why police and fire departments are not socialism

But the sheer volume of spending tells us little about the political valence of government action. Where you can be successful if you work hard for it and dream big enough (corny I know)" According to a widely noted 2014 study by two political scientists, the political dominance of the wealthy is now so pronounced that average citizens exercise near zero influence over government policymaking. Heck, they called the New Deal itself socialist. This is hardly "socialism" because if it were, voters would never have any say at all in what police and firemen do. So we can think of our economy as lots of befores, afters, and in-betweens. And all three of these phases matter quite existentially to us because of their roles in determining what we do, what we have, and indeed even much of what we are and become. They operate according to democratic principles of access and distribution, providing services to all regardless of ones ability to pay. By simply looking at the size of government in terms of overall spending, many argue that the US is becoming increasingly socialist whether it wants to or not. No. Every country has roads. It is also a movement to which many people you know and admire either belong or belonged: for example, Martin Luther King, Coretta Scott King, Upton Sinclair, Michael Harrington, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib. So they are capitalist entities brought into being by socialist means. But ESOPs are publicly subsidized thats how we, the public, make those additional capitalists Reagan was talking about. This isnt because I want to see the elderly and ill starving and dying in the streets. Should those things be socialist? That isnt to say these things arent also inputs they are, as all reinvested outputs are it is only to say that political discussion of these matters is generally discussion of the spread of the benefits generated by productive activity. KANSAS CITY, Mo. "No Bernie, the Police and Fire Departments Are Not Socialism"; A Primer on Socialism VS. A Free Society The Epoch Times "In their incessant propaganda war to move the United States leftwards, leftists often claim that this country already is partly socialist. Hydro and wind endanger natural habitats.). The relation between productive inputs and processes on the one hand, outputs on the other hand also is helpful in showing us whose socialism any particular regime of production amounts to, however. The question virtually answers itself. Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Canada, Australia, pretty much all of Western Europe, etc. Ancient rome had highways, public bathhouses and aqueducts but this doesn't mean they invented socialism. There are many sub-questions that this question implicates, to each of which many distinct answers have historically been given. If a private fund manager steals his clients pension contributions, he goes to jail. Key questions about that state activity always need to be asked: does it reinforce or undermine the power of those who own capital? The critical difference is that these profits are not passed on to "workers" (students) who make up the body of the school and the students do not have a prominent role in how the school's money is spent, that role belongs to the administration. At present it seems only Senators Sanders and Warren offer that same answer, while only Senator Sanders seems able to make it happen. As our middle class continues to shrink at a record rate thanks to our shift over to oligarch socialism, the present would seem an apt time to reexamine the question of what kind of socialists we want to be. Dont let the left fudge the difference between socialism and liberty. You will have to purchase a number of privately sold products to use an arguably socialist structure that every country in the world has. Why is a public library socialist, but police and fire departments aren't? In the war of ideas, its important that those of us who love liberty and oppose socialism actually understand the difference. With that in mind, a road does not generate a profit, the police do not participate in the market, students do not receive wages for their "work" and libraries do not typically sell products in order to become wealthy. Or should it be some combination of these things, as in general stakeholder-run firms? Is capitalism about ownership? The next best option is a mix of public and private education, but completely free from centralized government control. Michael McAuliff of the Huffington Post pointed out that the federal government spends huge amounts of money to support all those professions. This is true, yet the federal government does things frequently that many consider to be outside of the proper scope of the federal powers. The theory is that under this system, labor cannot be exploited. Subscribe today to get it in print! This isnt surprising. No centralized Department of Education. If the level of economic activity declines perhaps , because capitalists are unhappy about new legislation that benefits workers the state will find it increasingly difficult to fund its activities. Before he became a founding father of the United States, Benjamin Franklin established one of America's first volunteer fire departments. Are access to these things rights, or are they luxuries? These direct forms of influence are not the only way that powerful interests shape government action. This is the famous Dictatorship of the Proletariat. The labor sector has total control of the economy. Oh, and for the official record, the NAZI Party was NOT socialist. The federal government, already too large, with spending far above the post World War II norm. No. Medicare PartD offers some subsidies to low-income seniors, but its widely recognized as a costly giveaway to the prescription drug industry. So please, once and for all: can we retire the tired fallacy that government services and socialism are one andthe same? Good. If the forces responsible for killing Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, and Rekia Boyd exemplify socialism in action, then no person who wants freedom and justice should be a socialist. Nearly two thousand years before Marx and his collaborator Friedrich Engels penned The Communist Manifesto, Rome had established what