# 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:** 11\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2019, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/141 "2019-04-16T19:57:27Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > I am not sure why you would call the OP bogus. The post was about a personal experiences situation that was coloring the poster’s perception, though not their enthusiasm. They wanted to know if there was a broader dataset that would reinforce their anecdotal perception, or was this just being blown out of proportion. … I doubt their motives and their claimed personal experience. The Op looked and smelled like astroturfing. He was asked to substantiate his claims, name the org he worked for etc, and _nothing._ ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2019, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/142 "2019-04-17T12:19:31Z")
Yeah, it’s even more bogus than the #WalkAway movement, except that white ppl are, in fact, dumb enough to fall for it. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2019, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/143 "2019-04-18T00:59:05Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > Someone else having more money than me does not limit my freedom. If I want more money, I have the means to aquire it without legislating it away from other people. It turns out, though, that that’s another pious libertarian dogma that isn’t actually true in the real world. A comparatively small group of someone-elses having **lots** more money than you and the rest of us **does** in fact significantly limit your freedom, by making government less responsive to the non-wealthy and more vulnerable to capture by elite interests. As [this article](https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2019/04/15/why-democrats-like-taxes-again/) notes, > [@](#): > > A vast body of research demonstrates that elected officials are far more responsive to the desires and priorities of the wealthy, for example, than to everybody else. And greater wealth tends to beget even greater wealth through investments, inheritances, and the ability to pay for creative ways to dodge taxes, such as misclassifying income or dumping it in offshore accounts. In other words, allowing so much wealth to be amassed at the very top creates an ever more powerful plutocracy that fights to entrench and maintain its economic privileges. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2019, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/144 "2019-04-18T11:06:25Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > It turns out, though, that that’s another pious libertarian dogma that isn’t actually true in the real world. A comparatively small group of someone-elses having **lots** more money than you and the rest of us **does** in fact significantly limit your freedom, by making government less responsive to the non-wealthy and more vulnerable to capture by elite interests. As [this article](https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2019/04/15/why-democrats-like-taxes-again/) notes, A small group of someone-elses only has a small group of votes. If the rest of us vote with them against our own interests, that’s our fault. But even if someone with more money uses it for nefarious purposes, their simply having the money does not harm me. ---
**Author:** ![Tatterdemalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/43a26b/32.png) [@Tatterdemalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tatterdemalion)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2019, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/145 "2019-04-18T12:32:03Z")
To quote old Boss Tweed, “I don’t care who does the electing, as long as I get to do the nominating.” ---
**Author:** ![MyFootsZZZ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/myfootszzz/32/12580_2.png) [@MyFootsZZZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MyFootsZZZ)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2019, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/146 "2019-04-19T15:55:11Z")
I’m voting for Bernie in the primary, however, whoever wins that has my vote. Did the same thing with Hillary. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2019, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/147 "2019-04-19T16:41:04Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > A small group of someone-elses only has a small group of votes. If the rest of us vote with them against our own interests, that’s our fault. Again, this idealistic libertarian mantra is simply obscuring the realities of cause and effect, in which having extremely disproportionate amounts of wealth **significantly increases the someone-elses’ ability to persuade other people to vote against their interests**. This sort of naive delusionality is a hallmark of libertarian thinking. They ignore the very real and predictable negative consequences of the inequities all around them in favor of contemplating the theoretical level playing field that exists only in their own minds. > [@Ruken](#): > > But even if someone with more money uses it for nefarious purposes, their simply having the money does not harm me. This likewise shows a tremendously naive willful disregard of reality. The fact is that when a small minority of people have extremely disproportionate amounts of wealth, it is statistically inevitable that some of them will use it to further skew the political system in favor of the wealthy. I used to have a more naive and laissez-faire view of extreme wealth disparities myself, though from a more liberal standpoint: I opined that as long as the folks at the bottom of the heap were getting adequate resources