Bill Maher: Socialism created the Middle Class

Bill Maher has, over the years, gradually came to the side of Socialism. Now he regularly defends the concept of Socialism whenever it is brought up and he brings it up himself, take a look at what he said last night to end his show very eloquently,

[video=youtube;4k8McKt0KwY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4k8McKt0KwY[/video]
"So what’s happening is the Democrats are proposing to nibble around the edges of our middle-class problem. And the Republicans are pretending to care while they go back to servicing eight rich dickheads who own coal mines. And no one is telling the truth. Which is that the large thriving middle-class that America use to have didn't just appear out of the blue. It was created using an economic tool called Socialism.

Oh, I know. We never use that term here in buzzword nation. But that is exactly what our government did after World War II. It taxed the rich up to ninety percent and massively redistributed that money through the GI Bill so that more than half the population benefited from free college, free job training, cheap mortgages, and much much more. Yes for a brief shining moment we were Finland. …

We can debate whether that is a good thing or bad thing to go back to, but what is beyond debate is that that is what happened. The fifties and sixties are the era of Socialism in America. And that is when a family only needed one bread winner and a house only cost two years’ salary. It is when a man could afford college for his kids and dinner at a chop house for the misses. …

Because here is the reality a middle class is actually not the normal by-product of capitalism. Ask any historian. Middle-class is actually a fluke in history. Like in the fourteenth century. A middle-class was created in Europe when during the black plague a third of the population died resulting in a labor shortage and increase bargaining power for workers. So that is one way to create a middle-class. But it is kind of hard to see it on a campaign poster."

You Democrats need to come out of the closet and just admit you are Socialists.

 

I admit it, I am a socialist. But of course, I never pretended not to be.

 

There are tons of Democrats here who deny the Welfare State has anything to do with Socialism Even some right wingers like Mr. Swedish Guy deny this also, its insane but its pretty common

 

That's because it's essentially true. The definition of socialist is when the common people own the means of production in a country. Social insurance programs and welfare aren't "means of production". For many people in this country, any time the government steps in it becomes "socialist" in their eyes.

 

Okay, you come out of your closet and admit you are trying to destroy the middle class.

Eee...yep..We want to reduce all wages to WalMart levels, end your medical coverage, throw Grandma into the street and bring back indentured servitude so you can pay for a doctor. But y'all gonna vote for us, right, 'cause we sure ain't socialists.

You guys are a riot

 

You are playing semantics using an INCREDIBLY narrow definition of socialism. Do you honestly believe the entire ideology can be summed up so easily in 6 words?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
"There are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them.[6]

For Andrew Vincent "The word ‘socialism’ finds its root in the Latin sociare, which means to combine or to share. The related, more technical term in Roman and then medieval law was societas. This latter word could mean companionship and fellowship as well as the more legalistic idea of a consensual contract between freemen."[24] The term "socialism" was created by Henri de Saint-Simon, one of the founders of what would later be labelled "utopian socialism". The term "socialism" was created to contrast against the liberal doctrine of "individualism", which stressed that people act or should act as if they are in isolation from one another.[25] The original socialists condemned liberal individualism as failing to address social concerns of poverty, social oppression, and gross inequality of wealth.[25] They viewed liberal individualism as degenerating society into supporting selfish egoism that harmed community life through promoting a society based on competition.[25] They presented socialism as an alternative to liberal individualism, that advocated a society based on cooperation.[25] The term socialism is attributed to Pierre Leroux,[26] and to Marie Roch Louis Reybaud in France; and in Britain to Robert Owen in 1827, father of the cooperative movement.[27][28]"

 

The US has never had a strong socialist tradition even during the 1890's and 1900's. It was the progressives that made the real pushes while the socialists were at the extreme. Compare this to Europe where Communists were the extreme. There is a much stronger socialist tradition there then the US. And Maher is wrong about the 1950's. There was a presistent poverty in the US. Thanks to the middle class, highways were being created. Those highways plowed through cheap housing for the poor. Then take into account Eisenhower's more libertarian approach towards the economy, and you can see that it was not Socialism then. If anything, that was the time the right shined.

