Do people know what socialism IS?

Beavah · December 1, 2011

Obama is the worst thing to happen to the Democrats ever because his lazar sharp leadership to drive the US into a socialized government was so overwhelming that it woke up folks who had never before took an interest in politics.

Yah, hmmm...

So this is da sort of thing that I hear from da modern Tea Party Republican.

I confess, I just don't understand it. President Obama has, in almost all significant ways, been a moderate centrist in his approach to governing. Even da much-derided Obamacare is just a mildly liberal policy that copied what was done by a moderate conservative governor. It stops well short of what was proposed by Richard Nixon back in the day, and well short of Medicare and the VA, which come closest to "socialized" programs.

So I'm left to conclude that either these folks' educations were just phenomenally lacking and they don't know what "socialism" is, or that they're really just viscerally upset about something else about da world and President Obama in particular. Because if he's had a laser-like focus on anything, it's been capitulating to the current trends on almost all scores.

Perhaps someone can explain it to me.

Beavah

shortridge · December 2, 2011

It's like "liberal." It's become an epithet and lost its original meaning.

Lisabob · December 2, 2011

No, they don't know.

"So I'm left to conclude that either these folks' educations were just phenomenally lacking and they don't know what "socialism" is, or that they're really just viscerally upset about something else about da world and President Obama in particular. "

Yes, those.

Heck, I've had people try to shout me down for teaching theoretical Marxism, in a class about the Soviet Union. I've had students try to tell me that it is wrong of me to ask them to read Hegel, Lenin, Gramsci, and other so-called "socialists" because "this is America." (they were unconvincing in their arguments, I might add) And that's at the college level; I can only imagine the difficulty of teaching what socialism actually is, at the high school level. I can imagine the angry parent mobs now.

This semester alone, I've heard from students that they didn't care what I said, they just know Obama is a secret communist (also - that he's Muslim; that he's funded by terrorist groups; that he's Kenyan; that he was a member of the Panthers; and other unsubstantiated stories); that the EU's debt crisis is a clear sign of the failure of socialism (that one makes me snort with laughter); that the reason we are at war in Afghanistan was because the communists there were forcing Afghans to give up religion... socialism & communism are the boogey man everywhere.

I don't care if people support or oppose somebody, but this all makes you wonder where some people get their "knowledge" from, doesn't it?

FScouter · December 2, 2011

People get their "knowledge" from the inner recesses of their brains. It's a human characteristic to assemble a few factoids and fill in the gaps with fabrication - the purpose being to create a view of the world that supports one's personal opinions. We see it in Scouting all the time.

Trevorum · December 2, 2011

I have come to believe that a very large portion of most person's "knowledge" is actually 'folk knowledge', obtained from non-experts in casual social settings - around the dinner table from ones peers, for example. This is in contrast to documented knowledge - the type of thing we learn from experts and from books.

This explains why so many people believe in ghosts, for example. Or why so many people believe that Obama is a socialist. Or why people think that our society could function better with less government regulation. All these these things are 'common knowledge' among broad swaths of the public.

vol_scouter · December 2, 2011

So the European problem is the same as the US - to little in revenue compared to expenditures. Europe is just a little farther down that road than the US. European countries spend their money mainly on social programs with relatively small military spending. they already have high income and ad valorum taxes so there is little to be gained on the revenue end. So over spending on social programs is the crux of the European problem. Let's see social programs, hmmm, that would seem to me to be socialist in nature. What else would you call it? Seems to me that the countires have too rich social programs and that is why they are cutting benefits to correct their problems. I know that the left does not consider Europe to be socialist but it is socialist programs that are bankrupting the countries. That means that in very well educated and progressive countries, socialism is failing as an economic system. People want more and more to be provided for them and to work less and less to have it. That system will always collapse. Obama clearly wants to go down the same path and we will end up in the same mess.

Beavah · December 2, 2011

Yah, hmmm...

Vol_Scouter, there are pieces of what yeh say that are factual, but it reads like a Fox News piece. Yeh have to dig a bit further.

Yep, dependin' on which European country you're talkin' about, some have a more elaborate social safety net. Da Scandanavian countries in particular seem to make that a cultural norm, where the "wealthy" are just expected to contribute a lot. Their results aren't bad either, eh? They're consistently rated among the best places to live, and they beat the living daylights out of our kids in educational achievement. Even Scouting there is a lot of fun and quite popular, because scouting (like all youth programs) receives direct support. Typically each troop has its own scout hut on a half-dozen acres. And they are quite economically sound.

