Socialism in America

[TBF]

The Sanders insurgency, the polling data, and the growing experimentation with a range of alternatives all suggest that we may be on the brink of a new era—an extended and difficult period in which a new economy is slowly forged.

Socialism in America Is Closer Than You Think
Experiments with public ownership are thriving across the country. The challenge is to link them and scale them up.
By Gar Alperovitz
2/11/16 ~ 9:35 am

In 1970, the great liberal economist John Kenneth Galbraith declared that the “Democratic Party must henceforth use the word ‘socialism.’ It describes what is needed.” Like many others, however, Galbraith largely dropped the subject in subsequent years. The response to Bernie Sanders’s insurgent presidential campaign, along with polls showing that large numbers of young people and minorities in America have a positive view of socialism, suggest that this once-forbidden concept may no longer be taboo.

More than 40 percent of Americans under the age of 30 view socialism favorably, according to the most recent YouGov poll. Positive responses among black Americans have ranged between 29 and 41 percent in recent surveys. A 2011 Pew Research Center poll that omitted the “undecided” option found that 49 percent of its young participants viewed socialism favorably.

The most obvious source of this sea change is the failure of traditional approaches to address the nation’s most pressing problems: growing inequality, poverty, economic insecurity, global warming, perpetual war, and the decay and violence visited on black communities. Side by side with the increasing concentration of wealth has been the ever more blatant exploitation of the political power that wealth confers on elites and major corporations, most obviously by the Koch brothers and their right-wing allies.

Widespread dissatisfaction with the status quo creates a climate receptive to sweeping change ...

More here: http://www.thenation.com/article/socialism-in-america-is-closer-than-you-think/

[guillaumeb]

1. Gar Alperovitz missed the oldest socialist enterprise in the US.

The United States Postal Service. The most efficient and cost effective service in the world. A unionized Federal work force with a pension, health benefits, sick leave and more.

[TBF]

2. Quite true -

I think he was looking to point out newer ventures, but yours is a very good point!