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When Vice President Joe Biden won the Democratic primary earlier this year, it was ablow to the independent progressive and left forces, which had been working hard in support of more progressive candidates like Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. People grieved, then rallied. The most important thing now, many have reasoned, is to oust President Donald Trump from office, even if it means backing acandidate who does not share the same core values youdo.

Now, in the final weeks before the election, progressive and left organizations are working hard to get out the vote for acandidate many of them dont feel enthusiastic about. In the process, theyre aiming to build astronger, independentleft.

LeftRoots, asocialist organization, doesnt normally get involved in campaigns. The organization educates and trains community organizers (mostly people of color and women) across the country in political education and strategy development, with the goal of establishing 21st century socialism in the UnitedStates.

This year is different. In the wake of acatastrophic Trump presidency, LeftRoots took astep back to review the whole picture. Several times aweek the organization mobilizes its members and networks to canvass, phone bank and text bank for Biden through Seed the Vote, avolunteer-based coalition working with already-existing groups providing grassroots efforts to get out thevote.

In this moment, defeating not just Trump, but also the forces that he represents, is our number one task, says Milena Velis, LeftRoots training director. Thats because of the real danger this white supremacist authoritarian minority thats vying to take control of the country right now poses for our communities and for our organizing goingforward.

Campaigning for Biden has not been an easy decision. The establishment Democrat, who voted for the 2003 invasion of Iraq and rejects key left demands like Medicare for All, doesnt reflect the socialist values that LeftRoots holds. Biden is not aleft-wing candidate, Velis explains. It requires us to both be honest and to not lose sight of our vision. We have to be talking about much bigger change than Bidens platformpolicy.

In its recently released situational objective document, LeftRoots says that left forces working to oust Trump should not hide our politics, nor become subsumed within the Democratic Party. Rather, the group says it sees the defeat of Trump not as an ending, but as the launching point for new struggle. The organization argues that whenever possible we should be open socialists against Trump, voting for Biden, defendingdemocracy.

So far, the call to action appears to be working. The enthusiasm from the LeftRoots community around getting out the vote has been strong, despite the many other issues staff and volunteers juggle. Many folks who are on the frontlines of community organizations, who are really engaged in fights against evictions, or trying to fight for labor protections for workers, at the end of the long day are getting on the phones for two hours to call someone in aswing state, Velis says. We have parents who are home with their kids, squeezing in afew hours to text folks on aweekend. This is really the time to throwdown.

LeftRoots is just one of many groups working to support Seed the Votes campaign effort in swing states, particularly Pennsylvania, Florida andArizona.

This years mission is to fill the gap in the Biden campaigns outreach, which appears to be neglecting to reach some marginalized communities with apowerful voting pool. In activating those people who have traditionally been left out, Seed the Vote hopes to nurture and build onto its existing base of voters and volunteers, creating amovement independent of the Democratic Party that can be activated forchange.

We dont know what the next weeks of the campaign will bring, but one thing is clear, wrote Emily Lee of Seed the Vote and Peter Hogness of Water For Grassroots in New York in arecent Guardian op-ed. Defeating Donald Trump is too important to leave up to the Bidencampaign.

The solution, they argue, lies in supporting established grassroots organizers who already have connections to communities that are at risk of voter suppression, or who arent yet registered tovote.

In conversations with disenchanted voters, agroup doing long-term organizing can have more credibility than acandidates campaign, state Lee and Hogness. Theyre working in the community 12 months ayear, not just appearing at election time, extracting avote, and thenvanishing.

These on-the-ground organizations, however, dont always have the staff or volunteer base available to run operations for amajor campaign, particularly in dense urban areas. Seed the Vote draws from anational pool of volunteers, trains them on the needs of each geographic area, and deploys them to canvass or phone bank for small organizations. Often, community-based nonprofits or neighborhood groups are away to start aconversation with potential voters who the Biden campaign may overlook, or not be culturally adept to talk to. For example, the Biden campaign didnt ramp up efforts to target Puerto Rican voters in Florida until mid-September. Seed the Vote has been making Spanish-language calls in Florida since at least August.

