# Democrats Leaving Party Over "Socialism" **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [March 28, 2019, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651 "2019-03-28T07:39:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2019, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/101 "2019-04-11T02:31:48Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Um, it was [doing pretty well](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_the_United_Kingdom#Prosperity_of_the_1950s)? You should have read farther into your cite: > [@](#): > > From a European perspective, however, Britain was not keeping pace. Between 1950 and 1970, it was overtaken by most of the countries of the European Common Market in terms of the number of telephones, refrigerators, television sets, cars, and washing machines per 100 of the population.[221] Education grew, but not as fast as in rival nations. By the early 1980s, some 80% to 90% of school leavers in France and West Germany received vocational training, compared with 40% in the United Kingdom. By the mid-1980s, over 80% of pupils in the United States and West Germany and over 90% in Japan stayed in education until the age of eighteen, compared with barely 33% of British pupils.[222] In 1987, only 35% of 16- to 18-year-olds were in full-time education or training, compared with 80% in the United States, 77% in Japan, 69% in France, and 49% in the United Kingdom.[223] > [@](#): > > The problems Britain faced from its competition had more to do with inefficient management **and industrial policy** than with over-demanding labor: Bolding mine. Industrial policy - the nationalization of industry, attempts to ‘manage’ industry through central planning, etc. In other words, exactly what the new breed of socialists want to do now. Nations all around the globe flirted with central management of industry, nationalization, and other big government schemes. Almost all of this was undone in the 1990’s as the failures of industrial policy mounted. > [@](#): > > with the decline of Britain’s economy during the 1960s, the trade unions began to strike, leading to a complete breakdown with both the Labour Government of Harold Wilson and later with the Conservative Government of Edward Heath (1970–1974). In the early 1970s, the British economy suffered even more as strike action by trade unions, plus the effects of the 1973 oil crisis, led to a three-day week in 1973-74. However, despite a brief period of calm negotiated by the recently re-elected Labour Government of 1974 known as the Social Contract, a breakdown with the unions occurred again in 1978, leading to the Winter of Discontent, and eventually leading to the end of the Labour Government, then being led by James Callaghan, who had succeeded Wilson in 1976. > > Unemployment had also risen during this difficult period for the British economy; unemployment reached 1.5 million in 1978 - nearly triple the figure of a decade earlier, with the national rate exceeding 5% for the first time in the postwar era. It had not fallen below 1 million since 1975, and has remained above this level ever since, rarely dropping below 1.5 million.[239] ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2019, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/102 "2019-04-11T02:40:54Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Dogs are a social species. > > Pretty sure the last 10k years of breeding has been a rules-based system imposed upon by a dominant top-level hierarchical species which, many times, frowns upon the dogs asserting their own emergent organizations by means of unchecked breeding. > > The opposite of capitalism, but it seems to have worked for the dogs. But what do I know? Are you really trying to make the case that human breeding of dogs has been good for the species? How much do you know about dog breeding? We have bred dogs that can barely breathe on their own (bulldogs). Giant breeds have constant skeletal problems and live short lives. Some breeds are much dumber than wild dogs. Genetic diseases in the most popular breeds are common. Collies get Collie Eye. German Shepherds, among other dogs, get hip dysplasia. Some breeds have damaged temperaments and neurotic behavior. Some breeds have been almost ruined by modern breeding practices. Probably the healthiest, smartest breed is the Border Collie. They also happen to be the breed that is closest to the modern dog’s natural ancestors, and border collie owners and associations have taken great steps to keep Border Collies OUT of the AKC (they failed), and Border Collies are one of the few breeds that is judged by its working ability rather than its conformance to a breed standard, precisely to keep them from being damaged or destroyed by modern conformance breeders. Dogs are a terrible example. Domestic dogs are markedly inferior to their wild cousins in a number of ways. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2019, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/103 "2019-04-11T03:43:08Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > I dont believe a word of what the OP is trying to sell. Us democrats dont use “socialism” incorrectly like the republicans do. And afaik the Dem party is increasing. What you know is not correct, by my crude numbers. I put [Gallup’s Party Affiliation](https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx) numbers into my spreadsheet and applied linear regression to them. Over the long term (since '04), the Republicans delta is -0.038, the Democrats are -0.033 and Others are at +0.058. This puts the forward projection at around R=25%, D=28%, with each experiencing a very shallow decline. The figures are very noisy, though, and these trendlines should not be used to guess where they actually will be in 18 months. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2019, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/104 "2019-04-11T04:30:16Z")
Criminy, **Sam** , way you talk about “socialism” makes it out to be a cross between gonorrhea and leprosy! ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2019, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/105 "2019-04-11T09:36:49Z")
