Socialism, Communism and the American Dream

When public men indulge themselves in abuse, when they deny others a fair trial, when they resort to innuendo and insinuation, to libel, scandal and suspicion, then our democratic society is outraged, and democracy is baffled. It has no apparatus to deal with the boor, the liar, the lout, and the antidemocrat in general.

?J. William Fulbright

ICYMI… we are neck deep in election season. Accordingly, the “big guns” of political artillery have been moved into position and shells loaded with innuendo and insinuation have been flying across the aisle for months. While this every-four-year barrage is predictable, this somehow feels less smart bomb and more carpet bomb than in previous cycles. One accusation repeatedly loaded into the warheads of these munitions by some is to claim certain policies of their political opponents are representative of socialism, or even communism. While we all perhaps have a vague idea of what these terms mean, here are the actual definitions:

Socialism is an economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse economic and social systems characterized by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership.

Communism is an economic ideology that advocates for a classless society in which all property and wealth are communally owned instead of being owned by individuals.?

These two words have been recently and increasingly lumped together as a new “red scare” tactic, often by those who also seem to be unclear on what they mean. Regardless, in modern political discourse facts no longer matter all that much as long as fear and/or anger can be elicited, and in support of this tactic’s potential effectiveness the term “communism” does strike a deep chord with many. Some of us lived through the cold war and were drilled on how to "duck and cover" under our atomic-bomb-blast-protection school desks in the event of a Soviet attack and others, such as Americans of Cuban descent have intergenerational memory of being victimized by communist revolutions and regimes.

Those firing shells carrying this payload also know calling someone a socialist or communist has a long and “effective” history in international politics.? Historically, accusations of socialism and communism were used by right-wing fascist leaders like Adolph Hitler and Benito Mussolini to create a clear “us versus them” mentality among their populations.? And McCarthyism – a term that now means a “campaign or practice that endorses the use of unfair allegations and investigations”, and was an actual episode we should all recall as a black stain on American history - is another example worth revisiting.

Despite the fact the vast majority of accusations of socialist or communist activities levied by the House Committee on Un-American Activities and Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations between 1950 and 1954 were found to be baseless or incredibly overblown, a legion of government employees, army officers, entertainment industry actors and writers, academics, left-wing politicians, labor union activists, and those who were called into hearings simply because they were homosexuals were “blacklisted”, lost their jobs and lived out their lives with undeserved blots on their personal and professional reputations.? Joseph McCarthy, the Wisconsin politician who led these efforts in the Senate and who gave the set of events its name, was later officially vigorously condemned by his congressional colleagues (and society in general) for his behavior.

The respected early television journalist, Edward R. Murrow, commented on this period on his show, "See It Now". His words are eerily applicable to the present time as we slide toward our own current age of unreason – again hearing accusations of socialism and communism and witnessing contemporary congressional hearings with no other goal than political grandstanding and persecution:

No one familiar with the history of this country can deny that congressional committees are useful. It is necessary to investigate before legislating, but the line between investigating and persecuting is a very fine one, and the junior Senator from Wisconsin has stepped over it repeatedly. His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind, as between the internal and the external threats of Communism. We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason…

To connect a few interesting dots, one of the most important mentors for the Republican candidate for president in this 2024 election cycle was the attorney Roy Cohn.? Cohn was disbarred in 1986 by the New York Supreme Court (for “unethical and unprofessional conduct, including misappropriation of clients' funds, lying on a bar application, and falsifying a change to a will”) and died that same year of of AIDS. Cogent to this discussion he represented Joseph McCarthy during his congressional hearings in the early 50’s, and actually took part in some of its interrogations. Later, he became involved in the Trump family business and introduced Donald Trump to Rupert Murdoch, the former Chair of Fox Corporation (parent of Fox News).

So despite contemporary accusations, the unassailable fact is none of the politicians actively campaigning on either side of the upcoming 2024 presidential election are promoting socialism, or communism. None, to be clear, are suggesting there be “social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership”, or a “classless society in which all property and wealth are communally owned instead of being owned by individuals”. To levy such accusations is to invite and promote a new form of McCarthyism. Do we really want to go there again?

What is being suggested; however, by some national leaders and those who would like to lead are a set of social programs which could be described much more accurately as egalitarianism.? And here is that definition:

Egalitarianism is the doctrine that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities.

Although it sounds great, we can’t give full literal meaning to the Thomas Jefferson’s words in the Declaration of Independence - that “all men are created equal”.? We simply do not come into the world with equal talents and the same organic abilities to achieve over a lifetime.? However, what this phrase intends is in this country we are all considered born with the same, equal “value” and should therefore be provided the same opportunity to maximize whatever potential we have. Importantly, despite the repeated efforts of racists and eugenicists over the past few centuries to convince us otherwise, we all share 99.9% of our DNA as members of the species Homo sapiens and know now beyond any biological and sociological doubt skin color, geographic origin, ethnicity, religion or language spoken do not and cannot predict human potential. In addition, “talent and organic abilities” are themselves often overrated. While many have made contributions, civilization has not been built on the backs of geniuses and prodigies but rather individual and group efforts of hardworking and persevering “average” people.

Amazingly, in the history of civilization the idea all have equal value and deserve the same opportunity to achieve turns out to be an extremely radical idea, but is an idea at the very core of our American Experiment.? How are we doing?

