LET THE DEBATE BEGIN: HOW MUCH ‘‘SOCIALISM’’ IN AMERICA?

Some conservatives have complained

about the measures Congress enacted aimed at helping Americans get through the coronavirus dislocation. They label the measures “socialist,” “un-American”,

and at odds with capitalism.  They say

we must get business as usual going or risk having these adjustments become permanent.

The country faces questions about the

appropriate level of government involvement in the economy and other aspects of life. Cries of “socialism” are not new when the government tries helping non-corporate middle America and the poor.

The 1936 Republican presidential nominee, Kansas Governor Alf Landon, attacked Social  Security as “socialism” (Franklin Roosevelt won the Electoral College, 523-8).

New York Governor Al Smith, the 1928 Democratic presidential nominee, wrote that year, “The cry of socialism has been patented by the powerful interests that desire to put a damper on progressive legislation. Is this cry of socialism anything new?... I have heard it raised by reactionary elements and the Republican Party … for over a quarter-century.”   

Many Americans who never thought

they’d seek or accept government assistance found themselves doing just that under the unprecedented circumstances the pandemic wrought. The pandemic exposed flaws in our healthcare and food supply systems. What happens when the

pandemic ends? Is the kind of government assistance provided in connection with the pandemic an outlier or are significant policy changes on the horizon?

Will the nation remedy these weaknesses in our health care system

with new measures addressing some of the systemic shortcomings that made the coronavirus situation worse? Or, will the “socialism” objections prevail and keep the status quo in place?

Harry Truman’s 1945 health care

proposal was defeated in large measure by the American Medical Association’s labeling of the legislation as “socialized medicine.”  Things have changed. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll showed over 70 percent of respondents favoring universal health care.

                     

That Old Definitional Issue

When opponents leveled charges that Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal programs

were “socialism,” he said in his 1936 State of the Union Address that the proper role of government was “the adjustment of burdens, the help of the needy, and the protection of the people’s property.”

This year, Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren presented safety net programs aimed at assuring more Americans better access to health care,

child care, and other services. They proposed Medicare-for-All, a federal guarantee of health insurance mandated for everyone that would replace private health insurance. Other candidates, including presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden, also proposed expanded health insurance plans, though not Medicare-for-All.

In light of the virus experience, must we adopt measures that seem like “socialism?” The pandemic exposed three particular shortcomings in the health care system. First, many Americans don’t have insurance

coverage, meaning they couldn’t get adequate treatment if infected. Second, the lack of health care puts some groups at greater risk. Louisiana, for example, became an

early coronavirus “hot spot” because so many of its low-income citizens, most of the people of color, had limited access to health care before the virus hit. They suffered from medical conditions – hypertension, diabetes, obesity - that made death more likely upon contracting the virus. Finally,

health care workers faced massive shortages of equipment and supplies.

Theodore Roosevelt, the 26^th president, responding to charges he was a capitalism obstructionist and opponent of individualism, wrote, “Ruin faces us ... if we permit ourselves to be misled into refusing to exert the common power of the community where only collectively action can do what individualism has left undone or can remedy the wrongs done by an unrestricted and ill-regulated individualism.”

What Will Americans Accept? What do they Want?

Post pandemic life in America probably will look different than life before March

2020.  Until we get a coronavirus vaccine, limits on large gatherings and close personal contact will likely remain necessary. Many won’t like that (sports fans?), but they’ll probably accept it in exchange for re-starting the economy. But what about political changes?  How much government will Americans accept or desire?

Democrats flipped the House of Representatives in 2018, relying on health care as a way of attracting suburban women and people of color. The pandemic assures the push for improved health coverage will play a central role in the 2020 campaign and in the next session of Congress. Once the emergency ends, will Republican resistance to expanded health insurance fade? We don’t know.

                   

Many Democrats will seek a larger

federal investment in the health care system. That means lots of money for assembling and maintaining government stockpiles of medical equipment. Will anybody suggest rolling back the Trump tax cuts for financing such investment? Is doing such a thing “socialism?” 

                                        

What about unemployment insurance?  That’s mostly funded by taxes on employers. In light of the record number of unemployment claims, will

political and business leaders agree on a different way of funding that system? Would using general revenue and assessing higher taxes for that purpose make sense? Debating the issue seems reasonable now.

The Most Vulnerable

Many of these questions center on what America does about issues faced for the first time by middle-class people. How much “socialism” will they accept or want? That’s a political question on

which the spotlight will fall in the months ahead. Another issue, however, lurks beneath the surface. America has a population for whom the issues raised by the pandemic were not new. They live with them every day and have for a long time.

