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Making sense of the Socialist rainbow.

A few weeks ago, tenants rights activist Jon Grant announced that hes running for City Council this fall as a Democratic Socialist. Although he is not, technically speaking, a member of any political party the affiliation is more a kind of shorthand to describe my values to voters, he says his second-time run for a Council seat is couched in the belief that, in Seattle, anyway, its not enough anymore to be an establishment Democrat.

The events of the past year, and especially of the past few months, seem to echo that sentiment. November 8, 2016, was an enormous day for socialists everywhere, as those whod long opposed the then President-elect rushed to take a stand.

Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), for instance, has nearly tripled its membership since November, making it now the largest socialist organization in the country not to be confused with the International Socialist Organization, which, according to the Seattle chapters website, is the countrys largest revolutionary organization (emphasis ours). The two groups have an active and engaged Seattle base, and yes, Seattle DSA membership has exploded over the past year, says local DSA member Andrej Markovi. Like locals all over the country, were seeing an incredible enthusiasm for socialist politics.

Socialist Alternative (SA) the party that helped elect socialist Councilmember Kshama Sawant in 2013 has also seen its ranks swell. Peoples interest in getting involved in mass movements in general, and socialism in particular, really has increased since 2011, says Ted Virdone, an SA member for the past 18 years and a staffer in Sawants office. The start of the Occupy Movement was a real turning point there, followed by a huge acceleration since this election.

Then theres the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), whose longtime member, Mary Martin, is running again for Seattle mayor this fall. She describes the group as the only revolutionary working class party in the United States and says shes seen, if not more rank-and-file members, a much more receptive volunteer base in the past few months. Many more people have a relationship to us. They show up with some coffee they volunteer to paint a sign, and they subscribe to The Militant, the Partys newspaper.

As for the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), which has a small Seattle chapter: Oh yeah, says member Jane Cutter, enthusiastically; PSL, too, has seen an identical surge. What is most striking is the number of people who not only are interested in socialist politics, but who are rearranging their lives to actively participate in organizing campaigns, protests, meetings, and conferences.

The above is hardly an exhaustive list of socialist organizations and parties in Seattle. There are, at minimum, half a dozen such groups active in town, and this reporter could not reach them all on deadline. But it stands to reason: Seattle is a city that, for the most part, loves Bernie Sandershe of Democratic Socialist fameand abhors Donald Trump. It continues to lead the country on worker-centered, progressive legislation, from the $15 minimum wage to collective bargaining rights for Uber and Lyft drivers to socially responsible banking; Sawant and the Socialist Alternative movement are a big part of that. And Sanders, who garnered more per-capita donations from Seattle than any large city in the U.S. and has shared stages with Sawant, helped make socialism cool again, here and elsewhere.

Socialism, thenat least in Seattleis neither a bad word these days, nor an outdated one. For me, watching Bernie Sanders run for President, says Grant, was to demonstrate that the values of democratic socialism actually have broad appeal.

Bernie Sanders describes those values, in their most simplified form, as an economy that works for all, not just the very wealthy. That is, arguably, the foundational approach of many of the socialist groups agitating in Seattle right now, whether they put eradicating poverty or ending racism at the top of their platforms. Most stand for the basic premise that capitalism is to blame for societys problems, from massive student debt to environmental destruction to homelessness. Grant says a big priority for him is never to accept campaign donations from corporate interests to communicate that we represent the interests of the community and of working people and of tenants.

And Virdone points to new data released this January: Just eight of the worlds richest people now own as much combined wealth as half of the rest of the planet. Two of those people Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos hail from King County (both have mansions on Lake Washington). All around the world, were in a tumultuous time, Virdone says. Capitalism has reached an impasse. People can sense that its not working, that somethings got to change. People are looking for something different to happen.

So, for many activists in Seattle, that means socialism and not necessarily because theyre all donning red-star berets and reading Trotsky, but because they want to fight for the things they have always cared about. Many of our new members, says the DSAs Markovi, have long-held socialist views without ever realizing it.

