Myerson writes: "Yet, despite his inescapable affiliation with the s-word -
long considered a politically fatal liability - and his reported contempt
for the masses' sensibilities, Sanders continues to draw enormous crowds,
outpace Hillary Clinton in attracting small donations and generate great
enthusiasm, even among groups conventional wisdom doggedly insists will
refuse to embrace his candidacy."
The proposals at the core of Bernie Sanders' platform are standard fare for
progressive Democrats. (photo: Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald/Getty)
Why Doesn't Bernie Sanders Run on a Truly Socialist Platform?
By Jesse A. Myerson, Rolling Stone
24 July 15
Sanders calls himself a democratic socialist, but his platform is hardly
radical
Bernie Sanders is nominally a socialist, or at least he sorta-kinda calls
himself one. "Do they think I'm afraid of the word?" he mused in a recent
interview with The Nation. "I'm not afraid of the word." When The Washington
Post gave him the opportunity to disavow the epithet during his 2006 Senate
run, Sanders stood firm: "I wouldn't deny it," he said. "Not for one second.
I'm a democratic socialist."
His affiliation has not escaped notice of Hillary Clinton's defenders. Sen.
Claire McCaskill recently grumbled, "I think that the media is giving Bernie
a pass right now. I very rarely read in any coverage of Bernie that he's a
socialist."
In apparent violation of this supposed cover-up, The Daily Beast's Ana Marie
Cox has labeled Sanders an "extremist" "caricature" who amounts to "the
Left's Trump." The Week's Damon Linker was also tempted by the Sanders-Trump
comparison, calling them "unelectable radicals," and noting that Sanders
"shows little interest in tailoring his message to woo the masses."
Yet, despite his inescapable affiliation with the s-word long considered a
politically fatal liability and his reported contempt for the masses'
sensibilities, Sanders continues to draw enormous crowds, outpace Hillary
Clinton in attracting small donations and generate great enthusiasm, even
among groups conventional wisdom doggedly insists will refuse to embrace his
candidacy. That these throngs energized by Sanders' egalitarian economic
advocacy, support for worker empowerment and hostility to what he calls "the
billionaire class" are not noticeably put off by the description of these
qualities as socialist, as opposed to merely "progressive," raises the
question: Why doesn't Sanders avail himself of this political latitude and
run on a more socialistic policy program?
For now, the proposals at the core of his platform for the most part very
good are standard fare for progressive Democrats. Of the "12 Steps
Forward" in his "Agenda for America," none diverge from the policies
advocated by Sanders' fellow members of the Congressional Progressive
Caucus. In fact, with the exception of "Creating Worker Co-ops," "Trade
Policies that Benefit American Workers" and "Health Care as a Right for
All," none of the items would seem out of place in a stump speech or State
of the Union address by President Obama.
For now, this sort of platform constitutes the leftmost bounds of mainstream
policy discourse, but there is plenty of room to stretch leftward through
advocacy of "non-reformist reforms" those that, in the words of French
philosopher André Gorz, "advance toward a radical transformation of
society," producing a "modification of the relations of power" and thus
"serv[ing] to weaken capitalism and to shake its joints."
On the other hand, an increase in the minimum wage to use one example from
Sanders' platform yields a host of advantages for working people, and
plainly excites the opposition of the capitalist class, but it neither
socializes ownership claims on capital, nor fundamentally changes the power
relations between workers and owners, nor incites a process that yields
equality as reliably as capitalism yields inequality. Raising the minimum
wage is a defense against capitalists' perpetual imperative to intensify
exploitation of labor by lowering wages, not an offense against the
structures by which capitalists are able to do this.
Running on a platform with a non-reformist reform at its core would serve
Sanders' pro-equality political project, even if he should lose to Clinton
and her mountains of corporate cash. Once one of these off-the-agenda items
is named, articulated and argued for once people are familiarized with a
program's contours, rationale and merits it is much easier to mobilize
support for an idea. The Nader campaigns left behind them nothing so much as
contempt for third party "spoilers," the Kucinich campaigns not even that.
People for Bernie (whose open letter encouraging Sanders to run I signed)
may hope for an ongoing political organization, such as emerged from the
insurgent candidacy of Sanders' fellow Vermonter, former Gov. Howard Dean.
But it is fair to ask more. The more attention and enthusiasm his candidacy
garners, the more favorable the terrain will be for Sanders to pry open the
boundaries of policy consideration. This would provide a boost to the effort
to agitate for a departure from capitalism, after what he calls his
"revolution" concludes.
