Socialism...

[tencrush]

People are calling Obama a Socialist, apparently. I think that's kind of funny, I wish he were, really, that would be awesome. But he's not. I said I'd write down what I believe is the deal with America, I don't want anyone to take offence, I just mean it as a starting point for debate, I'm perfectly willing to be persuaded and argued at in other directions, I'm just presenting a global view of how I, as an outsider with inside experience and connections, see America, in general. Not you, personally, whoever's reading, just the country, as a whole being, as it were.

Here's the thing with America. In America you can be whatever you want to be. You are all created equal. Everyone came to America with a dream and the ways and means and the hopes of making that dream a reality. It's a country based on IDEALS and HOPES and LIMITLESS POSSIBILITY. And that's a beautiful, beautiful thing, but it brings with it a flipside, and that is a deeply ingrained sense in a lot of the population that anyone out there who does NOT fulfill their American Dream, who is hard done by, poor, or falls by the wayside HAS BROUGHT IT UPON THEMSELVES somehow by not putting in enough effort. It's why the American belief system is competely incompatible with Socialism, because in order to embrace Socialism, one has to acknowledge that there are always going to be people out there who will not realise their potential, who through no fault of their own will run into trouble, or illness, or poverty, or discrimination or whatever and that it is the government's duty to take from the rich and successful and give to the poor and needy. Americans don't really embrace that idea, they're all about telling us how hard they've worked, how much their family has suffered, the hardship they've had to go through to become what they are today, and the idea that their hard work and hard earned dollars should now be used to help someone else in need, it just doesn't seem to sit quite right. And that's not because they're mean, or uncaring or unchristian, it's just a CONCEPT that doesn't quite ring true with their idealistic upbringing. It doesn't gel with their IDEALS. Because in an ideal world EVERYONE would achieve their potential, and be great and rich and successful and happy. In an IDEAL world the government doesn't NEED to intervene in any affairs of the people. Acknowledging that, maybe, yeah, the government should intervene, means acknowledging that it's NOT and ideal world out there, and that is something a lot of Americans have difficulty with.

It's a way of thinking that seeps into a lot of the issues that we, as Europeans with a vastly different and more pragmatic mindset, don't understand. In an ideal world, anyone who owns a gun is responsible with it and only uses it for shooting pesky foxes or whatever it is they have it for and therefore in an IDEAL world, everyone should be allowed to have a gun. Telling people they can't have a gun means admitting it's not an ideal world. Telling people they can have abortions means admitting that it's not an ideal world and that people get raped or are just plain fucking stupid when it comes to sex. It's a hard thing for Americans to do, they, on the whole, don't like it.

Now don't get me wrong, the American Dream mindset, the idea that you can work hard and be whatever it is you desire to be, that's a beautiful concept and it's brought about amazing innovation and creativity and thinking and all those things. And it's what makes Americans compete for scholarships and pageants and medals and lifetime achievement and employee of the month awards and all those things we don't have over here because we don't reward achievement and value achievement like you do. That idealism and general optimism of the American people (yeah, it's probably why we think you're so perky all the damn time, we're fucking CYNICAL, the Europeans, it's depressing as hell) is a WONDERFUL THING. But that flipside does exist, and it's why a lot of Americans think Socialism is a dirty word. Whereas I do not.

I realise that probably doesn't make a lot of sense, but there you go. My two cents.

Comments

[ionlylurkhere.livejournal.com]

I think you're right, but I do get a sense that the dominance of the particular strand of American identity you describe is historically contingent and relatively recent, mostly arising out of the demonisation of anything vaguely left wing as part of the Cold War, from McCarthyism up to Reagan.

(Book rec: The Right Nation (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Right-Nation-Why-America-Different/dp/0141015365/) -- it's by a couple of journalists for the Economist about exactly this sort of thing.)

[tencrush]

I really don't think it stems just from the socialism=communism simplicity of the fifties, I think there's a whole mindset that reaches back way further than that and it's to do with a focus on individual achievement and the ideal that one person can and should change the world, that goes all the way back to Johnny Appleseed and those kinds of things American culture has brought forth. I think there's an ingrained reluctance to let the government intervene matters, because it negates the awesomeness of the great things one human being can achieve in an ideal world, and that's a belief they value very highly, and have done for hundreds of years.

[jo02]

You have managed to verbalise this in a way that I never could. I envy you, and you are so right!

Wouldn't it be cool if Obama turned out to be a secret Socialist?

Socialism is not a dirty word. Look at how we're all now paying for Capitalism let off its leash and run amok. Socialism isn't about taking from the rich and giving to the undeserving poor, it's about setting boundaries so that people don't get obscenely rich, and having safety nets for the poor and the people who for whatever reason are unable to cope.