From a laypersons perspective, Seattles socialist legion is fairly consistent; delineating clear differences can be difficult, and all groups concede theres a good deal of mutual respect and ideological overlap. Still, they differ a bit in strategy and focus.

If you support the Cuban Revolution, for instance, you might consider heading to the Socialist Workers Party headquarters; if youre less into guerilla warfare, and more interested in the effect of a mass general strike, Socialist Alternative is planning one for May 1. The Freedom Socialist Party describes itself as a socialist feminist organization, specifically, although the SWP and the SA and the DSA all list womens rights and reproductive freedom as big priorities. Socialist Alternative tends to use the language of the Occupy Movement the 99 percent whereas the Socialist Workers Party prefers a class analysis. Theres a working class, and a ruling class, Martin says, and the ruling class is larger than just 1 percent. Thats how we explain things. SA and the DSA have the largest Seattle following at the moment, but youll find that most of these groups have a presence at rallies to support the Standing Rock Sioux, climate justice, immigrants and refugees, or most anything that can shift the balance of power away from Wall Street. Grant says the base of support hes built over the years in Seattle is independent of but also inclusive of the base of support for Sawant and Socialist Alternative.

The universal constant is that everyone hates their boss and knows the system is rotten, says Markovi. He explains that DSA, perhaps most closely affiliated with the Sanders and Grant platforms, takes a big tent approach to organizing. DSA members range from social democrats all the way to committed Marxists and we want to bring as many people as possible into the movement.

Some see the DSA, then, as the effort to push the Democratic Party to the left, while groups like Socialist Alternative and the Socialist Workers Party are adamant that the two-party system is a big part of the problem. SA believes we do need to build a new party in this country, says Virdone, a party that unequivocally represents the interests of workers and not big business. For the SWPs Martin, Trump is not a fascist at all, as many left-wingers believe; hes well within the spectrum of how things work in D.C.

In the main, people are looking for ways to plug into progressive causes right now, Grant says and its not enough just to theoretically, philosophically support these things after November 8. If an uptick in Seattles socialist membership is any indication, its that people realize there is work to do. Thats the shift were seeing.

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So You Wanna Be a Socialist? In Seattle, You've Got Options - Seattle Weekly

If Bernie Sanders showed us anything in 2016, its that the next generation is no longer afraid of the word socialism. Bernies ascent from political obscurity to nearly winning the Democratic primary vote is astounding, especially when using the word socialist has been political suicide for generations. The mainstream narrative is that Sanders used his brash Brooklyn accent to charm millennials into nearly giving him the Democratic presidential nomination, but that he was ultimately unelectable because he called himself a socialist. But Ill argue that Sanders popularity was not in spite of his socialist label, but because of his socialist label, and that democratic socialism is the only way we can successfully resist Trumpism.

Lets leave our baggage surrounding the word socialism at the door and start with a clean slate. Socialism does not equal government control. Let me say this again. Socialism does not equal government control. Socialism does not entail a tyrannical federal government taking control of businesses, but rather its inverse. Socialism means deepening democracy.

Under American capitalism, we have political democracy. We vote for our mayors, congressmen, and senators to represent us and make laws that we feel are in our best interest. Political democracy allows us to have a hand in creating the society we want to live in, and if our representatives arent doing a good job, we can vote them out.

Calling American capitalism democratic is only half-true, however. Despite having political democracy, we do not have economic democracy. Think about a horrible boss youve had. Were you able to speak up and change their behavior? In the vast majority of cases, no, of course not. Youre beholden to your boss, and at the end of the day, their word is law.

Many employees have little to no control over a companys decisions, even if they do have fair bosses, because of the traditional top-down system. In essence, companies are little tyrannies where shareholders have all of the control and the workers are at the mercy of their judgment. If shareholders want to liquidate a company to make a couple million dollars and throw thousands of people out of work, hire a corrupt CEO, or pollute the environmentthe employees have no power to say no. Make no mistake about itthis is economic tyranny.

