Good points. My dissertation on the system of real property shows that we basically have a mixed economy. The question should be: what is the best mix of the public, nonprofit and market sectors to address human needs, consistently with human rights and constitutional rights.
I would add we have a massive employee benefit system as well. But the benefits do not accrue to the citizens in the secondary labor market of small firms and self-employed people. They, like my barber, resent the employees and managers and owners of the large public, private and nonprofit firms, who have good health benefits and so forth.
Trump draws on that resentment and claims the communists are coming. No, it is mainly young democratic socialists furious about poverty and economic inequality--which they think is produced by capitalism--and the spreading of hatred against peole of color, immigrants and LGBTQIA folks.
One of the huge problems is to recognize is that we do not have a free market economy really; large entities are typically dependent on public funding and often "externalized their costs" onto the society, an issue Charles Perrow wrote about in Organizing America.
I posted this on the last thread after it died. It's more relevant here:
The "Communism" discourse is going to be very enjoyable for me to watch. Rick spent most of his political career calling guys like me traitors because we were born with a God-given empathy for our fellow man and then had the nerve to claim it had something to do with a 19th-century German philosopher, LOL. Rick's gonna have to eat a lot of crow for this and I'm here for it ;)
Mitt Romney Himself, may Moroni bless his milk-drinking ass, nuked the prevailing American consensus on social welfare, something we inherited from the Victorian era of workhouses and debtors' prisons -- which sanctioned government assistance for the Deserving Poor. You know, blind people, cripples (I'm using the old language deliberately), widows, orphans and any able-bodied folk who society might benefit from giving them, in Bubba's immortal words, "a hand up, not a handout." But ol' Mittens, grousing to his big donors in that delightfully passive-aggressive Mormon way, lamented that a whole 47% of the American population depended on government assistance. (He certainly didn't intend such a rude comment to ever be made public, though, LOL)
This not only makes the whole game of getting poors to narc on each other for being welfare cheats that much harder, it's also a concrete measure of how ever-more-difficult it has become to make it on your own. The 47% "gaffe" came two years after the housing meltdown. Imagine that number after years of covid assistance. And what it means is that people are slowly, ever-begrudgingly, accepting that activist government does good things in their lives. This is why the broligarchy wants to convert them into biomass fuel. Seriously. Elon thinks the poors are subhuman.
The standard attacks on "Socialism" thus no longer work. The attacks on Communism have a niche appeal but they're clownish. Let them explain why Jesus would oppose universal healthcare ;)
OMG this entire post is an ad for Ground News. Sorry Rick, I don't need to subscribe with payment to an AI algorithm service like some benighted King of the Midwits in order to figure out who benefits.
The only advocate for Ground News I'd ever take seriously is one who isn't paid by Ground News. Apparently that creature doesn't exist in nature, LOL
Real socialists are getting elected to political offices in the US. That ought to be a genuine concern. However, the greater concern by far right now is MAGA fascism.
Pedant alert. Communism is a stateless society where the people jointly own and control means of production. Socialism is public ownership of the means of production via the state. Marxist ideology sees socialism as a stage toward communism.
Communism == "Something that no longer exists, not even in "communist" China, but MAGAs label everything they don’t like as communist - which includes eating vegetables and brushing their teeth." Hey MAGA the 1950s are calling they want their Red Scare back."
Republicans have been calling Democrats socialists since at least as far back as FDR. No, no country calling itself socialist has every actually carried out real socialism. However, whether in theory or practice, socialism is bad, and there are many around the world who seek to impose an authoritarian system they call socialism on society.
The red scare is coming from inside the house. Trump's pursuit of direct government equity stakes across U.S. business sectors is unprecedented and makes clear who is really pulling the US economy toward state control.
Psychological 🎯 - "projection tells us the real meaning of “communist” when trump uses it against the Dems. It is his unconscious confession of political repression, trying to limit freedoms, hiding his corruption, failing in governing, causing nearly a million deaths, and his consistent human rights violations."
Unlike America, which has been dumbed down as a political strategy, Communist Cuba under Fidel Castro encouraged higher education and single-payer healthcare. But, as with Trump, loyalty to the regime was essential.
MAGA wouldn’t know communism from socialism—they only know fascism and maybe on a good day: Crony capitalism!
No country in modern history has practiced communism: Not the USSR or China! Both were and are socialist countries in which each seeks to be communist; however, neither achieved this goal—it’s an aspirational end goal.
In socialism, the state allocates resources as they see fit—the state owns/controls production on behalf of the working class — this is collective ownership mediated through an institution.
Communism in Marxist terms is a stateless, classless society in which no one owns property, etc…and there is no actual state!
