I studied the Constitution in law school 50 years ago and since. I can reliably state that four words not found in the document are capitalism, socialism, communism and corporation. Capitalism is a system that exploits workers for profit and corporations are legal fictions that allow wrongdoers to avoid financial responsibility for wrongs committed by their officers and owners. I see nothing wrong with socialism or communism. Neither exploits workers or citizens.
What bothers me is how even Will is imprecise with his terms. To be fair, I am too. You can bet your bippy Trump is, but that’s barely worth mentioning at this point. This litany is certainly true of all the nationwide communist states I can think of, but it’s a description of them, not a definition. It’s equally true of lots of fascist states, and probably dictatorships that fall along other ideological lines. So much of this is about the state having too much power over its citizens and feeling justified using it.
I’m actually reminded of a rather obscure philosophy essay, David Hume’s “Of the Standard of Taste.” (https://davidhume.org/texts/empl1/st) He’s asking whether there’s a universal, objective standard for what’s beautiful, goes on a tangent about what he calls moral virtues, and writes:
“There are certain terms in every language, which import blame, and others praise; and all men, who use the same tongue, must agree in their application of them. Every voice is united in applauding elegance, propriety, simplicity, spirit in writing; and in blaming fustian, affectation, coldness, and a false brilliancy: But when critics come to particulars, this seeming unanimity vanishes; and it is found, that they had affixed a very different meaning to their expressions.”
Basically: everyone agrees that courage and generosity and truthfulness are good (well, most people…), but they almost never agree what those terms cover. Bravery means something much more violent and bold in Homer’s day than they did in Hume’s, or our own. And I think for a lot of people “communism” works the same way. It’s the bogeyman of their formative years. It’s definitionally bad; so to their mind, a lot of what’s bad becomes communism.
Not that I’m a dyed-in-the-wool Red myself. I like the free market and think it works well for a lot of problems. The problem is *inequality*, which keeps too many people from accessing it; and also where we think it’s the go-to tool for every problem over the sun. And if we’re going to go the public ownership route, what Zamdani actually is is a lot less scary. Democratic socialism, like Norway and Sweden, may not be my first preference, and I do think it works better if done locally where people can know and trust the people they’re helping more. But it’s not going to lead to empty grocery shelves and gulags like so many Americans of a certain age imagine. Quite the opposite. I’ve got a friend in Oslo. It actually seems quite lovely. And at this point we’d be a fool to rule anything out entirely, because the current set-up really isn’t working.
That’s not even the most important part, though, is it? It’s the president’s idea that he or anyone other than the proud people of New York get to decide how they do things. If Mr. Trump wants to move back to New York (only please don’t), he gets to be exactly one voice among many. Until then, he doesn’t get even that. And this whole idea he gets to decide anything in a democracy? That would be Nyet.
What really gets me is that although the more reserved of Trump supporters count certain long-term accusations of the left as an underrated reason Trump got elected, the possibility that their history of casually comparing political opponents to Soviet style communists has helped Mamdani whether the storm shows no sign of having occurred to them.
When people call someone a leftist, crazy liberal, socialist, communist, etc, I ask them to define the term. Most people can't define the term. Some of my GOP friends labeled Obama as a socialist or communist. When I told them the definition of socialism and communism, they dismissed the definition. It's the same with most of the terms thrown around by propagandists.
I don't think a government owned grocery store is a solution to monopolistic power of our food supply businesses, and it probably not sustainable. However it's refreshing to hear a political candidate honestly simply name affordability as a major problem facing the bottom 90% of Americans.
American government policy has been captured and dictated by oligarchs and plutocrats. For five decades, we were lied to about capitalism. A free market is not based on government policy dictated by oligarchs and plutocrats lobbyists and democracy is not aligned with big money buying politicians & judges.
That's a great list of the intrusions and control that a Big Brother government imposes on its private citizens. And accurate description of how the Trump government checks every box bigly.
This is more than just big government. This is invasion of every single aspect of our private economic and cultural lives. I wonder what has happened to what remains of the Republican party which so loudly pushed liberty, freedom and individualism as recently as the pandemic.
