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I'm curious why so many people are throwing the word socialist around like it is a synonym for idiot. Germany's government is run by socialists, as is Finland's, and both countries are generally considered more economically sound and competitive than the USA. Critiquing her on her positions (like her views on rent control or the minimum wage) are certainly valid points for argument, but only one or two of the posts in this thread have even mentioned her platform. The rest are just "oh my god, socialist!!!!"
I think you find more resistance to socialists in the US due to it's unique founding based on an ideal of a very limited national government. These other countries like Germany or Finland or Canada had no Thomas Jefferson or James Madison in their founding or development as a country. So socialism has always been thought of as something of a foreign concept to the American way but not to most other countries way of governing themselves.
Of course as we move farther away from the founding, these limited government concepts become less relevant to more people, but many still resist what they consider a foreign way of governing. Obviously, many people in Seattle don't feel that way.
I think you find more resistance to socialists in the US due to it's unique founding based on an ideal of a very limited national government. These other countries like Germany or Finland or Canada had no Thomas Jefferson or James Madison in their founding or development as a country. So socialism has always been thought of as something of a foreign concept to the American way but not to most other countries way of governing themselves.
Of course as we move farther away from the founding, these limited government concepts become less relevant to more people, but many still resist what they consider a foreign way of governing. Obviously, many people in Seattle don't feel that way.
I lived in Germany for 7 years and spend my summers in the Czech Republic. I'm quite fond of Europe. I think you nailed it as to why it's a dirty word in America. And that's basically why we are polarized as a nation now. There is one camp that wants us to be more like Europe, and another camp fiercely resisting it. One camp that thinks we are all broken and need to fix ourselves by modeling after Europe, and another camp that thinks Europe would do better to model themselves after us.
My thoughts on some of the comments in this thread:
1. There are no true socialist countries in Europe. They are all capitalist. One can certainly say that some come closer to true socialism than others, but there are no socialist countries in Europe. Denmark is not a socialist country. Germany is not run by socialists. Only if we accept Limbaugh's definition of socialist can we think socialism exists in Europe. You don't become socialist by offering a national healthcare, free education, and having generous welfare benefits. Liberal yes. Socialist no.
2. The only socialist country that comes the closest to a success story is China. However, incorporating capitalism is what made them a success story. Prior to their capitalist reforms they were nothing. Although some Americans want to boast of their achievements, the only thing China has is a good supply of cheap labor. The most socialist country accomplishing anything is also the most unequal country. Someone suggested that socialism works. Where? Europe is not socialist. Even if you accept a much broader meaning of socialism and point to Denmark, do they really count? Countries with tiny populations and abundant natural resources are an anomaly. Take away their oil and natural gas and tell me how well their country works. They'd learn the meaning of austerity quickly.
3. "Socialist" is a common name used in many European political parties, but most of them are not true socialists. Even some who might have socialist origins are no longer truly socialist. For example, the German SPD are not true socialists. They do not advocate the abolishment of capitalism.
I find the question of whether or not European style social policy could work in the US very interesting. I'm convinced it probably can't. Even though I personally would love to see a true national healthcare program (not the ugly thing that passed) and free higher education at public universities, it probably won't happen here for a loooong time. You see, not all liberalism is created equal. What separates Germany from Italy is the electorate. What separates Germany from France is the electorate. Germany is fortunate enough to have a pragmatic electorate. America does not. This much is proven beyond dispute every election cycle. We run nothing but half-true soundbites endlessly. We vote off of catchy soundbites. If America tried to replicate Germany we'd become Italy instead. No, actually I think the American progressive movement is closest to what you see in France.
Last edited by CarawayDJ; 11-18-2013 at 12:26 AM..
Sawant, a 41-year-old college economics professor, first drew attention as part of local Occupy Wall Street protests that included taking over a downtown park and a junior college campus in late 2011. She then ran for legislative office in 2012, challenging the powerful speaker of the state House, a Democrat. She was easily defeated.