In Florida, which Trump won by 112,911 votes in 2016, Seed the Vote partners with the New Florida Majority, which fights for inclusion of marginalized communities in the electoral process, and Mijente, which advocates for Latinxrights.

Florida is avital state to watch in the upcoming election. As the third most populous state in the country, it has 29 seats in the electoral college, and has historically goneRepublican.

Its not impossible to flip. The population of people of color in Florida has grown 25% since 2010. Florida now has the third largest Latinx electorate in the country, with 3.1 million eligible to vote. But race does not always connote apolitical stance. As Seed the Vote states on its website, we can expect that Trumps campaign will aggressively pursue Latinx people and other key groups in Florida through anti-abortion and anti-socialistfearmongering.

In Pennsylvania, Seed the Vote volunteers provide support for Pennsylvania Stands Up, an umbrella advocacy organization with nine networks statewide that supports candidates who fight for racial and social justice while battling voter suppression and working to get people to thepolls.

In 2016, Trump won Pennsylvania by only 44,292 votes. This year, those on the ground believe the state can be flipped, but it wont happen without aton ofwork.

Michaela Purdue Lovegood, the deputy executive director at Pennsylvania Stands Up, says that voter suppression is amajor concern for the upcomingelection.

When Ithink about the work of voter suppression, theres alot of work that we need to do around laws, and around really figuring out how do we change laws, how do we ensure that people show up at the voting polls, how do we ensure that people get our mail-in ballots, she says. All of those things we have to do, but we dually have to do the work to deal with the decolonization that exists in our minds about what our vote is, and what it cando.

Every Thursday Seed the Vote volunteers team up with Pennsylvania Stands Up to help state residents make sure they are registered to vote, and to ensure they understand theprocess.

The work doesnt stop there. Even during the pandemic, there is acall for volunteers to travel to high-density areas like Philadelphia to canvass for Biden. Simply put, research shows us that there is no more effective way to persuade someone to vote than through aface-to-face conversation, reads an information guide for Seed the Vote volunteers. That is why it is critically important that you and your friends travel to Philadelphia to bring locals to these polling centers. (The Biden campaign initially declined to do door-to-door canvassing, but recently reversed itsposition.)

Last but not least is Arizona, which Trump won by 91,234 votes in 2016. In this state, Seed the Vote partners with Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA), which advocates for the rights of the states large Latinx population, and has been wildlysuccessful.

In a2019 New York Times op-ed, LUCHA founders Alejandra Gomez and Toms Robles Jr. state that Democrats have long treated communities of color as instruments of someone elses power rather than core progressives who should be instruments of their own power. This is despite the fact that there are 1.2 million eligible Latino voters in Arizona, making them ahighly impactful voterbase.

In the years since its creation, LUCHA has launched ahighly successful reclamation of that power. In the 2020 August primaries, 14 of the 15 legislative and county candidates LUCHA supported were victorious. In the primaries, LUCHA endorsed Sanders. The organization hasnt openly endorsed Biden, but its work hasnt stopped, and the mission is clear: kick Trump out ofoffice.

For organizers who campaigned hard for Senators Sanders or Warren only to see them lose, its important to keep their eyes on the horizon. Change happens in increments, and this is just one step toward amore progressivenation.

Biden is not our savior, write Lee and Hogness. In fact, if he wins, on many issues he may be our opponent. But defeating Trump will open possibilities for organizing that wont exist if he remains inoffice.

While existing organizations continue their legacy of voter education and empowerment, new collaborations are beingborn.

Every four years theres achorus of voices that says this is the most important election of our lifetime, states Maurice Mitchell the national director for the Working Families Party. This year Iam one of those voices. Things are bad now, and they can get worse. But that doesnt have to be where our story ends. In the midst of an unprecedented crisis, there is much we can be hopeful and drivenby.

The Working Families Partywhich identifies itself as a progressive grassroots political party with chapters in 15 states nationwideis now part of anew movement christened The Frontline. Launched in September, The Frontline is acollaboration between several groups, including immigrant rights group United We Dream Action and the Movement for Black Lives Electoral Justice Project. Its acollaboration that centers the myriad experiences of people of color, uniting them toward one clearcause.