Yeah, Trump’s foray, beyond his efforts to exert maximum political control, into cultural and scientific spheres is a clear reminder of Stalinism, e.g., Shostakovich barely escaped the Gulag or worse when his 1937 opera “Lady Macbeth” was met by this review in Pravda (supposedly written anonymously by Stalin):”…..muddled stream of sounds.” Well, for comparison, Trump has named such fine arts luminaries as Sylvester Stallone as a Kennedy Center honoree. Stalin killed Soviet genetics for decades by supporting Lysenkoism, a form of Lamarckism (the inheritance of acquired characteristics), while Trump scoffs at climate science and supports the fossil fuel industry and legislatively removes the tax incentives for electric vehicles.
It’s frustrating to see the rampant misunderstanding of the word Communism and also Socialism. They are commonly misconstrued with Centrally Planned Economies and/or Authoritarian Government. They may have been some correlation in history (eg Soviet Union and Communist China), but today those countries are basically oligarchical capitalist economies, with government by authoritarian regimes. That is exactly where we are headed (if not already there).
Pure socialism is characterized by two basic features: (1) social, i.e., government, ownership of most enterprises, and (2) allocation of resources according to various social and economic criteria by planning agencies (gov’t). Pure capitalism is characterized by: (1) private, i.e., investor, ownership of enterprises with shares traded on public stock exchanges, and (2) allocation of resources according to market prices and private incentives. In point of fact, practically all economies in the world are some variant of a mixture of these two polar opposites. Some with more social elements (the Scandinavian nations) and some with more private elements, e.g., the U.S. Even Vietnam and the PRC have fully functioning stock exchanges. Social democracy, which is often confused with socialism, has largely private ownership of enterprise and primary resort to markets, but with a comprehensive welfare state supported by high taxes, redistributive taxation, and universal access to certain key societal requirements, e.g., healthcare.
I'm very glad to see this article. It was just one month of trump's horrible actions and we need to remember everything he's done. He's so horrible that it's actually hard to keep up with all of it.
And incredibly, there are even more examples of Trump's stalinist tendencies that didn't make it into this post. He's also fired top intelligence officials who questioned his claims about the Venezuelan government's ties to criminal gangs or the degree to which our attacks on Iran wrecked its nuclear infrastructure. This regime always suppresses truth and punishes truth tellers when reality conflicts with the official WH propaganda.
You know what would be nice? If other democrats would come to Zohran’s defense and endorse him instead of joining in on Trump’s attacks. The way democrats routinely team up with Republicans against progressive candidates is disgraceful. I find it even more disgusting than anything Trump has done to attack him. Bernie and AOC threw their full support behind Biden even though I’m confident he wasn’t their top choice, but corporate AIPAC butt-kissing Dems never return the favor. Now Adams and Cuomo are actively colluding with Trump to sabotage him.
Fuck them. It doesn’t matter if you agree or all of his policies. He is a democrat. You are a democrat. Suck it up and accept that this is the will of the voters in New York City, or don’t cry and have a fit over progressive “purity tests.”
>>"The way democrats routinely team up with Republicans against progressive candidates is disgraceful. "
The corporate Dems hate Progressives more than they hate Republicans. It's because the Progressives threaten their honeypot of big corporate money and their cushy relations with corporate lobbyists and influencers.
It just dawned on me that the "if you stop crime, they let you be a dictator" is likely something he picked up from Bukele, the first dictator he made a genuine "deal" with this term. That we don't have anywhere near the level of crime problem that El Salvador had is lost on him - the lesson should be "if you fix the thing that troubles your population most..." In El Salvador it was crime, in 1930s Europe it was unemployment. If Trump somehow brought the cost of living down, he probably would be able to get away with anything.
As bad as things are, we did catch a break with our tyrant not being very bright.
I studied the Constitution in law school 50 years ago and since. I can reliably state that four words not found in the document are capitalism, socialism, communism and corporation. Capitalism is a system that exploits workers for profit and corporations are legal fictions that allow wrongdoers to avoid financial responsibility for wrongs committed by their officers and owners. I see nothing wrong with socialism or communism. Neither exploits workers or citizens.
