I do know enough history and anthropology to spot the nonsense of your conflating “clan/tribal” and then “feudal” and “monarchic.” On the other hand, I’m sure we agree on many things, as I said in my short posting. And without actually reading all of your long reply to my posting – and thereby forming an opinion as to whether you’ve basically just repackaged previously composed opinions, or you’ve put some clear and present thought into your reply – I take it as a compliment.

Moreover, I promise to try to read all of your piece again. And if you’d prefer, we can certainly try to pick this up at my email: lloydowsey@hotmail.com.

I’m not so sure that communism is the oldest or longest-running system known. The notion that ‘Jesus was a communist’ is fallacious; at best, that doctrine is socialistic. Socialism is about decency and being merciful. Mercy is quite different than is compassion. Past social structures are assumed to be “collectivist” but only in a narrowest sense of the term; they were clan/tribal, at best feudal and at worst monarchic. Even Athens was a monarchy; the oligarchy was by definition monarchic. The very notion of citizenship (to the Greeks) was a loose monarchy of privilegees of the city-state.

But returning to/concerning the main points of this article, the flip-side point to assert to capitalists is that capitalism *is* in fact and principle a controlled economy!, the very charge leveled against socialism and communism, aside from being ‘godless’ (which is patently untrue). Common sense dictates that you can’t *have* an “economy” without also controlling it. Capitalism is about as un-Godly/un-Christian as you can get. There is nothing ‘Natural’ about it. A sheer contrivance of the mind. If there is anything science has categorically refuted, it is ’survival of the fittest.’ Biodiversity will attest to that. No lion nor mouse eats nor hunts unnecessarily. Animals do not compete. There is a difference between competition and rivalry; rivals vie for dominance in time, which is by definition an equilibrium. Competition vies for exclusiveness to escape time, which is by definition vicious. Garbage in, garbage out.

Controlling economies is what governments do. They are there precisely to govern. Anti-socialists think that governing/gummint is something bad. It is necessary, not to mention useful. Under any system (Paine; “that which governs least….”, for example) *something* is going to be ‘The Governer.’ What is very very bad is uncontrolled, opaque government such as what we get under ‘free’-market capitalism ideology, which in few ways is actually free; i.e. it is despotism based in anarchism. You cannot obtain a free, much less a functioning, society that way. You can only enforce one.

The Framers wrote the Constitution in such a way that it reflects most all of the benefits of socialism and deflects most all of the vicissitudes of raw communism and capitalism; Rome at certain periods (the idealized models) was a perfect example of the blending of raw communism and capitalism. At other periods it was socialistic. And to us it is *always* idealized.

The Constitution was framed in such a way that it reflects foremost thought given to banking and transparency, and no provision whatsoever was made *for* centralized banking. The Constitution was socialistic. Thought was directed toward establishing and maintaining a commonweal. Every effort was made to decentralize concentrations of wealth, and therefore power, under the interdependent independencies. If at the least a functioning free society (i.e. an *aggregate*; full range, representative, least to most, etc.) is obtainable under free-marketism, it will only be relative to a small margin that is also the central node, and won’t progress beyond feudalism and guilds unless strong centralized controls on transparency are in place that in themselves are controllable. No *centralized* money controllers, and conversely, centralized money *distribution*, yields little/far less probability of tyranny and wealth/power concentration (what other kind of tyranny is there?) getting out of control of whose weal it is. ‘Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness’ for all and any; not pursuit of wealth. Happiness means health; ultimate good, wholeness brought by Fortune, inspiration, ineffable what-have-you— look it up. Read US history to see how blindingly fast that aim was corrupted. Bentham and similars are spinning in their graves.

Under free-marketism, we get to a lot of cakes from which to *select* from but little in actual choice. Two hundred years ago, free-marketism made a little bit of sense in that real selectivity controlled and also governed supply/demand (ergo their prices.) It no longer makes sense today when differences between products are so infinitesimally microscopic that there is only the illusion of choice. Hence, capitalism no longer creates wealth; it *creates* inflations that destroy wealth.

In other words, “wealth” has been redefined; simple hoarding is thought of as being fungible. Selection is still there, but little choice is available except price. Eroding purchasing power = price is moot. That is evidence that capitalism is now so corrupt it eats itself; it eats only its own kind, as there is no other kind to eat. The same butter is spread around over and over, or sucked out of circulation and consumed, leaving less butter. No new butter is produced; it is “created” out of thin air by renaming a gun ‘butter.’ Growth as cancer. Socialism is about housing, food, water, warmth; it is not about any other type of “commodity.”

Phrased in rather sweeping terms, communism intends to redistribute in principle, but isn’t able to. It is only viable in theory as a logical end-result, which is precisely *why* it’s scientific, and has to be. Socialism distributes the burden of inflations into an equilibrium. Capitalism doesn’t produce because it literally can’t. Capitalism thrives on disrupting equilibrium. Socialism doesn’t aim at perfections (”efficiency”) or unified theories, such as communism or capitalism do. Nature is not “efficient”; it is merely effective, and there is no such aminal as ‘equality.’

