Really appreciate how this lays out the diffrence between rejecting markets entirely and challenging oligarchic power. Sanders' core argument about the political vacuum is solid, when you abandon economic solidarity, resentment-based politics fills that space fast. I remeber organizing in rust belt towns where folks wanted concrete policy wins, not just symbolic representation. The trickiest part is that incremental wins do matter, but they're not enough when the structural problem keeps compounding underneath.
Whether it is Sander's book or this review, and whether intended or not, their is a lot of objective truth left out of this modern socialist defense. DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) represents a pretty wide range including Marxist-Leninist adherents as well as those to the left of progressives Democrats. The DSA constitution specifically rejects an economic order based on private profit. DSA members on the right of their non-party moderate further right by ensuring non-compliance with their own constitution.
Now for the subjective part. DSA and the Democratic party need to have an adult conversation and DSA needs to become a formal political party. Certain DSA sympathetic politicians, pundits and activists are selfishly angling for undue, marginal, factional and fractured gain with corporate-Democrat denunciation that only hurts the 2/3rds of Americans who are between the far left and the far right. Every political party has corporatism, socialists are no different. The challenge for America's major THIRD PARTY is to stop angling with the fringe left and stop fearing the fringe right, stand for a capitalism with effective guardrails against cronyism and with sustainable funding for well-supported social safety nets, and to devise a simple platform based on the hopes, dreams and needs of the 2/3rds.
Sanders and others should do the adult thing and help make the Democratic party into that THIRD PARTY. They will see more vastly more progress for "real" Americans who they aspire to help achieve our American dream.
To support European style or Canadian social safety net, taxpayers in every bracket should expect higher rates. Voters support taxing the rich generally mean they support people richer than them.
Good post. However, like Sanders, I think you are underselling the importance of cultural issues for voters. When we say they are being forced / tricked to blame of minority groups by the media, it doesn't take into account key piece of democracy--the negotiations for values around the good life, etc.
A truly liberal (not merely "neoliberal") approach allocates cultural issues ("values around the good life") to the individual -- to be pursued in civil society rather than the political realm. Unfortunately, both left and right seem to have abandoned the simple concept of "live and let live."
Meanwhile, the oligarchs (along with the foundation-funded NGO bureaucracies) keep laughing all the way to the bank.
Nordic socialism is a myth. They are all market economies with high tax rates and generous benefits. We could just as easily say the US is socialist as well. Social security, Medicare, Medicaid, natl parks etc are not capitalist. True socialism is government ownership of most if not all the economy. Accurate definitions are anethma to ideologies.
Indeed, there's a world of difference between social democracy (i.e., Scandinavia) and "democratic" socialism. Despite the similar-sounding terms, this isn't a nit-picking distinction: In pre-Nazi Germany, hard leftists famously characterized social democrats as "social fascists" -- proclaiming, "After Hitler, our turn."
In this regard, Sanders has maintained an ambiguous posture, leaving his disciples to engage in a tug-of-war.
And there we have it.
The "liberals" at the UnPopulist, are actually just advocates of socialist authoritarianism.
Sorry but the blue-MAGA nonsense of socialism is no counter to MAGA national socialism.
Really appreciate how this lays out the diffrence between rejecting markets entirely and challenging oligarchic power. Sanders' core argument about the political vacuum is solid, when you abandon economic solidarity, resentment-based politics fills that space fast. I remeber organizing in rust belt towns where folks wanted concrete policy wins, not just symbolic representation. The trickiest part is that incremental wins do matter, but they're not enough when the structural problem keeps compounding underneath.
Whether it is Sander's book or this review, and whether intended or not, their is a lot of objective truth left out of this modern socialist defense. DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) represents a pretty wide range including Marxist-Leninist adherents as well as those to the left of progressives Democrats. The DSA constitution specifically rejects an economic order based on private profit. DSA members on the right of their non-party moderate further right by ensuring non-compliance with their own constitution.
Now for the subjective part. DSA and the Democratic party need to have an adult conversation and DSA needs to become a formal political party. Certain DSA sympathetic politicians, pundits and activists are selfishly angling for undue, marginal, factional and fractured gain with corporate-Democrat denunciation that only hurts the 2/3rds of Americans who are between the far left and the far right. Every political party has corporatism, socialists are no different. The challenge for America's major THIRD PARTY is to stop angling with the fringe left and stop fearing the fringe right, stand for a capitalism with effective guardrails against cronyism and with sustainable funding for well-supported social safety nets, and to devise a simple platform based on the hopes, dreams and needs of the 2/3rds.
Sanders and others should do the adult thing and help make the Democratic party into that THIRD PARTY. They will see more vastly more progress for "real" Americans who they aspire to help achieve our American dream.
To support European style or Canadian social safety net, taxpayers in every bracket should expect higher rates. Voters support taxing the rich generally mean they support people richer than them.
Good post. However, like Sanders, I think you are underselling the importance of cultural issues for voters. When we say they are being forced / tricked to blame of minority groups by the media, it doesn't take into account key piece of democracy--the negotiations for values around the good life, etc.
A truly liberal (not merely "neoliberal") approach allocates cultural issues ("values around the good life") to the individual -- to be pursued in civil society rather than the political realm. Unfortunately, both left and right seem to have abandoned the simple concept of "live and let live."
Meanwhile, the oligarchs (along with the foundation-funded NGO bureaucracies) keep laughing all the way to the bank.
Nordic socialism is a myth. They are all market economies with high tax rates and generous benefits. We could just as easily say the US is socialist as well. Social security, Medicare, Medicaid, natl parks etc are not capitalist. True socialism is government ownership of most if not all the economy. Accurate definitions are anethma to ideologies.
Indeed, there's a world of difference between social democracy (i.e., Scandinavia) and "democratic" socialism. Despite the similar-sounding terms, this isn't a nit-picking distinction: In pre-Nazi Germany, hard leftists famously characterized social democrats as "social fascists" -- proclaiming, "After Hitler, our turn."
In this regard, Sanders has maintained an ambiguous posture, leaving his disciples to engage in a tug-of-war.