from tax funding, it didn’t matter at all how much money the folks at the top of the heap had left over. Then I started to encounter [analyses](https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2014/04/09/rising-wealth-concentration-helped-to-lead-to-the-2008-financial-crisis-and-continues-to-contribute-to-ongoing-financial-instability/) of the run-up to the 2008 economic crash, describing how the development of highly risky derivatives and similar financial instruments was largely due to rapidly bloating investment capital desperate for new market options. Money that in the hands of the much larger non-wealthy population would have been funneled mostly into ordinary consumption, thereby growing markets, was instead recycled into speculative offshoots of existing markets responding to demands for places to put excess money. That is, the fact that wealth was highly concentrated as excess capital in a relatively small number of hands **in and of itself** led to bad outcomes. Not necessarily because the individual excessively wealthy people were greedy or cruel. Just because they were in control of too much of the money, and so the normal stabilizing deterrents to financial risk failed to restrain them. Libertarian pious moralities about the intrinsic neutrality of vast wealth inequality are simply delusions. When small elites of fabulously wealthy people have vastly more money than they need, inevitably large chunks of that money are going to wind up working to make the system more destabilized and unfair for the rest of us, **even if the elites aren’t operating with any deliberately “nefarious” purposes**. ---
**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 27, 2019, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/148 "2019-04-27T22:09:21Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Where did I say that? I’m perfectly aware that high takes rates are not, by themselves, socialist. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > If the term ‘socialism’ bothers you, we don’t need the term at all. We can simply identify the policies that the ‘socialists’ want. For example, 90% tax brackets on the ‘rich’, > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > 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. OK good, we’re on the same page. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > You seem to think that the choice is between pro-business and pro-consumer. Well, without business, consumers have nothing. Ask Venezuelans. Without consumers, businesses have nothing. Ask any bankrupt company. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > 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. How should it be determined which regulations are good and which are bad? > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > 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’: > > Okay… So what does that mean exactly? I can say what it doesn’t mean, based on their website. It doesn’t mean the government will run everything. It also doesn’t mean that the government will turn into authoritarianism. > [@DSA](#): > > Democratic socialists do not want to create an all-powerful government bureaucracy. > . . . > Socialists have been among the harshest critics of authoritarian Communist states. Just because their bureaucratic elites called them “socialist” did not make it so; they also called their regimes “democratic.” > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > 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. Here’s a [thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=861836) on the US turning into Venezuela on the Dope from 9/18. That’s probably a better place for that discussion. I did a quick search on whether the US could turn into Venezuela. The only hits that came up were from Fox News. There are a lot of other factors in the Venezuela situation that makes the US too dissimilar to compare. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > 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 would the resolution do massive damage to corporations? It’s just a roadmap in resolution format that wasn’t passed by the Senate. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > How about Bernie’s 70% tax rate? Wasn’t AOC talking about a 90% tax rate? Or was that Elizabeth Warren? In his Fox News town hall recently, Bernie mentioned a 52% top marginal tax rate that he was pushing in 2016. He didn’t seem to be pushing one this campaign. AOC made an off-hand comment about a 70% marginal tax rate that started all the controversy. She wasn’t even promoting legislation. I don’t know Elizabeth Warren’s position. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > 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. You’re right that I’m not seeing the difference. Here’s a piece of the statement from the [wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy) on social democracy. > [@](#): > > Social democracy originated as a political ideology that advocated an evolutionary and peaceful transition from capitalism to socialism using established political processes in contrast to the revolutionary approach to transition associated with orthodox Marxism. Social democracy has evolved and so has democratic socialism as concepts in the current political climate. I do see a piece in the wiki where they try to make a distinction, but in the most notable section there’s: > [@](#): > > Notable social democrats > . . . > Bernie Sanders > Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Here’s AOC on her take on what it means. She says that she believes in a democratic economy but. . . [AOC: Can You Be A Democratic Socialist And A Capitalist? ‘It’s Possible’ | MTP Daily | MSNBC](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esLJRHU-GvA) [youtube] She explained what she meant by worker cooperatives. She says that workers should have a say in how the corporation they work in should run. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > First of all, there is not stagnant wage growth. In real terms, wages have been stagnant for decades. [Wage Stagnation in Nine Charts](https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/) from 2015 [Fed Chair Powell grilled on stagnant wage growth in tight job market](https://www.bankrate.com/banking/federal-reserve/federal-reserve-powell-wage-gains-labor-market-congress-feb-2019/) from Feb 2019 [For most U.S. workers, real wages have barely budged in decades](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/) from Pew Research Center August 2018 [In U.S., wage growth is being wiped out entirely by inflation](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/08/10/america-wage-growth-is-getting-wiped-out-entirely-by-inflation/?noredirect=on) from The Washington Post August 2018 > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > 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. Millennials will not be so lucky. If the projections are right, millennials will have less than their parents. [Millennials will be the first generation to earn less than their parents](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/07/millennials-will-be-the-first-generation-to-earn-less-than-their-parents/) from World Economic Forum July 2016. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > 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. That’s probably why workers are so expendable that corporations don’t have to increase their wages (in real terms) for decades. The workers couldn’t do the same on their own, so they have to accept what they’re given. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > 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. If the markets are efficient, what’s the explanation for the shrinking middle class? Or is that a result of “too efficient”? [The middle class is shrinking just about everywhere in America](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/05/11/the-middle-class-is-shrinking-just-about-everywhere-in-america/?noredirect=on) in The Washington Post May 2016 [America’s incredible shrinking middle class](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/americas-incredible-shrinking-middle-class/) on CBS News March 2015 [Shrinking Middle Class Threatens Global Growth, Stability](https://www.wsj.com/articles/shrinking-middle-class-threatens-global-growth-stability-11554922801) in Wall Street Journal April 19, 2019 (this is behind a paywall, but I thought the title and date was appropriate) > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > 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. Within that context, the debate about what some people consider to be “humane care” has sometimes left me sad for the future of humanity. > [@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. It is indeed a significant amount of money. To put that [in context](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-budget-benefits-cuts/?tid=graphics-story), federal SNAP benefits for 2018 were projected to be $672B without Trump’s proposed cut to $479B. If the private charity were aggregated, it could almost fund a whole program like SNAP. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2019, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/149 "2019-04-30T00:56:46Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > A small group of someone-elses only has a small group of votes. If the rest of us vote with them against our own interests, that’s our fault. > > But even if someone with more money uses it for nefarious purposes, their simply having the money does not harm me. Who funds the schools and how much? Who decides the curriculum? :dubious: What evaluation and critical thinking skills were taught, that people are able to make good and informed decisions? ---
**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 30, 2019, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/150 "2019-04-30T03:48:59Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Who funds the schools and how much? Who decides the curriculum? :dubious: > > What evaluation and critical thinking skills were taught, that people are able to make good and informed decisions? Dammit, you just gave me a dark vision of the Republican Wet Dream: publicly funded, privately operated schools, where the government covers the basic cost of your child’s education, but, of course, the school operators can offer an upcharge to give your child access to more and better resources. ---
**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 30, 2019, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/151 "2019-04-30T17:42:11Z")
> [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](#): > > How would the resolution do massive damage to corporations? … Can we say, though, that doing massive damage to corporations would be a bad thing? Is our corporate business model the socioeconomic ideal? I know there is widespread of dissatisfaction with corporations and the sometimes detestable ways the act. Granted, we do not have a viable alternate model that could seamlessly take their place, but I feel like some of the larger ones need to be dismantled and realigned into smaller entities built to function in an environment that is closer to the real world that real people live in. But it would take someone much smarter than me to figure out how to arrange a smooth, secure transition to such a system. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651.md?page=7)