It’s a silly way to talk about socialism that surely makes the GOP spin masters very happy. In reality, American society, just like all first world societies, has many socialist aspects, including services like police, firefighting, food and drug inspections, military health care, roads, and much more. Modern American politicians who describe themselves as socialist generally want to add a few more services, most notably public health care, to this list. They certainly don’t have any interest in pursuing the top-down planned economy notion that Sam suggests. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2019, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/106 "2019-04-11T12:45:34Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > I don’t know who that is, but I hope y’all find that candidate. Y’know what I love about this particular brand of conversation? You _never see it_ on the right. Folk like **Oakminster** and **Sam Stone** aren’t saying, “Gosh, republicans, if you don’t nominate someone who _isn’t_ the[most dishonest politician ever](https://www.thestar.com/news/world/analysis/2019/01/25/trumps-first-year-was-the-most-dishonest-in-history-his-second-was-nearly-three-times-worse.html) who instituted a policy of ripping children from their families and shoving them in cages that is rightfully seen as one of the most disgraceful in this country’s recent history and [whose political sloganeering has become a rallying cry for neonazis across the world](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-extremism-maga-hat_n_5ca5075be4b082d775dfca37)… I’ll have to vote democrat”. No, for some reason, it’s always, “Gosh, democrats, I’d love to vote for you, but if you nominate someone who is a ‘socialist’ [T/N: someone who supports government social systems proven to be extremely beneficial throughout much of Europe], I’ll just have to vote for the guy who has turned our country into an international laughingstock, handed government secrets over to Russia, is [unable or unwilling to keep important government positions filled](https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/03/07/state-department-vacancies-increase-embassy-security-risks-report-warns/) even with the kind of incompetent shitmerchants he would select for such positions, and decided to [baselessly dispute the results of an election he won](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-again-claims-massive-vote-fraud-massive-search-evidence-finds-n863096) and is currently using his administration to bury a report that may in fact paint him as an actual criminal.” You’ll have to excuse me if I couldn’t give a wet fart about your opinion on the democratic field if you aren’t willing to see what’s already brazenly on display as disqualifying and worth fighting against. Or if you didn’t back in 2016. Because of “MUH SOCIALISM” or whatever other thought-stopping cliche Fox News pumped into your head. Meanwhile, y’know what leftists like AOC and Bernie are doing? They’re getting people _excited_. They’re taking the people who have been left holding the bag in our system and, like Trump, giving them something to blame - except that while in Trump’s case it was “brown people”, they’ve correctly identified that the system _is_ the problem, and needs either major reform or complete overhaul. You wanna tell me that’s not viable? [The _positions_ are broadly popular](http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/07/ocasio-cortezs-socialism-can-work-in-the-midwest.html?gtm=bottom>m=top). It’s the (incredibly dishonest right-wing) branding that people dislike. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2019, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/107 "2019-04-11T14:21:39Z")
Related: relevant twitter thread. [https://twitter.com/zei\_nabq/status/1115987267108184064](https://twitter.com/zei_nabq/status/1115987267108184064) It starts with a video of people at a Sarah Palin book signing back in 2009 saying things which are, to be diplomatic, _impossibly fucking stupid_. "under those conditions HRC will be called a Marxist socialist radical without fear of losing legitimacy; the answer to that isn’t to concede and go farther and farther right, it’s to defend left principles and thereby push the spectrum to the left and put a stop to the delusions. this is the most important task figures like Ilhan Omar, AOC and Bernie face, as it opens up a political space hitherto closed off by billions of dollars of Koch and Mercer money. It has the potential of grounding mainstream politics in some semblance of reality. and let’s face it, if it can’t be grounded in reality over the foreseeable future, we’re all going to die by the end of the century, because climate change doesn’t give af about overton windows." ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2019, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/108 "2019-04-11T14:42:03Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > What you know is not correct, by my crude numbers. I put [Gallup’s Party Affiliation](https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx) numbers into my spreadsheet and applied linear regression to them. [From Pew](https://www.people-press.org/2019/03/14/political-independents-who-they-are-what-they-think/) on March 14, 2019: > [@](#): > > Among the public overall, 38% describe themselves as independents, while 31% are Democrats and 26% call themselves Republicans, according to Pew Research Center surveys conducted in 2018. These shares have changed only modestly in recent years, but the proportion of independents is higher than it was from 2000-2008, when no more than about a third of the public identified as independents. > […] > An overwhelming majority of independents (81%) continue to “lean” toward either the Republican Party or the Democratic Party. Among the public overall, 17% are Democratic-leaning independents, while 13% lean toward the Republican Party. Just 7% of Americans decline to lean toward a party, a share that has changed little in recent years. Both parties are generally stable, maybe losing a bit to “independents” who aren’t actually independent most of the time. The calls the OP gets may be sincere, maybe not, but extrapolating them into a broader trend seems to be a mistake. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2019, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/109 "2019-04-11T16:01:48Z")