many historians consider the grandest engineering achievement of the ancient world: a system of stone-paved highways that snaked across more than 100 provinces, stretching some 250,000 miles. But we shouldnt stop there. Capitalism says that the profits belong to the owner of the business and it is up to them to determine pretty much all aspects of running their business. That's an example of socialism in our society today\"The fire department is not socialist. Some of the institutions socialists claim as examples of socialism are anything but. Why not just name and discuss policies rather than dropping vague ism names? There are fares for these services. Free peoples have understood that concept since the beginning of time. In Federalist 45, James Madison wrote that the powers of the federal government are few and defined. Madison argued that state power extends to issues that concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State. Nowhere in the Constitution is the federal government given the explicit power to supplant the traditional police powers of the states. Not all countries are socialist. Firefighters, Teachers and Police - Not a Federal Responsibility, Drama in Electing Speaker McCarthy: More Than Sound and Fury, 17th Amendment Weakened Balance of Power Between States, Federal Government, COVID and Federalism: Rich Opportunities for Public Accountability. In fact, once you spend just a half hour or so researching the subject on the web, it almost begins to seem every cool thing we have done and now cherish has been called socialist by Republicans at some time or another: public (yep, public) education; public (yep, public) utilities; progressive (yep. For more than 30 years, he has researched radical left, Marxist, and terrorist movements and their covert influence on mainstream politics. Trucks do the most damage to the roadways, and the public shoulders the cost of the repairs while the shipping industry turns a profit. For if some people disproportionately benefit relative to others under productive arrangements that are primarily socially or publicly determined as are ours by our publicly promulgated and enforced property law, contract law, employment law, business law, tax law, banking law, etc. Senator Sanderss Corporate Accountability and Democracy Plan, on which full disclosure this author assisted, does likewise. Abolish the postal system, the police, and the military: all social. But many of the biggest programs over the last few decades do nothing to strengthen the power of workers. Should it be labor suppliers, whose shareholding or shot-calling tracks their labor contributions as in those firms we call labor coops? The other word we use to describe our polity another Latin one this time to complement the Greek is also suggestive here: we call our polity a republic, from the Latin res publica, or thing of the public (sometimes also translated into the suggestive word commonwealth hmm common / wealth). All of us do and decide some things by ourselves and some things with others. To understand what is meant by socialism and its contrast term individualism, then, you must first clarify which dimension or phase ofasocietys process of production you have in mind. They were essential to enable the rapid movement of troops, supplies, and weaponry in the event of a major war. Language. Are Fire Departments Socialist? Because fighting invaders or a necessary foreign war requires a national public effort. Yet there is reason to believe this is at least partly because Americans are pretty much clueless as to what socialism is. The Constitution is clear. In classical socialism, there are two major forms: State Socialism = Marxist/Leninist socialism where an oligarchic state has the final say in economic affairs. After all, governments are dependent on some minimally robust level of economic activity to fund themselves. There is a postage fee. A week later, three lions encountered the group and chased the men off. If the government takes large chunks of your wealth to fund whomever it wants to please, thats socialism. This is an indoctrination factory and a recipe for disaster. These are socialist institutions. By that logic any sort of collective project funded by tax dollars and accomplished through government action is socialism. 1. On May 31, 2012, Alison Fraser of Heritage testified to the House Budget Committee that today, federal spending is at about 23 percent of [Gross Domestic Product], and debt held by the public is approximately 70 percent. Fire departments could be considered a socialist program if the government was only made up of, and meant to represent, the proletariat. The word, socialist, means different things to different people. Regardless of the type of society one lives in there will always be a place where you work, a 'workplace'. If so, then ownership of what? If its the former, then what sorts of arrangements are political, in putative distinction from economic? Such an expansion of popular power would be neededto both push out personnel committed to the old regime and to transform the often alienating and repressive bureaucracies that currently administer public services. And in the US military everyone pledges to support one another no matter what. Today, only 15 of America's largest police departments have a strict residency requirement for police officers, and a majority of cops live outside the cities they serve. This is not to say that progressive reforms can never be won under capitalism, or that the government is completely immune to public pressure. Intriguingly, Bernie Sanders and the DSA have more in common with Reagan in this realm than does any other current political figure, including anyone now running for President. And still others involve the vast apparatus of coercion and force (police departments, the FBI, the CIA, the military, courts, prisons, and jails). But that alone wouldnt be sufficient. And every capitalist country has fire departments, police departments, and libraries. And our founders did not create a socialist system. Change). The theory is that under this system, labor cannot be exploited. Fire departments could be considered a socialist program if the government was only made up of, and meant to represent, the proletariat MozeoSLT 4 yr. ago As are the police, yes. The socialists