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| Source:Dandelion Salad- Socialist Party presidential candidate Eugene Debbs. |
Source:The New Democrat
"What did the man who Bernie Sanders today claims as his personal hero really stand for? Elizabeth Schulte tells the story of American socialism’s best-known figure.
So I guess at least according to Elizabeth Schulte, Bernie Sanders would be to the right of Eugene Debs and to the left of Progressive’s Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson. And I’ll explain what I mean by that.
Eugene Debbs, Marxist, had he ever became President of the United States and had the support of Congress, would’ve outlawed capitalism, private enterprise and that includes property rights. Perhaps, but not guaranteed, just short of taking people’s personal ownership of their personal property away from. Meaning an individual, could own their own home and car (to use as examples) but those things would’ve been made by state-owned companies.
Bernie Sanders, a self-described Democratic Socialist: Democratic Socialists, believe in at least a certain level of personal autonomy. That includes both personal and economic freedom. That even includes the ability to vote for opposition parties and opposition parties that are on the other side of the political spectrum.
IT’S NOT your typical presidential candidate who identifies as a socialist, but Bernie Sanders does. A poster of Eugene V. Debs, the popular Socialist Party leader of the early 20th century, hangs on his office wall as a tribute to Sanders’ self-proclaimed hero.
Like Debs, who ran for president five times, Sanders is also running for president. But that, my friends, is where the similarities end.
The socialism of Bernie Sanders—who says he’s running as a Democrat to shift the debate to the left–is fundamentally different from that of Eugene Debs, who committed his life to spreading the ideas of revolutionary socialism. Sanders is promoting something that falls far, far short of the fundamental change that Debs fought for. Sanders relegates socialism to the realm of nice ideas that can be talked about, but never really be implemented—while he accepts what little the Democratic Party is willing to concede.
For Sanders, the working class is a “constituency,” a backdrop to the political campaigns he runs and the legislative work he does. For Debs, the working class was in the foreground of everything he hope to achieve—because he believed, as a convinced Marxist, that workers have to make the fundamental and lasting transformation that he called socialism."
From Dandelion Salad
So I guess at least according to Elizabeth Schulte, Bernie Sanders would be to the right of Eugene Debs and to the left of Progressive’s Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson. And I’ll explain what I mean by that.
Eugene Debbs, Marxist, had he ever became President of the United States and had the support of Congress, would’ve outlawed capitalism, private enterprise and that includes property rights. Perhaps, but not guaranteed, just short of taking people’s personal ownership of their personal property away from. Meaning an individual, could own their own home and car (to use as examples) but those things would’ve been made by state-owned companies.
Bernie Sanders, a self-described Democratic Socialist: Democratic Socialists, believe in at least a certain level of personal autonomy. That includes both personal and economic freedom. That even includes the ability to vote for opposition parties and opposition parties that are on the other side of the political spectrum.
Bernie, doesn’t have a problem with private enterprise and even capitalism. Just how the resources and income and distributed. So if you’re doing well in America through the private sector, great. According to Bernie, but you’re going to pay enough in taxes to see that those who are struggling are also taken care of.
Bernie Sanders, is not running to completely change the American economic system and destroy the liberal capitalist model, our liberalized economic system, that has liberated so many people out of poverty in America.
Bernie Sanders, is not running to completely change the American economic system and destroy the liberal capitalist model, our liberalized economic system, that has liberated so many people out of poverty in America.
What Senator Sanders wants to do is add a socialist component to our liberal economic system built around a large central government. To see that no one has to go without and live in poverty. As well as invest in our American capitalist private enterprise economy. Things like education, infrastructure, energy, immigration, better trade deals according to Bernie. So that more Americans can succeed in our private sector. And not have to live off of public assistance to take care of them.
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