[QUOTE=Budget Player Cadet;21585199 No, for some reason, it’s always, “Gosh, democrats, I’d love to vote for you, but if you nominate someone who is a ‘socialist’ [T/N: someone who supports government social systems proven to be extremely beneficial throughout much of Europe] , I’ll just have to vote for the guy who has turned our country into an international laughingstock, handed government secrets over to Russia, is [unable or unwilling to keep important government positions filled](https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/03/07/state-department-vacancies-increase-embassy-security-risks-report-warns/) even with the kind of incompetent shitmerchants he would select for such positions, and decided to [baselessly dispute the results of an election he won](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-again-claims-massive-vote-fraud-massive-search-evidence-finds-n863096) and is currently using his administration to bury a report that may in fact paint him as an actual criminal.” . [/QUOTE] Bullshit. Anyone that can actually read and isn’t an absolute moron can see that I have never indicated any inclination to vote for Trump. In fact, I have consistently denounced Trump, and voted against him in 2016. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2019, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/110 "2019-04-11T16:17:26Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > Bullshit. Anyone that can actually read and isn’t an absolute moron can see that I have never indicated any inclination to vote for Trump. In fact, I have consistently denounced Trump, and voted against him in 2016. …My apologies, I think I mixed you up with someone else whose name started with “O”. Come to think of it, that someone else got banned. Mea culpa. That said, consider that post directed against **Sam Stone**. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2019, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/111 "2019-04-11T16:44:20Z")
I’m not American, but I have been consistent in my opinion of Trump - he’s an ass. You make an awful lot of unwarranted assumptions about your political opponents. ---
**Author:** ![CaptMurdock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/captmurdock/32/11736_2.png) [@CaptMurdock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaptMurdock)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2019, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/112 "2019-04-12T16:21:47Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I’m not American, but I have been consistent in my opinion of Trump - he’s an ass. You make an awful lot of unwarranted assumptions about your political opponents. Yeah, we’ll be sure to keep that in mind. _cough_ CapitalismIsARulesBasedSystem _cough_ :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2019, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/113 "2019-04-12T16:26:09Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I’m not American, but I have been consistent in my opinion of Trump - he’s an ass. You make an awful lot of unwarranted assumptions about your political opponents. I’m so sorry that I assumed that one of the most rabid free market capitalists on the board is not exactly a republican when everything he’s posted indicates he hates the democrats. I’ll take this lying down from Oakminister - not from you. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2019, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/114 "2019-04-12T17:31:47Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > I’ll take this lying down from Oakminister - not from you. ummm…dude? I’m straight. Just sayin…:dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2019, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/115 "2019-04-12T17:37:03Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > I’m so sorry that I assumed that one of the most rabid free market capitalists on the board is not exactly a republican when everything he’s posted indicates he hates the democrats. I’ll take this lying down from Oakminister - not from you. Civility. It’s required. Both this post and your post #106 fail in this regard. Please dial it back going forward. [/moderating] ---
**Author:** ![Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heffalump_and_roo/32/7691_2.png) [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heffalump_and_Roo)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2019, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/116 "2019-04-14T20:48:52Z")
Replying out of order. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > And as I just said, those higher tax rates had pretty much no effect on revenue. So what’s the point? My only point in that post you quoted is that when you define socialism as some policies of people you decided are socialist, that’s a poor definition that can lead to contradictions. One such contradiction is when you claim AOC is a socialist so her policy of raising the marginal tax rate is a socialist policy. Since the US had raised the marginal tax rate for decades and was not considered socialist, that’s a contradiction. On the tangent of whether high marginal tax rates are effective revenue generators. I’m not a proponent of raising the marginal tax rates to obtain tax revenue. Wealthy people don’t make their money through income, and wealthy people have the means to get around paying those taxes. Generally, wealthy people make their money through dividends and capital gains. Raising the capital gains rate and taxes on transfers is another tangent. I’m on the fence about raising the marginal tax rate as a token gesture. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Properly functioning markets don’t have to have the social outcome you want. Markets are not tools for social justice - they are a mechanism for efficiently coordinating the activities of the citizens of a country. This can certainly lead to winners and losers. If this was the case in isolation, it wouldn’t matter who was elected. The markets would function the exact same way regardless of the government’s policy. Even in the theoretical models of econ 101, governments play a role in the functioning of markets. With no government intervention at all, businesses would quickly embody the problems you mentioned here: > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Now, that doesn’t mean that the same flaws can’t happen in a capitalist economy. Monopolies, crony capitalists, huge corporations that centralize decision-making… all start to take on aspects of central planning, or allow themselves to be manipulated by central planners so long as they personally profit from it. This is why being pro-market is not the same as being pro-business. Businesses can be corrupt or stupid. Businesses are not always right, or moral. But the market is better at regulating economic activity in a complex economy than anything else we have when it’s functioning correctly. In the modern age, governments have played a role in serving as the backstop in creating laws determining how far corporations can go before they’re considered to be exploiting the consumer. Corporate regulations, anti-trust laws and tax policy all play a role in determining where that line lies. Depending on who gets elected, those laws can be changed to be more pro-business or more pro-consumer. Markets don’t function in a vacuum. Governments play a role in regulating the markets. What is considered market efficiency takes those government policies into account and can tend toward what you consider “justice” depending on the government policy. And the “winners and losers” can change depending on that governmental policy. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > For example, the Democratic Socialists of America believe that the state should nationalize large, capital intensive businesses and forcibly transform smaller businesses into worker collectives. They believe that the inclusion of ‘democratic’ decision making into the operation of the economy as opposed to the government will be a better idea than free markets. I think they would rapidly destroy the economy, and history is on my side. Could I get a cite for this? I looked up the [DSA website](https://www.dsausa.org/) and the [wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Socialists_of_America)on the DSA. There’s no mention of the goal to nationalize large businesses. The closest I could find was this: > [@](#): > > The DSA does not run candidates on its own ballot line in elections, but instead “fights for reforms today that will weaken the power of corporations and increase the power of working people”. These reforms include decreasing the influence of money in politics, empowering ordinary people in workplaces and within the economy and restructuring gender and cultural relationships to be more equitable and even that gets watered down depending on the candidate. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any sweeping legislation that AOC and Bernie Sanders have proposed that would weaken the power of corporations as a whole, not just specific policies in certain situations that would have an indirect effect. Ironically, Elizabeth Warren has a bill out to break up large tech. companies, but she doesn’t claim to be a member of DSA. History can’t possibly be on your side in regards to democratic socialism failing because according to the wiki, it has not been instituted in any other country before. However, the theoretical models include countries like Sweden, Canada and France for different aspects of their social policies. > [@](#): > > Questions and Answers from the Democratic Socialists of America", states that “no country has fully instituted democratic socialism”. Nonetheless, according to the DSA there are lessons to be learned from “the comprehensive welfare state maintained by the Swedes, from Canada’s national healthcare system, France’s nationwide childcare program, and Nicaragua’s literacy programs”.[106] The “tremendous prosperity and relative economic equality” established by the social democratic parties of the countries of Scandinavia and parts of Western Europe are lauded. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > And as I said, that’s the wrong criterion. EVERY economic system will have winners and losers. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. The best true socialist economies have managed is to bring everyone down to a miserable level, rather than bring the poor up to the quality of life enjoyed by the rich. In an economic sense, there’s no free lunch means [[wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_ain%27t_no_such_thing_as_a_free_lunch)]: > [@](#): > > “To get one thing that we like, we usually have to give up another thing that we like. Making decisions requires trading off one goal against another.”