drug evaluation, socialized parks, socialized medical care for seniors and the disabled, and the list goes on. So it’s nothing to fear, and it’s hardly inconsistent with a vibrant capitalism. Again, the question is HOW MUCH DO YOU WANT?
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@Samuel Yaffe
Not a single one of those things is 'socialism'; not one.
Socialism is state ownership of the means of production; at the very least, the major industries: oil, steel, transportation, etc. Period.
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@Longue Carabine Who do you think "owns" the National Parks in the US? All the State Parks? The NIH? It's socialist and in a socialist democracy, the state is us.
Samuel's point is really the heart of the objection from the conservatives. We have a mixed economy, part socialist, part capitalist, and they feel the balance is skewed. The ACA was viewed as a grab of the healthcare sector of the economy by the government (even though it wasn't).
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@Longue Carabine
You are getting stuck with terminology. Did you read the column? Everything that was mentioned (fire fighting, parks, education, etc.) is at least partially funded by the government. Not funded privately. So the question becomes how much do you want? We are not talking about 'pure' socialism, capitalism or communism. None of the countries mentioned lives under a pure system, not even ours. So, how much do YOU want?
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We need social programs that benefit everyone. That’s annimportant difference between the French (and some other European) systems and the American system.
The French system provides for all universal healthcare, inexpensive higher education, paid maternity leave, affordable childcare, decent paid vacations, among other things.
The American system mostly provides services for the truly poor like Medicaid, subsidized housing, welfare, and food stamps.
It’s much harder to get society as a whole on board for programs aimed at only a small segment of the population, even if they are the most desperate, especially when all are asked to pay for those programs through taxation. If “socialistic” programs like single payer, affordable college and childcare applied to everyone, there would be much broader and stronger support for them.
Truly spread around both the costs and the benefits of such policies and see people get on board with them.
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@M Hoberman To the extent French higher education is "inexpensive", it's because - as the author notes - the ratio of gross domestic product extracted via taxes in France is 46.2%, not that far from double the U.S. percentage.
Thus, it's not inexpensive; it's merely paid for differently.
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@Stratman
The issue is whether the taxpayer perceives he or she benefits from the taxes one pays. Nobody I know holds a grudge against paying Social Security tax because they know they'll eventually benefit - despite high extent of progressivity of the system (tax itself is the same but relative payoff is much greater than what had been put into the system for low incomes, and much less for high incomes). Awfulness of our current income tax system is in its absence of obvious social benefit for at least upper 50% of the taxpayers - and everything we are doing is aggravated by the extreme ineptness and poor attitude of the majority of the "citizen-facing" government employees. Unlike Europe where the government service is an area that the best and brightest are looking forward to joining - so the results are usually smart and efficient, here, in most cases the easiest way to get a job at a federal or state office is to be on a preference list.
@Stratman - As another commentor pointed out, if you combine America's 27.1% taxes with the 17.9% we also pay for healthcare, we end up right back to where the French are.
The difference is that while we are paying 17.9% for healthcare the French are paying less than 12%, which means a lot more money for other things, like education and childcare.
Unmentioned up until now is that the USA spends around 3.5% of GDP on its military budget while most of Europe hovers around 2%. So a huge portion of our taxes are being directed towards military spending. If the US military budget were brought from 3.5% to 2% that would be from $700B to $400B per year, or a redirection of $300B per year towards other American needs. That would still leave us with almost DOUBLE the spending of the next highest country, China.
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As always, a great column, Roger. Thoughtful, reflective, open-minded, and discerning, Look around us folks. Extreme capitalism as exhibited in USA has utterly failed us. It has also badly damaged the roots of our democracy. We are long overdo for a significant transition/realignment away from extreme capitalism. Otherwise, it’s time to close up shop altogether. The country will implode with the current path we are on.
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Currently, Republicans and large corporations are in control and they regard any digression from the status quo as socialism. The new Democrats want to correct that but Republicans will use the "S" word in the election as a pejorative to alarm voters.
In 1936, Franklin D. Roosevelt said: "Concentration of economic power in all-embracing corporations...represents private enterprise become a kind of private government which is a power unto itself - a regimentation of other people's money and other people's lives."
