For the Joe fans - The "Joementum" rally playlist.

I would probably be one that is classified as a never trumper.  I tend to be pretty centrist, but skew more right than left.  I voted for McMullen in the last election.  I plan to vote for Biden this time.  I would probably vote for sanders too I guess, but I would have a much harder time doing so.  I don’t like that he doesn’t have any specific plan to pay for his proposals. At least warren had a ton of specifics, I could have gotten behind her as a liberal option.  Sanders would just produce 4 years of gridlock in Washington... which already has a difficult time doing it’s job...  still 4 years of sanders is better than 4 years of trump!

Let's talk political theory for a bit. First of all, communism has never been implemented in any country. Communism is the ultimate goal of many Socialist countries and that;s why they call themselves communists. Communism is like a utopia version of society for the people. Russia, Cuba, China, etc fall into those communist socialists.

But what Bernie Sanders is and what the Nordic countries and Europe are is very different. Firstly, socialistic policies are not failures if there is less corruption evolved and they are built up smartly. Germany basically has free college, universal healthcare and their law requires boards of companies to have 49% worker representation. That's hardcore socialist right there.  The social democracies of Europe are also a more socialist than the US but maybe the farthest they go is something like Germany. The belief that any of that is bad is not shared by many people. So the premise that you think it's bad is not agreed by me, at least.

A democratic socialist is even more to the left of social democrats. That's what I believe Bernie Sanders is but not what's he's run as. His platform is like a social democrat but his beliefs I think are more left than that. He knows though that Americans are not there yet. And he did not lose because his policies were not popular. They were the centre of the primary and the most popular policies in the race. He lost because of the imaginary manufactured consent of electibility. The mindless pursuit of beating Trump no matter who else comes is what beat Bernie this time( he can still win) and last time, we all know Clinton screwed him over. There was a lot of corruption going on last time.

Finally, the US is no stranger to socialism. Socialism is in the US today and a form of socialism saved the US back in the day. The new deal was very socialist in nature and I believe whenever the greed of chrony capitalism gets too much for the country to hear, socialistic policies have saved the country. Pure capitalism leads of oligarchy and plutocracy. The US is very close to those things. It needs socialism to save democracy again. Contrary to the belief Americans are force fed about Socialism and dictatorships, it's very effective in maintaining democracy if done right.

Some Socialist policies in the US are roads, public schools, public libraries, police, army, emergency services, subsidies for the rich, bailouts for the rich, funding research through public funds, etc. And as a famous American Socialist once said: There is Socialism for the rich and rugged individualism for the poor. Yes that guy was a socialist, go read his work. If the message Bernie gave was through the lens of MLK and FDR, I believe he would've done a much better job of claiming the electibility argument for himself as well. It was not a perfect campaign by any means. But the general are easier for Bernie to win rather than the democratic primary. I believed that before this thing started and I know it now.

A mix of socialism and capitalism is the best system the world has come up with. No need to free or hate a system. That's illogical and stupid. Learn from every political theory, the good and bad and figure out the best mixture of different theories to come up with something better. 

Not going to derail this into the protracted debate here but I will hit a few points.  First, I am well aware that Communism the party/government system isn't communism proper, that's their goal.  Hence why I called them socialist.  When I say diet socialism, what I mean is that he has more or less sliced out the "bad" part as most see it and left the "good" part:  removed totalitarianism and (most) nationalization but left in the large scale redistribution of wealth and massive expansion of government programs.  

The things you list from Germany are *goals*, features of their society.  My critique of him is the methods and plans which are problematic.  Also, again, it's a matter of him using labeling that is inappropriate with regards to the Nordic Model specifically.  

Also, what Bernie proposes is far, far, far to the left of the New Deal.  And it has a few features in particular that Roosevelt would have called insane.  The New Deal label is another oft misused one and many don't have full knowledge of what was in the New Deals (and many actually don't realize how fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants the New Deal was :P).  And some of what was in there was knowingly hairbrained but done for a publicity stunt, most notably the Wealth Tax Act that literally only taxed Rockefeller and was intended as a campaign platform. The New Deal is generally viewed as favorable, but it was a blunderbuss approach of "throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks."  I do, however, think that it was a necessity.  The economy had experienced a highly irregular crash driven by a host of forces both internal and external and the downward spiral was caused by outside panic that collapsed the banking system.  However, different horses for different courses:  our current issues have different causes and different effects.  The problems are also radically different as well.  The issue of that time wasn't income inequality or stagnant wage growth or housing deficits, it was the utter collapse of nearly all of the economy and 25% of the entire workforce being without work due to...well mass idiocy.  The issues of our day call for plans that address them in a way that makes sense, not tearing pages from playbooks of yesterday.  

