Our President a Socialis?

I watched Solidad O’Brien of CNN interview a Georgia Senator (he may have been a congressman) but it does not matter for this discussion. During the President’s State of the Union Address, he tweeted that the president was a socialist. I was very disappointed because even though she may have had a strong disagreement with his views, she did not allow him to answer the questions she was asking and let her emotions get the better of her. First I would like to have heard her ask how he defines socialism and secondly when he said, holding a copy of the Constitution in his hand that all laws should have a basis in the Constitution, she got all emotional about slaves counting for only ¾ of a person for seating in Congress and said it should be the Constitution as amended. He tried to agree with her stating that he had a proposal on the floor to amend the Constitution, but she didn’t hear him nor allow him to make the point. His claim, and I have no basis for disputing it was that both parties essentially pass laws that are not constitutional instead of doing it the proper way, i.e. amending the Constitution which would require ¾ of both houses and ¾ of the states.

Getting back to the first point, I believe there is a semantic disconnect when it comes to using the term socialist. Webster’s defines socialism as “a theory or system of social organization in which the means of production and distribution of goods are owned and controlled collectively or by the government.” I suspect in the Senators mind a system that gets involved with the care of the underprivileged would be a socialistic one. I am not sure that progressive pundits don’t also operate by the same definition. I have seen progressives ask conservatives if they are in favor of Social Security and Medicare, and if so then they are also in favor of socialism. Because it was practiced by the former Soviet Union, a part of the “Evil Empire”, socialism has a very negative connotation for most Americans, particularly on the right.

The two definitions of socialism are so far apart it is difficult to have a conversation without first establishing which definition we are invoking. Though the right often accuses President Obama of being a socialist, I can’t believe in their heart of hearts they truly believe he wants the government to control the means of production. Even with the bailout of GM where the government took control, it was only temporary and shares of a healthy GM are again traded on the stock exchange.

The discussion relative to social programs is an entirely different one. All modern industrialized countries employ welfare state capitalist systems, each in their own way for somewhat common reasons though with differing orders of priority. Some of the rationale is strictly altruistic and part of human nature. Another is that the free markets are very volatile always innovating and in their wake leaving behind human casualties. To allow the market to continue functioning somehow those devastated in the process need to be uplifted. Yet another, though I am not sure to what extent it is publicly discussed is the fear that if a large enough portion of the population goes into deep poverty there will be civil unrest culminating in a totalitarian regime much as happened in Europe following the Second World War.

There are basically three kinds of welfare systems employed having different impacts, not only on the poor but also on women in general. In the Scandinavian countries the bar for poverty and government assistance is set very high and consequently the tax rate is very high and most families need two incomes to live a comfortable life given the taxes. It is easy to set the bar high there because the poor have common ethnicity and culture with the rest of the population. Though with an influx of immigrants in recent years there is a lot of pressure to lower the bar. The second system exists in the Christian Socialist governed countries like Germany and Italy. There they have imposed a very high minimum wage and passed laws making it very difficult to remove someone from their job unlike here where most are employed “at will” and with the exception of a few reasons like race or age, can indeed be terminated at the will of the employer. Because of the high minimum wage and the breadwinner’s (traditionally the man) job security, the woman can stay home and raise the children. The high minimum wage also makes it difficult to hire someone to assist with the house and kid even if the woman wants to work. (Family Value Conservatives should favor this system.) Here in the United States we live in a “Liberal Welfare State”. The bar for poverty is set at one of the lowest level among industrialized states and a smaller portion of the budget goes for caring for the needy. I believe the reason for this is that historically, the descendants of slaves and new ethnic groups come to this country and take the lowest paying jobs and during economic upheavals caused by free market dynamics tend to be most disenfranchised. Unlike in the case of Scandinavian countries where the needy are relatives of the affluent, these new immigrants are very different from the general population and the desire to contribute to their well being less strong. Also our minimum wage is among the lowest in the industrialize world. From the standpoint of women in the workforce, the lower minimum wage allows a families to hire assistants for the household and daycare for the children and lower wages often require her to work.

What I would like to see are better informed and skilled interviewers in the media willing to ask the hard questions and insist they get answered but then allow their guests time to answer them. It may be less entertaining but it will greatly contribute to a better informed public. I would like to have seen the gentleman from Georgia be interviewed by Fareed Zakaria, also of CNN and we may have better understood his position and form a better basis for agreeing or disagreeing. Fareed is well informed, respectful of his guests, ask hard questions and is not overcome by his ideologies and opinions.