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SOCIALISM AFTER

SANDERS

Socialism After Sanders

[Socialism After Sanders]

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

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
and anti-democratic nature of Capitalism in its entirety.

In recent times, especially here in the United states, there have been some people going
around claiming to be Socialist, specifically the Bernie Sanders-style democratic socialists.
These people define socialism more or less as When the Government does things,
encompassing things like the Military, Police, Roads, et cetera. This definition completely
glosses over the entire history of Socialist ideology and theory to define it as the
government doing things, though. It even falls into the big government vs. small
government conservative trope, but the thing is - the size of the government does not
equal how Socialist it is. To delve into actual historical Socialist ideology and theory,
lets give the proper definition of the word:

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

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

A society in which the means of production and distribution are socially owned.

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

Social democracy will be and has always been unsustainable in a Capitalist economy.

What that definition actually means may not be the most apparent to most people,

The only way to solve the problems social democracy realizes one must look at the root of

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

these problems and of Capitalism itself - the means of production and the relationships

ownership by the whole of a society, at any level. The means of production are the

built around them. It is only by making this crucial step that the aims of social democracy

physical, non-human inputs in the production process; i.e., machinery, land, tools, et

- self-actualization, equal opportunity, stability, equality, and democracy - as well as many

cetera. The means of distribution would include the main centers and, well, means to

more can be attained in reality. Otherwise the logic of Capitalism itself ensures the

distribute goods across the world; i.e., docks, railways, airports, cargo ships, cargo trains,

downfall of those aims and ideas.

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.
This, like Socialism, is distinct from all previous structures of society, from the
primitive communism of hunter-gatherers, the old slave societies of the Roman Empire,
and the feudalistic aristocracies. Yet as seen in all these previous societies, whichever
group of people controls the means of production controls society. In Primitive
Communism the means of production were owned communally by necessity, in Slave
Societies the means of production were owned by the slave-holders, in Feudalism the
means of production were owned by the nobility, and now in Capitalism the means of
production are owned by what we call the bourgeoisie (boar-zhwa-zee). This private
control of society by the bourgeoisie can be very easily seen in how most people in

modern America have no faith in the government due to its corruption and general

Social democracy rejects the notion of class struggle and the ignores the importance of

ineptitude as well as the simple observation of what the interests of the government

the means of production, but does realize the issues with uneven distribution of wealth.

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

Instead of changing the base of society, they just add more onto the superstructure in the

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

form of regulations and social safety nets. As seen in the large modern social democracies,

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

especially the Scandinavian social democracies, these changes cannot last forever due to

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

the very nature of the Capitalist market economy - crisis. During times of economic crisis,

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

vast portions of the population find themselves out of work and relying on the social

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

democratic state more than ever while also not being able to pay taxes. Business also

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

decline and in the case of a heavy tax-supported social democracy, creates a duo of falling

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

profit from the crisis and the heavy taxes needed to support the social safety nets destroys

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

any previous good business environment that society may have had.

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

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

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

for that state as its debts accrue very rapidly. For smaller states like Greece and Portugal

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
represent the people of that society.
Okay, that sounds pretty good, but;

Why does Socialism care about that? The definition sounds like it is purely
concerned with the means of production.

Socialism is largely concerned with the means of production only so far as it shapes
politics and the world around us and acts as the source of political, social, and - obviously
- economic power in society. Socialism, as the actual movement, is concerned with
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.
Okay then;

What type of society do Socialists actually want to establish?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

of the modern state. Marxists say this centralization would not have to be eternal, and

same, however.

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.

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,

By the modern definition of the term, these are the social democrats.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

property.

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

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

homes crumble.