Socialism also bypasses feudalism/guildism effectively, which makes it widely practical. Practicable. Socialism’s practicality curtails and limits the accumulation of inflations (power is one such inflationary thing) precisely by removing adverse inverse-proportioned pressure points, such as wage vs purchasing power, necessary for smoother social structure maintainance (productivity; creativity). That makes it flexible. Socialism is an open system. Capitalism and communism are both closed systems, no basis in reality, only on paper, as fanciful and abstract as religious doctrines are. Rigid.

Socialism is the most practicable method toward sustainable equilibrium, and equilibrium is the empirical law of nature that governs stability in the material universe (as we know it) including human conduct.
~~ Parser

Not true; it is because they are bamboozled into believing it is the same as communism. Regardless of who’s interest is served, anti-socialism is as deeply ingrained in US propaganda as believing the US is the wealthiest, smartest, most honorable nation on Earth. It is part of America-as-a-religion doctrine, or America’s religion, if you will. That is what makes socialism an extremely difficult concept to promote.

Even though socialism is a more accurate way of describing what American economic society actually is, with its many layers of corporate welfare, altruistic beliefs about charity, and so forth (democracy is actually the belief in the greatest good for the most people achievable) the word ’socialism’ has been thoroughly stained with the smell of shit by propagandists. Nor can we or should we overlook that capitalism and the ‘free market’ is as much a government-regulated economy game as any in history. Capitalism simply could not function if it weren’t for the government, no matter how loosely defined or organized, intervening in keeping it stable. Raw market forces are as devastating as flash flooding or storms at sea.

Socialism is exactly like the insurance paradigm: pooling the risk among many to reduce the devasting impact upon the few.

One other problem with promoting socialism is that the American mindset cannot look its own selfishness in the face. American selfishness is tweaked and fed by the propaganda that socialism is the same thing as communism. They are, of course, very very different. But good luck getting the majority of Americans–who tend to think in terms their grandparents did–understanding this. Tradition is tradition.

I tend to share Miriam’s pessimism because of the absence of real radical thought in the U.S., and I think that it is extremely important that a revolutionary movement develops here, along with other places in the world, because the U.S. with its military power serves as the linchpin of capitalism. The media and the educational system in the U.S. has been extremely successful in retarding the development of socialist thought as well as critical thinking in general. There is so much unlearning and relearning to be done and Rosenthal’s writing is advancing this project. Thank you so much!

What a wonderful article. I’m sixty-five and have been a communist most of my life, but I only joined Gus Hall’s outfit in….1989!

What has been dawning on me over the last several years – as I’ve been personally experiencing the sicknesses and deaths of myself and loved ones – is what a cutting-edge issue health care truly is. “Of course!” I’ve always known there’s a reserve of radicalism among seniors, but I’d always known it intellectually, not viscerally.

Howsoever, it’s been better than fresh air to read America in Crisis in DV. I’ve long admired physicians, for their courage and commitment to life even more than for their intelligence and compassion. In fact, my greatest heroes are Ali, Fidel, and Dr. Kervorkian. In no particular order.

Keep up the very, very excellent work, Susan. We need you.

Here in Europe, for example, liberalism is the ideology of the 19th century. It brought us the concepts of democracy, individual freedom and all the rest of what we call “human rights”. All of that is viewed very positively by most people and nobody wants to abolish any of it. Nonetheless, liberalism threw up some problems and 20th century socialism provided the answer to them, giving us the welfare state, workers’s rights, consumer protection, public services and all the things we call “social rights”. That too is viewed very positively by most people and nobody wants to abolish any of it. That’s why American neo-liberalism, an esentially reactionary ideology, has never had anything like the following in Europe that it has had in the US and the one serious European attempt to ape it, namely, Thatcherism, has proved to be a monumental disaster, dragging Britain down to almost American levels of degeneracy and depravity.

Now, like liberalism before it, socialism is starting to throw up problems and people are thinking, not of abandoning it, but of building upon it and judging from the way the young are going, I would guess that the ideology of 21st century Europe will be ecology (even the Pope is putting solar panels on the roof of St.Peter’s!).

To us, Americans are “intellectual Amish”. The world seems to have stopped somewhere around 1910! It’s a bit like an astronaut in a powdered wig! You get all this 20th century technology combined with a 19th century mindset. If a European asked if his country was “ready for socialism”, people would laugh at him! It resonates bowler hats and horseless carriages!

One final caveat, if I may. Dr Rosenthal speaks of “build[ing] a very different world”. It is not for Americans to bulid a “world” and the world is sick and tired of Americans, of ALL political persuasions, bullying us and pushing us around in our own countries. All the world wants America to do is to go home and stay home. Physician, heal thine own country!