Sanders Hearkens Back to Old-Time Socialist Presidential Candidate Eugene Debs

[question everything]

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’s upstart presidential candidacy is being fueled by voter sentiment that hasn’t been so prominent for nearly a century: a fight between the economic haves and have-nots. It’s a stewing sense of unfairness last tapped to broad affect by a couple of his political heroes: socialist presidential candidates Eugene Debs and Norman Thomas, each of whom lost five times in the early part of the 20th century.

While they faltered on Election Day, they did succeed in pushing the Democratic Party to the left, and some of their policy proposals found their way into President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. History might repeat itself as Mr. Sanders’s passionate attacks on big corporations and the wealthy could influence the policies of Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton on trade and regulating Wall Street investors.

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Candidates aligned with the socialist movement tend to gain the most attention during times of increased income inequality, and particularly on the heels of a stock-market crash, historians said.

When Mr. Debs ran for president in the early years of the 20th century, the top 1% of income earners accounted for about 15% to 18% of all income in the U.S., according to data compiled by economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, who advocate much higher taxes on the wealthy. That percentage had increased to 19.6% when Mr. Thomas ran in 1928. Income inequality declined during the Great Depression and remained mild through the early 1980s, but it has picked up since then. Now, as Mr. Sanders makes his run for the White House, the top 1% of income earners are taking in about the same percentage of all income as they did a century ago, the economists report. Last year, the measure reached 17.85%.

Mr. Sanders harkened back to the New Deal in a recent speech dedicated to explaining what it means to him to be a self-described Democratic socialist today. He highlighted some of the key elements of the New Deal legislative package—including the passage of Social Security, housing assistance and a jobs program—and drew parallels between that era and the present. In a reference to Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Sanders noted: “By the way, almost everything he proposed was called ‘socialist.’ ”

Mr. Debs is a legendary figure in the U.S. socialist movement. He led a railroad workers union strike, dubbed the Pullman Strike, and traveled the country during one election cycle campaigning on a train called “the Red Special.”.. Like Mr. Sanders, audiences came out in the thousands to hear Mr. Debs speak. Sanders is picking up some of that anti-corporate spirit,” said James Green, emeritus history professor at University of Massachusetts at Boston. “What ties him to Debs is a sense that corporate America, big-time capitalism, is inherently corrupt and destructive to American democracy and the American people.”

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Of course, workforce trends have changed since the early and mid-20th century. Both Mr. Debs and Mr. Thomas rose to prominence during a time of union ascendancy, while now the labor movement’s hold on the workforce has been in decline for decades. Meanwhile, corporations have grown exponentially in size and scale since Mr. Debs’s day.

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Rather than talk of national ownership of corporations, Mr. Sanders’s proposals are for Social Security increases, free college tuition and breaking up big banks, or what Mr. Green called “21st century socialism.”

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That Mr. Sanders’s campaign, even if it fails, could play an important role long after the 2016 election has been acknowledged by the candidate himself. “This campaign really is not about Bernie Sanders,” the candidate often says on the campaign trail. “It’s about transforming America.”

http://www.wsj.com/articles/bernie-sanders-hearkens-back-to-old-time-socialist-presidential-candidate-eugene-debs-1448657303

[daybranch]

1. You are so wrong. It ain't about income inequality, it is about wealth inequality.

Anyone that actually believes that by creating a system of taxes on income by which some form of economic justice can be established, I have news for you that ship sailed away over 50 years ago. What we have now is great accumulation of wealth being used to create continued government influence and perpetuate the financial and political dynasties that crony capitalism and monopoly have allowed to flourish.
We could raise taxes on the top 1 percent to 90 percent and with their lawyers and government influence they would pay much less- maybe 5 to 10 percent (just a guess based on the fact that with tax rates in high 30's corporations often pay nothing). To me this is as silly as Kentucky taxing dogs in their early days because dogs were suppoosedly an indication that you had lots of livestock to protect. The point is, where is the huge inequity, is it that the wealthy make 1500 times what a worker does or is it that they have been doing so for the last 50 years? I say the wealth inequity is the big problem and should be addressed directly by a huge progressive inheritance tax. In this way, we will never have to watch a democratic candidate do like President Obama did, promise not to redistribute wealth.
Wealth redistribution through inheritance and even better an ownership tax, coupled with a living wage could remedy the wealth inequities that exist over say 20 years or so. But until we accept that we should claw back what has been stolen from us, we will just continue to be manipulated impotent pawns.
Bernie is not an old time socialist unless you mean by that someone who is forced to look at socialism when capitalism has failed. Eugene Debs did not start out as a socialist. He was driven to it. Bernie Sanders is a democratic socialist as was Martin Luther King Junior, Albert Einstein,as was Mrs. Franklin Roosevelt, Helen Keller, W.E.B. DuBois and many other great people in American History.
I also believe you misstate what Bernie means when he says this campaign is really not about Bernie sanders. This campaign is about democracy and rule by the people. It is not about pushing the democrats to the left in search of some ideology. It is about letting people run their own country and trusting them to do that. So no Bernie will never bre satisfied with moving Hillary to the left. Moving her to the left means she would move away from her corporate sponsors towards real democracy, not just push some progressive band-aids to protect the rich. If Hillary is nominated , the people lose big time. Sorry if I do not sound as dispassionate and objective as you but I am very passionate about democracy at this point.