For this group, health insurance often doesn’t exist. Visits to doctors don’t happen except in the direst emergencies. Trips to food banks occur regularly, something middle-class people recently experienced for the first time. These most at-risk Americans need a voice in the political debate about “socialism.” Over the next few months, in this space, we intend to give it to them.      

IDENTIFYING THE BARRIERS TO FREEDOM FROM POVERTY AND INCOME INEQUALITY

We have begun a series of blogs discussing the subjects of poverty and income inequality in  America.  We think that the

subjects are important because freedom from poverty or to change one’s income status is fundamental to American democratic values.  We live in a constitutional democracy where, in theory, every person has a legal right to move through the classifications of the poor, middle class, upper middle class, super rich, and back again.  In other words, we do not operate within a caste system. 

 

While we are a democracy, the system that governs our economic activity is capitalism, and it impacts democratic principles and process.  In America, capitalism has often been tempered with socialism.  Democracy does not guarantee poverty will not exist.  Poverty may occur as a result of a lack of an economic inheritance or the failure to accumulate wealth for a variety of reasons.  Economic inequality can result from a failure to exploit available resources or through a denial of access to such resources.

As we indicated in our earlier blog, Poverty in America:  Where Do We Start and Who Should Address It? income inequality and poverty negatively affect the lives of millions of Americans.  Here we offer two visions that shed some light on the challenges that must be overcome if Americans are to solve this problem.  For those who have visited the countryside, this first vision will likely resonate.  For city dwellers or those who are unfamiliar with the countryside, it might be less effective.  

Imagine for a moment that there exists a beautiful meadow.  In this meadow, the terrain is generally level and the sod is dense and soft.  There are fruit trees and a variety of other

plants and vegetation that serve its inhabitants.  The sun shines on every corner of this meadow, except when it is shielded by the clouds that moderate the sun’s heat.  The wind blows, but not too strongly.  Here Americans work and play and each has a fair opportunity to take advantage of the benefits of this meadow.  Beautiful homes are constructed with well-manicured lawns and safe places of worship.  There are rules governing the behavior of its occupants, but the rules apply equally to all who live there.  In this meadow one lives the American dream.

We now move to a second vision, a jungle.  Many Americans

must traverse this jungle before accessing the meadow.  The

jungle consists of thick underbrush, large trees with low hanging limbs often inhabited by threating reptiles and holes often deceptively dangerous terrain waiting to trip-up the unwary traveler.  In this underbrush are snakes of all varieties and other dangerous animals.  This jungle lacks access to medical services and job training.  There are waters to cross, some navigable others not, and in some locations, rapids.  In other locations, one finds marshes.  For the untrained, unguided, reckless, foolish or poorly equipped, the passage is life threatening.

The second version is intended to highlight the real-life obstacles that one must overcome to reach the meadow, unless, of course, one is born in the meadow.  Those born in the jungle begin in poverty as the descendants of slaves and the heirs of slavery’s legacy.  Those inhabitants were  not

allowed to accumulate wealth, thanks to redlining, sexual discrimination and other barriers.  African Americans were denied the right to vote and deprived of government programs from which other Americans benefited.  Many in this jungle were born with or contracted a disease or suffered a debilitating defeat.  A poor neighborhood with poorly equipped schools and parents who were themselves powerless, due to ignorance and poverty, stopped others.  In this jungle are people reduced to poverty because of calamitous medical bills, from unanticipated illness.  

For some, the jungle was navigable until the jobs left due to globalization, i.e., companies that  once provided jobs left

because of cheap labor in Viet Nam, Pakistan, China, or India.  For others, the companies did not leave the jungle, but many of the jobs did, lost to mechanization and technology.  Fewer workers were needed for the few remaining jobs, because technological advancement reduced the demand for manpower.  For others, the jobs in the jungle remained but wages stagnated because unions were stripped of their capacity to demand of employers a living wage or even an increase in the minimum wage.  Yes, there are people who find themselves in this jungle, though, they did not elect to be there and would leave if shown a way out and the barriers to their exit were removed.

We want every person who wants to reach the meadow to have every opportunity to do so.  In the days and weeks ahead, we will share with you our views on how access to the meadow can be gained i.e., how these barriers might first be identified and then removed.  We hope that you will share with us your views.  We believe America’s life depends on us finding a way through.