?Not that great.

We frequently proclaim the United States as the “land of opportunity” and proudly promote the concept of the “American Dream” – the idea every person has the freedom and opportunity to attain a better life, achieve above and beyond what previous generations have experienced and enjoy the results of those achievements. However, opportunity is applied incredibly unequally in this country, and the American Dream is only aspirational for many. The guarantee of upward mobility - that “you can make it if you try” - has never actually been true for all of us and is true for less of us now than in recent memory.

The following graphic is an example of what has been creatively called a “Great Gatsby Curve”, whereby the GINI coefficient (a measure of income inequality – a higher number means a wider gap in income between the bottom and the top of wage earners) is plotted against intergenerational mobility (the possibility of moving up the income ladder compared to previous generations – a lower number is better).? Countries at the lower left corner have the most intergenerational mobility, and those at the top right have the lowest.? As you can see, we don’t fare all that well compared to other developed countries, and our position has worsened since the graph was first created in 2012.

If you divide the U.S. population into five economic groups, the lowest of the five has only a one in three chance of getting to more than one level up in a lifetime. What some republicans, centrists and democrats are striving to do with a number of proposed social policies is to remove some of the economic barriers and offset unpredictable calamities that make upward mobility less likely.

These proposals include subsidization of education and relief of associated debt, government-sponsored healthcare as a right rather than a luxury, worker’s rights to organize and benefit from the fruits of production (e.g. their work), the elimination of racial, religious and gender career and career advancement discrimination, the provision of funding for child and elderly care, and a number of other social welfare programs for those who find themselves so far down the ladder they cannot even see the next rung. These are neither socialist nor communist philosophies or proposals, they are social programs that attempt to move all Americans closer to equality of opportunity

In the early 1900’s, women’s suffrage, trust-busting, economic reform, maximum-hour and minimum-wage laws, the abolition of child labor, and the direct election of U.S. senators were all initially considered “socialist” ideas we eventually accepted as helpful to society. More than one hundred years later, are we really back at square one?

There are basically two approaches to social stratification – aristocracy and meritocracy. Aristocracy (or it’s cousin the caste system) implies birth into a social stratum where an individual is destined to remain no matter what, and meritocracy implies one can move up or down based solely on talent and effort. There is no need to discuss aristocracy, as we abandoned that in this country as an organizing concept at the end of the Revolutionary War.? However, meritocracy isn’t perfect either - at least not in the way it has recently been promoted in America – what some refer to as a “technocratic” meritocracy.

Most egalitarians believe in a form of meritocracy but in my opinion America has bastardized this concept over the past few decades. We have implied the only way to be upwardly mobile is to get a college education, or to be directly involved cutting edge science and technology, computing, software, artificial intelligence or similar fields, and there has also been a related implication those who haven’t chosen this technocratic path and haven’t been able to improve their economic situations deserve what they get. The fact is most Americans don’t work in these fields, most don’t choose to attend traditional four-year colleges and as Matthew Crawford said in his book Shopcraft as Soulcraft:

?You can’t hammer a nail on the internet

Any effort to create a classless society - communism’s stated goal – has been proven by history to be both unrealistic and soul-killing. Related, if we enact social programs as mentioned earlier there should and will still be an unequal set of outcomes and distribution of wealth among Americans, and there will never be perfect mobility. What these programs will do is remove some barriers, make the playing field more level, lessen the blow of unlucky occurrences such as family illness or untimely elderly care issues which can have generational economic consequences, and try to help minority families out of the multigenerational economic opportunity hole slavery and racism have put them into. Along the way; however, I believe we must not only articulate but objectively adhere to the concept all Americans have equal value. We must recognize, as former president Lyndon Johnson once said:

The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.

I don’t know about you, but while I find philosophical theories interesting, I worry a hell of a lot more about the pipes in my house on a day-to-day basis.

Educational support and related debt forgiveness should be provided not only to traditional federal and other student loan programs, but also technical training and the development of new skills and techniques in manual trades and other areas such as farming and ranching. Healthcare benefits and services need to be allocated not only in urban areas where there are opportunities for health systems to benefit from highly reimbursed elective care but also in rural areas, and we must work to move families out of multi-generational places of despair not only in our inner cities, but also places like Appalachia, and along our southern border.?

We also all need to spend more time talking to one another, regardless of which economic quintile we do or do not reside within – and bickering with one another in the comments section on Facebook doesn’t count. I agree with Michael Sandel in his book The Tyranny of Merit:

Focusing only, or mainly, on rising does little to cultivate the social bonds and civic attachments that democracy requires. Even a society more successful than ours at providing upward mobility would need to find ways to enable those who do not rise to flourish in place, and to see themselves as members of a common project. Our failure to do so makes life hard for those who lack meritocratic credentials and makes them doubt they belong.

What is being promoted by many republicans, centrists and democrats isn’t socialism or communism - it’s an effort to try to create a more effective and cohesive democratic society that works for all of us. Despite all the political rhetoric and division – much of it foisted on us by social media algorithms and power-hungry career politicians who benefit from cultivating our differences – we all want our pipes to hold water, we all want a chance to define and achieve success for ourselves in whatever form that takes… and we all want, deserve and need to be valued.