[17] The idea that there is no free lunch at the societal level applies only when all resources are being used completely and appropriately – i.e., when economic efficiency prevails. If not, a ‘free lunch’ can be had through a more efficient utilization of resources. Or, as Fred Brooks put it, “You can only get something for nothing if you have previously gotten nothing for something.” If one individual or group gets something at no cost, somebody else ends up paying for it. If there appears to be no direct cost to any single individual, there is a social cost It could be argued that the market has not been efficient. Wealth inequality shows that corporations (and the people who have profited most from their power) have gotten a “free lunch” off the backs of workers for a long time. Stagnant wage growth is an indication of how corporations have had a “free lunch” for many years. It could also be argued that the most efficient market action would be to redistribute the wealth from the “free lunch” the corporations were having back to the workers who got (comparatively) nothing [in wage increases] for their efforts. The social cost that the working class has been paying for this “free lunch” of the corporations is now evident in the high rates of suicide, the high rates of drug addiction and overdose and the decreasing life expectancy in the US over the last 3 years. Corporations got something (increased productivity and profits) for nothing (stagnant wage increases). Redistributing that wealth wouldn’t be a free lunch. It would be moving the market back to efficiency from a lunch already eaten by the corporations at their workers’ expense. Creating the conditions for wealth to move between the classes obviously means that some people will have less for others to have more. Who is having the “free lunch” is mostly a matter of framing or spin. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The proper answer to unequal market outcomes is not to scrap the market, but to create a safety net to help those who can’t make it on their own. Since you believe that taxing the rich is a socialist policy that would be disastrous, where would the money come from to create the safety net? > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Dell by himself might not, but add all the millionaires, billionaires, corporate charity and smaller individual charity, and you get quite a sum. In 2009 private charity was about $423 billion dollars. But again, I’m not arguing against a government safety net - just government control of the economy. Private charity, because it goes toward different causes, in different amounts and at different times, doesn’t get concentrated enough to create the government safety net. How would you propose aggregating those private funds in a stable way that would consistently create that government safety net without using a government mandated way to do it? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2019, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/117 "2019-04-14T23:57:39Z")
> [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](#): > > Replying out of order. > My only point in that post you quoted is that when you define socialism as some policies of people you decided are socialist, that’s a poor definition that can lead to contradictions. No, I used the definition at the Democratic Socialists of America Web Site, which AOC belongs to. > [@](#): > > One such contradiction is when you claim AOC is a socialist so her policy of raising the marginal tax rate is a socialist policy. Where did I say that? I’m perfectly aware that high takes rates are not, by themselves, socialist. Especially when, as in the case of the 1950’s and 1960’s America you keep bringing up, there are so many loopholes and tax breaks that the average tax paid wasn’t much higher than it is now. > [@](#): > > On the tangent of whether high marginal tax rates are effective revenue generators. I’m not a proponent of raising the marginal tax rates to obtain tax revenue. Then why do you support it? And if you don’t, why are you supporting people who want to raise marginal rates through the roof? > [@](#): > > Wealthy people don’t make their money through income, and wealthy people have the means to get around paying those taxes. Generally, wealthy people make their money through dividends and capital gains. Raising the capital gains rate and taxes on transfers is another tangent. I’m on the fence about raising the marginal tax rate as a token gesture. So you’re willing to risk the economy and take money away from people, not because it will do any good, but as a ‘token gesture’? That seems worse to me, as it indicates that a tax hike is more about punishing certain people and not about improving things overall. > [@](#): > > If this was the case in isolation, it wouldn’t matter who was elected. The markets would function the exact same way regardless of the government’s policy. Even in the theoretical models of econ 101, governments play a role in the functioning of markets. No one said they didn’t. In fact, I gave you a number of situations in which government regulation can help the market function better. Of course, there are plenty of regulations that can destroy markets, too. > [@](#): > > With no government intervention at all, businesses would quickly embody the problems you mentioned here: Since no one is talking about ending all government regulation, you are engaging in the fallacy of the excluded middle. Either everything AOC and the socialists want is sensible and good, or you must believe in no government regulation whatsoever. > [@](#): > > In the modern age, governments have played a role in serving as the backstop in creating laws determining how far corporations can go before they’re considered to be exploiting the consumer. Corporate regulations, anti-trust laws and tax policy all play a role in determining where that line lies. Depending on who gets elected, those laws can be changed to be more pro-business or more pro-consumer. You seem to think that the choice is between pro-business and pro-consumer. Well, without business, consumers have nothing. Ask