Dreamers of the world, unite!

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Book review: “Imagine: Living in a Social­ ist USA,” by Frances Golden, Debby Smith, Michael Smith. (HarperCollins, 2014.)

T o imagine a socialist United States is what many people might consider a uto­ pian vision. In that particularly pragmatic strain of American thought, utopian has an almost pejorative association to it, too. As in, get real, that’ll never happen.

In fact, so thoroughly have the intellectual traditions of socialism been marginalized in the United States that it’s hard to imagine a major corporate publisher even bringing out a book on the theme of a socialist America. With HarperCollins new title, “Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA,” the latter at least has happened. The brainchild of vet­ eran literary agent Frances Goldin and coeditors Michael Smith and Debby Smith, the new anthology offers a lively cross-section of writing on themes related to revolution­ ary social change. From economists to po­ ets, psychotherapists and labor activists, the book strives admirably to suggest the poten­ tial for a better world beyond capitalism.

Contributors include Angela Davis, Mumia Abu-Ja­ mal, Rick Wolff, Clifford D. Connor, Juan Gonzalez, Dave Lindorff, Paul LeBlanc, and Michael Moore. Where it starts is with an appraisal of just how far we are from the egalitarian ideal. As writer Paul Street aptly summarizes in the book’s opening essay, inequality and poverty are deeply entrenched traditions in American life—and worsening. According to the 2010 census, the number of citizens living in official poverty in the United States stood at 46.2 million. That’s over 15 percent of the population, or every one in seven people. If you consider also those living in “near poverty,” as a New York Times 2011 survey did, the overarching re­ ality of poverty expands to include an astonishing one in three Americans. Of course, for minorities the reality of American life has long been more akin to a perma­ nent Great Depression. In 35 of the largest cities, the first half of 2010 found unemployment rates among Blacks ranged from 30 to 35 percent. The poverty rate of 26 percent was double that of whites.

A disparity of justice and riches For a country long considered the richest in the world, the figures are astonishing. But there’s a reason for the rich nation designation. This is a country that produces families like the Waltons, magnates of the Wal-Mart em­ pire of cheap goods and underpaid jobs, who now own more wealth than 48 million families. Consider also the 57,000 people with at least $30 million in wealth, rep­ resenting the top .05 percent of the population. Then there’s the rarified air breathed by the American bil­ lionaire class, the pinnacle of concentrated ruling-class wealth and power. There are about 400 of them. It’s hardly left-wing hyperbole to suggest that the power of these elites corrupts democracy. In fact, a re­ cent Princeton study came to just such a conclusion. The report, “Testing Theories of American Politics: ELites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens,” analyzed data from nearly 1800 U.S. policies enacted between 1981 and 2002. As political scientists Martin Gilens and Ben­ jamin Page write, “economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial indepen­ dent impacts on US government policy, while massbased interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.”

The modern United States is more an economic oli­ garchy than a popular democracy, conclude Gilens and Page. That’s a dry way of saying that raw, naked power in the hands of a privileged few rules the nation. Indeed, as the 21st century proceeds, global extremes of wealth and inequality are reasserting themselves with renewed force, declares French economist Thomas Pik­ etty in his surprise bestseller, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century.” From Piketty we get a long view of ris­ ing inequality as a structural component of international capitalism, one expected to deepen in coming years. With few ideas of their own, Piketty’s sobering critique has “free market” apologists screaming “Marxist!” at the professor.

But Piketty is hardly a Marxist. His solutions involve not revolutionary social and political change, but ideas like implementing a “global wealth tax” to reduce in­ equality and raise living standards. In a recent Salon es­ say, Thomas Frank, author of “What’s the Matter With Kansas” (Holt, 2005), criticizes Piketty’s solution for ig­ noring the importance of labor’s organizing as a counter to capitalist greed.

10 SOCIALIST ACTION JUNE 2014 That’s right, as far as it goes. Currently, as Frank notes, only 6.7 percent of American workers have union collec­ tive bargaining rights to protect them from the predatory greed of employers. An organized, independent mass la­ bor movement is indeed a prerequisite to turning back the oligarchy’s long assault on living standards. But, ultimately, what’s all the organizing for? Is it just to engage in a perpetual historical tussle with employers over higher wages? Or to protect Social Security ben­ efits, resist skyrocketing college tuition costs, and de­ mand much-needed paid family medical leave for new parents? Is our vision only to see the AFL-CIO trans­ formed into a strong, fighting instrument of the people’s interests? Is that all it will take to earn capitalism a seal of approval as a fair and just system?

Or is the answer something more? Is the answer a com­ pletely new society, one beyond capitalism? Is the an­ swer socialism?

