Lets look at the 10 planks of communism, and how its already implemented: In terms of the current election promises: 10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production. Clinton wants free university education for everyone. 6. Centralization of the means of communications and transportation in the hands of the State. You can see it now. The mainstream media runs everything pass the Deomcratic party before they publish it. 2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. Clinton wants to increase taxes on the wealthy. Need I on?
Some socialism has been the role of government since the dawn of time. Advanced civilizations have had the government help the people and work for the people, creating money, roads, security. All this is socialism and improves society.
So you are against free education for kids in school, you're for child factory labor, and you think the poorest should pay the tax? I can see why you are a Trump supporter.
I am against free University education (simply because it forces those institutions have to deal with the stupid people, when they should be a place of research, and for those capable of doing excellent work), anyone should be allowed to work no matter how old they are (obviously not forced though). And Yes I think the poorest should pay the exact same amount of tax as everyone one else. My point here is that American is headed toward communism which is the question the OP asked. - - - Updated - - - Because republicans believe in a free press, not one controlled by a single party. Secondly, the schools have indoctrinated kids into one way of thinking (which is why Free and State education, is required in a communist country).
Correct remark, overall because being European I do know that there are at least 4 main kinds of Socialism: - Democratic Socialism - Revolutionary Socialism - Utopian Socialism - Liberal Socialism [Liberal in the European sense] * I exclude Utopian Socialism simply because it's not realistic as for purposes in a market economy [it would mean to renounce to market economy to create the social conditions to reach a total equality]. * I exclude also Revolutionary Socialism, since the Democratic Party is evidently embedded in the US system and [as for I know!] Dems are not going to run a revolution ... So, the range is from Liberal Socialism to Democratic Socialism. Where the term "Liberal" actually indicates a moderate stance [it's not "Liberal" as you consider in America]. To summarize: I focus my attention on that form of Socialism which has renounced to the creation of a real Socialist State, but not to the goal of a Socialist Democracy [were more than a party can exist and a good number of personal freedoms are granted, but where the economy, the society, the justice, and some other personal freedoms are controlled and/or planned according to the interests of "The People"] > this is Democratic Socialism ... and on that more moderate form of Socialism [Liberal Socialism] which endorses principals of social equality, run policies of heavy public intervention in economy, but accepts the existence of competition, market economy and social merit. Let's say that Liberal Socialism starts from 10% and it arrives at 50%, while Democratic Socialism, depending on how "deep" is the ideology, can arrive really near to 100%.
Personally I see this Democratic Party a bit beyond Liberal Socialism. If we want a factor of comparison as for a Liberal Socialist party was, we can think to the Italian Socialist Party in it's last decade, when it had leaded by Craxi. Market economy [with a good injection of public money] became the engine of Italian society in the 80's, but socially Italy followed the model of the American society of Reagan ... And they left economy run, following market rules [those years were the years of the early industrial changes, with huge losses of jobs and the beginning of the outsource of the production]. The financial sector was left to itself, and so on ... The US Democratic Party under Bill Clinton was similar to this [so I would say that in the 90's Dems were Liberal Socialists], this Democratic Party [may be as a reaction after the last financial crisis and the social troubles which it has created] tends to "control" more society and economy, showing to be more "Democratic" as Socialists. This is why I've indicated a 70%. P.S. There isn't a negative base attitude in the poll, it's just a political analysis which, evidently, depends on the subjective perception of what Socialism is.
You are correct, for years the democrats in congress have been members of the socialist party and often the commu ist parry of america. That is why I vote republican although I am actually more libertarian/moderate. Unfortunately, the crooked democrat, republican and liberal news media have been able to keep other parties from being able to compete fairly in elections. Until congress passes a law that sets a reasonable limit that all candidates and their pacs can spend on their election, the elections will be unfair and those wanting to run will be unable to do so. As long as the two parties continue to run things, we are screwed.
Great plan. If your goal is the help the richest getting more and more of the nation's income and wealth. Because the poor dears, they've been suffering so.
Please identify which Democrats "for years" have been members of the communist party. I call RW propaganda bull(*)(*)(*)(*).