Venezuelans. > [@](#): > > Markets don’t function in a vacuum. Governments play a role in regulating the markets. What is considered market efficiency takes those government policies into account and can tend toward what you consider “justice” depending on the government policy. And the “winners and losers” can change depending on that governmental policy. An obvious point that means nothing without defining just WHAT regulations we are talking about. This is the tiresome shell game so many big government proponents engage in. Since some regulations are good, there will be no criticism of regulatory policy. Anyone who opposes socialism must want no government at all. Since a modicum of regulation is good for the country, a lot more regulation would be better. Or something. It’s awfully hard to pin down modern socialists on exactly what they want when debating them. > [@](#): > > Could I get a cite for this? I looked up the [DSA website](https://www.dsausa.org/) and the [wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Socialists_of_America)on the DSA. There’s no mention of the goal to nationalize large businesses. The closest I could find was this: You didn’t read enough. It’s right on their web site. If you don’t think they want to nationalize large businesses and expropriate others, you didn’t read this, from [What is Democraic Socialism?](https://www.dsausa.org/about-us/what-is-democratic-socialism/) on the DSA’s web site under ‘About Us’: > [@Democratic Socialists of America](#): > > To achieve a more just society, many structures of our government and economy must be radically transformed through greater economic and social democracy so that ordinary Americans can participate in the many decisions that affect our lives. Okay… So what does that mean exactly? > [@](#): > > **Doesn’t socialism mean that the government will own and run everything?** > > Social ownership could take many forms, such as worker-owned cooperatives or publicly owned enterprises managed by workers and consumer representatives. Democratic socialists favor as much decentralization as possible. While the large concentrations of capital in industries such as energy and steel may necessitate some form of state ownership, many consumer-goods industries might be best run as cooperatives. That’s EXACTLY what I said - they recognize that the largest firms can’t be run as collectives, so those will be nationalized and run by the government. Anything smaller than that will be expropriated and turned over to ‘worker collectives’. This is pretty much exactly what Socialism has always been - top down control of the commanding heights of the economy, coupled with worker collectives for the other stuff. Can you not see how incredibly radical that is? It’s essentially what Lenin promised, and what the Bolsheviks tried to do in the Soviet Union. They took the big industries away from the owners and turned them over to party hacks, and they took the farms away from the owners and turned them into worker collectives. Starvation followed. This is right there in the DSA’s FAQ. They dress it up in ‘democratic’ language, but it’s the same old same old - the workers run all the stuff they can run, while the government runs the rest. Business owners and private capital become a thing of the past. This is a formula for a level of economic destruction not seen since… Well, since now, in Venezuela. In fact, this is to the left of Venezuela, because they stopped at nationalizing major industries and fixing prices. They never got to the worker collective part before everything went into the dumper. > [@](#): > > Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any sweeping legislation that AOC and Bernie Sanders have proposed that would weaken the power of corporations as a whole, not just specific policies in certain situations that would have an indirect effect. Did you look at the Green New Deal? AOC sponsored it, Bernie supports it. That’s certainly ‘sweeping legislation’, and it would certainly do massive damage to corporations. It’s not my fault that it’s so stupid no one takes it seriously. How about Bernie’s 70% tax rate? Wasn’t AOC talking about a 90% tax rate? Or was that Elizabeth Warren? > [@](#): > > Ironically, Elizabeth Warren has a bill out to break up large tech. companies, but she doesn’t claim to be a member of DSA. You don’t have to be a member of the DSA to be an economic illiterate, but it helps. > [@](#): > > History can’t possibly be on your side in regards to democratic socialism failing because according to the wiki, it has not been instituted in any other country before. However, the theoretical models include countries like Sweden, Canada and France for different aspects of their social policies. Again, you are trying to hide what they actually want as just being another variant of Social Democracy. But there is a fundamental difference. Social Democrats just want a stronger safety net, without making radical changes to the capitalist economy. The Democratic Socialists of America want to destroy capitalism and replace it with a combination of state run enterprises and worker collectives. Social Democracy trades off a certain amount of growth and economic efficiency for a more robust social safety net and a gentler society. All countries have aspects of this, while still maintaining markets and businesses as the means to organize production and distribute consumption. Democratic Socialism does away with private businesses entirely, and instead replaces them with worker collectives if they are small enough, or government ownership if not. As they themselves say, “To achieve a more just society, many structures of our government and economy must be radically transformed” The DSA is dangerous. Their ideas are ruinous. The fact that some of them are in the U.S. Congress is frightening. > [@](#): > > It could be argued that the market has not been efficient. Wealth inequality