No country would hand the keys to the kingdom to the people, since he who controls the economy—controls the country. Israel practiced a form of communism—kibbutzim, but it only works in local environments, and kibbutz’s in Israel today have mostly privatized, so they no longer qualify either.
Bottom line, we see where MAGA is heading; they create the “boogeyman”—communism and socialism while they would happily live in a fascist kakistocracy as long as they could turn this nation into a god fearing Christian country—based on White Nationalist ideology and values. Everything else for these clowns is immaterial and just a distraction from achieving their ultimate goals, while the MSM as usual, gets bogged down chasing ghosts that don’t exist—except for the working people (suckers) who voted for Trump because they thought he could solve these issues. MAGA, on the other hand, knew exactly what they were getting!
This was never about communism or socialism—the same way the election wasn’t about Epstein, Hunter’s laptop, the price of eggs or gas—these are just the ghosts the MSM keeps chasing and debating to death, while Trump and his minions lay waste to our great nation! IMHO…:)
And the MAGATS are eating it up—had to block the single one I associate with over the weekend because of the thermostat issue. Their brains are truly, irreparably broken.
Thank you for the article, Mr. Wilson. While Trump is constantly yelling communist he wants to hang with those authoritarian politicians who really are communists. Senator’s of the GOP also just love to hang with those authoritarian politicians and enjoy calling socialism communism.
Imaginary, maybe but get a look st the platform of the DSA online. When e. g. your plank on cops and prisons is sprinkled with words like abolitionist, you've got a messaging problem.
There is no comparison of DSA with the MAGA right wing QAnon crowd. The MAGAs are claiming the Democratic activists caused the heatwave to suppress crowd sizes during the Trump Fascist Fair, and the cold snap during Trump's inauguration.
There's a spectrum to compare the DSA with MAGA Republicans.
The DSA are a mild cold, the MAGA are Ebola wrapped in cancer.
Good points. My dissertation on the system of real property shows that we basically have a mixed economy. The question should be: what is the best mix of the public, nonprofit and market sectors to address human needs, consistently with human rights and constitutional rights.
Trump is crying communism to stoke fears about socialism, when as the sociologist Nathan Newman has argued, we are already in many ways almost as social democratic as Western Europe: https://nathannewman.substack.com/p/the-democratic-party-is-as-socialist
I would add we have a massive employee benefit system as well. But the benefits do not accrue to the citizens in the secondary labor market of small firms and self-employed people. They, like my barber, resent the employees and managers and owners of the large public, private and nonprofit firms, who have good health benefits and so forth.
Trump draws on that resentment and claims the communists are coming. No, it is mainly young democratic socialists furious about poverty and economic inequality--which they think is produced by capitalism--and the spreading of hatred against peole of color, immigrants and LGBTQIA folks.
One of the huge problems is to recognize is that we do not have a free market economy really; large entities are typically dependent on public funding and often "externalized their costs" onto the society, an issue Charles Perrow wrote about in Organizing America.
I posted this on the last thread after it died. It's more relevant here:
The "Communism" discourse is going to be very enjoyable for me to watch. Rick spent most of his political career calling guys like me traitors because we were born with a God-given empathy for our fellow man and then had the nerve to claim it had something to do with a 19th-century German philosopher, LOL. Rick's gonna have to eat a lot of crow for this and I'm here for it ;)
Mitt Romney Himself, may Moroni bless his milk-drinking ass, nuked the prevailing American consensus on social welfare, something we inherited from the Victorian era of workhouses and debtors' prisons -- which sanctioned government assistance for the Deserving Poor. You know, blind people, cripples (I'm using the old language deliberately), widows, orphans and any able-bodied folk who society might benefit from giving them, in Bubba's immortal words, "a hand up, not a handout." But ol' Mittens, grousing to his big donors in that delightfully passive-aggressive Mormon way, lamented that a whole 47% of the American population depended on government assistance. (He certainly didn't intend such a rude comment to ever be made public, though, LOL)
This not only makes the whole game of getting poors to narc on each other for being welfare cheats that much harder, it's also a concrete measure of how ever-more-difficult it has become to make it on your own. The 47% "gaffe" came two years after the housing meltdown. Imagine that number after years of covid assistance. And what it means is that people are slowly, ever-begrudgingly, accepting that activist government does good things in their lives. This is why the broligarchy wants to convert them into biomass fuel. Seriously. Elon thinks the poors are subhuman.
The standard attacks on "Socialism" thus no longer work. The attacks on Communism have a niche appeal but they're clownish. Let them explain why Jesus would oppose universal healthcare ;)
OMG this entire post is an ad for Ground News. Sorry Rick, I don't need to subscribe with payment to an AI algorithm service like some benighted King of the Midwits in order to figure out who benefits.
