Safety Nets

socialism

 noun

so·​cial·​ism | \ ˈsō-shə-ˌli-zəm  \

Definition of socialism

1: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods

2a: a system of society or group living in which there is no private property

b: a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state

3: a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done

                                                                            Merriam-Webster Dictionary

When World War II ended, Soviet forces (“communists”) marched into Eastern Europe and halfway into Germany, as they supported Kim Il-Sung as the communist dictator in North Korea, stole nuclear secrets from the United States and began what became known as the Cold War, with lots of hot wars and military threats in between. The Berlin airlift. Korea. The Cuban missile crisis. The domino theory as Russia fomented left wing rebellions all over the world, as we fomented right wing reactionary counter forces. Vietnam. We were fighting “communism,” with our own red scare, McCarthyism, nuclear arms race, space race and everything in between.

Because “communism” was an outgrowth of “socialism,” in the minds of many, the two philosophies were combined into the “opposite of everything American.” Capitalism made us great, so clearly, it was the only system that worked. It was the essence of “democracy.” Socialism and communism defined our enemies. They were now pure evil (later the “evil empire”) to any American politician, Republican or Democrat. Few Americans understood that “communism” had this little added component to “socialism”:  “a totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production.” (Merriam-Webster). Read: violence, torture, murder and mass incarceration, which typified nations that called themselves “communist.” If you are over 60, you lived through much of this. If you are under 40, you lived through none of it.

Meanwhile, post-WWII, most of the rest of the Western world was addressing the complexities of reconstruction, particularly rebuilding from the war that didn’t touch US shores much, and the required efforts of mutual support. Teamwork vs individuals making money. The system was labeled “social democracy,” but the use of the same root word as found in “socialism” caused too many Americans to conflate the terms. With that confusion, elements like public education, the New Deal, Social Security and Medicare, were often mistaken as hallmarks of creeping socialism. Taxes were higher there, as they would be for any nation paying to recover from the massive destruction of war, but social services came with that sacrifice. 

Those Western nations that embraced those social services, labeled “safety nets,” never witnessed the extreme level of income inequality that defines the United States today… or anything close. Lot of rich entrepreneurs in Europe, but a whole lot more folks holding in the Middle Class. “In the modern era, ‘pure’ socialism has been seen only rarely and usually briefly in a few Communist regimes. Far more common are systems of social democracy, now often referred to as democratic socialism, in which extensive state regulation, with limited state ownership, has been employed by democratically elected governments (as in Sweden and Denmark) in the belief that it produces a fair distribution of income without impairing economic growth.” Merriam-Webster.

Strange that the post-2007 US bailout of Wall Street and two giant automakers, where government was becoming a direct owner of private enterprise, didn’t raise much of a concern that these efforts were creeping socialism again. The massive 2017 tax cut, which only really benefitted the richest corporations in America, shifted income to the rich but extracted deficit responsibility to all Americans. Nevertheless, conservative rage and anger mounted fast after the 2010 passage of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), and notwithstanding an unfulfilled Trump administration pledge for a better and more affordable healthcare plan, the US Department of Justice weighed in support of a 20-red state lawsuit to declare that ACA unconstitutional. 

The President is constantly referring to our success vis-à-vis “socialist” European nations, a fact which is statistically unsupportable. He even claimed that his “excellent” response to the CV-19 pandemic mirrors the level of success of economic superpower Germany. He stated “‘Now, Germany — we’re very close to Germany. We have a very good relationship with Germany. Germany has done very good. They have a very low mortality rate like we do. We have a low mortality rate also." — remarks Thursday [5/7] in meeting with Gov. Greg Abbott, R-Texas.

“THE FACTS: The U.S. is not in Germany's league in this regard… The U.S. is experiencing far more reported COVID-19 deaths as a proportion of its population than is Germany. The U.S. has reported COVID-19 deaths at a rate of 234 per 1 million people. For Germany, that rate is 90 deaths per million. The U.S. surpasses many other countries in reported deaths per million, too, and it leads the world in deaths from the virus overall.” Associated Press, May 11^th. While Europe may have social programs – but so do we, although far less generous – socialism is not a form of government in any European Union country. There are rich capitalists in all of them.

