Fair Slice Now

August 18, 2017 10:14 AM

Socialism: As American As Apple Pie (Single link The Nib webcomic history essay)
posted by Artw (21 comments total)

The United States produced the greatest socialist thinker of the twentieth century, C. Wright Mills.
posted by No Robots at 11:16 AM on August 18, 2017

Without socialist principles, we never would have survived WWII.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 11:31 AM on August 18, 2017 [8 favorites]

True, but at least we wouldn't be arguing about who's a Nazi, because we'd all be Nazis.
posted by briank at 1:10 PM on August 18, 2017

Making something like this was literally a future project for Media Working and now I can ...just cross that item out.

It's very important to remember our radical past. America is in many ways a revolutionary country and that history is deliberalty washed away and ignored. If you had a standard US education you'd think the weekend and the 8 hour work day where given out by a benevolent Henry Ford* or something. Our roots, our struggle, our tradition is extremely vital and must be asserted at every turn in the faces of people who inisit the current state is somehow inevitable or natural.


*A good example of that is how Ford basically bankrolled the 'country' music genre as an expressly white alternative to Jazz, it wasn't 'natural market forces' it was the reality warping powers of concentrated wealth.
posted by The Whelk at 1:35 PM on August 18, 2017 [19 favorites]

This is a great cartoon! I mean, politically and on an artistic level. I'm glad to see that membership in the DSA is on the rise. I've been on the fence about joining for a while -- I went to a DSA-affiliated thing a few months ago and was a little put off by it (I get a little embarrassed hearing people in cardigans call each other "comrade"), but I'm willing to give them a second shot.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 2:19 PM on August 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

I myself have gone from being vaguely embarrassed by the word comrade to signing e-mails with "In Solidarity" soooo
posted by The Whelk at 2:51 PM on August 18, 2017 [8 favorites]

I feel like "focus on building a tax-funded welfare state" is more "social democracy" while "democratic socialism" is... kind of a big tent, but often seems to mean "social democracy as a baseline, flirting with more radical ideas?" I kinda like the big-tent-ness, though.

I get a little embarrassed hearing people in cardigans call each other "comrade"
I myself have gone from being vaguely embarrassed by the word comrade to signing e-mails with "In Solidarity" soooo

I have mixed feelings about the prevalence of old-left-callback affectations but I've come to find this one endearing, lately.
posted by atoxyl at 2:59 PM on August 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

Not to be all "I was just on a podcast about this" but I explained it as ...Democratic Socialist, at least the kind I'm interested in helping build in this country, is a bridge to connect many things together - like American style Left-Progressive on one end, to connect to our past and vanguard style fully-automated luxury gay space communism to connect to the Utopian future (You always have to keep Utopia in mind to have a goal and inspiration) and we use this big bridge to move everything closer to the Utopia.

Like I'd like a world where tax-funded welfare state social democracy is the centrist politic so we could be free to ask big questions like imagine a world without disease and all that fun futurism that gets the heart racing.
posted by The Whelk at 3:17 PM on August 18, 2017 [8 favorites]

I've always wanted to go around calling people "sister" and "brother" like working-class people do in 1930's-1940's movies, but people would probably think I was trying to use AAVE. Maybe I should give "comrade" a try.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:29 PM on August 18, 2017 [5 favorites]

At meetings we have realized y'all is gender neutral and inclusive , thus the growing support of y'allidarity among the southern caucus
posted by The Whelk at 4:37 PM on August 18, 2017 [13 favorites]

I'm pleased this comic didn't whitewash history too much. We seem to periodically forget that all the fine things we take for granted today were fought for in the streets until they became a reality, eventually giving many people the comfort to decry the very idea of taking the fight to the streets.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 6:52 PM on August 18, 2017 [3 favorites]

The “S” Word Lives
posted by Artw at 6:53 PM on August 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

I do love any mention of Baynard Rustin, the radical gay, black socialist activist who organized MLk's march on Washington.
posted by The Whelk at 7:21 PM on August 18, 2017 [7 favorites]

I enjoyed this comic. It reminds me of all the lovely posters in my dad's union organizing office depicting union victories that brought more humane working conditions to America.
posted by xyzzy at 8:00 PM on August 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

So I come across this idea that it's *embarrassing* to say comrade and it's embarrassing to sing Solidarity Forever and I just have to say those people - we're not doing an irony. I mean this. I mean this very deeply. And I want to reach all the dormant activists, all those former members of the students for a democratic society, i want to tell them it's okay now, you can come out of the wilderness, you can say socialism now.