The movements goals are short and succinct: Mission one is to defeat Trump in alandslide, to make it harder for him to refuse to step down between the election and inauguration. Step two is to push candidates Biden and Kamala Harris policies furtherleft.

We must seize the opportunity in the first hundred days to lift up the demands our movements have been fighting for decades, Frontline volunteer Cindy Wiesner recently told Organizing Upgrade. We have an opportunity to make the BREATHE Act real. We have the capacity to pass aGreen New Deal, to continue to push for areal Peoples Bailout, not acorporatebailout.

The energy, organizers believe, is already there. The Black-led uprisings around the country in response to police violence has activated acommunity that is desperate for change. Black and Brown communities, meanwhile, are the ones Trump is working hardest to discredit and exclude through voter suppression andcriminalization.

Our lives and the lives of the people that we love depend on us fighting with everything weve got to overthrow the Trumpism, the white supremacy, the white nationalismall the harm that is being done by this administration to our communities, says Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson of the Movement for Black Lives Electoral Justice Project. We are committed, not to fighting for asavior on Pennsylvania Avenue, but to fighting for our next target. And we will come as hard at the new administration that we hope will follow the Trump administration as we are at Trump rightnow.

Originally posted here:
The Socialists and Progressives Working Outside of the Biden Campaign to Oust Trump - In These Times

Although it can be politically expedient to draw a thick line between capitalist decentralization and socialist central planning, the truth is that these two systems have converged on many occasions. Moreover, each was conceived for the same purpose, and elements of both could be realized in today's digital economy.

PRINCETON The worlds most dynamic economy is governed by a communist party, whereas its previous capitalist stronghold is under the misrule of a man whose companies have gone bankrupt six times. With leading political ideologies becoming increasingly incoherent, labels seem to mean little anymore.

In the United States, President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans contend that only they stand between the American dream and a socialist revolution. Although Trumps Democratic challenger in Novembers election, Joe Biden, advocates no such thing, he does support putting an end to the era of shareholder capitalism. In any case, capitalism and socialism are once again front and center in the contest for public opinion and voters support.

But, unlike in past decades, the standard defense of capitalism has grown intellectually and politically weaker. While woke capitalists like the upmarket clothing brand Lululemon push marketing messages to resist capitalism, even traditional capitalists like the influential Business Roundtable an organization of CEOs from Americas largest publicly listed corporations are advocating fundamental reform. Similarly, Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum, denounces neoliberalism and free-market fundamentalism, and British Conservatives and US Republicans have taken to condemning the abuses of globalization and the market.

Todays ideological confusion owes much to technological disruption. Digitalization and the widespread diffusion of information and communication technology (ICT) have upended established views about centralization and decentralization. Traditionally, capitalisms advocates have argued for decentralization as a means of ensuring systemic resilience. When the system is properly arranged, bad decisions dont matter, because the consequences immediately become clear and market players will learn and adapt. The system is ultimately stable and self-correcting.

But the weightless digital economy and the increased importance of economies of scale have transformed such arguments. The marginal costs of producing immaterial products are essentially nil, and network effects confer far-reaching advantages to those who can win the race for scale within a given domain. At the same time, ICT is also disrupting pricing, which used to be the key informational input in market exchanges. The digital economy now features price differentiation and discrimination on a scale that was previously unimaginable, such that prices are increasingly being delinked from consumer demand.

Meanwhile, debates about socialism have also changed. The old socialist claim that centralized (social) planning would allow for more efficient resource allocation could never account for the fact that human decision-makers are subject to imperfect information. As such, socialist planners since the 1920s have argued that future advances in computing would eventually close the knowledge gap, to which critics responded by pointing out that autonomous markets still would always know more.

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This debate has repeated itself with every major advance in ICT, from the advent of electronic computers in the 1940s through the introduction of large mainframes in the 1960s, PCs in the 1980s, and smartphones in the 2000s. Yet this time may be different. We have indeed reached a stage at which computers can process more information than complex human societies can. Artificial-intelligence algorithms have quickly gone from beating humans at chess and Go to writing poetry. Why shouldnt they be able to improve upon human markets?