Europe does not face the poverty and homelessness levels that have exploded in the United States. There are no bankruptcies from Europeans’ unable to pay for medical care. No individuals who cannot access healthcare or prescription drugs for any ailment, CV-19 or otherwise. Everyone has equal access to test kits and CV-19 treatment, despite obvious shortages which were worse here. There was no need for the European governments to pass massive payroll stimulus legislation. All of these elements were already simply part of day-to-day social democracy.

“In Europe, the collapse in business activity is triggering wage support programs that are keeping millions on the job, for now. In contrast, in the United States more than 33.5 million people have applied for jobless benefits, and the unemployment rate has soared to 14.7%. Congress has passed $2 trillion in emergency support, boosting jobless benefits and writing stimulus checks of up to $1,200 per taxpayer…

“Americans on unemployment were collecting an average of about $372 weekly before the coronavirus struck. But that average could range from $215 in Mississippi to $543 in Hawaii. The federal rescue package gave jobless workers an additional $600 a week through July. It also extended benefits to those who lost work as a result of the outbreak, which could include parents who needed to leave their jobs because schools were closed. Most states offer six months of unemployment, but the emergency legislation adds 13 weeks.

“By comparison, Germany’s jobless benefit pays 60% of previous salary for a year. France provides as much as 75% of the previous average daily wage for up to two years. Unemployment benefits in France are, on average, $1,320 a month.

“And there’s Europe’s short-hours programs, which pay most of worker salaries if companies put them on shorter hours through a temporary disruption. More than 10 million workers are being paid that way in Germany and about 12 million in France, helping hold Eurozone unemployment to only a 0.1 percentage point increase in March over February, to 7.4%...

“In downturns, U.S. employees can lose their health insurance if they are laid off and there’s a greater risk of losing one’s home through foreclosure. On the other hand, Europeans typically pay higher taxes, meaning they earn less in the good times…

“Nearly half of Americans receive health insurance through their employers, while an additional 34% get benefits through the government programs Medicare and Medicaid. Separately, 6% are insured individually, and 9% in 2018 had no insurance at all… In Europe, universal health coverage is the rule, generally funded by payroll or other taxes. One example is Britain’s National Health Service, which is funded by taxes and offers free care that costs the government 7% of gross domestic product a year.

“‘In the U.S. you need to keep pumping money into the economy so that people continue to be employed because it is through being employed that they are protected,’ Sapir said. ‘Which is the better system? I’m not going into that discussion because that is really a huge issue.’

“The U.S. tends to rank below average on measures of social support among the 37 countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, whose members are mostly developed democracies. The U.S. ranked last in terms of people living in relative poverty, meaning living on half the median income or less, with 17.8%. Countries such as Iceland, Denmark, the Czech Republic and Finland have less than 6%.” Los Angeles Times, May 11^th. We spend over 17% of our GDP on healthcare, with many Americans falling between the cracks at many levels, when the highest EU number (from France) is at 11.5%. They have longer vacations, paid maternity leave and easily accessible disability income support.

Our system seems overwhelmingly to favor the rich. “From 1980 to 2016, the poorest half of the US population has seen its share of income steadily decline, and the top 1 percent have grabbed more. In Europe, the same trend can’t be observed.

“In 1980, the top 1 percent’s share of income was about 10 percent in both Western Europe and the US, but since then, the two have severely diverged. In 2016, the top 1 percent in Western Europe had about a 12-percent share of income, compared to 20 percent in the United States. And in the US, the bottom 50 percent’s income share fell from more than 20 percent in 1980 to 13 percent in 2016.” Vox.com, 7/29/18. 

Whatever else is said and done, the bugaboo against words like “socialism” and “communism” is vaporizing among those in the younger generations. If super-rich, commercial China is “communism,” it sure does not look like the impoverished vision of the Soviet Union in the 1960s. 

And where US income inequality is staggering – as student debt skyrockets, housing affordability become illusory and corporate-greed-induced climate change seems life threatening – even purely-applied socialism lacks any pejorative meaning to these rising American voters… and naked capitalism is no longer the American aspiration. We live in a world of declining educational standards, crumbling infrastructure and a dramatic unwillingness of government to invest in the scientific research that could define our future. Did it have to take a pandemic to make us understand how ill-prepared our systems are for such inevitable extreme future challenges?

            I’m Peter Dekom, and if looking at the lives of the vast majority of systems can be used as the measure of a nation’s success, pick one: US Capitalism or European Social Democracy.