So, the US House passed a resolution "denouncing the horrors of socialism."
Note that it came from the Finance Committee, and that
Several Democrats who voted against the resolution expressed concerns regarding the future of Social Security and Medicare. They noted that Republicans on the Rules Committee rejected an amendment proposed by Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) which sought to clarify that opposition to the implementation of socialist policies in the U.S. does not include federal programs like Medicare and Social Security.
(Emphasis added). Or, as someone suggested on social media, when they denounce socialism it means they are coming for your pension.
It's also an example of how bourgeois liberalism facilitates the rise of fascism (more on that another time, probably).
Some years ago, my older brother was in town visiting, and we went to some socialist event, and he made some disparaging comment about socialism. Now, my brother is a good guy, and I figure he grew up in a more intense phase of the cold war than I, and there was no point in debating whether the merits of things like "liberation theology" or "catholic worker" derived from the first or the last word in the term.
And I imagine that dissecting that wacky resolution is kind of pointless, in that those who see the problems with it don't need them spelled out, and those who don't see the problems will not be convinced. But some of it is truly stunning. It's got distortion, questionable selectivity, and lots of pot-meet-kettle. So here goes.
They write:
"Whereas socialist ideology necessitates a concentration of power that has time and time again collapsed into Communist regimes, totalitarian rule, and brutal dictatorships;"
l "Socialist ideology" encompasses a very diverse set of beliefs, as indicated, for instance, by the sheer volume of texts available via the Marxists Internet Archive.
l
Socialist
ideology does not necessitate concentration of power, as we can see outlined, e.g., in Hal Draper's Socialism From Below.
l On the other hand, capitalism does tend to involve concentration of power, and has also collapsed into brutal regimes of fascism, and we now increasingly face the brutal inequality that was briefly alleviated during the "30 glorious years" (See Piketty and glosses thereon) after WW2, created by capitalist regimes' need to stave off revolution through providing some of the social supports people were seeing in socialist countries (See Klein, The Shock Doctrine).
They write,
"Whereas socialism has repeatedly led to famine and mass murders,
and the killing of over 100,000,000 people worldwide;"
l Capitalism has of course also led to mass murder. Indigenous people of the Americas, the Africans kept in chattel slavery, colonized people around the globe, and anyone with resources desired by multinational corporations might have a very different assessment than the House does of the relative body counts.
l
We might also note that it
is capitalism, with its structural drive for profit above all, that has led to the climate crisis that now threatens all planetary life. That's a very massive murder.
They write:
"Whereas many of the greatest crimes in history were committed by socialist ideologues, including Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, Pol Pot, Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Un, Daniel Ortega, Hugo Chavez, and Nicolás Maduro;"
l This heterogeneous list lumps together figures with quite different ideologies and histories, and of course omits world criminals of other stripes (e.g., Hitler, Pinochet) as well as socialist (even mildly socialist or redistributionist) victims of the CIA and allies (Allende, Mosaddegh).
They write:
"Whereas tens of millions died in the Bolshevik Revolution, at least 10,000,000 people were sent to the gulags in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and millions more starved in the Terror-Famine (Holodomor) in Ukraine;
Whereas between 15,000,000 and 55,000,000 people starved to death in the wake of famine and devastation caused by the Great Leap Forward in China;
Whereas the socialist experiment in Cambodia led to the killing fields in which over a million people were gruesomely murdered;
Whereas up to 3,500,000 people have starved in North Korea, dividing a land of freedom from a land of destitution;"
l On gulags, consider the rate of incarceration in the US and the horrific conditions faced by those incarcerated.
l On starvation, see also the Irish Potato famine and the rate of hunger in the USA.
l On murders, see also the rate of US police killings, the murders of environmental activists at the behest of fossil fuel and other industries, and the general incidence of gun violence in the USA.
l And again, it's capitalism, with its structural drive for profit above all, that has led to the climate crisis that now threatens all planetary life.
l More rebuttal to the numbers via WSWS.
They write:
"Whereas the Castro regime in Cuba expropriated the land of Cuban farmers and the businesses of Cuban entrepreneurs, stealing their possessions and their livelihoods, and exiling millions with nothing but the clothes on their backs;"
l Woah, why is the expropriation of land listed here as though it is the same as starvation and murder?
In the pre-revolution latifundo model, much of the land was owned by US investors, and 1.5% of landowners held almost half the agricultural land. Much of the Cuban population were sharecroppers. Under land reform after the revolution, 70% of farm land was taken from foreign and large to medium sized landowners and returned to the population who actually worked the land.
Nota bene, "In 1974, the General Assembly of the United Nations affirmed the right of states to nationalize properties, declaring that nationalization is an indispensable precondition for national sovereignty over natural resources. It further declared that no state should be subjected to coercion in response to its exercising this right of nationalization."
They write:
"Whereas the implementation of socialism in Venezuela has turned a once-prosperous nation into a failed State with the world’s highest rate of inflation;"
l
Even USAToday knows there's
more to this story.
They write:
"Whereas the author of the Declaration of Independence, President Thomas Jefferson, wrote, “To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it.”;
"Whereas the “Father of the Constitution”, President James Madison, wrote that it “is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest”; and"
l
It's worth noting here that
Jefferson owned over 600 enslaved people, Madison owned over 100 enslaved people, and both men also supported
the project of "indian removal." So the "industry and skill" these guys exercised was in seizing the land and bodies and labor of others.
They write:
"Whereas the United States of America was founded on the belief in the sanctity of the individual, to which the collectivistic system of socialism in all of its forms is fundamentally and necessarily opposed: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That Congress denounces socialism in all its forms, and opposes the implementation of socialist policies in the United States of America."
l When the United States was founded, the only individuals granted sanctity were adult white men who owned land. Details of voting requirements varied by state, but there were also often religious requirements. Maryland, for instance, waited until 1828 before allowing Jewish men to vote. Chattel slavery was legal, and even white women could not own property, vote, control their own money, or sign legal documents.
l Policies that have been denounced as socialist include the New Deal, Social Security, farm price supports, bank deposit insurance, independent labor organizations, and progressive taxation. And, as even Harry Truman noted, "almost anything that helps all the people."
(Truman understated the case, in fact, since many social programs were designed not to help all the people --the Social Security act of 1935 excluded agricultural and domestic workers, who were mostly brown and Black, but it was still called socialist).
So, yeah, when they denounce socialism, they are coming for your pension, your health care, your public school, your county library, your liveable environment.
I am in favor of all those socialist things (and then some).
