Saturday, October 17, 2015

What is "Democratic Socialism"?

It's Bernie Sanders ideology, I guess.  Used to be, socialism and communism wanted to run the entire economy by owning all the "means of production" to use Marx's phrase.  With a benevolent government running everything, the workers would get better wages and the evil capitalists would get fleeced.  There wasn't much difference between socialism and communism, except socialists felt they could come to power thru the ballot box, communists wanted to come to power via a violent revolution.  Once in power, there wasn't much to choose from.
  The Russians had a communist revolution take power in 1917 and it lasted about 70 years before the Russians dumped it.  The Germans and the Italians tried socialism in the 1930's and it only lasted until overthrown by force of arms in 1945.  There is nothing in historical socialism to recommend it.
   So, here comes Bernie, touting his "democratic socialism".  He isn't talking about a government takeover of the "means of production" because that won't fly in America, and advocating it would make him sound like a nutcase.  What he might do if elected is unknown. 
  What he does talk about is putting in a bunch of soak-the-rich taxes.  Is there any more to Bernie?

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