Democratic socialisms solution to economic tyranny is deepening democracy by democratizing the workplace. This means extending the American democratic ideal of one citizen, one vote to the workplace and creating a one worker, one vote workplace democracy. Rejecting the state-run models of Soviet-style socialism, economic democracy is a fundamentally different system than the socialist experiments of the 20th century. Under economic democracy, workers arent at the mercy of their bosses, because the workers are the ones electing their bosses in a bottom-up system. This way, every boss will have a mandate to run the company with everyones interests in mind, including the workers. If the bosses dont do a good job, they get voted out. The ownership switches from shareholders to workers, from tyranny to democracy.

Many democratic companies already exist. Companies run democratically are called cooperatives, and you can find them all over America and the world. You dont even need to look far. Bostons very own Harpoon Brewery is employee owned.

One of the most successful cases of economic democracy is found in Spain. The 10th-largest corporation in Spain, the Mondragon Corporation, is democratically run as a cooperative and has nearly 75,000 employees working in sectors such as manufacturing, retail, and finance. If any sector of the Mondragon conglomerate goes under, the company re-trains its employees and hires them in a different sector that needs their labor. Each year, a portion of the profits is given to every employee, making everyone accountable for their actions and creating a culture of participation, because every worker benefits when the company does better.

Mondragon values both ethical business practices and efficiency, creating true sustainability that is extremely rare under the current system of economic tyranny. In fact, it has been shown that cooperatives last longer than top-down corporations and avoid creating market bubbles that lead to market failure like we saw in the Great Recession.

At the heart of economic tyrannys failure is the incentive structure. As any Econ student will tell you, economics is all about incentives. Companies today are incentivized to create value for their owners, the shareholders, which is often a detriment to everyone else in the company. This creates the insane amount of economic inequality that plagues America today, because companies are incentivized to push for higher profits over higher wages. With economic democracy, companies are still incentivized to create value for their owners, but since the workers are the owners, the company operates in the interests of everyone. Economic democracy creates more ethical and stable companies, which in turn creates a more equal and stable society.

Economic democracy attacks poverty and inequality at the root, removing the need for the government to come in and redistribute the wealth, because wealth will be distributed fairly naturally. Government programs like welfare and food stamps arent needed because companies are incentivized to pay their owners (i.e. the employees) a living wage. The economy is run from the bottom-up, creating a more prosperous and more equal society without government intervention.

Economic democracy is democratic socialism, and it is the only way forward because everything else had failed. American capitalism has run its course. We tried laissez-faire capitalism in the 19th and early 20th century, and it caused the worst economic crash in world history. We tried Keynesian reforms in the 20th century that ended in stagflation, and our Keynesian reforms after the Great Recession have failed to bring about a recovery for the majority of Americans (95 percent of jobs added under Obama were temporary). The average American wage is the same as it was in 1979 while expenses such as medical bills and college debt continue to push Americans to the brink of bankruptcy. Both Democrats and Republicans have been complicit in this rigged system, and this economic malaise is the very thing that fuels Trumpism and the alt-right. If we are to stop Trump, we need a new approach. It is time to deepen democracy. It is time for socialism.

Featured Image by Zoe Fanning / Heights Editor

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Socialism Is the Solution - The Heights

Bombay, November 26: After his week-long tour, the World Bank President, Mr Robert McNamara, gave the assurance that the World Bank "intends to play its part" in seeing that India's needs are met fully", even as India plays its part by seeing that "domestic resources are fully mobilized". He ended the tour with a hectic day of discussions in Bombay with Reserve Bank and industrial finance officials, industrialists, bankers, economists, officers concerned with the development of the Bombay-Poona metropolitan area, and the Deputy Prime Minister.

From all these and his meetings in Delhi, Calcutta, and Madras, the World Bank chief must have had a fair idea of the developmental and social tasks that the country faces as it slowly emerges from three years of industrial recession. His final statement, however, indicates that rather than helping industry as hitherto, World -Bank aid will concentrate on agriculture and agro-industries, family planning and some other overheads.