shows that corporations (and the people who have profited most from their power) have gotten a “free lunch” off the backs of workers for a long time. Stagnant wage growth is an indication of how corporations have had a “free lunch” for many years. First of all, there is not stagnant wage growth. Wages have been increasing for years. Second, unemployment is at record lows. Third, Capitalism has raised more people out of poverty than any other system known, and as formerly socialist/communist societies have moved to capitalism their economies and standards of living have exploded. The word has recently seen a rapid reduction in extreme poverty, entirely due to the spread of capitalism. Nothing else we have ever tried has had those kinds of results, and it’s insane to throw it out for something that you think could theoretically be better but which has failed every time it’s been tried. > [@](#): > > It could also be argued that the most efficient market action would be to redistribute the wealth from the “free lunch” the corporations were having back to the workers who got (comparatively) nothing [in wage increases] for their efforts. Funny, I’m a worker, as is everyone I know. And they’ve all got lots of things. I have more things than my parents did, and they had more than their parents. My wages, and those of all the people I know, are higher than the minimum wage. They are set by that evil market system, not the government. ‘Workers’ currently have it better than at any time in history. They walk around with the world’s knowledge in their pockets. They drive the best cars that have ever been on the road - better than anything the richest people could have had 50 years ago. Gordon Gekko’s ‘privilege’ in Wall Street was demonstrated that he could pull out a brick-sized phone and call anyone _from the beach_. Amazing! Now every 15 year old kid can not just do that, but much more than even billionaires couldn’t do 30 years ago. All of that comes from the dynamic competition of a largely capitalist world. > [@](#): > > The social cost that the working class has been paying for this “free lunch” of the corporations is now evident in the high rates of suicide, the high rates of drug addiction and overdose and the decreasing life expectancy in the US over the last 3 years. We haven’t established that corporations (other than crony capitalist ones) get any sort of ‘free lunch’. Or are you about to drag out the stupid socialist labor theory of value? > [@](#): > > Corporations got something (increased productivity and profits) for nothing (stagnant wage increases). You DO know that worker productivity is based primarily on capital investment? And that corporations and employees are a mutually beneficial arrangement? If I hire you as an auto worker for $35 per hour, why do you think you make that kind of money? Because of your labor? Nope. If your labor was all that counted, you couldn’t make minimum wage. I could give you all the raw materials for a car and all the tools you need, and it would take you decades to build that car. The reason workers get paid a lot is because each one’s work is amplified by the capital investment in the machinery, processes, and division of labor inside a corporation. It is further amplified by corporate management, sales and distribution which gets the products to market. For organizing that and taking on the risk and investing the capital, corporate owners hope to make a better return on their money than they could investing it elsewhere. And the worker benefits by being more productive, and therefore earning more money. > [@](#): > > Redistributing that wealth wouldn’t be a free lunch. It would be moving the market back to efficiency from a lunch already eaten by the corporations at their workers’ expense. No, removing that wealth would remove the capital needed to build businesses and invest in the things that actually make workers more productive. You can’pt have capitalism without capital. And for that to work, you have to allow the economy to self-organize so that the capital in the private markets flows to the most efficient uses. > [@](#): > > Creating the conditions for wealth to move between the classes obviously means that some people will have less for others to have more. Who is having the “free lunch” is mostly a matter of framing or spin. No, actually it means that the productive class will have less money to invest in production, which means that everyone will be getting less. > [@](#): > > Since you believe that taxing the rich is a socialist policy that would be disastrous, where would the money come from to create the safety net? I think progressive taxes are okay to a point. I think a social safety net helps allow a capitalist economy to function, and therefore some taxes to provide one are fine. But I understand that such taxes come at the expense of economic growth, and understand the tradeoff between safety and growth. Therefore, the safety net should be as small as possible consistent with humane care of those left behind, and taxes as low as possible consistent with that safety net. The key metric for the health of a private economy is not marginal rates, since they are generally nowhere near the effective tax rate. The key metric is the percentage of capital that remains in private hands and therefore can be used in the private economy. The U.S. has consistently been between 14.5% and 21.5% of GDP in federal taxation, regardless of the marginal rate. That seems about the right range to me. Adding in state and local taxes, and about 27% of the U.S GDP is taxed. The Social Democracies like Sweden and Denmark are at about 45%, while the OECD average is 34.2%. Mainstream debate could be centered around whether the U.S. should move its percentage up by a few points - not the ‘wholesale transformation of the entire economy’, which is what the Democratic Socialists of America want. They are way out on the fringe. > [@](#): > > Private charity, because it goes toward different causes, in different amounts and at different times, doesn’t get concentrated enough to create the government safety net. How would you propose aggregating those private funds in a stable way that would consistently create that government safety net without using a government mandated way to do it? I’m not saying private charity can replace the entire social safety net. My point was simply that $443 billion dollars in a year is not an insignificant amount of money. It’s a serious contribution and shouldn’t be downplayed. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2019, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/118 "2019-04-15T03:23:13Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > You should have read farther into your cite: You mean, the part of my cite that I then went on to quote again? Yeah, that isn’t supporting your argument as much as you imagine it is. ---
**Author:** ![icon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c6cbf5/32.png) [@icon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/icon)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2019, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/119 "2019-04-16T01:37:43Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I’m not saying private charity can replace the entire social safety net. My point was simply that $443 billion dollars in a year is not an insignificant amount of money. It’s a serious contribution and shouldn’t be downplayed. Apart from not being able to replace the reach of government services, it should be noted that the ones who are providing charity get to decide to whom they are providing it, where, and largely how. Bill Gates, Dell et al, were not elected but can determine winners and losers on a whim. On the other hand, government programs can be voted upon by the people they service and/or the people who think they are a worthwhile good. //i\ ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2019, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/120 "2019-04-16T02:37:36Z")
> [@icon](#): > > Apart from not being able to replace the reach of government services, it should be noted that the ones who are providing charity get to decide to whom they are providing it, where, and largely how. Bill Gates, Dell et al, were not elected but can determine winners and losers on a whim. On the other hand, government programs can be voted upon by the people they service and/or the people who think they are a worthwhile good. > > //i\ This is actually the best thing about billionaires - they provide alternate pathways for aid, research, etc. Elon Musk felt that reusable rockets were the way to go. NASA disagreed. They abandoned reusability with the DC-X for political reasons, and nothing on their roadmap was going to bring us back there. Left to NASA and it’s big industrial cost-plus corporate partners, we’d be flying rockets once every year or two for a billion dollars per flight, which would likely stick us in low earth or it forever, with maybe a ‘flags and footprints’ mission or two to the moon or elsewhere, Thanks to a billionaire who didn’t have to answer to Congress and its pork-driven members, we now know that reusability works, and it will lower the cost of space by an order of magnitude or more. That is worth far more to the world than a hundred times Musk’s own fortune. Paul Allen invested in breakthrough listen and the Allen Telescope Array, which is doing SETI work a risk-averse congress wouldn’t fund. Sergei Brin and others are investing billions into solving diseases related to aging, and aging itself. Branson is investing in space tourism and cheap satellite launch and Bigelow is building inflatable habitats, one of which is on the ISS now.And of course, the whole of Silicon Valley is built on venture capital. Where do you think that capital came from? It came from very wealthy people who didn’t have to give 90% of their money to the government. In terms of foreign aid, governments have been spending billions on aid to Africa with very little to show for it. The Gates foundation has probably done as much for the poor in Africa on a fraction of the budget. But what is really helping Africa and other developing nations isn’t foreign aid but the liberalizing of markets and property rights, allowing people to rise up on their own. Innovation doesn’t come from throwing more money at a few people. Innovation comes from many independent people exploring what Stuart Kaufmann calls ‘the adjacent possible’ - the unexplored areas enabled by the last round of invention. This is the true value of diversity - having many different people with different experiences and backgrounds and knowledge freely going where their ideas take them. That’s why capitalist economies innovate so rapidly, and why China is forced to steal the technology its big government research outfits can’t figure out. Another reason you need the rich is as early adopters, to provide a market for technologies that are currently too expensive for the masses. Without Gordon Gekkos to fund the early very expensive days of cell phones, we might never have developed the cheap phones we all use now. Airbags, ABS brakes, stability control… all of these were extremely expensive when they first arrived. Almost all came out of the luxury car market, because only wealthy people could afford $5,000 for ABS. But now everyone has it. A world in which there are only average people and no wealthy people is a world where all expensive products stop being made, and it’s those products that eventually improve the products we all use. A world where every idea has to be approved by a large committee or a government body is a world where innovation stops cold. No matter how much money is thrown around by government to ‘stimulate’ research. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651.md?page=7)