Of course Socialism is a much fairer system to live under.

[ionlylurkhere.livejournal.com]

Socialism is not a dirty word. Look at how we're all now paying for Capitalism let off its leash and run amok.

Exactly. Though of course Dubya's actions intervening in the banking system are some of the most socialist things any US president has done in decades. There are no laissez faire capitalists in a financial crisis, it seems.

[quinn222.livejournal.com]

As an American I have to say I agree with much of what you've said, the only problem is what you are calling the 'American mindset', is, in fact, the Republican mindset. Lots and lots of Americans firmly believe it is our duty and responsibility to help the less fortunate. That all of us deserve medical care and childcare and decent homes etc. and that those making tons of money should be paying more than those who are not.

[tencrush]

I'm well aware of that, but I still think that as a country, America focusses far more on the individual, rather than the society. The whole Local Boy Makes Good approach, where your local boy goes to your local school and your local college and gets a scholarship and goes to university and makes it big and makes big bucks and then pumps a big donation into that local school and that local college and sets up his own scholarship fund is something that doesn't really happen over here, and I think it's indicative of an overall mindset of glorifying individual achievement, and putting the social responsibility into the hands of the individual (and overall, most Americans DO HAVE a huge sense of social responsibility, probably far greater than we do over here), rather than the government, on a level that we Europeans don't quite understand. Does that make sense?

[bandgeek01.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting this :o)


Nicole

[antelope-writes.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

There's always--always--been an inherent class system in the US, whereupon people from a so-called higher class (economic, primarily) have a spate of trouble, are hard-done by, and then get on with it, and are lauded for it. Having large amounts of money equates to justness and rightness, while being poor (whatever the reason) equates to being lazy, ill-bred, common, and an all-purpose leech on society. This is true at least as far back as the New England colony in the 17th century!

My theory is that the US has never truly had to face privation, the kind of country-shattering privation that takes those social concepts and blows them to smithereens. Europe has, twice in the last century, to be precise. It's incredibly difficult to maintain premises of wealth equaling virtue when bombs rain down. It's even more difficult to maintain that premise when at least a third of your population is killed, maimed, dispossessed, or impoverished through warfare--which, might I add, is usually a chess game of national interests dictated by the very wealthy at the expense of the very poor.

[cionaudha.livejournal.com]

I'm an American Socialist.

And no, I don't vote for what passes for a Socialist party here because

1. it's microscopic.

2. I'm a pragmatic sort of person and not keen to waste my vote.

3. it would never really work here, partly for the reasons you mention, and partly because we're so fucking huge. Socialism is easier in a nation the size of blessed Denmark (which my family refers to as The Holy Land).

Obama is way to the right of what would make me jumping-up-and-down happy, and CERTAINLY no Socialist. But he's got the stuff, I think, of a leader who can turn this ship away from the hardcore conservative Big Brother state we've become. Small steps, small steps...

[meleth.livejournal.com]

Obama is, in fact, a slightly left-leaning centrist, which in the current US political environment makes him a crazy radical or something.

Also, thank you. I've been trying to articulate why welfare makes many Americans uncomfortable, even the ones who would be its recipients (poor and working-class people who voted for George Bush drive me batty), and then this post did it perfectly.

[tencrush]

Yeah, I remember a long time ago when I lived over there, my parents were constantly amazed by the amount of poor and reasonably hard done by people who were of the opinion that the richer and better off SHOULDN'T HAVE TO PAY TAXES to take care of the likes of them. That's a very hard standpoint to understand until you see the reasoning behind it, which is that hope and belief and optimism that one day, you, the poor guy, may well become one of those rich people.

[meleth.livejournal.com]

Everyone's Joe the Plumber, not wanting to pay taxes on the small business he's planning to own one day.

[cirrocumulus.livejournal.com]

First of all: LOL to Obama being a socialist. I've heard that around to. Embracing aspects of Socialism =/= promoting Socialism, guys.

While I think 100% whole-sale socialism is too much, I think that integrating aspects of socialism into American society is a good thing. From what I know most of Europe has socialized health care and other socialized program and they haven't sunken into the burning pits of hell that I know if, so it's ridiculous that Americans still think that Socialism would kill us all. I talked to this woman recently who called the Islamic terrorists "communist." I mean. WHAT. But it's just this thing that's kind of ingrained in the older generations, I think. But I've especially come to care about socialized health care because it really, really bothers me to think of restricting anybody's right to not be sick and dying just because they don't have the money for it. I cannot imagine anything much worse. And of course socialized health care isn't a perfect system but it's better than what we have now.

I find it amusing that Europeans apparently find Americans perky. In my opinion we're really no more optimistic or hopeful than any other nation; though I've never lived anywhere else, I have visited England for about a month and the people I met in that time didn't strike me as a whole any different than Americans, really. But I could see where that impression of American optimism would come from.