 

What do these welfare states provide and to whom do they provide, how much of the state money is allocated to this so-called socialism compared to lobbyist?

 

Well of course you can point to many instances of non-socialistic things that happened during that time, but its also true that many socialistic things indeed did happen, mainly due to FDR while the rest tried to undue what he did.

 

So if it can't be encapsulated by a definition, or at least some tangible shared concept, how is anybody defining what is or is not socialist?

But really, that isn't what the boldes part is saying. There are varieties of socialism, sure, but the one aspect holding them together is "common ownership of the means of production," which is what the lines exactly before the bolded portion you included, says.

 

FDR was no Socialist, anyone can see that. First New Deal was clearly for Big Business. The 2nd New Deal, Liberal, not socialist.

 

Socialism is a terrible idea .

Sorry Bill. Love you sometimes, but you don't understand economics.

 

I'm a socialist. You're a socialist. Everybody who lives in this country is a socialist. Socialism MADE this country.

And we're not talking socialist-lite here where maybe we set aside a little cash for people without arms or legs. We're also talking about a $700,000,000,000/year military. We're talking about Wall Street and the banks taking HUGE slurps at the socialist trough. We're also talking about redneck farmers and ranchers lapping it up at the trough, as well as crude oil importers who don't have to pay for their own protection.

It's about time you came out of the closet and admitted that to yourself, but I'm afraid you just like saying the word 'socialist' like some damn myhna bird. Bwwwwwk!!!

 

I won't deny it, but I don't think it helps(or has helped). As someone who has lived and therefore seen the bottom rungs, I know how tempting it is to ask for reprieve. But because of the outright inefficiency(as well as dumb limitations) of these programs, I've become convinced that the greatest way to help people is to enable them to help themselves.

Self-empowerment and personal control over all of our destinies. As a start towards this, I want to eliminate the cap on earnings for the bottom 30%. As it stands now, if you were on Social Security and/or some other kind of benefit, you cannot actually work a full-time job. This limits your earning potential as well as your economic standing. WHY?

The elitist bastards get accountants, maids, etc. But the lower rungs can't possibly have a helping hand in the form of no limitations on their earning potential? Is anything more 'free market' enterprise than freeing up the people's money? Get rid of the Caps, and let the poor class find a way to get on its feet again.

Right now the poor are stuck poor, because government wants them to remain poor. We don't actually want to "assist" the poor. Because if we do, people will get wealthy again....**gasp** The HORROR.

Welcome back bro. We may be on opposite sides of Radical Truth, but there's a welcome sight in someone else who'd rather croak than serve the elitist bastards inside Corporate Washington.

 

phoebe

But the military is socialism. Protection for all. Left wingers like you should love the military.

 

It obviously comes from the word "Social" as Individualism comes from "Individual", thus Socialism is about Social inter-connectivity, the opposite of individualism. The definition you are talking about is narrowly confined to a single sentence about economics and says nothing about Socialism in the SOCIAL sphere, which is what Socialism is largely about. The notion that the Welfare State is not Socialist is absolute nonsense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_state
"Continental European Marxists opposed piecemeal welfare measures as likely to dilute worker militancy without changing anything fundamental about the distribution of wealth and power. It was only after World War II, when they abandoned Marxism (in 1959 in West Germany, for example), that continental European socialist parties and unions fully accepted the welfare state as their ultimate goal.[18]"

"British liberals supported a capitalist economy and in the nineteenth-century had principally been concerned with issues of free trade (see Classical liberalism), but by the turn of the twentieth century, they shifted away from laissez faire economics and began to favor pro-active social legislation to assure equal opportunity for all citizens. The French welfare state originated in the 1930s during a period of socialist political ascendency, with the Matignon Accords and the reforms of the Popular Front. "

