When Crazy Bernie became a national political phenomenon back in 2015, I pointed out that the Vermont Senator isn’t actually a socialist.
As I remarked in this brief interview with Melissa Francis, the technical definition of socialism involves government ownership and control over the “means of production.” In other words, policies such as collective farms and government factories.
It’s possible that Bernie Sanders secretly supports those policies, but his public positions are conventional statism – i.e., lots of redistribution, cronyism, and intervention.
Those policies are destructive and harmful, to be sure. Just think about basket-case economies such as Greece and Venezuela.
But not all left-wing economic policies are socialism. Which was the point I made two years ago when I put together this diagram.
As you can see, I think Sen. Sanders belongs on the far left, but he represents a different strand of statism. At least when compared to conventional socialists or totalitarian socialists.
And I categorize the Nordic nations as “rational leftists” to provide a benchmark (even though those countries are very pro-market by global standards, thanks to their laissez-faire approaches to trade, regulation, etc).
I”ll close by acknowledging that language does evolve. So perhaps I’m being pedantic by drawing a distinction between ordinary Bernie-style leftism and socialism. After all, I doubt 57 percent of Democrats and 16 percent of Republicans actually favor collective farms and government-run companies (at least I hope not).
P.S. Modern leftists don’t want to end private ownership, but they do want the government to control the economy. That approach was given a test last century.
P.P.S. For examples of socialism humor, click here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
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https://pjmedia.com/trending/when-antifa-chants-no-america-at-all/
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from Gallup:
“Democrats More Positive About Socialism Than Capitalism”
by Frank Newport
“STORY HIGHLIGHTS”
– 47% of Democrats view capitalism positively, down from 56% in 2016
– 57% of Democrats now view socialism positively, little changed from 2010
– Republicans very positive about capitalism; 16% positive on socialism
https://news.gallup.com/poll/240725/democrats-positive-socialism-capitalism.aspx
Reblogged this on James' Ramblings and commented:
Reblogging for future reference.
Capitalism is a wonderful tool for allocating resources. Central control of resources, with allocation by government has never been shown to work.
The more government gets involved, the less efficient the allocation.
Liberals can complain, but the complaints mainly deal with the unfairness that occurs when government gets involved; and yet they think lobbyists (or special interests) will not get involved, when government takes total control?
When you say: … “they do want the Government control the economy…” you should rather say: ” they do want polititians & their friends & lobbies control the conomy”. which is much more real & precise.
In order to achieve so high goals, they must control the media & the image of the Absolute Dear Leader, who never commits mistakes.
(What a relief!, isn’t it?)
Dirigisme sounds like another name for economic fascism without wanting to use the loaded term ‘fascist.’
It’s fine to be precise with terminology, but communism, socialism, fascism, dirigisme, and social democracy all fall on the negative side of the spectrum. They all involve more control by government and less freedom for the individual. That means less dignity and autonomy for the individual, and less prosperity as well. We should avoid all of them, even if one is merely ‘bad’ rather than ‘tremendously bad.’
Perhaps “dirigisme,” i.e., economic planning and control by the state, is the appropriate term.
https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2018/07/27/sanders_and_ocasio-cortez_arent_socialists__what_are_they_110732.html