The need for balance is true yes.  You need to keep an eye on the top 5% to make sure they aren't rigging the system or competing unfairly or being abusive and you need to help the bottom 5% and you need safety nets for when things go sideways and you need to curate the market to ensure it is competitive and not stagnant.  But it has to be done delicately or measures intended to help will do harm.  FDR could afford to be crazy because...well 25% of the workforce was unemployed and the entire economy was in a giant hole that market forces on their own would have taken a long, painful time to rectify.  But worth noting, a number of things were implemented, tried, thrown out.  These days things are implemented, have unintended consequences, and then forgotten about.

Which is the other thing we have to remember: the government of FDR's time was very, very, very different from the government now.  If we want to do even a sliver of what Bernie proposes with regards to public sector work projects, our government needs a massive, systemic reform from the city level all the way up to the fed.  

Also, a thing to seriously remember: Cronyism is a tango.  And a tango takes two.  We don't have unregulated or unchecked capitalism, not even close.  Some regulations are good and necessary and some new ones could stand to be done.  But There's also an inconceivable mountain of regulations that are currently in place purely to be used to club the opposition before they become a threat and a means to give bureaucrats something to do to justify their own existence.  A government this mired in exponentially expanding bureaucracy couldn't actually implement the New Deal.  It's so cripplingly slow, bloated, inefficient, it would be a clownshow of unparalleled proportions.  So it's a two sided problem.  Regulations that should be there aren't, regulations that shouldn't exist do.  And when unnecessary regs are in, you can check history and see for yourself: they always help established players in the market.

Just to hammer home my point about regulations and the sheer volume of regulations, the sheer size of our bloated, inefficient government, here:

https://regulatorystudies.columbian.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs3306/f/image/Total%20Pages%20in%20CFR.pdf

There are currently 180,000 pages of regulations in the Code of Federal Regulations.  And even under Trump, the growth has only stopped not reversed to any significant degree.

And to put it into perspective further:

https://regulatorystudies.columbian.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs3306/f/downloads/Total%20Pages%20in%20Federal%20Register.pdf

This is the Federal Register pages per year.  This is the daily journal of the government and tracks all regulatory work done, essentially, in terms of executive orders, regulation work, and agency notices.  Now this can increase or decrease pages in the Code of Federal Regulations, but the point is the sheer mass, the inconceivable scale of bureaucracy.  Now this only goes back to 1936 but still, compare the amount of busywork even in the "deregulating" Trump era to the height of the FDR presidency and *World War II.*  Right now, we're looking at about 60,000 pages a year in the Register.  That's hundreds of pages every. single. day.

And this is only the Federal Code.

This is unsustainably bloated.  It's almost hard to grasp.

Edit:  And btw, these are rules and regs created by bureaucrats, not any kind of elected officials.  Legislation is a separate, problematic source of bloat.  State level especially legislation can be a crony capitalism magnet.  Oh and States have their own mountains of regulations.  And so do counties.  And cities.

Yeah, sorry about that, off my soapbox now :P

I think the main confusion I see about socialism is that it's a form of government. It has nothing to do with government. It has to do with the replacement of capitalists with workers as the owners of the means of production. Marx also held the belief that the competitive marketplace had too much to do with money and not enough to do with the value of the work put into the commodity. He felt that capitalists drove those values out of wack by essentially conspiring against the working class to exploit them as much as possible. Generally speaking, the board of directors of a corporation is hired by the capitalists in order to achieve this; this is why it's so important to have Union representation present (which is not obligated in some countries, I believe the US is one of these).

But while the term "capitalism" and "capitalist" was around pre-Marx, it was really Marx which gave these terms the understanding we have today. A capitalist is basically a person who lives off of capital: money which is invested into commodity only for the purpose of money (The M-C-M model). But rather than delving too deeply into economic theory, I'll focus on the core movements.