Most Socialists no longer attempt to exercise entire control over the economy, but we do indeed exert some control over it in the form of regulations. Instead of Nationalizing Oil companies, most of us want to heavily regulate them and on top of the regulations tax them at fairly high rates, in many ways this IS controlling the means of production, at least parts of it.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...ck-obama/obama-roosevelt-socialist-communist/
"The Russian newspapers during the last election [1932] published the photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt over the caption, 'The first communistic President of the United States,'" said Sen. Thomas Schall
"The New Deal is now undisguised state socialism, declared Senator Simeon D. Fess (R-Ohio) today as he pictured President Roosevelt as the New Deal's leading socialist," reported the Chicago Daily Tribune on Aug. 7, 1934. "The president's recent statements," Fess said, "remove any doubt of his policy of state socialism, which necessitates increased activities of the government in either ownership or operation of industry, or both."
"Roosevelt is a socialist, not a Democrat," declared Republican Rep. Robert Rich of Pennsylvania during a debate on the House floor on July 23, 1935. That remark came after Republicans hinted they were considering a move to impeach Roosevelt, according to the New York Times .

 

Seems what your talking about is Fascism

 

The only reason welfare has so many restrictions on the poor is because Right Wingers HATE welfare so they put all of these huge restrictions on it, dont throw the baby out with the bath water. You do realize corporations want the same thing as you, right? They too want less "caps" and less government, you speak of these "caps" on the poor but all I saw you show was caps on welfare, which is not a cap on the poor persons freedom, welfare comes from the rich not the poor, at least under a Socialist system rather than a Fascist system, which does the opposite and takes from the poor to give to the rich. Its a absolute fact the uber rich corporations, which you say you despise and refuse to serve, WANT LESS GOVERNMENT! Why do they want less government? For the same reason criminals want less cops.

 

If government is so horrible and inefficient and Socialism so horrible and evil, why is the governments largest Socialist project, the United States Military, so *******n effective? I thought government "bureaucracy" screws everything up? Our biggest Socialist project is INCREDIBLY efficient and the strongest fighting machine known to man, this is what Socialism created, you right wingers should love Socialism!

We do love our military, we just dont like using it for right wing goals such as exploitation of other sovereign nations.

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What you are talking about is Fascism, where you take from the lower classes and give to the upper classes, Socialism is exactly the opposite.

 

Rubbish, most of the larger corporations want bigger govt. The bigger and more centralized a govt the easier it is to have regulation, handouts enacted and favor granted to maintain and increase their monopolies. Smaller business that cant buy this political favor, sure they're highly likely to want less govt. The same smaller businesses that creates competition and innovation which offers workers more/ better employment options and a means to become businesses owners themselves.

 

It is obvious that Republicans have been told by their focus groups that saying the words middle-class will make them more popular with voters, but here’s the problem, Republican policies are what killed the middle-class. Republicans, more than ever before, are being driven by an ideology that is thirsting for pure capitalism. In a purely capitalistic system, there is no middle-class. There are buyers and sellers, haves and have nots. There is no room for a whole class of people in the middle.

Maher was correct. The middle-class was an intentional policy creation. Policy after WWII was designed to help those returning from war. It was a downward redistribution of wealth. In contrast, current Republican policies are designed to redistribute wealth upwards.

http://www.politicususa.com/2015/01...mb-republicans-pretend-care-middle-class.html

 

Uh, I don't understand why you think it has anything to do with social inter connectivity solely because it has the word social in it.

Where do you get that it's largely about social interactions?

 

America is two nations pretending to be one, there is the Socialist half which is largely on the coasts and in the North (The Union), and than there is the Fascist half which is largely in rural America and in the South (The Confederacy). Since both of us are pretending to be one and making rules for each other, we inevitably ended up with many Socialist policies and many Fascist policies, many times both policies intended to defeat the other side. The entire world is embroiled in a battle, largely political, between Socialism and Fascism, Left Wing vs Right Wing. Liberals are just mini-Socialists and Conservatives are just mini-Fascists.

 

I showed you the etymology of the word, I recommend reading it again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism#Etymology

 

The problem is both you and Maher are wrong.

Your post suggests that the middle class was created after WWII it was in fact created in the 19th century. It was created by capitalism and your socialist ideas do nothing to help middle class people.