[eli_gottlieb]

>Bernie Sanders is a self-described socialist. His ideals dont align with the prevailing american values.

Just because you told all the socialists in the USA that we're unpatriotic traitors and should shut the hell up, doesn't mean we stopped actually existing. And now we've got a candidate who stands for our views.

[javert]

What exactly is different between the ideology underpinning Democrats, and socialism? I'm genuinely asking what you think the difference is.

The Democrats obviously support socialized medicine, socialized education, wealth redistribution via high taxes, and significant regulation of private enterprise.

To me, that is the same as socialism, except perhaps in minor technicalities of implementation, which are relatively unimportant.

For instance, maybe a "true socialist" would favor the state owning enterprises, rather than massive tax-and-regulate, but to me, that is not an important difference.

Hence, as a rule of thumb, I consider all Democrats to be socialists.

So, I don't think Hillary or Obama is much different from Sanders, except that he is more bold and open and labels himself differently.

I am genuinely interested in your views on this. I'm not going to change your mind on politics, you're not going to change mine, that is not my goal here.

[eli_gottlieb]

For purposes of this comment, I will be attempting to clarify differences between social democracy, democratic socialism, and socialism-in-general.

>What exactly is different between the ideology underpinning Democrats, and socialism?

It comes as news to me that the Democrats have an ideology. Ever since Reagan, and then Clinton, their standard strategy has been every bit neoliberal, even if not sadistically neoliberal like the Republicans have been.

That is, the difference between Democrat and Republican is, in my opinion, the difference between saying, "We're so sorry you're homeless, but if we tried to give you housing, businesses would flee the country, but at least we're using government funding to help keep your soup kitchen open", and kicking the homeless while yelling "Get a job, you filthy bum!".

Notice that in both cases, the homeless person remains homeless.

Well, I suppose if we can call pragmatic-to-the-point-of-fundamentally-unprincipled meliorativist humanitarianism an ideology, then they do have an ideology, but only the very leftmost portions of the Democratic Party actually begin to be social democrats at this point. Elizabeth Warren, for instance, is an actual social democrat: she favors a broad ideology of decommodification, in which the necessities of human life become social rights and a middle-class society is explicitly encouraged via policy. Actually, she only even begins to favor decommodification.

>The Democrats obviously support socialized medicine, socialized education, wealth redistribution via high taxes, and significant regulation of private enterprise.

As noted above, in terms of their voting record, they mostly don't favor these things at all.

Also, "significant regulation of private enterprise", in terms of things like OSHA, the EPA, occupational licensing, Sarbanes-Oxley or Glass-Steagal, etc, should be placed completely to the side. Everyone who's not wildly insane is in favor of significant regulation of private enterprise, and the only negotiation is over where the boundaries of pragmatic, useful regulation actually fall.

(That is, most people who are not right-proprietarians (ie: not in the Libertarian Party) favor regulation of business for pragmatic, instrumental reasons, rather than considering it always terminally valuable as a point of ideology. "Reversed right-proprietarianism is not leftism" is a slogan you should repeatedly write on a chalkboard until you manage to actually believe it.)

>For instance, maybe a "true socialist" would favor the state owning enterprises, rather than massive tax-and-regulate, but to me, that is not an important difference.

A true socialist favors workers owning enterprises. Whether this should be achieved via labor actions (strikes, etc), seizure of state power by revolutionary force, state power won in elections, or cooperative entrepreneurship is a matter of strategy among socialists. Sometimes we disagree with each-other as points of ideology, and sometimes as matters of pragmatic implementation. Sometimes we agree, despite hailing from very different schools of socialism.

As a classification heuristic, "revolutionary" socialists favor seizing state power via revolution, "democratic" socialists (eg: Bernie Sanders) favor obtaining state power via electoral participation, and revolutionary anarchists favor using a revolution to destroy state power (never to be wielded again). All of these groups often adopt each-other's tactics if deemed pragmatically useful, so, for instance, almost all socialists support workers' cooperatives, even though many don't consider them the final goal of socialism.

Once again: reversed right-proprietarianism is not leftism, so I thank you for actually taking the trouble to ask a leftist what we actually believe. To repeat and sum-up the core point: socialism does not really care about taxation or regulation except as tools, it cares about workers owning their own tools, work-sites, materials, and enterprises, and thus controlling their own lives rather than being controlled by an owner.

>Hence, as a rule of thumb, I consider all Democrats to be socialists.

Basically nobody who calls themselves a socialist considers the Democratic Party to be socialists. Even the Democratic Socialists of America - who are often accused by other socialists of shilling for the Democrats, and who, truth be told, straddle the line between actual democratic socialism and social democracy - do not consider the Democratic Party to be a socialist party.

>So, I don't think Hillary or Obama is much different from Sanders, except that he is more bold and open and labels himself differently.

Clinton (both Clintons) and Obama have never put forward serious programs of decommodification (Sanders' social-democratic platform) or worker ownership of enterprises and means-of-production (Sanders' encouragement of ESOPs and cooperatives). In fact, Clinton and Obama have, by and large, not done anything for the working classes, instead preferring to appeal on a combination of identity issues and middle-class meritocracy-through-education. By their voting records, and in contrast to Sanders, both Hillary and Obama have voted in favor of treaties, regulations, and other forms of laws that not only took economic power away from workers and communities, but even away from industrialists, putting the nation's destiny in the hands of the financial sector.