The only advocate for Ground News I'd ever take seriously is one who isn't paid by Ground News. Apparently that creature doesn't exist in nature, LOL
The news came out that Trump is telling Walmart how much they can charge for ground beef.
Trump is seizing the means of production from private US companies, and he tells them how to run their businesses.
That's communism.
Real socialists are getting elected to political offices in the US. That ought to be a genuine concern. However, the greater concern by far right now is MAGA fascism.
Pedant alert. Communism is a stateless society where the people jointly own and control means of production. Socialism is public ownership of the means of production via the state. Marxist ideology sees socialism as a stage toward communism.
GOP Dictionary:
Communism == "Something that no longer exists, not even in "communist" China, but MAGAs label everything they don’t like as communist - which includes eating vegetables and brushing their teeth." Hey MAGA the 1950s are calling they want their Red Scare back."
By "real," I meant "avowed."
Republicans have been calling Democrats socialists since at least as far back as FDR. No, no country calling itself socialist has every actually carried out real socialism. However, whether in theory or practice, socialism is bad, and there are many around the world who seek to impose an authoritarian system they call socialism on society.
Yet again in my lifetime! 😄😁😆😅....
The red scare is coming from inside the house. Trump's pursuit of direct government equity stakes across U.S. business sectors is unprecedented and makes clear who is really pulling the US economy toward state control.
https://sabrinahaake.substack.com/p/the-red-scare-is-coming-from-inside?r=17fuyn&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
Someone in the press needs to ask Trump what communism is. It would be fun to watch him stammer.
yesss!!!!
The link to Ground News gives me a 404 error; did Trump touch it?
What will we be told to Fear next, space aliens?
Psychological 🎯 - "projection tells us the real meaning of “communist” when trump uses it against the Dems. It is his unconscious confession of political repression, trying to limit freedoms, hiding his corruption, failing in governing, causing nearly a million deaths, and his consistent human rights violations."
https://samray.substack.com/p/when-communist-narcissist-projection
Unlike America, which has been dumbed down as a political strategy, Communist Cuba under Fidel Castro encouraged higher education and single-payer healthcare. But, as with Trump, loyalty to the regime was essential.
MAGA wouldn’t know communism from socialism—they only know fascism and maybe on a good day: Crony capitalism!
No country in modern history has practiced communism: Not the USSR or China! Both were and are socialist countries in which each seeks to be communist; however, neither achieved this goal—it’s an aspirational end goal.
In socialism, the state allocates resources as they see fit—the state owns/controls production on behalf of the working class — this is collective ownership mediated through an institution.
Communism in Marxist terms is a stateless, classless society in which no one owns property, etc…and there is no actual state!
No country would hand the keys to the kingdom to the people, since he who controls the economy—controls the country. Israel practiced a form of communism—kibbutzim, but it only works in local environments, and kibbutz’s in Israel today have mostly privatized, so they no longer qualify either.
Bottom line, we see where MAGA is heading; they create the “boogeyman”—communism and socialism while they would happily live in a fascist kakistocracy as long as they could turn this nation into a god fearing Christian country—based on White Nationalist ideology and values. Everything else for these clowns is immaterial and just a distraction from achieving their ultimate goals, while the MSM as usual, gets bogged down chasing ghosts that don’t exist—except for the working people (suckers) who voted for Trump because they thought he could solve these issues. MAGA, on the other hand, knew exactly what they were getting!
This was never about communism or socialism—the same way the election wasn’t about Epstein, Hunter’s laptop, the price of eggs or gas—these are just the ghosts the MSM keeps chasing and debating to death, while Trump and his minions lay waste to our great nation! IMHO…:)
And the MAGATS are eating it up—had to block the single one I associate with over the weekend because of the thermostat issue. Their brains are truly, irreparably broken.
Thank you for the article, Mr. Wilson. While Trump is constantly yelling communist he wants to hang with those authoritarian politicians who really are communists. Senator’s of the GOP also just love to hang with those authoritarian politicians and enjoy calling socialism communism.
Imaginary, maybe but get a look st the platform of the DSA online. When e. g. your plank on cops and prisons is sprinkled with words like abolitionist, you've got a messaging problem.
There is no comparison of DSA with the MAGA right wing QAnon crowd. The MAGAs are claiming the Democratic activists caused the heatwave to suppress crowd sizes during the Trump Fascist Fair, and the cold snap during Trump's inauguration.
There's a spectrum to compare the DSA with MAGA Republicans.
The DSA are a mild cold, the MAGA are Ebola wrapped in cancer.
Not to mention ending capitalism world-wide...