What bothers me is how even Will is imprecise with his terms. To be fair, I am too. You can bet your bippy Trump is, but that’s barely worth mentioning at this point. This litany is certainly true of all the nationwide communist states I can think of, but it’s a description of them, not a definition. It’s equally true of lots of fascist states, and probably dictatorships that fall along other ideological lines. So much of this is about the state having too much power over its citizens and feeling justified using it.
I’m actually reminded of a rather obscure philosophy essay, David Hume’s “Of the Standard of Taste.” (https://davidhume.org/texts/empl1/st) He’s asking whether there’s a universal, objective standard for what’s beautiful, goes on a tangent about what he calls moral virtues, and writes:
“There are certain terms in every language, which import blame, and others praise; and all men, who use the same tongue, must agree in their application of them. Every voice is united in applauding elegance, propriety, simplicity, spirit in writing; and in blaming fustian, affectation, coldness, and a false brilliancy: But when critics come to particulars, this seeming unanimity vanishes; and it is found, that they had affixed a very different meaning to their expressions.”
Basically: everyone agrees that courage and generosity and truthfulness are good (well, most people…), but they almost never agree what those terms cover. Bravery means something much more violent and bold in Homer’s day than they did in Hume’s, or our own. And I think for a lot of people “communism” works the same way. It’s the bogeyman of their formative years. It’s definitionally bad; so to their mind, a lot of what’s bad becomes communism.
Not that I’m a dyed-in-the-wool Red myself. I like the free market and think it works well for a lot of problems. The problem is *inequality*, which keeps too many people from accessing it; and also where we think it’s the go-to tool for every problem over the sun. And if we’re going to go the public ownership route, what Zamdani actually is is a lot less scary. Democratic socialism, like Norway and Sweden, may not be my first preference, and I do think it works better if done locally where people can know and trust the people they’re helping more. But it’s not going to lead to empty grocery shelves and gulags like so many Americans of a certain age imagine. Quite the opposite. I’ve got a friend in Oslo. It actually seems quite lovely. And at this point we’d be a fool to rule anything out entirely, because the current set-up really isn’t working.
That’s not even the most important part, though, is it? It’s the president’s idea that he or anyone other than the proud people of New York get to decide how they do things. If Mr. Trump wants to move back to New York (only please don’t), he gets to be exactly one voice among many. Until then, he doesn’t get even that. And this whole idea he gets to decide anything in a democracy? That would be Nyet.
What really gets me is that although the more reserved of Trump supporters count certain long-term accusations of the left as an underrated reason Trump got elected, the possibility that their history of casually comparing political opponents to Soviet style communists has helped Mamdani whether the storm shows no sign of having occurred to them.
When people call someone a leftist, crazy liberal, socialist, communist, etc, I ask them to define the term. Most people can't define the term. Some of my GOP friends labeled Obama as a socialist or communist. When I told them the definition of socialism and communism, they dismissed the definition. It's the same with most of the terms thrown around by propagandists.
I don't think a government owned grocery store is a solution to monopolistic power of our food supply businesses, and it probably not sustainable. However it's refreshing to hear a political candidate honestly simply name affordability as a major problem facing the bottom 90% of Americans.
American government policy has been captured and dictated by oligarchs and plutocrats. For five decades, we were lied to about capitalism. A free market is not based on government policy dictated by oligarchs and plutocrats lobbyists and democracy is not aligned with big money buying politicians & judges.
That's a great list of the intrusions and control that a Big Brother government imposes on its private citizens. And accurate description of how the Trump government checks every box bigly.
This is more than just big government. This is invasion of every single aspect of our private economic and cultural lives. I wonder what has happened to what remains of the Republican party which so loudly pushed liberty, freedom and individualism as recently as the pandemic.
If we view Trump as the Lindbergh character in this narrative all we need is an FDR. Central casting where are you?
I like this guy more and more. I'm going to his web site and give this dude a little money. Power to the People Comrade Zohran!