From the perspective of political science, this poll [within the limits of the limited statistical sample] is interesting: we are evaluating a leftist Party, so that a certain "socialist component" is obvious. Without historical socialism today we would see Right and Center; and no Left around ... So ... And so far the perception is a composite party. Probably Sanders has put in result the most "Soviet" sectors of the Democratic movement, but at the end Hillary [also thanks to the votes granted by the Party ... so in a quite Soviet way ... there is who talks about the "Democratic Politburo"!] has won in the primary elections. The impression is confused. If Hillary won without that "party aid", I would have defined US Dems "Liberal Socialist" [like in the age of Bill Clinton], but that "Soviet trick" [may be not necessary, but ...] has left a certain "taste". This is also why I've indicated the 70%.
There was a contribtins law that thrown out by the ussc Doesnt that limit what congress could do Even with the false assumptin that they might want to do something
So socialism is purely a subjective construct Can we agree that your subjective definition of socialism is entirely Independent of how a dictionary would define the term.
It depends on the dictionary. I've reported what I remind I studied in the High School [when, btw, in Italy Socialism was still an available and licit alternative to market economy ... we were in the 80's and many Italians still voted the Communist Party here ...].
In fact, in Italy [and also in France and Germany], we have seen the separation of the Communists from the Socialist movement, just because the Communists aimed to create systems of real socialism. Only the Italian Communists, and quite late, considered the option of the democratic socialism, but Communists never considered liberal socialism. So that, at political level, a Socialist is not a Communist and generally Socialism has evolved towards Democratic or even Liberal forms, seeing Socialist governments [in Italy and in France as well] leading and ruling great market economies.
Imo it is clear that no nation has absolutely committed itself to pure free market ideology, or pure socialist ideology So what you have is various permutations of hybrids. It is imo strange and a little disingenuous to pick one of those hybrids and then use it as a definitional exemplar of pure socialism. And then use that definition to classify democrats as socialist based on that bastardized reference scale. The webster definition of socialism is a way of organizing a society in which major industries are owned and controlled by the government rather than by individual people and companies And based on that reference scale, democrats would rate a near zero Really, isnt this thread all about assuming socialism is bad And using it as an ad hominem attack on democrats....pretty simple
I would say no, it isn't ... here in Europe to be Socialist [in the democratic or liberal sense] is not a problem, it's near to a merit in the eyes of young generations. If you observe well the poll, you will note that the "0% Capitalism triumphs" is there, and someone has made that choice. Just because I'm aware that the political evolution of the socialist ideology has been different on the two sides of the oceans [and also in different European countries], I'm not submitting to the participants to the discussion an absolute, but a relative conceptualization of Socialism. For example ... think to Sanders and his "Democratic Socialism" ... in my perspective that's Liberal Socialism [which is the less socialist evolution of real socialism!], but in Europe Sanders is a Socialist [I could even say that he's more socialist of our Italian Democratic government ... and our Democratic Party is the evolution of the former Communist Party]. Anyway, I think here we can see the "American perspective":http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-b...hat-does-sanders-mean-by-democratic-socialism
Thanks for your measured and interesting response And YOU will note that the other end of the scale is NOT some version of evolved european socialism Clearly the choice is being set out as good vs evil.... With soviet style socialism as the evil end of the spectrum You may feel that way, but that is not the common of conception in this country... Where many people are still locked a dualistic cold war mentality. When people refer to obama as a communist, or a socialist, there is not the slightest bit of warmth attached to those labels Ok, here is what your link said Democrats simply do not advocate nationalization They tend to look towards making the free market work.. Via for instance breaking up the bamls or regulating wall street to prevent capitalist diseases And as far as sharing the wealth Free market zealots claim that free markets optimize wealth production and inherently that wealth is shared through trickel down and an abu dance of opportunity, Imo democrats tend to think this is a utopian view that is not supported by the facts,,,, given that unrestrained capitalism is delighted to export jobs and objectively seems to result in ever greater greater disparitis of wealth. And therefor IF SHARING THE WEALTH OF CAPITALISM IS A VALUE, this requires some government market interventions.... Ie social security, medicare, minimum wage, worker saftey laws, etc etc. But those interventions are not socialism EXCEPT in so far as one starts from the ideological view that any market intervention is the apostasy called socialism
I voted 35% socialist. The political spectrum in the USA is one of the narrowest I know of. Democrats are center-right, while Republicans are right-center.