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@Whole Grains, Only the "new Democrats" want to correct that??" If new, old and middle Democrats don't get together, it will be 4 more years of Trump, followed by Pence. At this point, the behavior of the "New Democrats" closely resembles that of the Tea Party. Anyone saying that "if MY candidate is not nominated, I will not vote or will vote for a third Party" is throwing a temper tantrum and throwing the election.
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@JerryV
I don't agree that there is any comparison between the new Democrats and the Tea Party.
That is farfetched. As new to the House, the media have put them under a microscope and much of the discord is exaggerated. Under Nancy Pelosi's leadership, they will eventually coalesce. And remember what Mark Twain said: "I don't belong to any organized political party. I'm a Democrat."
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@Whole Grains Will Rogers, not Twain. Twain would skewer you for this. "I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat."
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That endless western expanse of America that Cohen writes that makes it so different than smaller and more crowded Europe is rapidly becoming more dry and brittle and uninhabitable due to climate change. No water, no life.
No amount of rugged individualism is going to get us through this existential crisis. And neither will Wall Street. Whether it is called democratic socialism or community, we need each other if we are to make it.
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@Jay
I had an 'existential crisis' several years back, after reading Sartre and Camus. I got over it.
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@Jay - There are also fewer and fewer people living in those vast empty expanses. The USA, like most of the world, is becoming an urban nation.
Even our most rural states like Nebraska are losing rural population and growing in their cities.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/nebraska/articles/2018-03-22/census-nebraskas-urban-counties-grow-rural-areas-shrink
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The last era when we had an upsurge in government programs to create equality was the ‘60’s and Lyndon Johnson’s great society. What has been that legacy? New public institutions were created: Public housing in the inner city, food stamps, welfare programs, Medicare,/Medicaid, etc. Washington had hundreds of smaller other programs to aid and help. Why aren’t all these celebrated today? With Medicare perhaps the exception, they stand in the shadow of failed expectations. How many times have presidents vowed to lead in shaping a successful public education program? But our schools seriously continue to underperform. Bureaucratic inventions have a way of fading and then dying. They lose appeal, federal funds dry up. They fail to change in the flux and change of American change. Senator Moynihan’s report was right about the unintended consequences of well intentioned welfare and housing programs, a population stuck in the inner cities or out in Appalachia. We have new goals now, free college, reparations, single payer insurance, zero carbon emission, liveable income for everyone.. LBJ never thought this big, but he would definitely be disappointed with what has happened to his vision.
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@Richard, It was accomplished by LBJ after Kennedy had failed. Kennedy's ideas were notable but he did not have the experience or political know-how to get his bills passed. Think about that in choosing a candidate. (This worked for his domestic program but his policy for Viet Nam was a failure.)
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If you take the 27% of our GDP that goes to taxes plus the 18% of GDP that goes to health care, bingo- you get 45%, very close to the French tax percentage. And they only spend 12% or so on health care. We spend that much already, but inefficiently because there is no negotiating of drug or care costs. To get the best part of capitalism- competition, and to jettison the worst part- captive and uninformed markets, we need single payer.
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To say drugs and health care services are not negotiated in our health care system is just untrue and a misinformed statement. Every insurer negotiates rates for drugs and services. That is one of their primary purposes. A single payer system would give the government complete control to set prices. It would guarantee lower costs because the government could simply decide to pay less. But if the government sets the wrong price, then there will be shortages and lousy care. That’s the risk of a single payer system.
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@Don Fawcett
If single payer, or some version thereof, is so risky, why has every other "wealthy" nation but ours adopted some form of it?
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About 6 basis points of the 18% are already paid by the government for medicare and Medicaid. .to add 18% to 27% requires an element of double counting.
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Mr. Cohen - Thank you for this column. Having just read Jame McAuley's review of Christophe Guilluy's book - "Twilight of the Elites: Prosperity, the Periphery, and the Future of France", I was impressed by the parallels between what is happening in France, the UK, and the U.S. Many citizens in the working classes in these nations (and other nations in Western Europe) have been pushed to the periphery of mainstream consciousness - on purpose in some cases, and in some cases not. Many small towns in France and the U.S. no longer have viable local economies due to multi-national corporations which have killed small businesses in those locales. The Yellow Vests ultimately rebelled at a lofty-sounding "carbon tax" by President Macron - who didn't take into the account that those in rural areas have to drive to get to whatever work they can get. I look forward to reading Guilluy's book to see how its lessons for France might apply for us here in the states.