The apparent convergence between central planning and individual choice is not new. In the 1950s and 1960s the heyday of managerial capitalism many assumed that big corporations would operate the same way regardless of whether the setting was capitalist or socialist. Since they themselves were planned institutions, they did not respond to market signals.

Similar convergences can be found in the early nineteenth century, when the terms capitalism and socialism first gained currency. Some of the most influential socialist theoreticians of the Industrial Revolution were themselves capitalists. The French ex-aristocrat Henri de Saint-Simon envisaged a future in which bankers, intellectuals, and artists would overthrow an outdated theological and feudal system in favor for what he called industrialism. And the Welsh textile mill owner Robert Owen tried to launch utopian, profit-sharing communities in the United States and Britain, developing an alternative scheme for a currency based on labor.

These earlier examples of convergence should remind us that the terms capitalism and socialism were both originally conceived for the same functional purpose: to create a decentralized system of allocation in which spontaneous needs and wishes could be fulfilled. And as the ensuing centuries have shown, both approaches become destructive when they produced excessive concentrations of power.

Against this historical backdrop, the search for a new decentralized framework looks like a reversion to the earlier dream pursued by ur-socialists and ur-capitalists. Yet with todays technologies, one can imagine the dream actually being realized under a hybrid sociapitalism. After all, while it once took months or years to make accurate assessments of the volume of economic activity or trade, these data are increasingly available in real time.

But data can be problematic. Whereas some is managed by governments and international institutions, much is held elsewhere, including at universities (Johns Hopkins in the case of COVID-19 data), individuals (as in the Harvard University economist Raj Chettys compilation of consumer data), and companies (which keep it as a commercial secret). In the case of governments and companies especially, there is a constant tendency to suppress data that is inconvenient or uncomfortable.

Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has shone a harsh light on the ways health outcomes are linked to social and economic disparities, and this realization has led to the politicization of other data, such as that relating to crime incidence, incomes, and ethnic identities.

The early nineteenth-century struggles were fights over the ownership of the means of production, but we can now be much more specific about what that concept involves. What is most needed today is a broad-based movement to secure ownership of data, following on the model of early nineteenth-century workers demands to own their own labor. Can data be shared in ways that maximizes the benefits without compromising social interests, individuality, or privacy? Capitalists and socialists of the world must unite to answer that question. They have nothing to lose but their data.

Read more:
Capitalists and Socialists of the World, Unite! by Harold James - Project Syndicate

Until the election, we will be hearing everyday about the radical, leftist socialists who want to take over this country. It is easy to imagine how frightening this must be to some Iowa farmer who has never read anything more enlightening than the operators manual to his hay baler. This same farmer may have collected $1 million in USDA payments in a 10-year period and received $100,000 in Market Facilitation Program payments last year. This year, he will receive a 60% to 80% subsidy on his Federal Crop Insurance premium of $80,000.

This farmers seven children all received a free K-12 education, but he is convinced that anyone who proposes a free K-14 education (includes two years college) is a Marxist-Leninist who wants to turn America into Venezuela. His greatest fear is that his single parent worker making $14 an hour with two children might be getting too many food stamps.

He has never really understood what the word hypocrisy means.

This letter does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Forum's editorial board nor Forum ownership.

Go here to see the original:
Letter: Socialism and the American farmer | INFORUM - INFORUM

I am puzzled. The party that is asking me to fear encroaching socialism assures me that it will protect Social Security and Medicare.

Social Security and Medicare are perfect examples of socialistic programs, as are in my view the 40-hour work week, workers compensation, public education, the interstate highway system, government financing of virus research, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Small Business Administration and many programs fundamental to our daily lives.

We have been a socialist country at least for the past 90 years, and it could be argued that many of the original colonies that formed our country were founded on concepts now considered socialist.

The term socialism has been made into a swear word by those who would use We the People for their personal enrichment.

