Socialism: A dirty word in denial
Paul Harvey
Issue date: 12/5/08 Section: Opinion
The election is over and members of President-Elect Barack Obama's cabinet are beginning to take their designated seats as our current administration shuffles out of office. There's a new Democratic Party today, and the headline message is change.
While it's no surprise to me that the red states were in a fevered panic shortly after the results came in, I did feel a bit of shame in my fellow citizens for some of the unapologetic racism that surfaced in certain televised spectacles. However, the hardest pill to swallow has been the sudden and inexplicable rise of a phantom red menace. Of the loudest Obama detractors, those who aren't terrified of supposed Muslim connections or a lack of experience are sounding the alarms of a new socialist threat.
Forgiving a moment that the uneducated habitually confuse the tenants of communism and socialism, let's evaluate the real concern here. There is a well-structured myth that socialism destroys free trade, innovation and competition because the controlling wealth is held in a state or collective entity - completely ignoring that such entities can be democratically controlled. In a classic worry of greed, the knee-jerk reaction of some people is to treat socialism as if they are no longer in control of their money and their money has been taken away from them. However, in a social democracy, which we already have in many ways today, those who assert their voice in the democratic process maintain control over their share of interest while being able to exercise the greater power of a pooled social interest.
The truth is, Socialism is alive and well in America and prevalent in our marketplace under an array of various names with minor capitalist spins tacked on. Let's take car insurance as one example. How could a business survive if it offered tens of thousands of dollars of returns to every single person who was only paying a thousand dollars a year into it? The trick is that people paying for insurance are essentially buying something they hope to never use. After all, even if you do get the total cost of your car repair and medical bills covered, you'll never break even for time lost and suffering endured. In reality, every good driver and lifelong accident-free insured is paying on a monthly basis to bail out the hazard cases and moving violation magnets. High-risk policy holders may pay more in premiums, but it's still the collective entity of all those premiums that pays for the hospital stay and the new car.
While it's no surprise to me that the red states were in a fevered panic shortly after the results came in, I did feel a bit of shame in my fellow citizens for some of the unapologetic racism that surfaced in certain televised spectacles. However, the hardest pill to swallow has been the sudden and inexplicable rise of a phantom red menace. Of the loudest Obama detractors, those who aren't terrified of supposed Muslim connections or a lack of experience are sounding the alarms of a new socialist threat.
Forgiving a moment that the uneducated habitually confuse the tenants of communism and socialism, let's evaluate the real concern here. There is a well-structured myth that socialism destroys free trade, innovation and competition because the controlling wealth is held in a state or collective entity - completely ignoring that such entities can be democratically controlled. In a classic worry of greed, the knee-jerk reaction of some people is to treat socialism as if they are no longer in control of their money and their money has been taken away from them. However, in a social democracy, which we already have in many ways today, those who assert their voice in the democratic process maintain control over their share of interest while being able to exercise the greater power of a pooled social interest.
The truth is, Socialism is alive and well in America and prevalent in our marketplace under an array of various names with minor capitalist spins tacked on. Let's take car insurance as one example. How could a business survive if it offered tens of thousands of dollars of returns to every single person who was only paying a thousand dollars a year into it? The trick is that people paying for insurance are essentially buying something they hope to never use. After all, even if you do get the total cost of your car repair and medical bills covered, you'll never break even for time lost and suffering endured. In reality, every good driver and lifelong accident-free insured is paying on a monthly basis to bail out the hazard cases and moving violation magnets. High-risk policy holders may pay more in premiums, but it's still the collective entity of all those premiums that pays for the hospital stay and the new car.
Be the first to comment on this story