Instead of trying to convince his detractors that Bernie Sanders isn’t a socialist, or isn’t a communist, or a social democrat or a democratic socialist, thus perpetuating the myths (social democracy good, socialism fine, but perhaps only a utopian theory, communism bad), his supporters, as well as everyone else who actually does have an idea about these things, should come clean:
Socialism hasn’t failed anywhere. Socialism is a precursor to Communism. Communism is a pretty cool idea and in fact, every human being is naturally born a Communist, but it Communism has not yet actually been realized, at least in contemporary, state form, anywhere. And it’s not likely to happen, in the foreseeable future, so they’ve nothing to worry about.
Communism, comrades, is an ideal. It’s very much in the future, if we ever get to see it and not self-destruct beforehand. Communism is the utopia of all socioeconomic systems – or rather a eutopia: a good place where we would arrive if we evolved; or, more appropriately, return to. It’s heaven, paradise lost, what we left behind us when our species became settled, male-dominated and proto-capitalist. I went through all this, briefly, before.
—
John Locke (the “philosophical founder of America”) proposed that genuine liberty requires cognitive self-discipline and self-government, that man’s capacity for this is the source of all freedom and that rationality is the key to liberty and true agency. (1)
If the goals of organized society are truly to guarantee people’s agency, autonomy, liberty, self-determination & collective sovereignty, and the way to achieve these goals is a “Government of the people, by the people, for the people” (self-rule or self-governance) then the conservative (and so-called “libertarian”) notion of “small government” is irrational and in fact profoundly immoral and undemocratic: in such free & fair States, The People ARE the government.
Doing away with, diminishing, or restricting a Government of the people, by the people, for the people (democracy) leads inadvertently not to Anarchy and chaos, as some might assume (see below why that is so) but to various forms of totalitarian Tyranny: Absolute Monarchy (hereditary or not), Dictatorship, Feudalism or Oligarchy (Aristocracy / Elitism, pseudo-meritocracy or kakistocracy, Plutocracy, Corporatocracy, etc).
If a) Government is to be “of the people, by the people, for the people”,
and if b) “all men are created* equal” (or all “humans born” equal, as we’d phrase it today in secular societies),
and if c) all persons are supposed to be guaranteed “the equal protection of the laws”, and their rights to “Life, Liberty & the pursuit of happiness“,
and if d) rationality is the key to liberty and true agency,
then it logically follows that the only form of State that fulfills all these criteria is a Communist one:
“A system of social organization in which all property is owned by the community and each person contributes and receives according to their ability and needs”. (Yes, that is the definition of “communism”: it stems from the terms “common” and communal. A system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all in the community as needed). What could be more fair and just than the proposition that each member should contribute no more and no less and receive no more and no less but “according to their ability and needs”?
The only possible way to fulfill these criteria above (the human rights of liberty & equality) while simultaneously doing away with a central government and the State, is Anarchy (which is the rejection of higher authority):
Anarchism advocates for the replacement of the state with stateless societies or other forms of free associations. (Anarchism definition: belief in the abolition of all government and the organization of society on a voluntary, cooperative basis without recourse to force or compulsion.
So you see, dear anti-government conservatives & libertarians, what you really advocating for, is either Oligarchy or Anarchism. Choose wisely, but choose you must, otherwise, you’re just being unreasonable, which is another way of saying, irrational, therefore stupid).
Anarchism is for self-governing, voluntary & free Unions of people who are autonomous, equal, independent yet cooperative, interacting, inter-dependent, and self-determinant. Something like a chain of communes, without a higher power (authority) of State (central government) ruling over them. Such communities or societies are automatically also socialistic or communistic, because, ahem, they are: any ethical & well-functioning social group of people would be a group where “all property is owned by the community and each person contributes and receives according to their ability and needs”.
It is, if you think about it, profoundly immoral, unethical and anti-democratic to allow the few (individuals or corporations) to privately own, exploit and/or destroy what “belongs” to the whole: the air, the land, the oceans, the rivers, the natural resources. (They don’t “belong” to us or anybody: they exist and we share them in order to exist ourselves. If we destroy or exhaust them, we cease to exist. This is where the Aristotelian concept of Oikonomia – “good housekeeping” comes from; oikonomia is moderation, the art of living well, and virtuously, by applying the rule of good measure, best practice and effectiveness to all our interactions with what is necessary for sustaining this good life of the individual and the community).
