What Is Socialism? And Is Obama a Socialist?
ByI came across several instances where socialists argue how policies and systems commonly referred to as “socialism” are actually not. They usually cite some idealistic view of socialism that in reality can never come about and state that that’s real socialism while everything else is not.
In a Washington Post article entitled “Obama’s No Socialist. I Should Know.” Bill Wharton, editor of the Socialist magazine, goes as far as arguing that Barack Obama is not a socialist. Yes ladies and gentlemen, Mr. “spread the wealth around” himself is no socialist!
So let me set the record straight with a dictionary definition of socialism.
From Dictionary.com:
a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
In other words, the taking over or controlling of private business or property in order to benefit the “common good” is socialism! Examples include cap-and-trade, government control of banks and auto companies, government run health care, and in general any “spreading of the wealth around” that first involves confiscating it from those who earned it.
Still not convinced Obama is a socialist? Watch this video from the Glenn Beck program with Obama footage and quotes that prove he subscribes to Marxist ideals:
If you disagree, that what Obama wants is socialism, then call it (wealth redistribution and government takeover of private industry) whatever you want, but I’m still going to call it socialism. And for your information, even the Communist Soviet Block nations never called themselves communists, they always reported to be socialists on the way to communism. For some reason denial of who you are is a way of life for these people.
Some socialists ask, well how do you know that socialism won’t work, since true socialism has never been tried before? True socialism, or any other socialism will fail because of the same reasons what’s currently practiced in the Western world is failing.
4 Comments
May 15th, 2010 at 5:59 pm
Socialists would not go into a closed door deal with crooked banks to negotiate how much of the workers money they needed to stay alive and on top of the social ladder. Obama on the other hand, did.
We had financial regulation for a VERY long time in this country and it functioned pretty well, by DEregulating we put ourselves in a situation where crooked loans and bets on these loans could manifest.
You seem to be missing some basic tenants of socialism, such as:
-NOT SUPPORTING CAPITALISTS
-SOCIALISM IS BOTTOM UP NOT TOP DOWN(meaning it needs to come from the people, not the government, to be successful)
May 15th, 2010 at 8:37 pm
Says who? Socialists are just as crooked and self centered as those they are supposedly trying to replace. This is a fundamental reason for why socialism doesn’t work. Benevolent leaders are few and far in between if they exist at all.
The notion that financial regulations were the cause of the current recession is a myth. The crooked loans were sponsored and encouraged by a piece of government regulation called the Community Reinvestment Act. And they were facilitated by government sponsored enterprises called Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.
And the only thing the above can imply in a way that’s implementable on planet Earth is Laissez-faire Capitalism where the government is only involved as minimally as possible in running the government.
May 19th, 2010 at 4:09 am
The predatory lending was actually made legal by the repealing of a New Deal program, the Glass Steagall Act, by the Graham Leach Bliley Act in 2001. It took the banks a while to figure out what they could now do, but then they began the credit default swaps, sub-prime lending, etc. etc. and boom, financial crisis. And you will please note that China, whose banks are federally run, didn’t have a financial meltdown, only the capitalists. Oh, and since when has the US had a Laissez-faire economy? Even the founding fathers had economic restrictions (tariffs, no slaves in certain states, some women and child labor laws).So to sum up, like Mr. Thompson said, financial regulation works, only deregulation causes failure.
p.s. Marx > Smith
May 19th, 2010 at 10:44 am
Sub prime lending did not start with the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act of 1999, signed into law by President William Jefferson Clinton. This act just allowed banks to also trade securities and issue insurance. Banks could have made, and did make sub-prime loans before then. Firms such as Goldman Sachs and Bear Sterns traded in mortgage backed securities tied to sub-prime loans before the act too. Neither had the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act anything to do with legalizing any so called “predatory lending” practices, a concept which hasn’t even been legally defined ever.
A key contributor to the housing bubble and then collapse was a government piece of regulation called the Community Reinvestment Act. which regulated banks into issuing more sub-prime loans to low income lenders so that the people can have “affordable housing”. In addition, the government sponsored enterprises Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were buying those loans from banks in order to allow them to easily issue more, with implicit government guarantees against failures, which encouraged more risk taking.
In the early and mid 2000’s the Bush Administration, Congressional Republicans and Fed Chair Allan Greenspan, were pushing for regulating and reigning in Fannie and Freddie practices. (Essentially regulating the government.) But those efforts encountered strong Democratic opposition and were blocked.
Democratic Senate Banking Committee members Barnie Frank and Chuck Schumer are on record claiming that there’s nothing wrong with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and that their continued activities are important for providing housing to low income families.
So to sum up, socialist policies in government encouraged the very activity that now the socialists are blaming private enterprise for.
You really lose me when you use China, a murderous, corrupt, oppressive, nation, where most people live in abject poverty and slave labor conditions as an example for good economic practices. I suppose that to the socialist brain it all makes sense.
I didn’t make any reference to the US ever having laissez-faire economy, but as long as you ask, laissez-faire, does not mean no rules or restrictions whatsoever.