are partially right. Man on the street videos depicting students are one thing, one could say. Well have you ever heard of this little thing called the fire department? It is but an example of the central government is infringing on the traditional domain of the states. The government owns the land, the facility, all the books inside, and cuts the paychecks to the people working there. Roads have become the backbone of commerce, and have enabled profits to soar to unprecedented heights. Today, We Should Do the Same for the Global South. If so, then control over what? Socialism means that the means of production are owned by the workers. A case in point can be found at Big Think, a publication whose videos and short articles I often enjoy. Its been shown time and again that many people who say they love socialism cannot accurately describe its basic tenets if their life depended on it. U.S. education is already heavily socialist. For it is possible, as we shall see, to be more socialist on one or two dimensions while being more individualist along the other dimension or dimensions and, of course, vice versa. The middle and upper classes also hold the most important posts in government, elected and appointed alike. The left wants us to believe that paying for teachers, firefighters and police is a federal responsibility. Again, then, it seems that where matters political are concerned, we are all of us socialist, be we republic-name-checking Republicans or democracy-name-checking Democrats. But its quite another to include the police. Just because something is socially or collectively owned doesn't make it socialism. If it were truly democratic, the ability to overturn the system by any majority demanding a different economic system would have to exist indefinitely. In poor neighborhoods, roads are in poor conditions. Copyright 2000 - 2023 The Epoch Times Association Inc. All Rights Reserved. Allyson Hinzman, a firefighter and the president of Tacoma Firefighters Local 31 in Washington, said local unions are opposed to Democratic Gov. Benjamin Franklin pioneered public libraries, and Thomas Jefferson built public schools to educate a new frontier society. Public schools, welfare departments, planning agencies, courts, and all other government agencies would invite workers and recipients to participate in the design and implementation of those services. So long as the fundamental structures of the economy remain unchanged, state action will disproportionately benefit capitalist interests at the expense of everything else. An article detailing the recent surge in the popularity of socialism was teed up this way by the brands social media editor: If youre against socialism, dont drive on public roads or call 911! But that doesnt make the practice prudent or proper. Are Libraries Socialist? State and local employees should not be supported by federal funds for constitutional as well as fiscal reasons. And much of that spending is with borrowed dollars. Heres what I mean in a bit more detail. Socialism, no matter what you learned in High School, is a labor inspired revolution aimed at defeating the class barriers and wealth inequality created by capitalism. There are no more "workplaces". The socialists are right. In fact none of the. For inputs and processes are as constitutive of our productive arrangements as outputs are, and in a way they are far more important because they are more determinative than anything else in determining the distribution of outputs themselves. Was Eisenhower, who pushed a national (interstate) highway system and whose tax code taxed the rich at 90% a socialist? In their incessant propaganda war to move the United States leftwards, leftists often claim that this country already is partly socialist. Worker control of capital does nothing to end Capitalism. Now Bernie Sanders claims libraries, fire departments and police departments are all SOCIALIST institutions as he struggles to explain his politics 'When you go to your public library, when. Hinzman said it was . Government spending on social programs and other activities may well increase in the coming decades because of the aging population, the climate crisis, and other developments. Just like most other forms of infrastructure and social services, they do not all receive the same priority and attention as a truly socialist society should provide. These are not anti-capitalist institutions. The 21st century is so different from the 19th where alignments and, more fundamentally, modes of political and productive organization are concerned that terms at home in the earlier era have little more application in this one than medieval medical terms like bilious or phlegmatic have in modern hospitals. Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. He is best known for his book Enemies Within: Communists, Socialists and Progressives in the U.S. Congress and his similarly themed documentary film Enemies Within.. Private institutions running jails have every incentive to lobby legislators for longer prison terms, for instance. That shouldnt be an excuse for more socialism. It can be a dirty trick used to end an argument under false pretenses, and one that inherently carries confirmation bias as well: If the definition cannot be agreed upon, then I must be correct in my assessment. We all know the answers to these questions. No. Social Security and Medicare are two examples. The White House?). No. If you spend much time on social media, youve probably seen the memes purporting to show just how socialist the United States already is by listing a bunch of government programs, services, and agencies. under our present form of socialism? And things could hardly be otherwise, for all productive economic activity proceeds on the basis of rules, and rules are the province of collective decision-making politics., Second, note that Bernie Sanders, whose frontrunner status in seeking the US Presidency is what has occasioned the socialist renewal, does not call himself a socialist or even a democratic socialist. He calls himself a Democratic Socialist. And as the capital letters indicate, thats not a generic predicate term, its a proper name as different in grammatical form from mere socialist as Robert Barone is from robber baron..

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