Full disclosure: I am a socialist. I have been a socialist ever since I could learn about and understand political ideas, and I'll be bold enough to say that I know better than most people in this country what that idea truly means. Even my Democratic friends who are sympathetic to the idea, don't quite understand that socialism is really not about rigid, centralized government control of the entire economy, or the absence of all enterprise. The politically astute Democrats I know look to the Nordic nations for their concept of socialism, as do I, but are often stunned when I inform them that over 70% of the Swedish economy is in private hands, and that successive socialist governments in that country actually allowed it to be that way while running the country for a mostly uninterrupted clip of eighty years. I'm shocked that the "S" word has been introduced into this increasingly nasty campaign in the way it has, especially after the partial nationalization of banks by what purports to be one of the most conservative capitalist administrations in American history. But as we have entered a political Alice-in-Wonderland scenario in the past few weeks, I feel compelled to attempt some kind of brief explanation as to why I, as a real-live, bona fide socialist, am not willing to claim Barack Obama with the word I use to describe my own politics.Let's look at a few things I would want as a socialist, and compare that to what Barack Obama is willing to give me as President. First and foremost, I want a health care system that is understood to be, and is structured as, an essential right of any self-respecting society. A system based upon the idea that in order to have a chance in an increasingly competitive global economy, a society must commit to maintaining a healthy workforce, one that does not have to worry about their being and staying healthy. In the same way that most of us agree that providing basic education to children is a good idea, I do indeed want the government to create, and guarantee to me and all others, rich and poor, a national health insurance system on either the Canadian or British model, which takes the profit motive out of the matter of people's health entirely. Barack Obama has no intention of giving that to me, and in fact, I was reluctant to support him when he first declared his candidacy because I thought his health care proposal leaned too far to the right. Unlike John McCain, he wants to provide Americans with some kind of health care, a plan that is better than what we currently have, but nothing that could even be remotely described as socialist. And let's consider education. As a socialist, a publicly funded grade school education is not enough for me. I want publicly funded universities, so that those with the merit and aptitude can attend college without regard to their ability to afford tuition. I want the concept of scholarships extended well beyond charities to the public sector, so that communities and states can fully fund the best students in their area and send them to the best colleges in the same way we send our young children to school each day.
This is a simple matter of reinvesting in ourselves and our future, in the same way that any successful and enterprising businessperson understands that "it takes money to make money," and that the next generation must be properly trained to take over if that business is going to grow. Obama has not promised that kind of public higher education to me, and until he does, he will not be a socialist in my eyes. Next I'm concerned about energy. For this socialist, the continued use of oil is way too detrimental to our environment, as well as to the necessary goal of energy independence from all oil cartels, and the foreign policy decisions that are derived from them. I do not want any more drilling anywhere for this substance that has caused so much harm to both humanity and nature for the past hundred years. I think the potential of humanity to go beyond purely profit-based fuel is enormous, and I want to invest in those individuals and institutions who will remove energy from the profit table, once again because energy is a basic need of modern society.
Let me be clear: I'm not at all against profit, or enterprise, or individuals becoming wealthy as a result of their ideas. But as with health care, I do want the profit motive removed as the primary incentive for innovation in human needs, and here again, Barack Obama is nowhere near addressing this concept. He has gone on record in support of more drilling on our coasts, and that can only benefit the very same petroleum companies that I would like to see made obsolete. Nothing whatsoever of appeal to socialists there.So what is the basis of this accusation that Obama is a socialist? Apparently it's based on three key ideas that Republicans have identified as being socialist: taxes, government intervention in the economy, and the notion of spreading the wealth around to those who have fallen on hard times. Of course the McCain-Palin campaign apparently now considers any form of taxation for the public good to be socialistic, so by their standards, even the Constitution is now a socialist document. [See the 16th Amendment, openly advocated by such rabid socialists as President William Howard Taft.]On the face of it, they've got him (and me). I do believe in all of those things, and Obama has in the past few days used those words —spreading the wealth around— and come out in favour of a government intervention in the economy. But let's look at that a bit closer. You see, I'm actually not in favour of the bailout. You know, that massive "nationalization" that we socialists are supposed to like so much, if the Right is to be believed.
Why?
Because there is absolutely nothing socialist about it. True, it is the largest government intervention in the economy in the history of this nation, which I can't resist emphasizing again was carried out by an administration that talks like the John Birch Society while putting the former Soviet Union to shame in terms of spending. But the idea of a state taking money from its citizens, or here I want to say subjects, to prop up the failed decisions of the rich, is as old as Egypt.
While it's clever to use the phrase "socialism for the rich", there is nothing even remotely socialistic in robbing the poor and disadvantaged to fund the stupid irresponsibility and libertine habits of the unusually wealthy. In fact, this kind of behaviour on the part of any nation-state is exactly what gave birth to the socialist movement itself: the notion that the rich so badly misused the funds they stole from their subjects, that perhaps it was a good idea for the flow of funds to be reversed in the other direction. That brings us to the "spreading the wealth" part of the argument. Well, we socialists surely did not invent the idea, and I'm surprised that the Right would become so incensed over it in the first place. After all, for at least the past 1700 years, the Western world has been teaching itself the Judeo-Christian worldview as revealed in the Bible. Now, in addition to being the foundation of the moral code for the Western world, the Bible offers up a wealth of insights into this question of sharing the wealth, and not just in some idealistic notion of spiritual wealth or hope for wealth in the world to come. Of particular interest would be the Second Letter to the Corinthians, where Paul is talking to the Corinthian congregation about the poor Macedonians. The Macedonians have come upon hard times, but they're a hearty people, and they keep on giving it all they've got, even though they are truly suffering and don't really have much to spare. You might say their economy has take a turn for the worse. Paul asks the Corinthians, who have been doing very well, and are successful in everything they do, to share their wealth with the Macedonians. "It is not that that you ought to relieve other people's needs and leave yourself in hardship," the verse reads, "but there should be a fair balance—your surplus at present may fill their deficit, and another time their surplus may fill your deficit." Very interesting. That sounds a lot like "spreading the wealth around." But looking at the historical timeline, that's obviously not something we socialists can claim as our own; it's the teaching of the New Testament, which in this instance is also derived from a much older teaching in the Jewish Torah about that same idea. Viewed in that way, Barack Obama would appear to be more of a Christian or a Jew than a socialist. I wonder if the McCain campaign will now accuse my friend Barack of being a Christian. At least that accusation would, at long last, be true.
Andrew Hammer is a writer, speaker and activist with over fifteen years of experience as a consultant on faith and politics. He is Secretary General of the International League of Religious Socialists, an associated organization of the Socialist International, which works with people of faith in social democratic parties throughout the world.
