Commentary
Democratic socialism as a right
By Nick Egnatz
Online Journal Contributing Writer


Aug 31, 2009, 00:22

Socialism and capitalism are economic systems. Democracy (government of, by and for the people) is what we were promised with the Declaration of Independence; plutocracy (government by the wealthy) is what we got and totalitarianism (total control by the state) is what the USSR got.

Socialism advocates ownership of the means of production by workers collectively or through the government, an equitable sharing by all of the burdens and benefits of a society and the realization that justice denied to anyone, anywhere is justice denied to all.

Capitalism advocates private ownership of the means of production, free markets, free trade and no government regulations. Unless tightly regulated, capitalism by its nature creates greater and greater inequality between those at the top and the rest of the heap. It creates boom and bust cycles such as the Great Depression of the ’30s and the current Great Recession

We, the American people, should get to choose our form of government and economic system. That’s democracy. I would choose democracy and socialism, democratic socialism because I believe both democracy and socialism are the natural progression of the Declaration of Independence’s, “all men are created equal . . . with certain inalienable rights . . . life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Our present non-democratic combination of elite (plutocratic) capitalism is great for those at the top, while the rest of the heap get what’s left. Lately, it has been less and less.

• From 1976 to 2006, the wealthiest 1 percent of U.S. households increased their share of total U.S. income 2½ times from 8.9 percent of all U.S. income to 22.9 percent.
  
  
• In the U.S. in 1977, the wealth of the top 1 percent equaled the wealth of the bottom 49 million Americans. In 1999, it equaled the wealth of the bottom 100 million. Inequality doubled in 22 years.
  
  
• Average CEO pay in 1965 was 20 times that of the average worker.
  
  
• Average CEO pay in 2000 was 458 times that of the average worker.

Former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said, “We can have a democracy or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of the few. We cannot have both.”

The consent of the majority is necessary to continue this destructive system. It is time for the American people to withhold their consent. Say no to elite capitalism with its progressive inequality, wars of aggression, torture, unemployment, underemployment, outsourced jobs, pollution and private insurance healthcare for profit. Tell both of our corporate political parties who support these crimes against the people and planet that they no longer have your consent.

As Americans start to look outside the corporate media, they are becoming more and more aware that what we have now is broken. Some search for answers from the right and some from the left, but as long as we have elite capitalism running the show, there will be no people solutions from the Democratic and Republican Parties, only solutions such as the Wall Street bailout for the elite. This particular bi-partisan effort netted the same Wall Street firms responsible for the financial debacle a total of $12.8 trillion. $850 billion was voted by Congress, but the rest was largely made up of funds from the Federal Reserve. We the people don’t even know if these massive funds approved by the Federal Reserve (a private entity), but in actuality from the U.S. treasury, have to be repaid. The $12.8 trillion figure first reported by Bloomberg News (a conservative outfit) amounts to $42,000 to the Wall Street ‘banksters’ from every man, woman and child in the country.

All eyes focus on the current healthcare debate in which both political parties are supporting corporate America. The Republicans do so by saying stay the course and keep government out of healthcare. The Democratic Party refuses to even discuss a government single-payer plan (enhanced Medicare for all) in spite of the fact that a majority of Americans support something like this. The Democratic Party’s position has further eroded from that of their grassroots base by not even standing firm on requiring a public option for those who don’t wish to continue subsidizing insurance companies.

Those on the right state that healthcare is not a right provided for in the U.S. Constitution. Our president, content to occupy the center while giving lip service to desiring ‘change,’ takes the position that a single-payer system, which would cover all Americans with identical coverage; including mental, dental, prescription drugs, no previous condition exclusion, no premiums, no deductibles and no co-pays, all paid for by funneling employers’ current contributions to the federal government and increasing taxes on those most fortunate in our society, would be “too disruptive.” Does anyone seriously think it would be “too disruptive” to guarantee all Americans the freedom from worry about healthcare expenses?

The absence of a comprehensive national healthcare program for all Americans is only one of many issues facing us. While many on the right scream at town hall meetings and in letters to the editor that the right to healthcare is not contained in the U.S. Constitution, I believe there is a strong legal case to be made that not only is the right to healthcare in the Constitution, so is the right to basic democratic socialism.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Article 25 (1)
“Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”

Above is Article 25 from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The United Nations Charter is a legal treaty signed by the United States and ratified by the U.S. Senate (89-2). The Supremacy Clause (Art VI, Par 2) of the U.S. Constitution states that all treaties made . . . shall be the supreme Law of the Land.”

The UN Charter states “WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED . . . to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights . . .” The members of the UN felt it was necessary to be more specific about these “fundamental human rights.” In 1948 the member nations, including the United States, unanimously voted 48-0 (with eight Soviet bloc countries abstaining) to adopt the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. For 61 years, it has been the standard for international law concerning the rights of individuals and has been unchallenged in that regard in the U.S. and as such defines the rights of individuals called for in the UN Charter and our Constitution through the Supremacy Clause.

I have provided my definition of democratic socialism. Should we retain markets in some form? What should the wage structure be? Should there be some private and some public ownership of production? Should we have a government single-payer healthcare system or actual socialized medicine similar to the care our servicemen and women receive? It’s up to us, all 304 million of us, to sort this out and make these decisions. That’s participatory democracy. I’m sure that we will make some mistakes and not always get it right the first time, but I’m also sure that the improvement over the present elite capitalist system will be measured in light years.

After the carnage of two successive world wars the peoples of the world, including the U.S., put in place the United Nations and the Declaration of Human Rights. The American colonists fought a revolution for the idea “all men are created equal . . . with certain inalienable rights . . . life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Elite capitalism has proved itself incapable of bringing this about. Democratic socialism can. It is the unfulfilled spirit of the American Revolution, the United Nations Charter and the Declaration of Human Rights.