The Radicalism of a Democratic Socialist
I’ve come to understand government as a necessary evil: it is a “local monopoly on force”. But how many or few control that force and for how much or little that force is responsible lie in completely separate dimensions. We must study these dimensions carefully to understand the nuance of Bernie Sanders’ oft-repeated self-assessment.
Bernie Sanders calls himself a “democratic socialist”. It’s easy to allow those two words to collapse down into a single point on the media’s liberal-conservative (left-right) line. And they’ll have you believe he’s a radical because of how far left his point lands. But it’s important that we do not mistakenly flatten two orthogonal vectors of government when trying to understand what they mean. Because they’re right: Bernie Sanders is a radical, but he’s not a radical in the dimension they like to talk about.
Let’s step back.
Socialism lies in the space from which we define the domain of government action.
Democracy lies in the space from which we define the domain of who has control over government action.
Put another way- socialism and capitalism lie on the spectrum of for how much should the government be responsible. Whereas democracy and totalitarianism lie on the spectrum of how many control the government.
Here are the spaces mapped out. The vertical (and blue) axis represents the Control spectrum, while the horizontal (red) axis represents the Responsibility spectrum.
Control over Government vs. Government Responsibility #
First let’s examine the vertical axis. I’ve arbitrarily chosen ‘up’ on your screen as the direction of distributed control (ie. more voices driving government decisions, see: Democracy). This is government by the many. ‘Down’ then is more consolidated control (ie. fewer voices driving government decisions, see: Totalitarianism). This is government by the few.
Control over Government: By the Many or By the Few #
Likewise, look at the horizontal axis. I’ve arbitrarily chosen ‘right’ on your screen as the direction of increased government responsibility (ie. government acts in more industries, see: Communism). As we move ‘left’ on the spectrum, government becomes responsible for less (ie. government stays out of most industries, see: Capitalism).
Government Responsibility: Where Left is Right and Right is Left #
NOTE: This is (unintentionally) opposite of convention, where right is often used to describe smaller gov and left has been linked to bigger gov. This ultimately may be productive so as to break the preconceived notions poisoned by the main stream media... or it might just be confusing... sorry.
Bernie Sanders calls himself a socialist. But this is nothing radical. In fact socialism generally describes an entire spectrum between absolute free market capitalism and all out communism. The United States is already well inside the socialist spectrum with a government that is at least partially responsible for education, healthcare, environmental regulation, consumer protection, and anti-trust action among other affairs.
The Vaguely-Defined Scary Spectrum of Socialism #
Now let’s attempt to plot the current United States government in the plane. On the horizontal axis, between no-holds-barred free market capitalism and all out communism, the United States falls much closer to “government responsible for less”. We are among a set of uniquely capitalist nations, but we are not totally anarcho-capitalist. As mentioned above, the US federal government plays an active role in many industries. It does, however, fall on the free-market outskirts of many developed nations: ie. most European governments play toward the right of the United States on this axis. As such, I’ve (somewhat arbitrarily) dropped the United States government about 1/5 of the way between capitalism and communism.
The vertical axis is more straightforward. In the United States, 90% of the public citizenry hold opinions that are entirely unreflected in government policy. At the same time, a specific subset (the wealthiest 10%) of the population hold opinions that are nearly perfectly reflected by government policy. In other words, only 10% of the citizens of the country influence the actions of the government exclusively, and it is plain to see that an even smaller percentage likely controls a very large share of the US government’s actions. There is no doubt that we live under a government that is controlled by the few. As such, I’ve dropped the United States about 1/10 of the way up from Totalitarian.
The Modern United States: Totalitarian Capitalist #
Now let’s look at where Bernie wants to go.
True, he falls to further to the ‘right’ on our responsibility spectrum- that means deeper into the socialist territory. But none of his ideas in this space are radical:
Make college education free. Moving public education from K-12 to K-16 for the 21st century is hardly radical.
Create a single-payer healthcare system. Moving to a system that every other developed nation established between 1914 and 1980 for lower cost at higher quality is hardly radical.
Bust the largest, most powerful trusts in the country. There is no new precedent here, this has been done by Democrats and Republicans from the 1890s to the 1990s.
In other words, Bernie is looking to shift the country toward more government responsibility but it cannot be considered a radical shift by any measure of the word.
On the other hand, Bernie is trying to move this country radically in another direction: toward democracy and away from totality- on our graph that is ‘up’. In this space, Bernie stands for more radical ideas:
Limit regulatory capture. This is radical. Right now, lobby culture and the revolving door of Congress make it legal for large corporations to buy out the very lawmakers who are tasked with regulating them. This is a totalitarian practice, it encourages government control by the few.
Limit campaign finance This is radical. Right now, it is possible and legal for a single wealthy family or a single large corporation to finance their own politician. This is a totalitarian practice, it encourages government control by the few.
Lift voter suppression laws. This is radical. Many state and municipal governments have taken up active campaigns to suppress the vote by: gerrymandering district lines, requiring undo burdens to vote, making it illegal for certain classes of citizens to vote, moving polling stations soon before election time without notice, making the registration process as difficult as possible. These are totalitarian practices, they encourage government control by the few.
Encourage a culture of participation in the political process. This is radical. Today, depending on the election cycle- 40% to 60% of eligible voters do not participate in elections. This encourages government control by the few.
These policies land Bernie much further up the spectrum of who controls government. These policies are radical because no other presidential candidate from either party is running on this platform. As a Democratic Socialist, Bernie Sanders is a radical, and it’s not because of the socialism bit.
Bernie’s Goal: Democratic-Socialism #