From a left-wing perspective, Hillary and Obama are reasonably similar, while Warren and Sanders form a platform unto themselves, and Sanders borders actual democratic socialism (his platform is mostly social-democratic).

[javert]

By the way, to clarify the other comment I just made, the Democrats really are collectivist, because they favor socialized medicine, education, high redistribution of wealth, and arbitrary amounts of regulation. Yes, it's true that they haven't helped the homeless and that some benefits accrue to elites (e.g. you mention the finance sector).

That is what normally happens when one tries to implement collectivism. People think that places like Sweden and Germany are not corrupt like this, and that may be true, but the U.S. is really a third-world country (like Latin America), not like Germany or Sweden---just with a minority Anglo-Saxon-style pro-liberty subculture layered on top. So of course collectivism gets implemented in a much more corrupt way than what might "theoretically" be possible.

Also, I recognize that the mainstream Democrats want to go towards even more collectivism more slowly than Warren or Sanders or a "true socialist." And may not want as pure of a form. So there is a difference, but it's just a difference of degree. Also, it's true that the Democrats don't have a coherent ideology, but nonetheless, they still clearly represent collectivism and move in a collectivist direction. And I agree that they are not that different from most Republicans. Most Republicans concede having a welfare state and just want to do it more slowly and to a lesser degree, which, again, is just a difference in degree, not quality. The Republicans are not defenders of individualism; they do not really oppose collectivism; they just create temporary setbacks for Democrats.

edit: This is just to clarify where I am so you can answer the other comment (if you want), not to argue.

Also, I just want to say, since I started writing these two comments, I lost 12 karma all at once, so apparently somebody just went through and downvoted all my recent comments (all of which were in positive territory before, and none of them are inflammatory). If an admin sees this, it would be nice if you could ban whoever is doing that.

[javert]

> A true socialist favors workers owning enterprises.

> To repeat and sum-up the core point: socialism does not really care about taxation or regulation except as tools, it cares about workers owning their own tools, work-sites, materials, and enterprises, and thus controlling their own lives rather than being controlled by an owner.

Clearly you are talking about collectivism (as opposed to individualism), and the Democrats are collectivist. You just have this technical implementation difference.

Which is to have workers control enterprises by some sort of voting scheme. As opposed to the natural course of evolution from freedom to collectivism, where you would have "private" ownership of enterprises, but with the state controlling the owner through regulation and taxation.

That really is an implementation detail. There is a whole lot more that goes into a political system than just deciding how enterprises are managed. (And, by the way, it's not any different to have your 99 fellow workers decide by voting how things are run, vs. a bureaucrat from a central government. So it's also an unimportant implementation detail.)

I think that makes it pretty disingenious for Democrats to scream "we are not socialists" and socialists to say "Democrats are not socialists." Because the people complaining about socialism don't care about that technical implementation difference; that's not actually the issue being raised. Rather, they are arguing against collectivism.

People in general use "socialism" to mean "collectivism," and I think that's perfectly fine, because people in general don't (and shouldn't) care about some obscure implementation detail that is being argued over by true believers.

If you have an argument against what I've said here, I'd be interested to see it, but I'd rather get something really specific and targeted vs. more of a soapbox.

[eli_gottlieb]

>If you have an argument against what I've said here, I'd be interested to see it, but I'd rather get something really specific and targeted vs. more of a soapbox.

I don't really have to argue against anything here, because you haven't taken a coherent position. "Freedom" and "collectivism" are not supernatural forces. Reversed right-proprietarianism is not leftism.

When you are willing to acknowledge the differences between and specific points among left-wing ideologies, leftists will be willing to talk to you. When you try to boil everything down to categories like "individualism" or "collectivism" that only make sense within your own ideology - as if your ideology was built into reality rather than something you impose upon your perceptions - rather than attempting to honestly engage others on matters of fact, you are wasting everyone's time.

All you've managed to say is, "Look at all those Democrats and socialists: they're not right-proprietarians! How horrid!"

[javert]

> boil everything down to categories like "individualism" or "collectivism" that only make sense within your own ideology - as if your ideology was built into reality rather than something you impose upon your perceptions

My classifications (e.g. individualism and collectivism) are derived from reality, not imposed on top of them, and are quite reasonable.

edit: I've removed the rest of my original comment that was here, because I can't say anything nice, and so I don't want to say anything at all. In short, I think your last comment is totally unreasonable and off base.

[gjm11]

No, it doesn't mean that there are no socialists in the US. But if the people of the US, as a whole, have by whatever means come to hate and fear socialists and socialism, then someone who's willing to describe himself as a socialist is not likely to do well in a US general election.

[pweissbrod]

The question was "why isnt bernie sanders a viable candidate?". You just said it yourself: most americans perceive socialist values as the antithesis of american values. Hence your candidate is not viable in this political climate. Sorry, I agree with your spirit but your arguing against a straw man.