Senator Bernie Sanders has proposed an expanded “social services” program for America using the term “Democratic Socialism.”  Given the mixed history and forms of “socialism,” as it has been implemented in many countries worldwide, many Americans seem fearful that the Senator’s democratic socialism would somehow destroy the American economy.  In actuality, most national economies, including the US,  are a blend of  capitalist and socialist programs. The differences in national economies vary by percentage of capitalist vs. socialist programs that make up any particular economy.   In the US we operate under a capitalist economy because we support privatization of production & services. The US economy also already includes many desired and needed social service programs, funded by taxpayers, and run effectively by local, state or the federal government for the general public...so it’s not pure capitalism.  The USA has at least seventy-five major social service programs, not including a number of specialized banks, that have been in place for decades, some for more than a hundred years. [1] Hence, the US should already be considered practicing democratic socialism, or at least some level of social democracy,  in line with Senator Sander’s proposals for important social services.  A truly socialist country also advocates that all the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole. [2]  This is certainly not true in the United States. Nor, is this advocated by Senator Sanders when he proposes free public higher education schooling, a green economy and universal healthcare for America, although he does advocates several ideas that promote higher levels of worker and employee rights.

Looking at the US economy, we list here just a few major publicly funded socialist or social service programs run by local, state or the federal government. [3]

1.     Social Security - Americans pay a tax to help ensure that senior citizens of the USA have an income when they are retired or too elderly to work.

2.     Medicare - Medicare is one of the most liked socialist programs in America, providing medical care for more than 40 million elderly participants.

3.     Medicaid - Our government uses taxpayer funds to provide health care for low-income people who can’t afford to pay for medical treatments.

4.     Unemployment Insurance – A payroll tax supports a program that temporarily helps people who lose their jobs until they can find another one.

5.     The Military & Defense – The federal government  runs our military from taxpayer dollars.

6.     Highways/Roads - The roads and highways we drive on every single day are taxpayer funded.

7.     Public Libraries – Your free library book borrowing is paid for by the taxpayer

8.     Public Schools – Children in the US have an option for free education…a public education.

9.     Congressional Health Care - As Republicans in congress warn us about the evils of government-run healthcare, most of them are covered by taxpayer-funded government-run healthcare! Apparently, what’s good for the goose is not necessarily good for the gander.

10.  Farm Subsidies - Our government uses taxpayer funds to pay farmers and businesses to supplement their income to keep them growing food for the public.

Most Americans would agree that these “socialist” programs, which provide important public social services and goods to the US population by the shared Commons of the society, should be kept in place in order to supply necessary commodities and services to our citizens and communities.  We could easily list sixty or seventy or more other democratic-socialist programs that the vast majority of Americans have supported and will continue to support in the future, in spite of threats by Trump and Republicans to reduce or cut many of them in order to reduce the huge increased debt they have generated through “socialist” tax breaks for wealthy Americans & corporations.

When the US, a capitalist country,  provides massive tax cuts, bailouts and legislation supporting private sector industries, many economists, as well as Senator Sanders, term these programs “corporate socialism” because the costs are paid for by the general population, shared Common resources, but these are only benefit corporations.  At some point,  when industry and the government act in collusion and the economic system is continuously and pervasively promoting massive support to its wealthy individuals, private industries and commercial banks instead of the general public, then “corporate socialism” is moving towards oligarchy (or plutocracy – government controlled either directly or indirectly by the wealthy).   Some economists argue this is already the current state of the US economy.[1] Here are just a few other examples of corporate socialism:

1.     Corporate/Business Subsidies - Public tax dollars are given to big corporations that are losing profits because of the effect of recent Trump tariffs or an inability to globally compete.

2.     Corporate Bailouts - The middle/working class provides essentially welfare for corporations and individuals who have more money than all of us combined. When our government bails out a bank or gives a subsidy to a multi-billion-dollar corporation, you are paying for it.  The banks were most recently bailed-out after the 2009-10 US financial crisis.  Why not the homeowners who were losing their homes instead?

3.     Trickle Down Tax Cuts -  Trump just gave the largest corporations and wealthiest Americans a trillion-dollar tax cut to stimulate the economy under a trickle-down economic argument that has failed over and over again.  Now we have a substantially increased debt that will have to be paid by the taxpayers and likely proposed reductions of programs for middle class and poor Americans.  We already have estimates ~40M US children already living under poverty conditions. Yet, welfare for the rich is apparently a  central policy of Donald Trump and the Republican Party and perhaps a number of conservative & neo-liberal Democrats.

4.     Free Technology – The government’s free or near-free giveaway of taxpayer funded technology licenses and creation of global technology tax-free-zones costs the US citizens hundreds of billions of dollars every year in tax revenue and technology license fees, allowing major corporations to stash hundreds of billions in profits in foreign banks (minus a percentage they toss to Donald Trump and his Republican cronies for payment of their extensive bribes).

In any case,  let’s not argue over the definition of phrases like democratic socialism, democratic capitalism, corporate socialism and oligarchy.  The real question is where we should put our Commons support in our American society.  Do we really want to continue with Trump-Republican corporate socialism, a form of trickle-down economy that is failing most Americans and possibly driving a movement to plutocracy?   Shouldn’t Bernie Sander’s rivals and leaders in the Democratic Party be more honest and admit that the US economy is already a form of social democracy (along the lines of Northern Europe) instead of criticizing the Senator for wanting more financial & social equality and improved support of human rights in the USA?

Today, many wealthy companies are paying zero taxes and our wealthiest individuals have taken as much as 95% of the new wealth created in the last decade [4].  Healthcare, education, infrastructure, housing, transportation, and standards of living are all becoming subpar in the US, the wealthiest nation in the world.  Senator Sanders is correct in wanting to immediately take care of important societal needs and stating that these costs should be paid for by the private sector and individuals who have profited the most from the expansion of the US economy for the past 10-30 years.  You can’t blame Bernie for the growing numbers of our homeless sleeping on our streets at night, but soon, we might blame some other Democrats for accepting and helping to promote 40 years of Justice Powell’s conservative, neo-liberal Republican policies.  It is sad to hear the recent unified Democratic Party’s vocal outcries against Sanders and social democracy’s equality and human rights while the group remains relatively silent in opposing the Republican Party’s forty-year movement towards plutocracy and its diminished equality and human rights agenda.  Bernie didn’t cause the problems, he wants to solve them at a system level that apparently scares the Democratic establishment.

[1] https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2012/3/29/1078852/-75-Ways-Socialism-Has-Improved-America

[2] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism

[3] https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746

[4] https://robertreich.org/post/85532751265 (see reference to Emmanuel Saez)