Ha - the junior college campus was Central Seattle Community College, also referenced in Sir-Mix-A -Lot's song "Posse on Broadway".
Harrier planned to go to South Seattle Community College, but he ultimately chose to move to California and graduated from the best junior college in the Golden State.
While I agree $15/hour would be a disaster, I doubt it will ever pass in Seattle. Too many businesses will do everything in their power to make sure it wont happen. Trust me, when the small business owning immigrant says it will destroy them Wells Fargo will put that in an add and it will fail. Hell, it almost failed in Seatac, a place with nowhere near the business that Seattle has.
Most likely she'll win giving all port workers and city employees and city funded employees 15/hour and maybe get a small increase to the minimum wage in Seattle, like $10/hour.
And I consider myself a socialist and I am against any minimum wage. It should be replaced with a MAXIMUM WAGE: No company or firm can pay their lowest paid employee more than 20 times that of its lowest paid employee. If they can only afford to pay their lowest paid worker $7.25 and hour and about 15,000 a year, that's fine, but the CEO therefore can only make $301,000 a year or $145 an hour. If he wants to make a million a year, okay, but he has to pay his lowest paid employee $50,000 a year. That would close the wealth gap back to a manageable level and not effect inflation.
I'm admittedly an extremist moderate. I think the far left and far right aren't much more than cults. Many of the arguments made are just bizarre and devoid of intellect. Healthcare is a legitimate and credible debate in this country. CEO pay is anything but. It's the language of virtual political cults. I don't consider it a credible and intellectual debate. It's a soundbite. It's a populist battle cry intended to keep the flock home. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be any reform at all, but by and large the outrage is all manufactured by partisan strategists. Have you applied your math to real world corporations?
1. Most CEO's making a ton of money are in charge of multinational corporations with thousands of employees. Most CEO's making a ton of money in small companies (employee count) run professional corporations where nearly everyone is well paid. There are no absolutes. This is generally true though. In fact, the global economy has contributed to the soaring pay of CEO's as much as anything. American CEO's are indeed outpacing other countries however. Frankly speaking, being in charge of tens of thousands of employees spread out all over the world delivering products over complex international supply chains is a pretty damned big job.
2. Let's take Exxon Mobile. Exxon has over 76,000 employees. The CEO earns just over $40 mil. If you took away his entire salary and distributed it to its employees you'd pay them a whopping $526 more a year. Would that make a difference? How many people get that amount back in their income taxes each year? Now lie to me and tell me it's made a big difference in the quality of their lives. And why base it on its lowest paid employee? Maybe the underpaid employees aren't the ones making the least.
3. Should the greeter at the front desk earn $50,000 a year? What about the janitor? What about a cashier or bagger? Who would go to college if you could earn good money in low-skill entry-level jobs? What are the side effects to your policy? Why wouldn't corporations just outsource their low wage positions to temp agencies that typically offer fewer benefits? How would you prevent that in regulation? What side effects would that regulation have?
4. So let's say that you found a company rolling in the dough with a low employee count and those employees were making peanuts. So now they make pretty good money because they are doing what you advocate. The greeter is making $60K a year. The janitor is earning $60K. The mail clerk is earning $50K. Have you not created yet another inequality in society? What about the poor greeters working for companies just getting by? Should they be punished for not being fortunate enough to get into a company that earns a lot of revenue?
5. What about actors, athletes, and models? The CEO of Exxon should earn far more than any baseball player. Do we cap their salaries too? Should we gut their salaries and give the girl passing out popcorn at the game a 6 figure salary? Should we impose a tax on good looking people? They get jobs easier and even get promoted easier. They have more jobs available to them. They did nothing to earn their good looks. Why not tax them and give some of it to ugly bastards like myself? Let's cap lottery winnings too. Nobody who paid a dollar for a ticket should earn $300 million. It was pure luck. They didn't work for it. Cap it at $10 million and give the rest back to society?