Cause we're here, and we mean it. We want to save the world.
posted by The Whelk at 9:06 PM on August 18, 2017 [9 favorites]

I have not had the energy to read this link yet but Whelk I want you to know I cosign everything you say and I love all of it and I might be just a touch punch drunk right now but dammit everything you are saying is a Good Thing in this world and I need to go look into officially joining the Wobblies and Bayard Rustin is the best thing ever

also I need a decent Cap shield and a nap, probably not in that order

but PUNCH DRUNK ENTHUSIASM DAMMIT
posted by sciatrix at 10:27 PM on August 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

*A good example of that is how Ford basically bankrolled the 'country' music genre as an expressly white alternative to Jazz, it wasn't 'natural market forces' it was the reality warping powers of concentrated wealth.

Is this true? After some quick research it seems like it's just a myth.

It's well known Ford was a fascist, anti-semite and racist but the country music thing seems like a just-so story. In "The International Jew" Ford makes it clear he doesn't like Jazz but saying that he is basically responsible for the birth and popularity of country music because of it is a bit of a stretch.
posted by laptolain at 6:09 AM on August 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

I do love any mention of Baynard Rustin, the radical gay, black socialist activist who organized MLk's march on Washington.

Yes, but it should be noted that there is another part of Rustin's legacy...

It is the years up to and including 1963 that the devotees of Rustin's memory prefer to emphasize. We would, however, be unfaithful to the historical record if we were to ignore a less uplifting sequel. From the time that the administration of Lyndon Johnson embraced major parts of the civil rights agenda, Rustin pursued and increasingly rightward trajectory. The principled pacifist ended up supporting (with occasional qualms) the Vietnam War and promoted the intensification of the nuclear arms race; the champion of black rights apologized for the intervention of the South African apartheid régime in the Angolan civil war in the 1970s. It can be said without exaggeration that Rustin ended his life as a neo-conservative.

posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 6:12 AM on August 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

Yeah a lot of big activists if that era had less than great endings, the 80s were a horror-show.

Also sciatrix, I bet there's a local DSA chapter near you.
posted by The Whelk at 8:16 AM on August 19, 2017

Populists

The People's Party, also known as the Populists, was an agrarian-populist political party in the United States. From 1892 to 1896, it played a major role as a left-wing force in American politics. It drew support from angry farmers in the West and South. It was highly critical of capitalism, especially banks and railroads, and allied itself with the labor movement.

Established in 1891 as a result of the Populist movement, the People's Party reached its zenith in the 1892 presidential election, when its ticket, composed of James B. Weaver and James G. Field, won 8.5% of the popular vote and carried five states (Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Nevada and North Dakota), and the 1894 House of Representatives elections, when it won nine seats. Built on a coalition of poor, white cotton farmers in the South (especially North Carolina, Alabama and Texas) and hard-pressed wheat farmers in the Plains states (especially Kansas and Nebraska), the Populists represented a radical crusading form of agrarianism and hostility to elites, cities, banks, railroads, and gold.

United States presidential election, 1896

The 1896 campaign was a realigning election that ended the old Third Party System and began the Fourth Party System. McKinley forged a conservative coalition in which businessmen, professionals, skilled factory workers, and prosperous farmers were heavily represented. He was strongest in cities and in the Northeast, Upper Midwest, and Pacific Coast. Bryan was the nominee of the Democrats, the Populist Party, and the Silver Republicans. He presented his campaign as a crusade of the working man against the rich, who impoverished America by limiting the money supply, which was based on gold. Silver, he said, was in ample supply and if coined into money would restore prosperity while undermining the illicit power of the money trust. Bryan was strongest in the South, rural Midwest, and Rocky Mountain states. Bryan's moralistic rhetoric and crusade for inflation (to be generated by a money supply based on silver as well as gold) alienated conservatives. Turnout was very high, passing 90% of the eligible voters in many places.

