We cannot agree with everything this article says but there is much truth in its analysis and it is worth quoting the good bits.
Listening to the political noise, one might think the country is being overrun by a horde of “neo-fascists”, “fascists”, and bonafide “Nazis”. In a world riddled with imagined threats to U.S. imperial power, new Hitlers (or aspiring Hitlers) abound, from Putin in Russia, Maduro in Venezuela, and whoever is ruling Iran. President Trump himself has been characterized as the most recent reincarnation of Hitler. That none of these images is even remotely connected to political reality hardly interrupts the continuing nonsense... Nowadays the terms “fascism” and “Nazism” are lazily invoked simply as personal smears.
When it comes to socialism, matters are no better: references are typically detached from any recognizable historical meaning. Listening to FOX News and vocal Republicans, we learn that the Democratic party is being taken over by a wave of Marxists and socialists getting ready to overthrow capitalism. Thanks to Bernie Sanders, whose membership in the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is taken as a measure of oppositional zeal, we are told the Democrats have suddenly fallen under the spell of insurrectionary politics. Recent Ben Shapiro broadcasts have been advertised as a “Warning Against the Socialist Threat”.
Two questions arise, however: to what extent can reforms be achieved within the framework of an uncompromisingly capitalist party, and, even if achieved, in what sense would they resemble socialism as traditionally understood?
Socialism, however, has always meant opposition to capitalism as a system of economic and political power... Leftist forces, generally fixated on electoral politics, have become appendages of the corporate-state system.
In the U.S., “socialists” aligned with the DSA envision no future beyond an extensively reformed capitalist order – roughly equivalent to what European social democracy realized at its peak a few decades ago. For the moment, their goal is to refashion the Democratic party – that is, push it leftward primarily through an electoral strategy. The DSA program, according to official statements, anticipates a “humane social order based on popular control of resources and production, economic planning, equitable distribution, feminism, racial equality, and non-oppressive relationships”. Entirely laudable, to be sure, but hardly rising to the concrete features of a distinctly socialist politics. In other words, something considerably short of a Marxist avalanche.
The “democratic socialism” professed by Ocasio-Cortez and the DSA will, in any event, be subverted by the strategic decision to throw a preponderance of resources into the Democratic party. Ocasio-Cortez believes the Dems can be transformed into a “party of the people”, but that is sheer delusion given a long history of futility not only for the Dems but for their European counterparts. There is nothing in DSA literature or experience suggesting the organization is prepared to attack the main centers of American power, much less overturn capitalism. “Democratic socialism” (often confused with social democracy) turns out to be a fiction where the all-consuming party of capital can so extensively influence the course of events.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10/11/the-democrats-and-socialism/
Listening to the political noise, one might think the country is being overrun by a horde of “neo-fascists”, “fascists”, and bonafide “Nazis”. In a world riddled with imagined threats to U.S. imperial power, new Hitlers (or aspiring Hitlers) abound, from Putin in Russia, Maduro in Venezuela, and whoever is ruling Iran. President Trump himself has been characterized as the most recent reincarnation of Hitler. That none of these images is even remotely connected to political reality hardly interrupts the continuing nonsense... Nowadays the terms “fascism” and “Nazism” are lazily invoked simply as personal smears.
When it comes to socialism, matters are no better: references are typically detached from any recognizable historical meaning. Listening to FOX News and vocal Republicans, we learn that the Democratic party is being taken over by a wave of Marxists and socialists getting ready to overthrow capitalism. Thanks to Bernie Sanders, whose membership in the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is taken as a measure of oppositional zeal, we are told the Democrats have suddenly fallen under the spell of insurrectionary politics. Recent Ben Shapiro broadcasts have been advertised as a “Warning Against the Socialist Threat”.
Two questions arise, however: to what extent can reforms be achieved within the framework of an uncompromisingly capitalist party, and, even if achieved, in what sense would they resemble socialism as traditionally understood?
Socialism, however, has always meant opposition to capitalism as a system of economic and political power... Leftist forces, generally fixated on electoral politics, have become appendages of the corporate-state system.
In the U.S., “socialists” aligned with the DSA envision no future beyond an extensively reformed capitalist order – roughly equivalent to what European social democracy realized at its peak a few decades ago. For the moment, their goal is to refashion the Democratic party – that is, push it leftward primarily through an electoral strategy. The DSA program, according to official statements, anticipates a “humane social order based on popular control of resources and production, economic planning, equitable distribution, feminism, racial equality, and non-oppressive relationships”. Entirely laudable, to be sure, but hardly rising to the concrete features of a distinctly socialist politics. In other words, something considerably short of a Marxist avalanche.
The “democratic socialism” professed by Ocasio-Cortez and the DSA will, in any event, be subverted by the strategic decision to throw a preponderance of resources into the Democratic party. Ocasio-Cortez believes the Dems can be transformed into a “party of the people”, but that is sheer delusion given a long history of futility not only for the Dems but for their European counterparts. There is nothing in DSA literature or experience suggesting the organization is prepared to attack the main centers of American power, much less overturn capitalism. “Democratic socialism” (often confused with social democracy) turns out to be a fiction where the all-consuming party of capital can so extensively influence the course of events.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10/11/the-democrats-and-socialism/
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