Certain Problems Need Socialist Solutions

[marmar]

via Dissent magazine:


Certain Problems Need Socialist Solutions
By Maria Svart - October 3, 2012

The following is adapted from a talk delivered at the fiftieth anniversary celebration of Michael Harrington’s The Other America, held on September 10, 2012 at the CUNY Graduate Center.

I’m told that Michael Harrington once wistfully commented to colleagues that he had written sixteen books, and on the dust jacket of the sixteenth, the publisher had put, “By the author of The Other America.” It is entirely fitting that Mike should be best remembered for his first work. It influenced President Kennedy, and President Johnson sent Mike a pen from the signing of the Economic Opportunity Act, the War on Poverty. The book has sold well over a million copies.

We should remember, however, that Mike’s other fifteen books were about socialism. Unlike many on the left, Mike was not an impossibilist. He believed that through union organization and an expanded safety net, the lives of everyday people—both the poor and the middle class—could be vastly improved, even under capitalism. Indeed, Mike-the-Socialist was far more optimistic about this than many liberals are today.

Nonetheless, in a subsequent essay, “Poverty and the Eighties,” Mike concluded: “There was progress; there could be more progress; the poor need not always be with us. But it will take a political movement much more imaginative and militant than those in existence in 1980 to bring that progress about.”

What happened? Why, from 1962 to the present, has that movement not come about? Indeed, everything now seems to be moving in the wrong direction. Last July an Associated Press survey of economists predicted that the poverty rate in 2012 would rise to the same level it was in 1965, the year after President Johnson signed the Economic Opportunity Act. ...................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/24753

[limpyhobbler]

1. This is a good example of

expressing socialist ideas for progress in a way that also appeals to rank-and-file liberal Democrats.

[TBF]

2. I can think of a lot of problems that need socialist solutions

but this is a good start.

[Jackpine Radical]

3. Capitalism

is a problem that needs a socialist solution.

[TBF]

4. Thank you. I agree completely. nt

[Fantastic Anarchist]

5. Absolutely agreed.

[socialist_n_TN]

6. Yep. In a nutshell.......

[Starry Messenger]

7. Evidently we're all traitors:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021653384#post120

[marmar]

8. A certain individual in that thread has got issues.

[Starry Messenger]

9. More issues than Reader's Digest.

It's not everyday that you get to eyeball a link to an American Enterprise Institute Fellow on DU as "proof". I'll be watching this one with amusement.

[PETRUS]

10. The word itself ("socialism") provokes fear and loathing in some.

And the reaction can be so severe that there's no slowing down the conversation long enough to reach an agreement on the meaning of the term.

[Starry Messenger]

12. People attack when they feel their privilege is being questioned too.

Internalized damage under capitalism.

[PETRUS]

14. Quite true

And that probably describes what we were recently observing.

[white_wolf]

11. I'll be curious to see if he replies to this post of mine:

[link:http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=1673155|

[snot]

15. Nice:

"We can go the capitalist route in which the new technology leads to unemployment and poverty, or we can go the socialist route where we all stay in school longer, work a shorter week, take longer vacations, and retire sooner. Those are the choices.

“'But,' you say, 'why can’t we just work less and take longer vacations under capitalism?' My response is: 'don’t ask me, just ask any capitalist.' They will explain why it isn’t possible, and hire an army of lobbyists to stop it, and an army of professors to teach your kids that it is a silly idea, and an army of media commentators to repeat their message.