What exactly is the socialist alternative? Definitions abound, including even one that claims Barack Obama’s politics fall under the socialist label (not). For sure, socialism is not the distorted legacy of dictatorial bu­ reaucratic power represented by Stalinism in the Soviet Union or China. Nor is it the reformism of a kinder, gentler capitalism envisioned in the traditions of European Social Democracy. Simply put, as several contributors to this book explain, socialism means economic democracy. It is political democracy extended into economic life, the people managing society’s productive re­ sources in the interests of the majority. The social­ ist alternative equals a society in which economic decisions are made on the basis of humane goals and rational planning, democratically determined and for the benefit of all. This is in sharp contrast to the authoritarian business model of modern capitalism, in which corporations exist only to re­ turn profits to owners and investors.

Despite its marginalization, socialism as a phi­ losophy or political alternative has rich traditions in the United States going back to the 19th cen­ tury. Indeed, the great historic movements of la­ bor, civil rights, women’s rights, the movement to end the war in Vietnam, and other social struggles have often been led or deeply influenced by men and women of socialist ideals.

The limits of bipartisan politics Admittedly, Imagine is less concerned with how to achieve socialism—the leadership issue—than it is with persuading readers of the essential va­ lidity of the socialist vision. With this limitation in mind, the book is appropriately titled. For one of the worst consequences of mainstream politics and media is the way it deflates the social imagi­ nation. This is no accident, of course.

The corporate news media rarely sees beyond the narrowly defined limits of bipartisan politics, the perennial election dramas and legislative skir­ mishes among professional politicians who at the end of the day remain in service to “the 1 per­ cent.” On television the likes of David Gregory, Chris Matthews, and others solemnly pontificate over the endless minutia of beltway power poli­ tics, assuring us what is under discussion is very, very important. Even the earnest liberals of MS­ NBC fall into this narrow, stupefying perspective. It’s all a dreary, cacophonic blur of a system on (Left) Clifford D. Conner, a contributor to “Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA,” speaks at May 23-24 Socialist Action (Canada) international conference in Toronto.

autopilot, flying straight into its own eventual ruin.

At this late stage in capitalism’s history, it ought to be obvious that the system, even at its most prosperous, cannot offer the major­ ity of the people enduring economic security or social peace. Even during a boom cycle, the specter of recession or depression always looms. Meanwhile, basic necessities of life such as food, housing, health care, and jobs remain ultimately just pawns of a “free mar­ ket” in which nearly every human resource is reduced to a commodity. And when economic struggle between competing nations reaches an impasse, let the wars begin! How many hundreds of millions of the modern era have died violently as a result of global capital­ ism’s failures?

Some of us imagine a different world, one in which economic exploitation is a thing of the past. We envision an end to a system in which privileged elites gorge on profits earned at the expense of society’s well-being and future.

Instead, we foresee a time in which the world’s great technological and productive capacity is used to lift up society, eradicate poverty, and empower the people in ways far more profound than most can now imagine.

But imagine and act we must. For as the early 20thcentury Polish revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg once de­ scribed it, the choice before the world was one of “so­ cialism or barbarism.” A century later we see that latter choice still embodied in the ever-enduring possibility of nuclear war, but also in the specter of catastrophic cli­ mate change caused by the skewed legacy of industrial Despite the cynicism of our age, the possibilities for a new society are endless and profound. As the contribu­ tors to this provocative new collection of writing on so­ cialism remind us, we can indeed only begin to imagine the limits of what is possible.

As the French student movement of May 1968 once declared, we also face now only the very realistic task of demanding the impossible. n Climate panel condemns Harper’s direction Scientists studying climate change urge a dramatic move away from fossil fuels, like oil and coal, to re­ newable energy to avoid rising sea levels and an increase in storms, flooding, drought and other ex­ treme weather. The Inter-governmental Panel on Cli­ mate Change (IPCC), in its April 2014 report, insists that the output of renewable energy, like solar and wind power, must triple by mid-century.

But the Stephen Harper-led Conservatives are tak­ ing Canada in the opposite direction with their devo­ tion to tar sands oil and pipelines.

Canada is falling farther behind its commitment, made as part of the Copenhagen agreement, to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 17 per cent from 2005 levels.

Environment Canada, a federal government depart­ ment, in a report on emissions from 1990 to 2012, ad­ mitted that the energy sector surpassed transporta­ tion as the largest generator of gases causing climate change. It says the oil and gas sector now accounts for one-quarter of the country’s gas output, edging out vehicle emissions. Energy sector emissions have soared since 1990 – up about 70 per cent - due to crude oil and tar sands expansion.

The IPCC report in September stated that climate change is caused by human activity, pointing to grow­ ing evidence of its causes.

The April report, released in Japan, focussed on the impact of climate change and warned that global warming was already damaging crops, spreading dis­ eases and increasing acidity in our oceans. Wars and mass migration could be the outcome, it said. The next gathering of negotiators from around the world to try to reach a climate deal will take place in Paris in 2015. But who will be calling the shots? Will it be directly affected workers and farmers, or big business politicians, and billionaire oil and gas tycoons? — B.W.

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By the time you read the hard copy of this article in the June edition of Socialist Action, the provincial website: http://socialistaction.ca