Unfortunately I think America's optimism has actually transformed into laziness, because it's like, "so we want an ideal world, but if we actually had to work towards that ideal world that would be admitting that we don't live in it right now, so we're just going to live in our own little happybubble, k?" And the rest of us are like, "WTH, no, shit is fucked, guys," but the Republican philosophy as a whole seems to be, "if we just keep doing the same thing we've been doing forever things will totally get better, really!"

[kurthummel.livejournal.com]

First of all, I love your political posts. You know that.

Secondly, half the reason why I would love (and hope, some day) to live in Europe is because the very strong American mentality of Look Out For Yourself and Don't Help Your Fellow Neighbor is nauseating to me. I agree with you about socialism and America's profound uppity-uppityness (excuse my highly sophisticated jargon) about people asking for hand outs. Do I expect the government to hand it all to me? Not in a million years. However, I think these last eight years are proof of a broken system. The United States is a HIGHLY damaged country. I honestly do not believe that a country so gigantic as the U.S. can stay afloat on sheer capitalism, and I believe either extreme is a bad thing. But SOMETHING has got to give. You'll be happy to know Obama is in the lead and he has just a chance of winning as McCain. In fact, he just might sweep it, though many Obama supporters, including myself, are weary of grand slamming such remarks since the 2000 and 2004 election were such atrocities. But the U.S. needs him more now than ever and I can't imagine this country without him.

Also, I've been phone banking for Obama these last few days, and you would honestly be sickened at the sort of people I've talked to (rather, the sort of people who have been hanging up on me). One McCain supporter told my mom he should be in prison. Another told me he's a Commie. At McCain rallies all across the country, people are calling him a terrorist that's going to drive America into the pit of hell. A black beer was just killed, dragged on to a school campus, and covered with Obama signs - and guess who did it, a McCain supporter. It's disgusting. Thank god it's over in two weeks.

[furius.livejournal.com]

As a non-American with socialist leanings who spent her rather long and recent school years among bona-fide Republicans (granted, Californian Republicans) I have to say that your observations are astute and sadly true.

However, that same American mindset I've encountered that thinks socialism a dirty word, mostly because "it doesn't work, people take advantage of the system" is also the same one that I think tends to be the most 'giving': in time, money etc to those less fortunate. The American Dream-idea has greater extremes than any other idea, I suspect, though sometimes it strikes me as strangely Victorian...

[tencrush]

Well, yes, there's that whole Local Boy Makes Good thing like I said in one of the comments up there, where those who have the wealth feel a great social responsibility (more so than they do in Europe), and set up scholarships and fund libraries and all that sort of thing. That approach strikes one as vaguely Victorian in a Bringing Culture To The Savages kind of way. I think that whole approach stems from another uniquely American phenomenon, which is down to the strength of the ties Americans feel with things like their local community, their schools and colleges (we don't really do reunions), their businessmen's clubs that are set up based on their ethnic background and all the groups and communities Americans belong to. America is a very diverse country and it's dauntingly huge and it doesn't have much of an overriding culture, so Americans tend to break it up into smaller social groups like the alumni of this and residents of that and descendents of the other to have a place to belong.

[magic-lilybean.livejournal.com]

In America you can be whatever you want to be. You are all created equal. Everyone came to America with a dream and the ways and means and the hopes of making that dream a reality. It's a country based on IDEALS and HOPES and LIMITLESS POSSIBILITY. And that's a beautiful, beautiful thing, but it brings with it a flipside, and that is a deeply ingrained sense in a lot of the population that anyone out there who does NOT fulfill their American Dream, who is hard done by, poor, or falls by the wayside HAS BROUGHT IT UPON THEMSELVES somehow by not putting in enough effort.

That is such an interesting point and it makes me realize that there's a connection between the ridiculous over-patriotism you often see on the conservative side and its tough stance on socialism and social programs in general. Interesting.

Because in an ideal world EVERYONE would achieve their potential, and be great and rich and successful and happy. In an IDEAL world the government doesn't NEED to intervene in any affairs of the people. Acknowledging that, maybe, yeah, the government should intervene, means acknowledging that it's NOT and ideal world out there, and that is something a lot of Americans have difficulty with.

It is hard to let go of the idea that America isn't in an ideal state. We have made so much progress that we want to celebrate, but at the same time we turn our backs on the parts that still need work because it's easier. (And there's also a point of diminishing returns – there's still racism, but by and large it's more subtle and less violent; poverty today comes with food stamps and housing and even health insurance, and while it's often crap housing in a bad location, it's still a roof over your head – with the worse parts of our system diminished and often tucked out of view, many people don't even see it anymore.)