In a nutshell, life isn't fair. We could go on endlessly about all of the ways life isn't fair. It never will be. Capitalism has been the most successful economic system on the planet by a large margin. Nothing has come close. Nothing has improved the lives of its citizens as much as capitalism. I suspect you are not a true socialist. You are probably just a progressive who wants to make things more fair. Capitalism can run some people over. Yes, we need to put in place social safety nets. Yes, pure capitalism does not exist and I don't think it would be just. Arguing over the best way to regulate capitalism and to what extent we should provide safety nets for those it runs over are valid arguments. Pay inequality should be expected. Janitors should not earn as much as a genetic engineer. There is nothing wrong with that. I'm sure there could be an intellectual discussion of pay inequality. CEO pay isn't it. It's nothing but political BS intended to rally the base. Elon Musk is one of the highest paid CEO's in America. His company isn't that large. I'd wager that all of his employees earn wages appropriate for what they do. Doesn't this guy deserve to be insanely compensated?
Last edited by CarawayDJ; 11-18-2013 at 12:47 AM..
I'm admittedly an extremist moderate. I think the far left and far right aren't much more than cults. Many of the arguments made are just bizarre and devoid of intellect. Healthcare is a legitimate and credible debate in this country. CEO pay is anything but. It's the language of virtual political cults. I don't consider it a credible and intellectual debate. It's a soundbite. It's a populist battle cry intended to keep the flock home. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be any reform at all, but by and large the outrage is all manufactured by partisan strategists. Have you applied your math to real world corporations?
America has been run by the far right for way too long...and by that I include George W. Obama.
Quote:
1. Most CEO's making a ton of money are in charge of multinational corporations with thousands of employees. Most CEO's making a ton of money in small companies (employee count) run professional corporations where nearly everyone is well paid. There are no absolutes. This is generally true though. In fact, the global economy has contributed to the soaring pay of CEO's as much as anything. American CEO's are indeed outpacing other countries however. Frankly speaking, being in charge of tens of thousands of employees spread out all over the world delivering products over complex international supply chains is a pretty damned big job.
Yes and they should make no more than twenty times what their lowest paid employee makes, not a hundred times. And working fifty hours a week at a low paid job is also pretty damned big for the person who needs it to feed their family.
Quote:
2. Let's take Exxon Mobile. Exxon has over 76,000 employees. The CEO earns just over $40 mil. If you took away his entire salary and distributed it to its employees you'd pay them a whopping $526 more a year. Would that make a difference? How many people get that amount back in their income taxes each year? Now lie to me and tell me it's made a big difference in the quality of their lives. And why base it on its lowest paid employee? Maybe the underpaid employees aren't the ones making the least.
That has absolutely nothing to do with what I'm talking about. I never said "take his money," I said his money shouldn't exceed twenty times what his lowest paid employee makes, which is the way it was for decades in America:
Notice the growth in CEO's pay vs that of the rest of us. If anyone can look at that and say "nothing needs to be done" they are insane. If the CEO of big polluted Exxon wants to keep his 40 million a year salary, than he better be able to pay his lowest worker two million a year. If the company can't afford it than fine: he gets a pay cut.
Quote:
3. Should the greeter at the front desk earn $50,000 a year? What about the janitor? What about a cashier or bagger? Who would go to college if you could earn good money in low-skill entry-level jobs? What are the side effects to your policy? Why wouldn't corporations just outsource their low wage positions to temp agencies that typically offer fewer benefits? How would you prevent that in regulation? What side effects would that regulation have?
When did I say they have to make $50,000 a year? If the company can only afford to pay them 10,000 a year than fine, that is what they will get paid...but the CEO will only get 200,000 a year. I am talking about pegging the wages of the lowest paid to a specific fraction of what the highest paid makes, not forcing anyone to pay any set amount. If the CEO wants more, than he had better be able to pay his workers fairly too.
