SOCIALISM AFTER

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Socialism After Sanders

A society in which the means of production and distribution are socially owned.
What that definition actually means may not be the most apparent to most people,

[Socialism After Sanders]

which is understandable since it is a lot of strange wordage. Social ownership would be

ownership by the whole of a society, at any level. The means of production are the
physical, non-human inputs in the production process; i.e., machinery, land, tools, et
cetera. The means of distribution would include the main centers and, well, means to
distribute goods across the world; i.e., docks, railways, airports, cargo ships, cargo trains,
cargo planes, et cetera. It is in short:
A society in which the people control the entire economy.

Now, one may ask;

What is so important about the public controlling the economy?

1.

Currently, the means of production and distribution are owned privately; i.e., by
individual people, companies, and corporations, and used to generate a profit for those
private owners. We call this stage of human society Capitalism, and define it as such:

2. A society in which the means of production and distribution are privately owned and
organized for the purpose of profit.

3.

This, like Socialism, is distinct from all previous structures of society, from the

In recent times, especially here in the United states, there have been some people going

primitive communism of hunter-gatherers, the old slave societies of the Roman Empire,

around claiming to be Socialist, specifically the Bernie Sanders-style democratic socialists.

and the feudalistic aristocracies. Yet as seen in all these previous societies, whichever

These people define socialism more or less as When the Government does things,

group of people controls the means of production controls society. In Primitive

encompassing things like the Military, Police, Roads, et cetera. This definition completely

Communism the means of production were owned communally by necessity, in Slave

glosses over the entire history of Socialist ideology and theory to define it as the

Societies the means of production were owned by the slave-holders, in Feudalism the

government doing things, though. It even falls into the big government vs. small

means of production were owned by the nobility, and now in Capitalism the means of

government conservative trope, but the thing is - the size of the government does not

production are owned by what we call the bourgeoisie (boar-zhwa-zee). This private

equal how Socialist it is. To delve into actual historical Socialist ideology and theory,

control of society by the bourgeoisie can be very easily seen in how most people in

lets give the proper definition of the word:

modern America have no faith in the government due to its corruption and general
ineptitude as well as the simple observation of what the interests of the government

would be in a society where the economy is privately controlled. A government in a

Capitalist society, no matter how democratic its institutions and organization, would have

Okay, that sounds pretty good, but;

to create a good business environment to ensure the employment of the majority of

citizens and thus its tax revenue. If it did not create a good business environment, the

Why does Socialism care about that? The definition sounds like it is purely

business would simply leave or layoff, leaving the economy and government of that

concerned with the means of production.

society in absolute ruin. So in order to both keep itself afloat and keep its people afloat, it

must give the bourgeoisie special treatment in the form of tax breaks, tax write-offs, tax

Socialism is largely concerned with the means of production only so far as it shapes

loopholes, less market interference, less regulation, and ultimately the weakening of the

politics and the world around us and acts as the source of political, social, and - obviously

democratic basis of society to let the government be better controlled by the bourgeoisie -

- economic power in society. Socialism, as the actual movement, is concerned with

all in the name of making sure there is a good business environment.

establishing public control of the means of production because that is the only way

possible to establish public control of politics and individual control of their own lives.

When there is private control of the means of production politics becomes concerned
with the maintenance of good business environments and creates an uneven distribution
of wealth, and with an uneven distribution of wealth you get uneven access to
opportunity and self-fulfillment.
In any society there are two main forces driving the social conditions of it, the base and
the superstructure. The base is simply the basic social relations of a society - who owns
the means of production, how distribution works, and the other economic social
relations. The superstructure is most everything else, prevalent ideologies, technology,
the health of the economy, the state, et cetera. The base influences the superstructure as
it defines the basic economic social relations and as such the basic power structures. The
superstructure also influences the base as these power structures can be used to change
the basic economic relations in society. Base and Superstructure are therefore not static
and unchanging, but in a constant feedback loop. Socialists must then be concerned with
the ownership of the means of production, as it helps shape wider society both in terms of

power and ideas.

So let us then imagine an economy owned by the people who live and work in that

4. Okay then;

society. The government would no longer be required by utter necessity to subvert

political equality to maintain itself, and would for the first time be able to properly

WWhat type of society do Socialists actually want to establish?

represent the people of that society.