Of the array of non-reformist reforms Sanders could adopt as key planks, the
one that probably makes the most sense is a job guarantee, whose historical
advocates have ranged from Thomas Paine to Martin Luther King. Under this
program, the federal government would act as the "employer of last resort";
it could hire the unemployed for its own national projects, funnel money to
states and municipalities or let communities design their own projects and
apply for funding.
Guaranteeing public sector employment to anyone who wants to sign up would
accomplish a lot of the goals Sanders trumpets. It would reduce inequality
by eliminating unemployment and its resultant poverty. It would magnify
worker power by providing an exit from the job market, thereby setting
minimum standards for all sorts for private sector employment. It would
eliminate employment discrimination, long a central pillar of structural
racism, erasing the chief cause of recidivism. It would allow communities
that currently rely on prisons to close them without toppling the local
economy, thereby enabling the type of mass decarceration Sanders would do
well to advocate forcefully, the better to make up for his recent blunder at
Netroots Nation. It would promote ecological sustainability by making full
employment independent of the resource extraction sector, by paying for
low-emissions employment like elder- and childcare and by providing
resources for pollution-reducing infrastructure renovation. It would
guarantee dignified pay and conditions for so-called "unskilled" labor
typically performed by women: domestic work, childcare and nursing. It would
end reliance on increasingly expensive higher education as a prerequisite
for employment. It would practically establish a public option for health
care, since those availing themselves of the program would receive normal
benefits for a federal employee.
All these virtues, and the program would be fiscally sound on its own. It
would grow the deficit permanently an outcome Sanders has repeatedly, to
his disgrace, maintained is undesirable but never so far that inflation,
the sole danger of too big a deficit, ensues: When the business cycle is
down, the program would grow to bring us up to capacity, and when a boom
threatens to inflate the economy, the program would automatically shrink. As
long as the job guarantee wages are not competitive with the private sector,
they should serve to anchor the general price level.
Nor is this some bizarre, far-fetched idea that would hike Sanders' already
uncomfortably high degree of Seeming Kooky: even without inclusion on the
agenda of any mainstream political actors, a job guarantee already polls at
47 percent.
Ironically, no one touts the merits of guaranteed public employment more
vigorously than modern monetary theorists like Stephanie Kelton, the chief
economist for the Democratic staff on the Sanders-chaired Senate Budget
Committee. I took his hiring Kelton as a signal that Sanders was preparing
to run for president on a job guarantee. So far, he has given no such
indication, but there remain many excruciating months until the primaries;
Sanders has plenty of time to earn more fully the label he says he's not
afraid of.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
The proposals at the core of Bernie Sanders' platform are standard fare for
progressive Democrats. (photo: Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald/Getty)
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-doesnt-bernie-sanders-run-on-a
-truly-socialist-platform-20150722 -
ixzz3gp85DSF1http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-doesnt-bernie-san
ders-run-on-a-truly-socialist-platform-20150722 - ixzz3gp85DSF1
Why Doesn't Bernie Sanders Run on a Truly Socialist Platform?
By Jesse A. Myerson, Rolling Stone
24 July 15
Sanders calls himself a democratic socialist, but his platform is hardly
radical
ernie Sanders is nominally a socialist, or at least he sorta-kinda calls
himself one. "Do they think I'm afraid of the word?" he mused in a recent
interview with The Nation. "I'm not afraid of the word." When The Washington
Post gave him the opportunity to disavow the epithet during his 2006 Senate
run, Sanders stood firm: "I wouldn't deny it," he said. "Not for one second.
I'm a democratic socialist."
His affiliation has not escaped notice of Hillary Clinton's defenders. Sen.
Claire McCaskill recently grumbled, "I think that the media is giving Bernie
a pass right now. I very rarely read in any coverage of Bernie that he's a
socialist."
In apparent violation of this supposed cover-up, The Daily Beast's Ana Marie
Cox has labeled Sanders an "extremist" "caricature" who amounts to "the
Left's Trump." The Week's Damon Linker was also tempted by the Sanders-Trump
comparison, calling them "unelectable radicals," and noting that Sanders
"shows little interest in tailoring his message to woo the masses."
Yet, despite his inescapable affiliation with the s-word long considered a
politically fatal liability and his reported contempt for the masses'
sensibilities, Sanders continues to draw enormous crowds, outpace Hillary
Clinton in attracting small donations and generate great enthusiasm, even
among groups conventional wisdom doggedly insists will refuse to embrace his
candidacy. That these throngs energized by Sanders' egalitarian economic
advocacy, support for worker empowerment and hostility to what he calls "the
billionaire class" are not noticeably put off by the description of these
qualities as socialist, as opposed to merely "progressive," raises the
question: Why doesn't Sanders avail himself of this political latitude and
run on a more socialistic policy program?
