The attempts by the political right-wing of the United States, in their accusations of Barack Obama being a “socialist” in his economic plans, either doesn’t know what socialism is, or is dependent upon their audience’s likely ignorance of the term. First of all, socialism cannot be defined as any one thing, given that it is a broad and often conflicting set of ideologies. One of the better-known offshoots of socialism, however, is communism, and the right is just short of channeling Joseph McCarthy and yelling the deadly “C-word” in Obama’s direction. As Victor Davis Hanson at the National Review suggests, Obama would have everyone making the same salary, regardless of their role in the workforce.
In my view, there is at least one vein of socialism which is appealing, and that is one where all citizens are entitled to a basic level of fundamental services (food, shelter, medical care) – something that out of necessity would require government intervention. The downside, of course, is that the taxes would be crushing by comparison to our current system, but when you consider that the money lost in taxes is going to paying for the things you’d spend it on, anyway, it doesn’t seem so bad.
But what’s important to note is that in such a system, there would not be any cap on income potential, meaning that after the baseline was established for all citizens, any individual could be expected to make income above and beyond the baseline for any additional comforts or flat-out indulgences they see fit. In other words, socialism in this sense would be just like capitalism, except that everyone would be taken care of at least on the most basic level.
I understand the arguments of people who don’t want their money going into a pool that benefits people they deem lazy – including people who are actually lazy, but here I would appeal to their better natures, and point out that where society is better as a whole, we can strive to be better as individuals. In the current system, you may deny the lazy man the food for his table while you splurge on a new car to keep up with Mr. and Mrs. Jones, but that lazy man may then be desperate enough to shoot you and steal your new car. Now that is not to say that there is a cause and effect relationship between poverty and crime, but there are certainly strong correlations.
Anyway, I’m not about to go into any more detail about the prospective ideals of this brand of socialism. What’s important to point out, though, is that what Barack Obama is proposing is nare a degree closer to socialism in any form than the system we currently have in place. And so, were I a socialist (the jury is out as I continue to investigate the pros and cons), Barack Obama would not be my candidate.
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