Democrats and socialism

The Democrats Stumble Toward 50 Shades of Socialism

Joe Klein has been noted as a supporter of Bill Clinton and "radical centrism."

He was writing even then that both parties were drifting apart, each becoming more extreme.

Here, he exaggerates the difference between Bernie and Hill (Medicare for all is not socialized medicine but socialized health insurance; the Brit National Health Service is socialized medicine and no one in America is suggesting that), editorializing in her favor.

And this is casual to the point of vacuity, and misleading so far as it says anything at all.

Her campaign has charged that Sanders would raise taxes on the middle class to pay for it. 

(True, but he’d eliminate insurance premiums–a net gain.) 

But a net loss for most people actually affected, since the tax hike will be for income above $ 250 K and these folks don't come close to paying the whole premiums for their EGHPs, anyway.

In fact, the best argument against Sanders’ health plan is the essential case against socialism–which Clinton’s supporters raised after the debate–and its next of kin, redistributionism: it dampens incentives, which dampens creativity, which leads to poverty.

That is not an argument against socialism at all, but an argument against excessive flattening of unequal incomes that makes absolutely no sense at all in this context, trotted out as an argument against Medicare for all.

And not even a very good argument against income flattening, considering that the history of America since WW2 does not support the big burst in inequality over the last two or three decades.

As for socialism, it does not disincentivize creativity so much as allow it far too little room.

You don't get a thousand flowers to bloom on only one stem, and the PC revolution (for example) was born in a garage - the economic equivalent of a manger - and succeeded only because there was plenty of room in US capitalism outside the box.

Too, Klein is not the first to claim that inequality of personal income or wealth is necessary to provide a market for novel consumer goods that generally start out very expensive but get a lot cheaper as time goes on.

The history of PCs is an example.

But new products do not require inequality to find a market, but only enough people with enough money who actually want the new product when it is far from being the bell-ringer it will eventually become, even as it becomes cheaper - a phenomenon of which the market and development history of the PC is indeed a perfect example.

The following is right, but would be more right without the shudder-quotes in the last sentence.

Those on "moral hazard" are fine.

Why the parens?

Sanders is in favor of some very good things, like breaking up the big banks. 

(There are even fastidious conservatives who agree with him because of the “moral hazard” involved.) 

His notion of a tax on hyperspeculative Wall Street gaming would be a more effective reform than the bramble of incomprehensible regulations comprised in the Dodd-Frank bill. 

His support for huge infrastructure spending is good too; it would make our free market more efficient and provide some nice muscle work for less-educated laborers. 

But each of those ideas is more “progressive” than “socialist.”

But this is just stupid and a glaring right wing attack on the progressive project.

Was it Klein who convinced Bill Clinton to utter that astounding betrayal, "The era of Big Government is over"?

It is still far more likely that Clinton wins the Democratic nomination than Sanders–but even Bernie should worry about his party strolling into the general election unwilling to distinguish itself from socialism. 

Indeed, the Democrats should worry about their attachment to big government, which, in America, has come to mean more unaccountable bureaucracy, like the Department of Veterans Affairs; more inefficiency, like the weird tangle of federal job-training programs, each more irrelevant than the last; and more perverse incentives, like welfare programs that ask for nothing–no personal responsibility–in return from their recipients. 

As to that, politically anyway, idle hands are indeed the devil's workshop.

People who have jobs are not available for rioting.

On the other hand, in contrast to the lumpenproles, people who usually have jobs but are stuck on unemployment are not so much inclined.

Big government is the way I was treated at the post office this afternoon.

So we have this strange election: Republicans race toward know-nothing nativism, and Democrats stumble toward socialism. 

Both are reactionary, discredited ideas. 

I want my country back!

If Clintonians like Klein are already doing this you can be sure the red-baiting and attacks from "the center" on Big Government will only get worse.

Sanders smeared as communist sympathiser as Clinton allies sling mud

Not sure it's quite "slinging mud" if it's true.

And it's true.

Who didn't see this coming?

Transparently false denials won't help.

So what's Bernie's plan to deal with this?