Quote:
4. So let's say that you found a company rolling in the dough with a low employee count and those employees were making peanuts. So now they make pretty good money because they are doing what you advocate. The greeter is making $60K a year. The janitor is earning $60K. The mail clerk is earning $50K. Have you not created yet another inequality in society? What about the poor greeters working for companies just getting by? Should they be punished for not being fortunate enough to get into a company that earns a lot of revenue?
Everyone should make no less than 1/20th what the highest paid makes, and if that means $60 thousand a year, than fine, if that means $100 a year, fine.
Quote:
5. What about actors, athletes, and models? The CEO of Exxon should earn far more than any baseball player. Do we cap their salaries too? Should we gut their salaries and give the girl passing out popcorn at the game a 6 figure salary? Should we impose a tax on good looking people? They get jobs easier and even get promoted easier. They have more jobs available to them. They did nothing to earn their good looks. Why not tax them and give some of it to ugly bastards like myself? Let's cap lottery winnings too. Nobody who paid a dollar for a ticket should earn $300 million. It was pure luck. They didn't work for it. Cap it at $10 million and give the rest back to society?
Again, I never said "give it to society," I said "give it to your employees." An athlete doesn't have any employees, neither does a model or an actor. They are selling their skills. Apples and oranges.
Quote:
In a nutshell, life isn't fair. We could go on endlessly about all of the ways life isn't fair. It never will be. Capitalism has been the most successful economic system on the planet by a large margin. Nothing has come close. Nothing has improved the lives of its citizens as much as capitalism. I suspect you are not a true socialist. You are probably just a progressive who wants to make things more fair. Capitalism can run some people over. Yes, we need to put in place social safety nets. Yes, pure capitalism does not exist and I don't think it would be just. Arguing over the best way to regulate capitalism and to what extent we should provide safety nets for those it runs over are valid arguments. Pay inequality should be expected. Janitors should not earn as much as a genetic engineer. There is nothing wrong with that. I'm sure there could be an intellectual discussion of pay inequality. CEO pay isn't it. It's nothing but political BS intended to rally the base. Elon Musk is one of the highest paid CEO's in America. His company isn't that large. I'd wager that all of his employees earn wages appropriate for what they do. Doesn't this guy deserve to be insanely compensated?
First, I have agreed from page one that janitors shouldn't make as much as CEOs...but when the CEO owns ten houses and his own plane but the janitor has to be one food stamps because he makes that little, something is wrong. The CEO deserves a bigger home than the guy flipping burgers, but the guy flipping burgers deserves a home and shouldn't have to live in his car.
And laissez fair economics has been a failure. It has failed as bad as Soviet communism. Socialism is not the opposite of capitalism, as socialists usually try to control but not destroy capitalism.
In Europe, there is nowhere near the poverty that there is in America and their economies are better because they have embraced social democracy, and that is a FACT: Social Democracy works
And I love the "life isn't fair argument." People say that but the minute someone raises taxes on the rich they stand up and say "but, but....THAT'S NOT FAIR!"
If it "isn't fair, but that's just life" when a CEO can make millions, buy elections and go on vacations to Thailand to engage in child sex tourism or whatever other crap those sociopaths are into, than it also "isn't fair, but that's just life" when we the people take our country back and demand what's ours.
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1. There are no true socialist countries in Europe. They are all capitalist. One can certainly say that some come closer to true socialism than others, but there are no socialist countries in Europe. Denmark is not a socialist country. Germany is not run by socialists. Only if we accept Limbaugh's definition of socialist can we think socialism exists in Europe. You don't become socialist by offering a national healthcare, free education, and having generous welfare benefits. Liberal yes. Socialist no.
Europe is run by socialists, has been for some time. Communism is when the government runs everything, socialism is when you have controls and limited distribution of wealth through taxation for social programs. It is also called Social Democracy: Social democracy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
You, like most Americans, are simply misinformed about what socialism means.
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