No, I’m Not Really A Socialist

I am actually kind of delighted that the social media posts I have been publishing have fostered something that starts to look like a conversation. Folks seem willing to disagree, to offer their own slice on the topic, and to also validate things that resonate for them. That’s kind of cool.

On Friday I posted a reflection on a brief conversation I had with some neighbors. Several of the responses offered counterpoints to that reflection and it seems worth taking a few moments to reflect on those insights. I don’t tend to do this within the comments section of a post. Those kinds of responses on my part tend to be, in my opinion, too personal and defensive and risk stumbling in the weeds of a thought – leaving me with the odd burrs and sticky seeds that I hadn’t intended to accumulate. Better, I think, to take some time to reflect on the implicit questions and offer a more robust amplification of the topics. That’s what I am doing here.

 I used to teach in the UW system and one of the lectures I did talked about citations and their purpose. Academic citations are an acknowledgement of a conversation. We build on what others have said and offer counterpoints and conversation about the merits of specific points of view. The following is not filled with footnotes and citations as it’s not an academic paper and is mostly my unsubstantiated opinions. But it comes from reading and reflecting on the voices of various outside sources in our community. Every once in a while I’ll read an editorial that has tons of source links and quotes. That’s true empirical thinking.

If you didn’t read the post that prompted this reflection, you can find it on this site.

Two questions are embedded in the comments to that original post. One has to do with this label of “local socialist” that I have been using. The other is related to interacting and communicating with folks who seem to be complicit in supporting this movement in the US toward a different kind of world view. Both are worth exploring.

The following is, as is my habit, long and a little wonky. I’m not an economist. I’m not a historian. I’m not a political scientist. I don’t really know what the hell I’m talking about. But this is what I see as I look around me.

Let’s start with the “Socialist” label as it’s the easier lift.

No, I am not a pure Socialist. Here’s a simple definition lifted from google.

“Socialists believe that sharing ownership of the means of production equally among society would increase people's quality of life. Socialists want to give people free access to basic life necessities like food, housing, and healthcare. Some socialists also believe employment should be guaranteed as a human right.”

While I actually agree with most of what this states, I don’t think we need to try and create a society where ALL means of production are owned in a collective model. That’s probably not practical or even beneficial. I see the benefits of a competitive capitalistic soup that incentivizes ambition in a way that creates important businesses and allows individuals to be rewarded for their work and innovation.

Democratic Socialism isn’t really much better as a label since it is generally a strong adherence to Socialism but rejects the authoritarian political environments in which Socialism initially was developed. It is a reaction to Communism but is still pretty radical. It acknowledges that Socialism can exist without an authoritarian figure leading the state.

Our model here in the United States is a pretty laissez faire enterprise where folks with access to capital are able to build incredible infrastructure that benefits from the ingenuity and hard work of the regular folk who do much of the heavy lifting. There is a lot of complaint about government regulation and how it stifles investment and progress, and there is some truth to that. It’s worth noting, though, that every regulation is a response to some kind of excess that oppressed or otherwise took unfair advantage of people without power. We have so many regulations because without them those in power will generally seek to reinforce that power.

Our model also allows for some elements of society that benefit from a more collective approach. At the local level, we collectively fund important services like fire departments, education, roads, and a host of other useful services that we support without a profit motive. At a national level we have chosen to ensure healthcare, retirement benefits, disability services, and more because there is no profit motive in making sure those important values are attended to.

It is interesting to note that the defense budget, which is enormous, is essentially a socialist endeavor. This is complicated because much of the work of the military is employed to ensure a stable environment for capitalistic pursuits, but you probably could say that about pretty much everything we do that is of a collective nature. The stability we created over the course of the 20^th century through taxation and infrastructure has allowed capitalism to flourish.

Anyway, here is what I DO mean when I say that I am the local socialist.

We all do better when we all do better.

Pure Darwinian capitalism is not going to make us better.

Government has a role to play in ensuring that while those who are successful within a capitalistic model are creating wealth, the rest of the population needs to be able to enjoy the fruits of that work. Those who do not own the means of production need to be rewarded for their role in productive activities. It is immoral for one person to become wealthy when the individuals who are creating that wealth through their labor are not able to sustain a basic standard of living.

Government has a role in redistributing wealth. This is not a popular thing to say out loud in our culture. Progressives will sometimes hide this statement in other language to avoid critique. This is one of the advantages of being bold in saying that I am the local socialist. I DO BELIEVE that the redistribution of wealth is a valid role for our national government. No one needs to be a billionaire. It’s absurd and offensive. I actually ascribe to the notion that once you are worth a billion dollars, then that’s it. You’ve won capitalism. Any wealth you create after that should be scooped up and returned to the people who helped you get that far. Who the fuck needs two billion dollars? And you know what? If you’ve got that much wealth, you don’t have to pay taxes on it if you use it for social good. That’s a tax deduction.

There’s a whole other conversation to be had about whether the federal and state governments are effective in taking that excess wealth and efficiently using it to make a better society. That’s a different conversation. No doubt we could do better, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a valid function of government. Keep in mind that “government” is just a label for our collective effort to create a better society.

So, in the end, I’m just a pedestrian progressive. I believe in keeping the wealth gap under control and using the wealth of the nation to create a place of beauty and peace.

When I say to someone that I am the local socialist, I am announcing that I believe in the collective. I believe in a limited wealth gap. It might be misunderstood, but I draws a clear line that I can clarify if I get the chance. I’d like to think that some of the people I am saying this to are reading this shit that I am posting, and if my beliefs aren’t clear from that, well, that’s on me.