For now, the proposals at the core of his platform for the most part very
good are standard fare for progressive Democrats. Of the "12 Steps
Forward" in his "Agenda for America," none diverge from the policies
advocated by Sanders' fellow members of the Congressional Progressive
Caucus. In fact, with the exception of "Creating Worker Co-ops," "Trade
Policies that Benefit American Workers" and "Health Care as a Right for
All," none of the items would seem out of place in a stump speech or State
of the Union address by President Obama.
For now, this sort of platform constitutes the leftmost bounds of mainstream
policy discourse, but there is plenty of room to stretch leftward through
advocacy of "non-reformist reforms" those that, in the words of French
philosopher André Gorz, "advance toward a radical transformation of
society," producing a "modification of the relations of power" and thus
"serv[ing] to weaken capitalism and to shake its joints."
On the other hand, an increase in the minimum wage to use one example from
Sanders' platform yields a host of advantages for working people, and
plainly excites the opposition of the capitalist class, but it neither
socializes ownership claims on capital, nor fundamentally changes the power
relations between workers and owners, nor incites a process that yields
equality as reliably as capitalism yields inequality. Raising the minimum
wage is a defense against capitalists' perpetual imperative to intensify
exploitation of labor by lowering wages, not an offense against the
structures by which capitalists are able to do this.
Running on a platform with a non-reformist reform at its core would serve
Sanders' pro-equality political project, even if he should lose to Clinton
and her mountains of corporate cash. Once one of these off-the-agenda items
is named, articulated and argued for once people are familiarized with a
program's contours, rationale and merits it is much easier to mobilize
support for an idea. The Nader campaigns left behind them nothing so much as
contempt for third party "spoilers," the Kucinich campaigns not even that.
People for Bernie (whose open letter encouraging Sanders to run I signed)
may hope for an ongoing political organization, such as emerged from the
insurgent candidacy of Sanders' fellow Vermonter, former Gov. Howard Dean.
But it is fair to ask more. The more attention and enthusiasm his candidacy
garners, the more favorable the terrain will be for Sanders to pry open the
boundaries of policy consideration. This would provide a boost to the effort
to agitate for a departure from capitalism, after what he calls his
"revolution" concludes.
Of the array of non-reformist reforms Sanders could adopt as key planks, the
one that probably makes the most sense is a job guarantee, whose historical
advocates have ranged from Thomas Paine to Martin Luther King. Under this
program, the federal government would act as the "employer of last resort";
it could hire the unemployed for its own national projects, funnel money to
states and municipalities or let communities design their own projects and
apply for funding.
Guaranteeing public sector employment to anyone who wants to sign up would
accomplish a lot of the goals Sanders trumpets. It would reduce inequality
by eliminating unemployment and its resultant poverty. It would magnify
worker power by providing an exit from the job market, thereby setting
minimum standards for all sorts for private sector employment. It would
eliminate employment discrimination, long a central pillar of structural
racism, erasing the chief cause of recidivism. It would allow communities
that currently rely on prisons to close them without toppling the local
economy, thereby enabling the type of mass decarceration Sanders would do
well to advocate forcefully, the better to make up for his recent blunder at
Netroots Nation. It would promote ecological sustainability by making full
employment independent of the resource extraction sector, by paying for
low-emissions employment like elder- and childcare and by providing
resources for pollution-reducing infrastructure renovation. It would
guarantee dignified pay and conditions for so-called "unskilled" labor
typically performed by women: domestic work, childcare and nursing. It would
end reliance on increasingly expensive higher education as a prerequisite
for employment. It would practically establish a public option for health
care, since those availing themselves of the program would receive normal
benefits for a federal employee.
All these virtues, and the program would be fiscally sound on its own. It
would grow the deficit permanently an outcome Sanders has repeatedly, to
his disgrace, maintained is undesirable but never so far that inflation,
the sole danger of too big a deficit, ensues: When the business cycle is
down, the program would grow to bring us up to capacity, and when a boom
threatens to inflate the economy, the program would automatically shrink. As
long as the job guarantee wages are not competitive with the private sector,
they should serve to anchor the general price level.
Nor is this some bizarre, far-fetched idea that would hike Sanders' already
uncomfortably high degree of Seeming Kooky: even without inclusion on the
agenda of any mainstream political actors, a job guarantee already polls at
47 percent.
Ironically, no one touts the merits of guaranteed public employment more
vigorously than modern monetary theorists like Stephanie Kelton, the chief
economist for the Democratic staff on the Sanders-chaired Senate Budget
Committee. I took his hiring Kelton as a signal that Sanders was preparing
to run for president on a job guarantee. So far, he has given no such
indication, but there remain many excruciating months until the primaries;
Sanders has plenty of time to earn more fully the label he says he's not
afraid of.
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