In Mr McNamara's statement there is only one line which refers to industry-- that the break-through in agriculture should support a jump in industrial production. Thus the World Bank favours first things first, a home truth that the Planners themselves have come to accept after the wrong direction taken by the three Plans.

"I have great hopes for India's future," said Mr McNamara. Underlying this was his highly optimistic assessment of the progress made in agriculture already, and the further growth in productivity that can be achieved by using high-yielding seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, tractors, and irrigation. He was impressed by the "successful agricultural revolution which is taking place, with some stops and starts, all over your subcontinent", and noted that this will give a stimulus which should move industry out of its recession. But this, brief reference carries with it a recognition of the need for continued non-project assistance to finance imports of raw materials and the maintenance needs of industry.

The point was emphasizedand acknowledged by Mr McNamaraby the Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation, the main industrial financing agency in the private sector. The ICICI has already, taken from the World Bank seven lines of credit aggregating $165 million. The ICICI stated that it expects in the near future a 50 per cent expansion in its lending activities, and will seek an eighth line of credit from the World Bank next year.

The World Bank is interested in helping to finance the development of the metropolitan areas. Mr McNamara met civic and Government officials in Calcutta and Madras. In Bombay he was given an idea of the worsening problems of the highly industrialized Bombay-Poona area. Drinking water, road and rail arteries, slum clearance, satellite towns, etc., are estimated to cost Rs 1,000 crores in the next two decades. A Regional Metropolitan Board is at work, and its plans were submitted to the World Bank President for foreign exchange assistance.

There was some publicity from Delhi that the Commerce Minister, Mr Dinesh Singh, would fly to Bombay at the week-end to tackle the crisis in the cotton industry. More than 80 mills have closed, and over 80,000 men are out of work. The Minister did come, but the talks lasted hardly an hour and ended in a "damp squib", as an industry source put it. This disappointment is reflected in a further fall of mill shares.

Official spokesmen have lately shown some recognition that the crisis is not all due to mismanagement and frittering away of profits, but to high cost of cotton, wages, etc., and waning purchasing power due to inflation. On top of this, excise levies have risen to Rs 117 crores per year, from almost nil when planning began. As Mr Naval Tata, head of the Tata mills, has said, "It is a classic example of killing the goose that lays the golden eggs".

None of these problems has moved an inch towards amelioration. The Commerce Minister did not propose any short-term remedy, and he rejected the industrys demand for decontrol or an increase in controlled prices. That costs of production have gone up by 15 per cent since the last price revision was ignored. The only sign of hope is that there is a slight upward trend in the wholesale offtake of cloth. If this continues, sales will provide some funds. A consumer survey by the official Textile Committee hopes that demand will rise on account of the increase in farm incomes.

The Minister indicated that some long-term remedies are under consideration, but they will form part of the fourth plan. They will help the industry to modernize itself over a period, and will promote exports. Since incentive schemes have been re-introduced, textile exports have risen for the first time since devaluation. They are likely to reach Rs 106 crores this year and may go up to Rs 120 crores in 1969-70. The Minister said that being the oldest and largest industry in India, it is vital to the economy, and therefore the Government and the industry should work together for its progress. Well, this noble sentiment coming from Mr Dinesh Singh is welcome.

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From The Archives: What Is Socialism? - Swarajya

Posted: Feb. 27, 2017 12:01 am

One day, President Donald Trump is at a prayer meeting talking about Arnold Schwarzenegger being lousy on TV, and on another, he is naming the brilliant Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster as his national security adviser. I will hereby be an unsolicited national hope adviser. Do the second kind of thing much more and wholly eradicate the first kind of thing, Mr. President, and save us from a grave public enemy.

That would be the kind of socialistically inspired future represented by Hillary Clinton as a presidential candidate. She wanted more freebies but less freedom, more spending, more regulations, a marketplace coerced into failures, identity-group divisiveness, contemptuous elitist supremacy and judicial power usurping democracy along with constitutionalism.