Socialism - is the abolition of the capitalist, in its simplest terms. It has nothing to do with government or governmental systems. Marx believed socialism was inevitable because of the leftward march of progress throughout history (or the movement from hierarchical society to a more equal society - demonstrated by the destruction of the divine right of Kings for common citizens to hold those positions, and continued with the suffrage movements, etc...). He saw the business structure as being hierarchical in its ownership, and that the capitalists weren't actually the people running the business or doing the work, rather hiring other people to do it all for them: Capitalists hires board of directors > Board of directors hire management > Management hires workers - the basic corporate structure. The real ownership of the means of production lies in the hands of the corporation which is owned by the Capitalists and in the hands of the board of directors. Marx believes it should be the workers (which also includes management) who should own the means of production, not the capitalists. So, for example: instead of jack-off billionaire X owning 17 companies with 150,000 workers, it would be those 17 companies instead owned by the 150,000 workers (not collectively, the idea of all of society owning everything is not socialism, it's communism). Socialism doesn't abolish money, it just abolishes the M-C-M (Money for commodities for more money) model in favour of the Ca-M-Cb model and the Ca is owned by the worker him/herself rather than a capitalist. I won't get into the details of union structures and negotiations and such, as this post is already lengthy. Dialectics is a whole other topic, but, in short, a Biden Presidency would be an example of the victory of dialectics because neither of the two extreme positions (Trump or Sanders) is a victorious, and instead the compromise wins; you could say Marx was a progressive centrist by today's language - but this has more to do with general Marxism (a historical theory) than socialism.

Revisionist Marcism/Communism - in short is much of the above but also involves the revolt and destruction of the government. The progression toward a society that provides each according to their need, and the opportunity for individuals to contribute according to their ability. The destruction of government and all forms of hierarchy and state is the case here. This includes the abolition of currency according to some writers.

Stalinism (more unfortunately under its official label of Leninist Marxism) is the establishment of a state and government with the goal of eventually reaching communism. They called themselves both socialist and democratic, but the truth is they were neither. The USSR was a command economy, which is effectively a state corporation run by a hierarchy. It is not socialism in the conventional sense, though I think it is fair to call it a type of communism, even if the methods do not match any classical Western model. The big problem this creates is the confusion when people from some countries talk about "Communism" with people from other countries or schools of thought where it means something different; as a result, I think Stalinism is the best label, not communism.

Totalitarianism has nothing to do with socialism. The fact that the USSR was a Totalitarian regime has much more to do with the fact that it was run by extremists who wanted a Republican Czardom. Christopher Hitchens goes into detail on this, that the USSR held all of the core features of the Czardom to justify why such a thing happened - because it was normal culture for them at the time. This would almost certainly never happen in a country where liberal democracy is the norm (countries that have been liberal democracy for many generations). It would actually go against the Marxist model if France, Germany today, the UK, or the US suddenly became a totalitarian dictatorship. No matter how much people think it's going to happen, it's not. When Hitler took over Germany, keep in mind this was mainly as a Resurrection of the German Empire, and had nothing to do with democratic people suddenly deciding "Hey, this fascist thing looks like a great idea." The Republic was far too short lived to have lasting impact on culture - but in the end, the fascist regime was eviscerated and 100 years after the end of the Empire, Germany is the capital of the free world. We will never see a Fourth Empire or any other form of Totalitarianism again; that is, if the Marxist model is correct. Russia is another story, I think it will have to be another 30-50 years before they truly shake off the shadow of totalitarianism. The toxic right of Germany has a ceiling, and they will shrink as East-Germanism fades into history.

Anyway, lastly. This lefting Revisionist-Revisionist Socialism that people talk about today, where the whole thing is voted in through the government via bills: this is more or less Social Democracy since none of this even proposes the elimination of the Capitalist ownership of the economy. Medicare for All, Minimum Wages, etc... This is social democracy, not socialism. Socialists shouldn't want government to have their hands on these things.

Anyway, this is bulky, and parts probably aren't clear or accurately stated; so I will stop here.

In short. Three schools of socialism since Marx:

Classic Socialism - nothing to do with government, government has no role. An economic system. Instead of the Capitalist class owning the means of production it's owned by those who actually work. A Ca-M-Cb (commodity a for money to buy commodity b) model as opposed to an M-C-M model (invest money to buy commodity whose purpose is to sell for more money)

Revisionist Socialism - The rise up and destruction of the government who maintains the bourgeoisie class's power. 

Revisionist-Revisionist Socialism - Using the government to implement features of socialism. Social Democracy could be considered an offshoot of this.

Stalinism - a totalitarian state which promises a communist Utopia in the future.

I'll throw in one more: Revisionist-Revisionist-Revisionist Socialism: Maintaining the corporation with Union power over the board of directors, Unions being elected by the working class. This is the current type of socialism which looks most promising. This doesn't require the government like the last two models.

Anyway, I am not sure where I was going with this. Probably a bad response for your post. Sorry for the long ramble.

Ok last time I further this thread, but I want to make it clear:  I know about all these schools of thought.  Socialism is a broad umbrella built around the concept of "public/societal ownership of the means of production and the redistribution of wealth."  The various schools to follow are trying to figure out how to make that work.  Classic socialism isn't something worth bringing up much because...well in an ironic twist it has proven to be unscalable as a nation-wide model.  Centrally planned economics with government control over the means of production was the broadly accepted way around this issue pursued by both totalitarian and elected governments in USSR, Mao's China, Venezuela.  

