I think, it's a big problem that the US has no tradition of a moderate socialism.

[DetlefK]

Ask a US-citizen about socilaism and he will bring up Communism. He will bring up the planned economy of the Soviet-Union. He will bring up the socialist dictatorships of South-America.

Many people fail to grasp that there are many degrees of socialism. It ranges from the full-blown socialism mentioned above to mild social-democratic ideas like universal insurance and worker's rights.

Socialism isn't just Soviet-Union and South-America. It's for example also France, Germany and Scandinavia.

For example, Germany has a system called "social market-economy". It's capitalism, but within a rigid regulatory frame-work to prevent excesses.



Germany's social-democracy got german employees:
* 39/40/41 hour week (depending on company)
* If you work a job listed as 50%/75%/100% work-hours per week, you actually get 50%/75%/100% of the wage before taxes.
* €9.35 ($10.15) minimum-wage
* paid sick-leave
* 28 days of paid vacation
* 14 weeks of paid pregnancy-leave and afterwards your employer must give you your job back.
* up to 36 months of optional unpaid "Elternzeit" ("parent-time&quot each for both mother and father to stay at home with your kid and afterwards your employer must give you your job back.
* All companies must have a supervisory board that must greenlight certain decisions of the board of directors. 50% of members are from the board of directors, 50% get elected by the company-employees. The CEO has the tie-breaking vote.



Germany has a two-tier health-insurance system:
* A network of government-sanctioned non-profits (one per state) runs the public health-insurance. They are cheap and cover just enough to get by. Basic surgery, cheapest-possible glasses, cheapest-possible dental... And if you can prove that you absolutely cannot afford health-insurance, they will put you on their cheapest plan and the government will pay for it. And even though it's mandatory to have health-insurance, your insurance-company cannot bilk you with expensive, crappy plans, because they are a non-profit.
* The other half of the health-insurance system are private health-insurance corporations. Their plans are fucking expensive, but they also make sure that you get treated like a king, because the number of possible clients is ultimately limited to middle-class and upper-class.



And THAT is what moderate socialism, social-democracy, can do for you. Republicans keep bringing up the venezuelan strawman because they know that they can't argue against this.

[Baitball Blogger]

1. What are you talking about? The U.S. has the bigest socialist-style organization in the world.

It's called the military. Students that enroll into the military are assigned their underwear. Civilians who live on a military base pay rent control fees. etc.

[Thyla]

2. Moderate socialism is practically most of the developed world...

And here is the tip of the day, none of the nations accused of being socialist, socialist democracies or what ever label you guys want to throw at them refer to themselves as being a socialist country.
Australia, Uk, France, Canada and so on rarely if ever label themselves as socialist. It's a US concept. Even the parties on the right side of politics in these nations would be considered Sanders style socialism.

I know most here are aware of that but I find it crazy, Sanders would be considered a slightly left of centre candidate in most nations.

[world wide wally]

3. We just feel better not admitting it

[Brother Buzz]

4. The US has a long staid practice of socialism, and it's pretty simple, albeit bent

Privatize the profits. Socialize the losses.