Everything You Thought You Knew About The 1970s, Inflation And The US Economy Is Wrong

[Burns] thought wages and price controls could also be effective, but not because he naively misunderstood the forces of supply and demand. No, he understood them well and believed that unionization in America had created labor cartels. Left to their own devices these cartels would always create excess unemployment and/or accelerating inflation. Again, the story here is pretty sophisticated and well beyond the simplistic tale of wage-price spirals I heard as an econ student. The core idea is that while unions and corporations are nominally negotiating with each other, the real action is an implicit game between various unions.

One union, say the autoworkers, pushes for higher wages. The auto industry will consent and then the logic of profit maximization dictates that industry push at least some , if not all, of that cost on to their customers as higher prices, and the rest on to their investors as a lower dividends and the government as lower taxes (since profits are lower.)

Higher prices for cars, increases the cost of living for most workers in the economy and thus lowers their real wages. In response, those workers will ask for a raise. Its straight forward how this will echo through the economy raising all prices. The really sexy part, however, is yet to come. The autoworkers union understands that all of this is going to happen, and so they push for even higher wages, to compensate them for the loss they know they are going to experience through the resulting ripple of price increases throughout the country.

Now, one might say - shouldn't the self-defeating nature of this exercise be obvious and lead union leaders to give up? Oh contraire! The self defeating nature of the enterprise demands that they participate, Suppose all unions except one stopped demanding excessive wage increases. Then the general increase in prices would stop and that one union would receive a huge windfall. Thus there is a prisoners dilemma encouraging all unions to seek unreasonably high wage increases.

Yet, the plot thickens still. This upward push in prices factors into expectations throughout the entire economy, so that interest rates, asset prices, etc are all set on the assumption that the upward push will continue. At that point the upward push must continue or else there will be major dislocations in financial markets. And, in order to accommodate that push the Fed must print more money. The increase in the money supply helps cement the upward force as fully generalized inflation in all markets.

So, casting Burn's view in our modern context would go something like this. Unemployment rises when inflation falls short of expected inflation. Expected inflation is determined by how much consumers think major corporations will raises their prices. Corporations plan price raises based on what they expect their unions to demand. Unions set their demands based on what they expect other unions to do. "Other unions" are always expected to make unreasonable demands because the unions are locked in prisoners dilemma. Actual inflation tends towards expected inflation unless the Fed curtails money growth.

Thus the Federal Reserve could only halt inflation by refusing to play along, which would result in high unemployment for an undetermined amount of time. In general high unemployment would persist for however long it took to breakdown this entire chain of expectations. Moreover, unless the power of unions was broken the cycle would simply start back immediately after the disinflation.

No, instead the government had to find a way to get all participants in the economy to expect low inflation. How to do this? Outlaw inflation. Then unemployment need not rise since everyone expects the law to be followed. At that point the Federal Reserve could slow money creation without doing damage to the economy. Wage and price controls are thus a means of coordinating expectations.

On the trade of between unemployment and inflation, Burn's position seems to be a conservative version of Waldman. His general take seemed to be that unemployment was poisonous to the social fabric and that the social fabric was already strained, most notably by race relations. Further he felt that efforts to restrain inflation would be useless unless the power of the labor unions was broken. However, most of all he seemed to believe that the effect of monetary policy depended on the institutional framework of the nation and that this was in flux. Reading somewhat between the lines it seems he felt the worst of all possible outcomes would be that a leftist government would come to power and then render any attempt to control prices or sustain business confidence untenable.

posted by kliuless at 10:26 PM on August 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

In case anyone is wondering, bulk order union-made DSA enamel pins are now available.
posted by The Whelk at 6:39 AM on September 14, 2017