“After decades in which right-wingers have attacked long-established institutions — Social Security, progressive taxation, unemployment insurance — as “socialism”, a lot of young people now believe them, and think that this “socialism” thing really isn’t so bad.” Krugman
- Bernie says “I’m a Democratic socialist and here’s what that is: I want to break up really big banks, tax the super rich, build infrastructure to give jobs to working class, and give everybody free college.”
- And I thought:
- Well that’s a ridiculous definition of a Democratic Socialist (DS).
- But even thought he knows he’s not telling the truth about DS, the important half of his claim is honest — that is what he believes in. It’s unworkable, but a nice idea.
- And it is actually a good trick to play on the Tea Party which claims every progressive measure is socialistic/communistic.
- It’s kind of like when Blacks became proud of being Black, or gays started the Queer Nations. It says — socialism is just find and normal, and we’re proud of it and the Tea Party is just a bunch of lying, smearing scare mongers when they tell you socialists want to end capitalism, have the government take over big industry, and put an end to normal private for-profit business.
- So maybe in the future we will be free from the S-word label because he did some Judo on the the Tea Party and made use of their lie by doubling down on it and taking control of the word to change its meaning into something most people agree with. Bravo, if that works.
- But then I read up on the history of the YPSL (Young People’s Socialist League), Michael Harrington, DSOC, and DSA. And this is my new view.
- #2.2 above was wrong. Bernie does believe in the changes he lists, but he does not at all believe that is DS. He thinks that’s a step toward DS and that DS really is standard socialism — the end of capitalism, no private profits, state ownership of big industry. And his real goal is in fact DS. Just like conservatives have always said.
- And he has left a clear trail showing this by who he endorsed and his insistence on the term DS, which is directly connected with Harriington (a very nice guy) DSOC and DSA. So it is already coming out that DS is real socialism and that’s what Bernie really believes. He gave the keynote speach at an annual DSA convention, etc. etc.
- So the whole truth will come out and that will reverse the clever trick that I thought he was getting away with.
- People will come to understand that once again a “communist” has been duplicitous and infiltrated a larger organization (he still is not a Democrat) in order to use it to push us toward socialism/communism without our realizing it.
- And that will “prove” that Democrats are either “communist dupes” or secret communists.
- And because of Bernie this will be very nearly true. So it will be extremely hard to shake of this perception, and the S-word will have more power than ever.
- The bottom line is that I think Bernie is, in fact, playing the same game the socialists and communists played for so many years. He is trying to go in and deceptively take over a larger organization in order to push forward his own objective which he is keeping secret. And in the process, as they so often did, he is doing great harm to the organization he’s trying to take over.
So why am I not a Democratic Socialist? Michael Harrington is the clear godfather of that term and the organizer of the DSOC, it’s first successful organization. I find Michael to be extremely thoughtful, honest and well meaning. I find DS to be a wonderful idea. Harrington is the only one I find that has thought through what it might actually look like — well he’s thought part way through it.
If it worked it would be fantastic. But it is really one of the most fantastical fairy tails I’ve come across. He wants to replace central planning of the economy with democratic planning which literally means any moderate size group will have access to the planning software and the assistance they need to run it and there will be a huge democratic planning process to decide on things like steel and energy production and so on.
But it won’t work and we don’t need to worry about what would be ideal two hundred years from now anyway.
So why is this fantasy a problem? It’s not much of a problem when the DSs are honest, and follow the DSA policy of just supporting the most left-wing candidate. They know they cannot run openly and win elections. It becomes a problem when attached to the old Trotskyist method of infiltration, and takeover. (YPSL when Troksyist while Bernie was in it.) Takeover requires destroying the existing power structure of the organization and replacing it. This is hugely damaging, and the replacements must either be dupes or those, like Bernie, to are deliberately deceptive. This is all justified by a believing that you know better than everyone else where they should be going and believing they are too stupid to understand if you told them.
A related criticism is this one: As Barnie Frank said, Bernie’s “holier-than-thou attitude—saying in a very loud voice he is smarter than everyone else and purer than everyone else—really undercuts his effectiveness.”
So Nathan. Thanks for reading this if you have the time. And I look forward to your comments.
Cheers,
Steve