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@Ellen
The fate of workers' families WAS all over the NYTimes decades ago - but never any more. People should wonder why people only count if they fit in a social collective or dependency group.
"Self reliance" is a myth continuously told by red state voters to themselves in order to mitigate the sting of being moochers on blue state tax dollars. They've got a rifle in one hand and a stack of SS disability checks in the other. Eschewing unions, those workers have ensured themselves
persistent low wages, and their state legislatures will never tax their wealthy sufficiently to pay for either infrastructure, healthcare or education, looking instead to the blue state pork their congressmen can bring home. These voters somehow believe that because they have to drive a pickup 50 miles in order to receive their social services instead of taking a subway, that's "rugged independence".
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@stan continople True enough, Continople. But don't forget the large numbers of retired union households, mostly relocated from cities to rural areas who've turned their backs on the golden goose that made for their cushy retirements. I'm surrounded by these people who downgrade the unions as crooked, violent & providing too many perks (believe it or not). They are overwhelmingly Republican with few exceptions, teachers & firefighters, for instance.
They tolerate & give lip service to the "self-reliant" moochers, with the exception of the few who keep up their homes & properties, who're peripherally in the club.
I've yet to meet a flush Republican believing that Trump's emolument issue is problematic. That's what a two or three thousand dollar tax break will do to any sense of ethics.
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@stan continople....America's propaganda about our unique independence and rugged individualism is what keeps our country behind 20th century standards of govt for the citizen majority.
Along with 'freedom from big govt interference and tax confiscation', the wealthy corporate mega donors and their politicians use those myths to keep the unbalanced power equation going.
But we have legalized govt subsidy of big corporations who force our lawmaking to stay within limits that benefit them.
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@stan continople But please remember as you use your Red/Blue Brush that there is also a transfer of tax dollars from NYC to the "red" counties, which are many, in New York State. While there is merit in pointing out that some states/counties have net gains in tax dollars, it is also an idea that when pushed far enough sounds exactly like the argument that Romney made about the 47%. When you happen to live near the financial center of the US, is it strange that of all those dollars that flow into your city, some need to flow out? We need to lose these binary labels, Red Blue, whatever, so destructive of cogent thinking.
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The problem (as I see it, considering I live across many ''Socialist'' countries) is that it is not about one system or the another and the labeling thereof.
It is one about education.
In our every fast paced world that is only getting faster and more ''dumbed-down'' because of social media (let alone the propaganda), we, as voters need to take upon ourselves to educate.
I keep asking the same question (no one answers) - Is it the candidate/party that moves the policies or the policies that move the party and candidate ? It is neither - it is us the voter.
ANY candidate is supposed to reflect what WE want, considering it is a representative republic. There should not be a deviation from ANY Progressive policy that polls high (even among republicans) anymore than there should be a blockade to even allow an up and down vote.
That is another problem - not only do people have no clue what Socialism means, or wherever they are on the political spectrum, that they cannot vote for the people that they think will have their values. - that is because there are never any votes. They cannot judge the candidate to vote on THEM !
I also keep saying that you can have whatever you want. You can have protections against climate change, a living wage, Single Payer health care... and more.
Put enough representatives, and especially Senators (Progressive) into power (a super majority) and republicans become irrelevant.
Up to you.
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@FunkyIrishman
In fact, it is not up to the average citizen/voter. Our politicians have been bought and paid for by the donor class. What we have is "One dollar, one vote." When someone can donate millions to a campaign, which is what it ultimately takes to get elected in this country, it is the millionaire's voice that gets heard.
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@FunkyIrishman
I agree with you. Time to get rid of the Electoral College which now has stood in the way of what a majority of voters want.
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@James Ward
Then it is up to us to listen harder.
Too many do not want to take the time to hear accurately what is really being said by those who would represent their interests. The noise machine can be ignored, if we want it to. Re-insate the Fairness Doctrine for example, now would be a great time considering the gangster/fox symbiosis that currently exists to destroy us all.
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