Sanders’ American socialism
In 1962, Michael Harrington published “The Other America: Poverty in the United States.” It revealed the hidden truth about the reality of America’s poor and sparked the Kennedy-Johnson War on Poverty. I had seen such poverty first hand both in the North, and driving and hitch-hiking through the South. But Harrington’s book made a deep impression on me because he actually documented it.
Harrington identified himself as a democratic socialist, but worked through the Democratic Party. For him, socialism meant democracy and social justice. I remember that book to this day.
“The Other America” was a main text of the Young People’s Socialist League, a democratic socialist institution, which Bernie Sanders joined while in college at the University of Chicago. It is hard to imagine that he was not influenced by Harrington’s call for equality, democracy and economic justice — all in the name of the most idealistic of American values.
I am the same age as Bernie Sanders. I believe we believe in many of the same things. But we took different routes. I went the way of academia, working for those American values through research and writing. Sanders took the political path, and worked his way up from mayor to con- gressman to senator as an unabashed democratic socialist, speaking those most caring of American values all the way.
I have been asked how Sanders, as a “socialist,” could be doing as well as he is running for President, at least in a few early states. The answer seems to be that Democratic voters have listened to what he said and did, not the label he carries.
To them, Sanders embodies the best of idealistic American values — honest, straightforward, courageous and passionate for those values.
From the beginning, America has been organized by a central theme: Citizens care about other citizens and work through their government to provide public resources for all. These resources went to both business as well as individuals. At the beginning, there were public schools, hospitals, roads and bridges, a patent office, a national bank, courts to adjudicate business disputes, police protections and promotion of interstate commerce.
As time went on, more publicly financed public resources went to business - interstate highways, sewers, the electric grid, resources on public land, a huge amount of land for the railroads, and, more recently, scientific development like computer science (supported by NSF) and the internet (built by the Defense Department), satellite communications, pharmaceuticals and medical equipment and on and on.
Though the public paid for these boons for business, most of the profits have gone not to the public at large, but to the top 1%, or even the top one-tenth of one percent. And those who have profited have used their wealth to buy politicians to provide tax loopholes and low tax rates. Meanwhile, the poor and middle class have not benefited from such public investments and are suffering.
Sanders doesn’t say it this way, but that is the principle that lies behind what he does say. In short, he wants to bring fairness and a sense that we are all in this together to the American economic system.
He is promoting a fair capitalism, in which the public benefits from its generations of public investments — and then makes more public investments in human well-being and fulfillment, in health for all, in education for all, in access to capital for all, and in the preservation and reconstitution of nature itself for all generations. This is actually a capitalism for the public.
In short, Bernie is an absolute liberal. Ex- treme conservatives for decades have tried to identify not only socialists, but also liberals, as communists. As Sen. Claire McCaskill recently said, Karl Rove can’t wait to paste a hammer and sickle on Bernie if he is nominated. I don’t doubt that she is right. Interestingly, Democrats have not tried slapping a hammer and sickle on Trump for his respect, admiration and liking of Putin.
If Sanders somehow makes it to the general election, will socialism-shaming work? It might. But so far, the label hasn’t damaged Sanders — because what he says, for the most part, fits classical American ideals.
And we must remember that Hillary Clinton also has deep progressive values. But she is a pragmatist who assumes we may not get all we want in this political climate and believes she can maximize what we can get. That is a credible sensibility I also respect. She is brilliant, impressive, and has an enormous range of practical experience.
I like and admire them both, for different reasons. But let no one call Sanders’ philosophy un- or anti-American.
His passion for fairness has a proud lineage