The Trump White House research team have issued a very strange report. It’s called “The Opportunity Costs of Socialism,”. It purports to prove that ‘socialism’ and ‘socialist’ policies would be damaging to Americans because the ‘opportunity costs’ of socialism compared to capitalism are so much higher.
What is strange and rather amusing is that the White House advisers to Trump deem it necessary to explain to Americans the failures of ‘socialism’ in 2018. But when you delve into the report, it becomes clear that what is worrying the Trumpists is not ‘socialism’, but the policies of left Democrat Bernie Sanders for higher taxes on the rich 1% and the increased popularity of a ‘single-payer’ national health service for all. The popularity of these policies threatens the Republican majority in Congress and also the wealth and income of big pharma corporations and Trump’s billionaire supporters....Michael Roberts Blog
Socialism and the White House
Michael Roberts
See also
People's World
Socialism under attack from scared White House
Ian Goodrum
2 comments:
“What is worrying the Trumpists is not ‘socialism’, but the policies of left Democrat Bernie Sanders for higher taxes on the rich 1% and the increased popularity of a ‘single-payer’ national health service for all. The popularity of these policies threatens the Republican majority in Congress and also the wealth and income of big pharma corporations and Trump’s billionaire supporters....”
Tax increases are not necessary for Universal Medicare. Nor is Universal Medicare socialism, since, with Universal Medicare, health care providers would remain privately owned. Therefore what Trump’s billionaire supporters fear is a reduction in their personal profits.
All attacks on socialism are attempts to defend the current theft by oligarchs and big corporations, who enjoy profits at public expense.
The sad thing is that at least half the peasants are Frankos. They worship the oligarchs and big corporations that enslave them.
“What the White House means by socialism is a national economy that is dominated and controlled by the state rather than the market.”
NO. What the White House means by socialism is a national economy that is not 100% controlled by a handful of rich oligarchs and corporations.
For neoliberals and their toadies, there are only two possible scenarios in this world: [1] Communism, in which there is no private property at all, and [2] feudalism, in which everything and everyone are the private property of the rich. For neoliberals there is no possible compromise or balance or middle ground between these two extremes. There is only "communism" or "righteousness." (The latter meaning slavery under the oligarchs).
As Thatcher said, “There is no alternative” but a vast and ever-widening gap between the rich and the rest.
For neoliberals, an economy is “market based” when it is owned, controlled, and monopolized by the rich at the expense of the masses.
Anything other than this is called “catastrophic.”
“What the White House means by socialism is a national economy that is dominated and controlled by the state rather than the market.”
Ask the American people and most would rather control their OWN lives given the resources to do so, i.e. being well off but with a social safety net just in case.
And that's the Biblical ideal too where each Hebrew family had agricultural land they could never lose permanently so general affluence among the Hebrews was to be the norm. And the poor, Hebrew and alien alike, had rights such as the right to glean agricultural lands and to share in a 3rd year tithe collected for them.
So there's another option besides wage slavery to either the rich or government that most Americans would prefer, imo.
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