Yeah, Trump’s foray, beyond his efforts to exert maximum political control, into cultural and scientific spheres is a clear reminder of Stalinism, e.g., Shostakovich barely escaped the Gulag or worse when his 1937 opera “Lady Macbeth” was met by this review in Pravda (supposedly written anonymously by Stalin):”…..muddled stream of sounds.” Well, for comparison, Trump has named such fine arts luminaries as Sylvester Stallone as a Kennedy Center honoree. Stalin killed Soviet genetics for decades by supporting Lysenkoism, a form of Lamarckism (the inheritance of acquired characteristics), while Trump scoffs at climate science and supports the fossil fuel industry and legislatively removes the tax incentives for electric vehicles.
I've been calling Trump a communist since his current administration. A racist communist to be precise.
It’s frustrating to see the rampant misunderstanding of the word Communism and also Socialism. They are commonly misconstrued with Centrally Planned Economies and/or Authoritarian Government. They may have been some correlation in history (eg Soviet Union and Communist China), but today those countries are basically oligarchical capitalist economies, with government by authoritarian regimes. That is exactly where we are headed (if not already there).
Pure socialism is characterized by two basic features: (1) social, i.e., government, ownership of most enterprises, and (2) allocation of resources according to various social and economic criteria by planning agencies (gov’t). Pure capitalism is characterized by: (1) private, i.e., investor, ownership of enterprises with shares traded on public stock exchanges, and (2) allocation of resources according to market prices and private incentives. In point of fact, practically all economies in the world are some variant of a mixture of these two polar opposites. Some with more social elements (the Scandinavian nations) and some with more private elements, e.g., the U.S. Even Vietnam and the PRC have fully functioning stock exchanges. Social democracy, which is often confused with socialism, has largely private ownership of enterprise and primary resort to markets, but with a comprehensive welfare state supported by high taxes, redistributive taxation, and universal access to certain key societal requirements, e.g., healthcare.
Thank you.
I'm very glad to see this article. It was just one month of trump's horrible actions and we need to remember everything he's done. He's so horrible that it's actually hard to keep up with all of it.
And incredibly, there are even more examples of Trump's stalinist tendencies that didn't make it into this post. He's also fired top intelligence officials who questioned his claims about the Venezuelan government's ties to criminal gangs or the degree to which our attacks on Iran wrecked its nuclear infrastructure. This regime always suppresses truth and punishes truth tellers when reality conflicts with the official WH propaganda.
You know what would be nice? If other democrats would come to Zohran’s defense and endorse him instead of joining in on Trump’s attacks. The way democrats routinely team up with Republicans against progressive candidates is disgraceful. I find it even more disgusting than anything Trump has done to attack him. Bernie and AOC threw their full support behind Biden even though I’m confident he wasn’t their top choice, but corporate AIPAC butt-kissing Dems never return the favor. Now Adams and Cuomo are actively colluding with Trump to sabotage him.
Fuck them. It doesn’t matter if you agree or all of his policies. He is a democrat. You are a democrat. Suck it up and accept that this is the will of the voters in New York City, or don’t cry and have a fit over progressive “purity tests.”
>>"The way democrats routinely team up with Republicans against progressive candidates is disgraceful. "
The corporate Dems hate Progressives more than they hate Republicans. It's because the Progressives threaten their honeypot of big corporate money and their cushy relations with corporate lobbyists and influencers.
It just dawned on me that the "if you stop crime, they let you be a dictator" is likely something he picked up from Bukele, the first dictator he made a genuine "deal" with this term. That we don't have anywhere near the level of crime problem that El Salvador had is lost on him - the lesson should be "if you fix the thing that troubles your population most..." In El Salvador it was crime, in 1930s Europe it was unemployment. If Trump somehow brought the cost of living down, he probably would be able to get away with anything.
As bad as things are, we did catch a break with our tyrant not being very bright.
Agreement with all your insights.
"Catch a break" is a good way of putting it. Even a dull tyrant can destroy a republic given enough time. The clock is ticking.
Trump's attacks on Mamdani have been a boon to him almost certainly. Trump really doesn't seem to realize that NYC hates him.
I'm a communist. Nothing wrong with believing the working class deserve the same rights and privileges as the wealthy.