If we were to take the declaration of “unassailable rights” to “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” literally and seriously, then it automatically follows that these finite natural resources that sustain all life on Earth are not there just for humans but for all the life forms that humans – and every other inhabitant of the planet- very much rely on for survival, so they absolutely and necessarily have to be protected: they cannot and must not and should not be allowed to fall exclusively into the hands of, and become expendable & exploitable entities at the whim of, private individuals or companies motivated by greed and profit.
Equality means, among many other things, that an oligarch does not have a right to own & exploit or worse, exhaust and destroy, two million hectares of land, trees, lakes, rivers, and springs, for example, while other people are homeless, poor, sick and hungry or dying from poisoned water.
That’s not how democracy is supposed to works: that is like locking a group of living beings in an air-tight room and allowing an individual or corporation to privately own and sell the finite amount of air available to those in the room for profit. You can imagine what would immediately ensue: the rich & powerful would buy all the available air reserves and hire killers to exterminate all other oxygen-breathing individuals for it.
And that is precisely what capitalism has allowed to happen to people and to the entire biosphere.
Socialism is “a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole”. And they must be regulated for catastrophic abuses not to occur.
Socialism and Communism are therefore de facto Democratic: if totalitarian regimes call themselves “socialist” or communist”, don’t take them on their word – why should you? they are tyrannies. If capitalist systems claim they are fair & free, don’t take them on their word – examine if the claim is true and you will find that it isn’t, because they have allowed the inequality and catastrophic abuse that has brought us to the point of an existential crisis.
I have seen recently some – frankly unhistorical, uneducated & sinister – posts equating Nazism with socialism, just because Nazis called themselves the National Socialism Party. That nonsense is easy to disprove:
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out –
Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out –
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out –
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.”
(These are the – famous – words of Martin Niemöller, a German Lutheran pastor and theologian. Niemöller was an anti-Communist and supported Adolf Hitler’s rise to power at first. But when Hitler insisted on the supremacy of the state over religion, Niemöller became disillusioned. He became the leader of a group of German clergymen opposed to Hitler. In 1937 he was arrested and eventually confined in Sachsenhausen and Dachau. He was released in 1945 by the Allies). The first that the Nazis attacked were the socialists, the communists and the workers’ Unions. Do your research.
“Democratic socialism” is, therefore, a tautology just like “Social Democracy” is: any true democracy is by its very nature socialistic, because it is de facto egalitarian, sharing and synergistic. Our species is by its very nature a social species that relies on cooperation, mutual care, fair sharing of what sustains life & social mindfulness for survival: “all for one and one for all”.
Socialism, my dear fellow human brothers and sisters, is just another name for Communism: living as a community, where cooperation, fairness & sharing ensure that everyone has the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, instead of just a few authoritarian parasites above our heads…
So, American comrades, in reality, you were promised a Communistic Utopia by your Founders, but you were essentially and utterly betrayed…
1: Locke’s philosophy formed the basis of the American Declaration of independence & constitution, as expressed in the principles of “unalienable rights” (“Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”), equality & a government “of the people, by the people, for the people”.
2. A Republic is an attempt to restrict and diminish the principles of equality and governance “of the people, by the people, for the people”: it limits the expression of the will of The People by overtaking and undermining the Majority Rule and replacing it by an Elite body of regulators (the Electoral College), a “winner-takes-all” system, indirect elections and other undemocratic structures (voter suppression, gerrymandering, unelected officials, life-time appointees, etc). A Republic is a de-facto Oligarchy and as such it leads to Tyranny.
By the same token, the only possible form of true Democracy and self-governance that adheres to the principle “of the people, by the people, for the people” is Direct Democracy, not a representational system that violates the agency & autonomy of The People (because free will and free choice – decision making – are individual to each person and non-transferable).
That’s where the American Republic went wrong.
Descent to a state of Oligarchy (Tyranny) was predictable and inevitable, under these fundamental flaws. It was just a matter of time.
But it’s never too late for The People to reclaim their unassailable rights, even within a representational system.
So that, seems to me, a far more pragmatic approach for the Bernie Sanders supporters to take, when explaining to his critics why, in fact, Bernie’s proposals are not radical but rather, moderate, reasonable and essential: they represent a renewal and a rebirth of their foundation goals, an absolutely necessary restoration of their Republic, a democratization of their institutions, a remedy for the corruption and a renovation of their freedoms that have deteriorated over time.
Ever since that red commie Abe, and despite the honest efforts of comrades FDR, LBJ, MLK, JFK, Harry Truman, and all those other American socialists…
The Eros Principle 