President Barack Obama was also a champ at all of this, and while the public mostly liked him, many did not like what was doing. Thus, after his eight years in office, Democrats had lost a net of 62 seats in the House, nine seats in the Senate, 12 governorships, more than 900 state legislature seats and the presidency, according to a Fox News report. Republicans took charge, and there is now an extraordinary opportunity to reverse a big-government trend threatening to encapsulate us for eons.

The thing is, we may be cheated out of that chance if Trump does not give up on his stupidities and instead provides his enemies the wherewithal to stymie the best in him and turn the country back over to their contrary dreams. If he loves America, therefore, he should please, please quit obnoxious tweeting for starters. It is absurd and makes him look like a misbehaving child with a misused toy.

Then he should quit holding zany press conferences in which he overstates everything, insults everyone and further institutes enmity. He should in fact avoid adlibbing as much as possible. He is a non-linear, now-you-see-it, now-you-don't speaker who treats us to unconnected, unexplained phrases that can mean just about anything and are advantageously interpreted by critics as saying he favors hell over heaven.

Still more advice. He should quit substituting glances at a TV set for actual study. He should quit having reckless phone calls with heads of state. He should quit putting together policy plots with minimal trustworthy advice. He should quit the small-mindedness that puts claims of crowd size above real issues.

Yes, it is absolutely the case that his critics are often far worse than he is. Sen. Elizabeth Warren? Sen. Chuck Schumer? There is nothing polite to say. The reputable press is not so reputable when its commentators, for instance, issue baseless growls about anti-Semitism.

It is also despicable that protesters carry signs referring to Trump as anti-gay when there is absolutely nothing to back them up. It is simple-minded and worse for anyone to insist Trump's criticism of someone who is black is ipso facto racism, and yet we have seen it. In terms of evidence at this point, the Russian collusion theory is right up there with the birther theory. Vandalizing college students should be required to clean up after themselves before packing their bags and going home, and the leakers in the intelligence community should be worried about criminal prosecution.

There is lots of good in Trump, as seen in his executive orders on pipelines and absolutely smothering regulations, his choice for the Supreme Court, most of his Cabinet picks and, as mentioned earlier, his choice of McMaster as a top adviser.

He may very well do something about a crime rise the left uncaringly dismisses as nothing much. Watch for an improved world order. Some of his tax ideas are excellent, if not the one on imports, and we should replace Obamacare with something better, although prudence is needed. The wonders already happening in the economy are signs of how he actually could do splendid things.

But if Trump does not cut out the bad, there are those waiting in the bushes with a ruinous future in mind.

(Jay Ambrose is an op-ed columnist for Tribune News Service. Readers may email him at speaktojay@aol.com.)

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How Trump could lead us to socialism yet - New Jersey Herald - - New Jersey Herald

Re: Budget puts NDP in a jam, editorial, Feb. 22.

Your conclusion rests on unproven assumptions.

For example, you write: The trick for the NDP would be to pay for new promises without raising taxes. There is no reason taxes should not be raised.

For example, the sensible way to eliminate the Medical Services Plan premiums in one fell swoop is to roll them into the income-tax system. The revenue replacement would come from leaving the lowest tax bracket as is, moderately increasing the middle bracket (but most would probably pay less than their current premiums) and more steeply increasing the rate of the highest bracket (or even adding one) so that those who have been getting an undeserved bargain on their MSP premiums for so many years would finally pay a fair share of the costs of health care.

That would be one NDP promise kept.

Research suggests that $10-a-day daycare would pay for itself through enhanced economic activity and the ensuing tax revenues. Theres another promise.

Stopping the Site C dam, and ending all subsidies to the oil and gas industry, would free plenty of money to be invested in the untapped resources that are the disabled and those living in poverty. Raising their rates to a livable level would, alone, by increasing purchasing power, benefit local economies, leading to increased tax revenues.

Altogether, socialism will pay for itself with a little help from each and every one of us not only in financial terms but in personal well-being and creativity.

Elizabeth Woods

Victoria

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Socialism pays off financially and personally - Times Colonist