Fundamental to the freedom we enjoy is capitalistic opportunity for the entrepreneur balanced by social programs to protect the worker and consumer. The tough part is maintaining the balance. Fear neither socialism nor capitalism. Fear losing the necessary balance.

J. Phillip Eisemann

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Socialism is part of our balance (letter) | Letters To The Editor - LancasterOnline

Dr. Daniel Sutter has been the Charles G. Koch Professor of Economics with the Manuel H. Johnson Center for Political Economy in Troy Universitys Sorrell College of Business since 2011. He's also a contributor to Heartland's blog, the Freedom Pub.

Opinion polls consistently find that young Americans view socialism favorably. For example, in a recent Gallup poll, 49 percent of millennials and Gen Zers held a favorable view of socialism versus 32 percent of Baby Boomers. Does support for socialism indicate a need for more economic education in Americas high schools and colleges?

As an economics professor, I would certainly like more college students to take economics! States could emulate Texas requirement of a high school class in economics teaching the benefits of free enterprise.

Does learning about economics and markets necessarily reduce support for socialism? Or would economic education about markets just amount to indoctrination?

Our views on most public policy questions mix information and values. By information, I mean facts about the world and testable predictions about cause-and-effect. Values refer to ethical evaluation of outcomes in the world.

Economics education should improve the information content of peoples policy views. I can use electricity without understanding electrical engineering and people can use markets without understanding how they work. The amazing coordination that occurs through markets, what economists call the invisible hand, should inform policy view. Markets allow people enormous freedom while delivering a rising standard of living.

Understanding how markets work does not require acceptance of the values of capitalism. Two people might agree on the effects of the minimum wage (reduced jobs and higher pay) and disagree on the policys desirability due to differing values.

Economic education could also teach young people what socialism meant historically. A hundred years ago socialism meant government ownership of the means of production (e.g., factories). Today politicians likeBernie SandersandAlexandria Ocasio-Cortezprimarily advocate a generous welfare state. They point to Scandinavian countries, not the Soviet Union, as examples of socialism that works.

In the 1930s and 1940s, economists debated whether bureaucrats could coordinate an economy as effectively as markets. Potentially bureaucrats could mimic markets by setting the same prices. In practice, political influence over price setting and the lack of a profit motive leads to inferior performance.

The position of modern socialists, I think, reflects this learning. The gains from substituting bureaucratic commands for prices are nonexistent and the U.S. Postal Service shows the limits of government production. Taxing a prosperous market economy to fund government spending better achieves socialist goals.

Scandinavian countries employ this approach, as the 2020 edition of the Fraser Institutes Economic Freedom of the World Index demonstrates. Countries are score between 0 and 10 in five areas, with 10 representing more freedom, and the components to generate a countrys score. The U.S. ranks 6thwith a score of 8.22; Hong Kong ranks first at 8.94. (The data do not reflect COVID-related spending and restrictions.)

Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden rank from 11thto 46th, with scores ranging from 8.10 to 7.58. Venezuela, a more traditional socialist country, ranks last with a score of 3.34. Clearly, the Scandinavian countries resemble the U.S. far more than Venezuela.

Their reliance on markets is even greater than this. The Scandinavians lag the U.S. in the size of government component because they choose more government spending and higher taxes. On the other four areas property rights, money and inflation, international trade, and regulation the Scandinavians match the U.S., with Denmark averaging one third of a point higher on the other areas. The nations where socialism works are largely market economies.

If market forces and not politics determine prices, wages, and salaries, an economy can continue to prosper. High taxes will reduce prosperity some; when the government taxes away half (or more) of incomes, people will work less hard. Exactly how much high taxes and government-paid health care, college, and housing reduce prosperity is an empirical question.

Socialism today does not mean what it did a century ago. This is fine and arguably reflects economic education. Economic education may additionally ensure that young Americans know that the countries so many socialists admire rely on prosperity generated by market economies.

[Originally posted on Alabama Today]

Socialism and Economic Education was last modified: September 30th, 2020 by Daniel Sutter

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Socialism and Economic Education | The Freedom Pub - Somewhat Reasonable - Heartland Institute