"Everyone now is more or less a Socialist"
Everyone now is more or less a Socialist. —Charles Dana, managing editor of the New York Tribune, and Lincoln’s assistant secretary of war, 1848
http://www.occasionalplanet.org/2011/12/16/lincoln-and-the-socialist-roots-of-the-republican-party/
Lincoln was an avid reader of newspapers, especially of the New York Tribune, which was the great Republican paper of the day. It took a strong stand against slavery in the south. But it also had forceful opinions on the relationship between Labor and Capital, arguing that “Labor needs not to combat but to command Capital.” Greeley wanted to “expose the crimes whereby wealth is amassed and luxury enjoyed.” Nichols writes:
Greeley welcomed the disapproval of those who championed free markets over the interests of the working class, a class he recognized as including both the oppressed slaves of the south and the degraded industrial laborers of the north.
Nichols writes that after Lincoln addressed the challenges of the war, he also spoke of another, perhaps deeper, division. He wanted to speak about the danger of government favoring the interests of capital over labor. In doing so he presented the radical analysis of Marx and others of his time.
"It is not needed, nor fitting here [in discussing the Civil War] that a general argument should be made in favor of popular institutions; but there is one point, with its connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief attention. It is the effect to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labor, in the structure of government. It is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to labor. This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy them, and drive them to it without their consent. Having proceeded thus far, it is naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers or what we call slaves. And further, it is assumed that whoever is once a hired laborer is fixed in that condition for life.
Now, there is no such relation between capital and labor as assumed, nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the condition of a hired laborer. Both these assumptions are false, and all inferences from them are groundless.
Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights."
I guess, assuming Senator Sanders continues to stay competitive, eventually the media will give more publicity to the history of progressivism, including that which gets labeled as Socialism, Democratic Socialism, etc, here in the United States of America.
= new reply since forum marked as read
And I have to smile as I think of Monty Python with that "Judean People's Front" skit. 
But yeah, there are real distinctions here, though there is also overlap. More for the media to delve into.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_socialism
Last edited Fri Dec 4, 2015, 12:24 AM - Edit history (1)
lol
Edit: If it wasn't meant as a burn ... "never mind".
--imm 
This was such a popular view that it was even part of the program of the Republican Party. It was also a main theme of the huge organized labor movement that was taking shape, the Knights of Labor, which began to establish links with the most important popular democratic party in the country’s history, the Farmers Alliance, later called the Populist movement, which originated with radical farmers in Texas and then spread through much of the country, forming collective enterprises, banks and marketing cooperatives and much more, movements that could have driven the country toward more authentic democracy if they had not been destroyed, largely by violence – though, interestingly, similar developments are underway today in the old Rust Belt and elsewhere, very important for the future, I think.
and
What lies behind these campaigns, I suspect, is that public education and Social Security, like national healthcare, are based on the conception that we care for other people: we care that the disabled widow across town has food to eat, or that the kids down the street have schooling ("why should I pay taxes for schools? I don’t have kids there"
. And beyond that, that we care about the tens of millions are dying every year because they cannot obtain medical care, or about dying infants, and others who are vulnerable.http://www.alternet.org/visions/chomsky-corporations-and-richest-americans-viscerally-oppose-common-good-0
He is a Democratic Socialist. They'll have a hard time finding any proof that Democratic Socialism does damage. Its the best economic system the world has right now. We wear the label proudly!
All Hillary supporters can do is attack attack attack. They have no reasons their candidate is better than ours.
The terms "Socialist" and "Socialism" do not poll well and will be easy to use in attack ads.
From Pew http://www.pewresearch.org/daily-number/little-change-in-publics-response-to-capitalism-socialism/
By contrast, socialism is a far more divisive word, with wide differences of opinion along racial, generational, socioeconomic and political lines. Fully nine-in-ten conservative Republicans (90%) view socialism negatively, while nearly six-in-ten liberal Democrats (59%) react positively. Low-income Americans are twice as likely as higher-income Americans to offer a positive assessment of socialism (43% among those with incomes under $30,000, 22% among those earning $75,000 or more).
From Gallop http://www.gallup.com/poll/125645/Socialism-Viewed-Positively-Americans.aspx
....Socialism
Socialism had the lowest percentage positive rating and the highest negative rating of any term tested. Still, more than a third of Americans say they have a positive image of socialism.
Exactly how Americans define "socialism" or what exactly they think of when they hear the word is not known. The research simply measures Americans' reactions when a survey interviewer reads the word to them -- an exercise that helps shed light on connotations associated with this frequently used term.
There are significant differences in reactions to "socialism" across ideological and partisan groups:
A majority of 53% of Democrats have a positive image of socialism, compared to 17% of Republicans.
Sixty-one percent of liberals say their image of socialism is positive, compared to 39% of moderates and 20% of conservatives
Once we had more than we (early humanity "we" needed for subsistence, then commerce, and later currency, could develop. Afaik anyway. And just to be clear, that's not a Sanders quote, it's a Lincoln quote, and it is proudly displayed in many union buildings. (my local included)
Once we had more labor available than we needed to keep our community alive, we could develop a system to allocate how that available labor could be deployed. People accumulated items not needed for survival, but which were desirable, and they could be bartered. The usefulness of a reliable and portable currency becomes obvious, but it's based on there being excess labor to start with.
P.S. Brutal capitalism in some of those countries people flee from in the Middle East. They, and people of other countries, find the idea of living in European countries that have some socialistic attributes quite appealing.
But anyway, the thread is dedicated to the history of the progressive movement here in the USA. It's not that much like what people think of as "socialism", though it's very big on the safety net, and things like government promoting schools, roads, etc., etc..
But all/most civilized countries have benefited from the ideas behind Socialism.