And these all require government.  You have to enforce the existence of these types of structures one way or another. 

Beyond this not going to get into this or we'll be at it for a lot of pages. 

I will say though that while requiring unions control boards of directors is a bit out there in my mind, I am in favor of organized labor as it allows employees to leverage their position as stakeholders in the company.  Shareholders vote, investors withdraw, customers boycott, employees organize.  

Oh and yes, people who think that Bernie vs Trump would be Communism vs a Fascist Dictatorship are waaaaaay off base.

How is slowly moving to the left "poisoning"?

Biden's healthcare plan is more progressive than what we have now. Basically all of his plans are. While there may be some imperative to getting to our end goal more quickly, why not choose the candidate that will at least give us a bit of a head start instead of sprinting in the opposite direction?

The way to help usher Bernie's Revolution forward is by bringing people into the system and encouraging people who don't vote to start voting. All of this Bernie or Bust talk is just pushing us in the opposite direction. It shows in how the voters reacted to Bernie this time around. He lost ground in a lot of areas, and his young demographic simply did not show up. Trump isn't pushing us closer to a revolution. All he is doing is dragging us away from that destination. The fact that any Sanders supporter can act so blind to the damage that is being done still just baffles me. If you truly support Bernie's ideas, vote for Biden in the general.

Hahahahaha you're assuming that everything Biden says is in good faith and he won't turn around and do all the nonsense he's always done. Remember Obama campaigned further left than Biden did. The result? He couldn't even close Gitmo. All the decades of neoliberalism and neoconservatism also brought Trump to power and Obama helped in that. How much did democrats loose under Obama again? Some 1500 seats or so I believe. The one crowning achievement that he has that was actually the work of many nations putting their heads together and not all Obama's brilliance was the Iran nuclear deal and Trump tore through that like it was nothing. Obamacare was like putting a Band-Aid on a stab wound, he bailed out all the rich corporations in 2008 and left all the common working people high and dry, what actual wage increase did most people see in his time? What did he do to make education better and more affordable? What  did he do about infrastructure? And let's all remember which side he was on during occupy Wall Street. 

And did the war mongering stop? Nope! In fact news places for war started, Lebanon and Syria. Meanwhile Iraq and Afghanistan continued, an insane amount of bombs were dropped on these poor countries, he constantly broke international law by drone striking in sovereign nations the US has not invaded and who did not give the US permission to do it like Pakistan. He in fact punished more whistle blowers than any president in history. Chelsea Manning is a prime example. Meanwhile he never stood firm for any leftist policy and always gave away the bargaining power to the republicans and Mitch McConnell. What improved for the common man under Obama? He started out as a hero for the people that they voted into the white house and soon as he got in, he abandoned them. That further created a mistrust of any politician by the young people and the progressives and actually hurts the movement to this day.

And as a final slap to all the people that dared to believe, what did he do after his tenure was over? Did he fight hard for any social causes? Did he start working in lobbying for the closure of Gitmo like he said he would do? No he went on insane vacations that only rich people can go on, hung out with celebrities, made expensive speeches and just behaved like a rich guy without a care in the world. Nothing that good happened for the left under Obama and nothing that good happened under Clinton as well.

The point of this is not to just hate on Obama but I'm using this as an example to show you what a Biden presidency will be like. Clinton, bush, and Obama were all slow poisoning and Biden will continue that trend. And hell Biden will just be a figurehead while the neoliberals and neocons control everything because I don't think Biden will have enough brain capacity left to argue with them or even try to help the people if he wanted to. They are using this man to maintain power. They don't care about beating Trump. They'll be happy once Sanders is out either way. And they'll be happy to discard Biden if he gets too sick. Probably have an even bigger yes-man or yes-woman lined up as VP.

Congress, the Senate and local and state governments can change if we vote in progressives but Biden winning isn't a victory for progressives in any way. It's just buying more time to make something happen. And even that is a maybe because climate change is approaching a critical level and I don't think Biden will do anything significant to mitigate the effects or change course. We have 10 years. 4 of them will be wasted on Biden and Trump might actually shrink our timeline. All countries have made stupid decisions. I mean Boris Johnson, Modhi, Bolsanaro, Netenyahu are all stupid mistakes by the electorates of their countries but when the Americans make a stupid mistake, the entire world has to suffer the consequences. More so than the stupid decision of any other nation, except maybe China. I'm not able to vote anyways but I'm warning people to get ready for reality to hit hard. Biden is centre right right now and was even more right in the past. He's not gonna be helping the left in any significant way.