Okay, that was question one.

Question Two has to do with this idea that in our current environment of divided politics, there is a limit to how appropriate it is to just get along. This is complicated. Here are a couple of comments that landed on my original post that I want to quote to provide a launching place for my thoughts. I’m not going to call them out by ascribing the quotes here, but I suppose if you care you could go back and find them.

“But…I can’t overlook what Trump has said or done. And I have to question anyone who does…

I’m talking about the name calling, insults, convictions, infidelity, mocking veterans and people with disabilities.

How can I have a conversation with someone who turns a blind eye to that? This behavior of bullying would not have been tolerated in school, and I can’t really understand someone who looks past that. That’s my dilemma.” 

And…

“"Can't we all get along" is a great sentiment, but in the long run it's not viable.”

I can’t say they are wrong.

At the same time, I submit the notion that empathy is not conditional. If someone enjoys the way that the current administration mocks those who are marginalized, I have no patience for that.

I’m not a religious person, but I challenge anyone who comes from a community of faith to argue coherently that empathy should be conditional. Voices within the current administration are arguing that empathy is misguided.

“The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy, the empathy exploit,” Musk said. “There it’s they’re exploiting a bug in Western civilization, which is the empathy response.”

Rejecting this notion that empathy is exploitative is pretty important.

When I look at the community of people who chose the current administration and support it, I think about it within two frameworks.

There are the people who come from an essentially libertarian perspective. They are likely to reject the notion that the current federal infrastructure is doing useful work in protecting potentially oppressed communities because they are not good at it, and that federal infrastructure is generally wasteful. They believe that we, as a society, would be better off if we were not taxed for this purpose and that whatever social safety net we might need, which might be important, would be more effective if it were provided through the private charitable sector. They applaud the work that is happening to disassemble the federal bureaucracy as a movement toward a more efficient and effective structure of government.

I believe that history does not really support this perspective. It seems to me that it harkens back to a time in the late 19^th and early 20th centuries when the poor and marginalized had little or no hope or recourse. There are some very important private avenues for mitigating oppression, but they do not have the resources that the federal government could have to achieve these ends.

I also question the notion that government inefficiencies are so overwhelming that we don’t need them for functions that are not profit driven. I think the arts. I think health care. I think retirement. I think housing. I think the environment, parks, and national forests. Also, there is some shit happening that is going to really impact business. The FAA and the CDC are just two examples.

There are also people who support the current administration because of the conflicts around cultural values. The culture wars are a bitch. Trans rights are essentialized into the reasonably complex question of how high school and college athletic program deal with trans students. As if that is all there is to this question. Just because it is hard to figure out how to make competitive sports remain competitive is no reason to pretend that gender dysphoria isn’t real. It’s absurd. On another culture front, there are people who hate abortion. Regardless of the fact that abortion bans are not an effective way to reduce the need for abortions. No one likes abortion. Criminalizing it, much as criminalizing drug use, is not a useful policy position.

And, as some of you have observed, there is the extraordinary bifurcation of news sources. We live in disparate news bubbles that essentialize and divide because it creates more clicks and sells more subscriptions.

I am not so naïve as to think we can “just get along”.

Returning to the original example (finally), I had a brief conversation with a neighbor at a local bar where we talked briefly about flags. I announced I was the local socialist. He was wearing a Trump hat. We didn’t go any further than that. I was intrigued by things he said that ran counter to his hat and I felt comfortable saying that I likely disagreed with him on many things but that I liked that he was putting a Mexican flag in front of his house.

This was as far as that conversation was going to go. I didn’t know this person. I don’t even know his name. We weren’t going to discuss the relative pros and cons of the current administration’s work to dismantle the federal government. But we could be pleasant to one another. That was enough.

I don’t think I was betraying some code by letting that interaction sit in a place of peace.

Were I to have an opportunity to pursue a conversation more deeply, sure, I would have, but that’s not how these things usually work.

I flatter myself to think that there are people who are reading my reflections who disagree with much of what I believe, but who respect me and the tone with which I express my beliefs enough to read this shit. That’s not going to change hearts and minds. It’s just a way to build bridges.

Empathy is not conditional.

What the hell do I know about someone who believes that federal programs are counterproductive? What do I know about people who cannot understand the changes that are happening in their world vis-à-vis gender, race, and religious expression? It’s not my job to judge them. I prefer to listen, offer my thoughts when there is a space for that, and to refrain from being defensive.

I can believe I am right and insist that you agree, but that’s a fool’s paradise.

Sometimes you can’t even do that much. A couple of years ago I was having a conversation with a neighbor about climate change. In that exchange, the other party made a series of statements about how he’d seen all kinds of crazy weather and nothing was different. There were other comments and I had no time for it. I told him directly, “This conversation is done. I won’t discuss this with you.” I wasn’t going to change his mind and we had other spaces to be more cordial.

 

I don’t know. I don’t see how it benefits anyone to be hostile to someone you don’t know. I’m pretty sure if I were to meet Elon Musk or Donald Trump in person that I would be hostile. I hate what they are doing and I don’t see much room to give them grace. But the guy with the Trump hat? That’s a whole different thing.

Cutting off a friend who consistently demonizes trans folks? Yup, that make sense.

Blocking a fb friend who consistently posts memes that personalize and demonize people? Yup.

But how are we going to have conversations when they become a possibility if we start there? And what culpability do we have if we are using language that is hostile and demonizing?

If the interaction has space for peace, don’t close it.

I hate what is happening, but I refuse to go down the road of ad hominem attacks.

Look it up.