 Socialism has a very long history which starts about the same time Capitalism took hold

direct-democratic - or autonomous (the difference is important) - communes. These

in the world. People started seeing the ills and problems of the system very quickly, and

communes would be fully controlled by the people who live there and would link up

started developing an ideology that thought would solve these problems they saw. For a

with other communes to create confederations to support each other and keep the

while they only were in the business of designing these systems and in some cases

world stable. To counter the possibility of counter-revolution and in general defend the

implementing them on the very small scale. There was no analysis of history or of

commune would be Workers Militias directly controlled by the people, instead of a

Capitalism itself, just the very specific creation of an alternate, Socialist, society. These

full-time police force or state-controlled military. In the economy, each workplace

were the Utopian Socialists. Most modern Socialists can be divided into two camps, and

would be controlled and planned by the workers. The people would organize

their ideas on the immediate post-Capitalist societal structure differs. Their goal is the

themselves to do what is needed in society as people typically dont like to watch their

same, however.

homes crumble.

The first camp is that of Anarchism. Surprising to some, Anarchy does not mean
without rules, but rather without rulers. The difference is very important in
Anarchist theory as they see the state, no matter which group it is controlled by, as
always repressive against the masses and that if the masses were to take control of the
state it would only corrupt itself and begin its repression again. As such, Anarchists
wish to immediately destroy the state and in its place create millions of local-level,

 The other camp is that of Marxism. Marxism is derived from the works of the

As long as the bourgeoisie controls the means of production, and thus the modern state,

revolutionary Socialists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who lived in the 19th Century.

socialism would be impossible. Yet at the same time, the workers must utilize the state

Marxists see the state as a tool of the class struggle, or the struggle between those who

after taking power from the bourgeoisie to make sure there is no counter-revolution and

own the means of production versus those who do not. They declare that the state is

defend against aggression from Capitalist states. This transitional state would need to be

simply a tool utilized by the ruling class, the group that owns the means of production, to

organized completely from the bottom-up and empty of conditions on democracy,

repress the lower class(es) and maintain their position in the social hierarchy and

specifically on the election and recall of representatives. The new state would need to be

property.

completely at the whim of society, which is very much against the organizational models

of the modern state. Marxists say this centralization would not have to be eternal, and
would actually necessarily end at some point, leaving the world left with the sort of
society desired by the Anarchists, but only after the creation of another state.

In both situations, Socialists wish to establish a revolutionary type of society where the
people democratically control themselves at every level for the first time in history.
Individuals would be realized as the dual social and individual creatures they are -
merging both the decried collective ideal with the individual ideal. The freedom and self-
realization of all would be predicated on the freedom and self-realization of each.
Okay, but;

Why cant we just have Sanders-style democratic socialism?

Since the dawn of people pointing out the flaws of Capitalism, there have been people
saying that it is possible to fix those problems without having to change to a new society.
By the modern definition of the term, these are the social democrats.


Social democracy rejects the notion of class struggle and the ignores the importance
of the means of production, but does realize the issues with uneven distribution of
wealth. Instead of changing the base of society, they just add more onto the
superstructure in the form of regulations and social safety nets. As seen in the large
modern social democracies, especially the Scandinavian social democracies, these changes
cannot last forever due to the very nature of the Capitalist market economy - crisis.
During times of economic crisis, vast portions of the population find themselves out of
work and relying on the social democratic state more than ever while also not being able
to pay taxes. Business also decline and in the case of a heavy tax-supported social
democracy, creates a duo of falling profit from the crisis and the heavy taxes needed to
support the social safety nets destroys any previous good business environment that
society may have had.

So in order to revive itself and possibly invest more in the economy the social democratic
state must either take on huge debts which will require less long-term state spending to
pay off or cut the social safety nets massively to save money. As each crisis passes these
social democracies must once again face this question and, depending on the severity of
the crisis, either slowly or very quickly cut the social safety net for the sake of good
business environments and long-term state stability. Attempting to simply stave off a
crisis while maintaining the same social safety net will cause serious economic problems
for that state as its debts accrue very rapidly. For smaller states like Greece and Portugal

you can easily see how devastating this can be, and while larger states like the United

If you support(ed) Sanders, the ideals of social democracy should be self-evident to

States can face the storm of debt longer that is only possible if they have a massive

you, as they to many, but in order to take the next step and ensure those ideals are
undeniable and woven into the fabric of society, you must recognize the anti-societal

portion of the global economy, which the United States does.

Social democracy will be and has always been unsustainable in a Capitalist economy.
The only way to solve the problems social democracy realizes one must look at the root of
these problems and of Capitalism itself - the means of production and the relationships
built around them. It is only by making this crucial step that the aims of social democracy
- self-actualization, equal opportunity, stability, equality, and democracy - as well as many
more can be attained in reality. Otherwise the logic of Capitalism itself ensures the
downfall of those aims and ideas.

and anti-democratic nature of Capitalism in its entirety.