You might be a socialist and not even know it

If you haven’t noticed, we’re being overrun by socialists. Fortunately, they’re easy to recognize. They’re the ones supporting President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure bill, which Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., tells us is nothing but “big government socialism.” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, calls the bill an “accelerator to socialism.”

There’s lots of talk about how the bill will lead to the nation’s demise but little talk about what’s in the bill.

What’s in it?

There’s funding for universal pre-K education for 3 and 4-year-olds, childcare for working families, and funding for historically black colleges. There’s also funding for public housing and housing affordability, expanding the new child tax credit through 2025, and funding for paid family and medical leave.

Apparently, Barrasso and Cornyn think that making life better for Americans is scary stuff.

And besides, we’re capitalists, where everybody has to pull his own weight. No handouts! Well, handouts for corporations—tax cuts and other economic incentives—are just fine.

Opponents to Biden’s plan should stop hiding behind a contorted definition of socialism.

With a socialist government, there is no private property, and the government owns and administers the means of production. I don’t see the feds trying to confiscate GM’s factories or homeowners being divested of their homes.

The true definition of socialism has been morphed into a pejorative reference for any government initiative that proposes anything close to equality for everyone.

By this measure, then maybe I’m a socialist. After all, I was trained by socialists—Catholic nuns and priests—who for 16 years inculcated the idea of compassion and that all human beings deserve the same dignity and respect and have the same worth.

Then there were my 22 years in the Navy.

What, the Navy is a socialist organization?

Remember, we’re using the colloquial definition of socialism. It doesn’t matter who you are, or where you come from, if you want to pursue a career in avionic electronics, the Navy will give you all the training you need, and the leadership in your squadron will push you to advance yourself. Everybody gets the same chance.

But we’re stuck with a system that hasn’t changed much for hundreds of years. There are people at the top of the economic ladder, and lots more at the bottom who don’t earn enough to get by.

Any talk about raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour results in cries about inflation and how the economy will suffer. Which is to say, the folks at the bottom have to take it on the chin for the rest of us. And if they don’t deserve a living wage, they surely don’t deserve anything in Biden’s bill that might make their lives better.

And down deep, some of those who oppose raising the minimum wage and Biden’s bill probably believe that low wage workers simply don’t deserve more. If they were more on the ball, well, surely, “those people” would be doing better.

Just under 20 percent of U.S. workers earn less than $15 an hour, and we expect them to contend with expenses like transportation, childcare, healthcare, and access to nutritious food—things high earners take for granted—on a wage that barely puts food on the table.

But we like the way it is because it suits us.

Want to buy a burger? A low wage earner will prepare it. Want your garbage picked up? A low wage earner will take care of that. Does one of your parents need a home healthcare worker? Count on a low wage earner taking take care of mom or dad.

Things are just fine—if you’re at the top, and the people at the bottom stay where they are.

[This post was published as an op-ed in The Columbus Dispatch on October 27, 2021.]

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Jack D’Aurora writes for Considerthisbyjd.com

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Also published on Medium.

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Bill Lyons November 8, 2021

Good article, Jack! We all do better if we all are doing better! We don’t live as isolated individuals, we live in communities and depend on each other. There is indeed a cost on society when a few people and corporations are extracting all the wealth and externalizing their costs on the health and well-being of the people. Capitalism is killing the planet and ourselves! The narrative has gotten people to think that socialism has to be the Soviet model. We can envision and create a better world! The current system must be challenged and changed because it is not working for most of us.
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JimBobb, the Wonder Weasel November 8, 2021

Historically, governments have never worried much about the least of these. Individual alms and, later, religious organizations were expected to do the trick. Even during the Black Death, which killed up to 60% of the European population, gig workers carted the corpses away, while rulers sealed themselves away from the pestilence (ironically, workers’ wages jumped dramatically as a result of the plague, because most of the fatalities were among low paid workers, who were thereby in high demand).

The radical concept that GOVERNMENT should be providing for the least of these is what drives many people to proclaim that Socialism is on the march. When alms are given not out of a spirit of charity, but via an involuntary collection of taxes for redistribution to people or causes selected by bureaucrats, it is resented by those who would otherwise not give. And, in some cases, even by those who otherwise would have given. In many European countries, tithes are collected from taxpayers along with their taxes, and then redistributed to the religious denominations in which they profess membership, an interesting hybrid of involuntary private charity. The result in recent years has been a huge increase in the number of withdrawals from registered church memberships. Might the same thinking cause Americans to say “You know what? The government’s taking care of them, so I’m not going to give – as much, or at all.” Curiously, at the same time that involuntary charity grows, there is no governmental incentive to increase voluntary charity beyond $300 to $600 per year. 🤨

Purely from anecdotal experience, I would suggest that the largest group of resentful non-givers are those who are just above the economic level at which they would benefit from the assistance – in other words, the not quite least of these. That’s certainly the group to whom conservative anti socialists are pitching their message. Not their historical constituencies of the wealthy and business owners. And that’s also a characteristic of American heritage. Wave after wave of immigrants has said to the wave behind it “I finally got mine, and I ain’t gonna give it away to you!” And yet the whole world acknowledges that Americans are the most charitable people of all time.

Go figger!
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Kay G. November 8, 2021

If you recall they said the same about Social Security. When in discussion with a person who agrees with the Cronin’s of the world, I always say, “you are very proud to decry socialism, correct?” Invariably the response is “sure am and proud of it”. My reply to them is in the form of the question ” so you are not going to apply to collect your social security and Medicare?” Those are two programs set up by progressive Democrats. Or perhaps you want to kick your grandmother out of the nursing home who survives on a leftist group plan called Medicaid?? We live in a world of uneducated people with social media and conspiracy theory addictions. And society cannot fix STUPID.
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Kevin Bauman November 8, 2021

I wish people would stop using social security as an example of a generally acceptable social program. It is a government mandated retirement savings plan for those that are not public employees (since they have a better plan). Everyone that contributes to social security is eligible for benefits.

The Biden plan is a different animal. It is increased government spending for the benefit of a limited number of people. I’m mostly in favor of the Biden plan but I thoroughly understand why folks look at this differently. I just wish people would stop comparing apples to oranges.
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Steven Spring November 12, 2021

As always Jack, a great article!!! I didn’t see the article in the paper as I recently quit cold turkey from my 55 year addiction to the Dispatch. Instead of making monthly newspaper payments, I open new 18 month interest free credit cards and buy new camera equipment. Plus, it gives me an extra hour every morning to work on my photography.

I hope you had a happy Veteran’s Day!!!

Steve
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David V January 5, 2022

Kay G. needs to read Kevin Bauman’s as well as the authors comments regarding “colloquial socialism”. A program which people actually put money in for years and years to receive a benefit down the road, is a far cry from what socialism really is.
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