In terms of health care, each country in Europe is all over da place, though generally speakin' they provide a common baseline coverage for their people through some combination of government or mandated private coverage. And all da studies I've seen show they get better results than our health care system while spending substantially less as a fraction of GDP. That can mean that what yeh say is true - government expenses are higher - while at the same time the total economic drag on the economy from health care is less. That drag in da U.S. shows up as large and small businesses being broken by private health care costs.

Da real story of European debt, though, has nothing to do with government programs, eh? It's just an artifact of European integration and normal free-market action by stupid bankers. We haven't seen that in da U.S. at all, have we? When da Eurozone integrated, all of a sudden the sovereign debt of the peripheral developing countries like Greece was accorded the same rating as the core countries like Germany. So suddenly Greece and others could borrow at very low rates, and there was a boom. They would borrow at low rates, and turn around and buy manufactured goods from Germany, resulting in da German manufacturing boom. Essentially French and German bankers were just shoving gobs of money at da periphery and paying for core economic growth, without any thought of risk. The bond rating chicanery essentially just facilitated a massive wealth transfer from da peripheral countries to the core.

Does that sound familiar? It's what da disreputable rating agencies and banks did in da U.S., eh? With the same result, precipitating a massive wealth transfer from the poor to the rich.

All that is just da normal operation of an unregulated free market where such chicanery is allowed. If a currency can free float, da natural result is devaluation of the poor country's currency which in turn makes it easier for 'em to repay the loans, harder for 'em to buy goods from da wealthy nations, and easier for them to sell their own manufactured goods to the core countries. It's self-correcting. But in da Eurozone, that isn't possible, eh? So it just continues. Self-correcting now means Greece defaults and da French and German banks who were dumb enough to make such loans go under, precipitating cascading bank failures across Europe and da U.S. Simple justice, eh? If yeh make bad loans, you go broke.

Just like da U.S., though, bank failures hurt lots of ordinary folks who were dumb enough to have deposits in bad banks. We can't have that, so they're tryin' to seize the assets of poor Greece or else have da average European (and American) taxpayer bail out da system - again a massive wealth transfer from the average worker to the irresponsible banker.

So at the core, da European problem is da same as the American one, eh? Corrupt rating agencies abetting irresponsible bankers who are gambling with the money of the average citizen, taking the winnings for themselves and leaving the average citizen with the losses. Da notional exposure of the 5 biggest U.S. banks to (leveraged) derivatives is over $400 TRILLION. That's high-leverage bets with other people's money, enabled by banking deregulation.

That's da core of the problem in da U.S. and Europe. Ain't got a thing to do with "socialism". Has everything to do with unregulated capitalism when personal and cultural ethics are compromised.

Beavah

shortridge · December 2, 2011

Furry ... animal ... making ... head ... ache ... too ... many ... big ... words ...

Beavah · December 2, 2011

It's a professional hazard, eh?

Let's make it...

Bankers use other people's money to make stupid, cheap loans to people/nations that have high risk.

Bankers use those bad loans as collateral to get more of other people's money, using tricks that aren't regulated.

Bankers use that additional money to make more stupid, cheap loans to people/nations that have high risk, because they collect transaction fees that make their quarterly profits look good. Bank executives make million-dollar bonuses. Stock holders rake in dividends.

Economy changes. High-risk borrower can't make payments on loans. Bank pushes "austerity measures" and foreclosures. Poor high-risk borrower loses everything to pay for bank executives' million-dollar bonuses.

Still not enough, because bank used bad loans as collateral for more bad loans. Bank becomes insolvent. Directors and executives immune by law, they get to keep everything. Stockholders whine to government. Government bails out banks. Money from average taxpayer transferred to bank major stockholders and directors and executives.

Net result: incompetent bankers and inattentive shareholders get billions of dollars from poor people and taxpayers. Economy tanks, because poor people and taxpayers buy more stuff and create more jobs than rich bankers, but they don't have money. Incompetent bankers spend a bit rewarding corrupt regulators and politicians, and hire PR firms to try to convince people that it's the fault of lazy Greek socialists or liberals or stupid people who took out loans then lost their jobs. There's a kernel of truth to each.

End result: stupid bankers who made absurdly bad loans gambling with other people's money get to keep all the money they stole from poor working-class people and taxpayers. Politicians ensure the system remains in place so they can do it again in a couple of years.