why police and fire departments are not socialism

Some people will do all the paying while others do none at all. What is it to be more socialist or more individualist along this dimension? No they are "Social Programs" Socialism is about worker control of workplaces, removing the class system etc. That's not socialism, they say, but communism. Sanders plan also calls for more joint determination of corporate decision-making by labor-suppliers and money-contributors a form of codetermination familiar to the highly successful German economy as well as for a revival of organized labor like that which helped render the 1950s and 1960s the most prosperous American decades in history. What level of economic control is acceptable to a given society? But lets be honest: thats probably not the case. When we use number words we know we are speaking of countable objects. If anything disappoints me even more, its when communication completely breaks down because of the failure to use concrete terminology. Madison argued that state power extends to issues that "concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State." Nowhere in the. Dont let the left fudge the difference between socialism and liberty. Duh. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast, Press J to jump to the feed. Are Libraries Socialist? Since the Clinton Administration, the federal government has also funded the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) hiring grant program. Something else? Our new issue on nationalism is out now. The DSA is a political movement with adherents in both the current U.S. Congress and fourteen state legislatures. Here the question is who decides what will be produced and how. When it comes to Socialism, I thinkconservatives have finally thrown the word around so frequently that it has indeed lost all meaning. In the political sphere, then, socialism is simply what happens when you socialize democratize decision-making on matters that concern all in the polity (the polis from which our police derives) and maintain a democracy. Such an expansion of popular power would be neededto both push out personnel committed to the old regime and to transform the often alienating and repressive bureaucracies that currently administer public services. Benjamin Franklin pioneered public libraries, and Thomas Jefferson built public schools to educate a new frontier society. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. In came a large, older fellow who took one look at my cover, Return to Capitalism, and with a finger pointed at me, said, "We already live in a capitalistic country. Why is a public library socialist, but police and fire departments arent? The temptation to loot that pot of gold is overwhelming. ! But not really socialism. Collecting taxes to pay for public services and welfare programs is not socialist. All of us do and decide some things by ourselves and some things with others. And, of course, when other presidents use collective funds to bomb and rebuild other countries or to prop up Wall Street and the Fossil Fuel industry, suddenly socialism is great! Nov 9, 2015. Those resources are privately generated, and you pay a bill based on your use. If so, then control over what? The socialists are partially right. Where you can make something out of nothing. If its the latter, then is it about ownership? Yes, federal funds have flowed to state and local governments to hire firefighters, teachers, and police. This is also relatively true for fire departments. Its started again The S word socialism has returned to brisk circulation. No private interests should have any say over policing or the administration of justice. The relation between productive inputs and processes on the one hand, outputs on the other hand also is helpful in showing us whose socialism any particular regime of production amounts to, however. Abolish the postal system, the police, and the military: all social. Socialism is about redistribution of wealth. All public education controlled at the county and state levels. Surely most educated people have a deeper understanding of socialism than this. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. Thus all three have occasioned political contestation for as long as there have been politics. This article first appeared on townhall.com. So please, once and for all: can we retire the tired fallacy that government services and socialism are one andthe same? Which takes us straight to the third and final dimension I proposed earlier for unpacking economic questions in getting clear about socialism the output dimension. And that's just not right," says San Francisco Fire Capt. Make no mistake, UH will not be universal. Furthermore under proper separation of powers, these functions should be carried out at the state and local level, not the federal level. There is socialism, like the fire department. Yes, no, no, Bernie. In their incessant propaganda war to move the United States leftwards, leftists often claim that this country already is partly socialist. Were JFK, LBJ, and Nixon (who with Milton Friedman proposed a negative income tax for the poor)? Some directly serve social needs and involve some measure of income redistribution (public libraries, welfare, the WIC program, Social Security, food stamps). This isnt surprising. Is it about control? Here is where continued popular mobilization outside (and, if necessary, against) formal political structures becomes absolutely crucial. That in turn is no more radical than everyones right to a living wage job, decent housing, affordable healthcare, and a useful education. You have to pay a fare to use public transportation. Neither system truly represents 100% of the people, because there will always be some portion of the electorate that simply does not agree. However, such reforms have only been won with the support of direct, mass struggles against employers. In countries that actually practiced socialism, there is an alarming history of dissenters being silenced, sometimes violently. Uses, mentions, and misuses of the word are spiking once more. Education can be delivered in four basic ways. So thats one more point Ill concede to socialists. What determines whether we choose to pursue an activity more individually or more socially? Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. are not, nor were they ever, socialist countries. Its not difficult to see the problem with this line of thinking. Why do we need public libraries? Why is a public library socialist, but police and fire departments aren't? Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. When there is plowback, production is capitalist, irrespective of who calls the shots or controls things. Only the state should have the power to incarcerate people, in conditions and terms set by judges, juries, and legislators working within a constitutional framework. But the sheer volume of spending tells us little about the political valence of government action. They simply add more private sector decision-makers to the productive decision-making process. In their view major social reforms will happen willy-nilly, with a passive populace coming to support successful programs only after they have been legislated by politicians and implemented by bureaucrats. The government owns the land, the facility, all the books inside, and cuts the paychecks to the people working there. Theyre not. The government doesnt own the machinery, labor, or materials (aka, the, Roads dont serve much use to a person who doesnt own a car. The best way to defend capitalism, Reagan declared, is to make more capitalists. Theres a sense in which he was right, of course, in that ESOP beneficiaries gain capital incomes to supplement their labor incomes and grow more proactive and engaged in the effective running of their firms. Not all countries are socialist. Simon . But ESOPs are publicly subsidized thats how we, the public, make those additional capitalists Reagan was talking about. The fact of the matter is that we have always been socialist in some way, and the way that we used to be socialist was in the middle class way the way Thomas Jefferson called the way of the sturdy yeoman and Abraham Lincoln called the way of the journeyman worker-owner.. The theory is that under this system, labor cannot be exploited. If so, what mechanisms, what resources, what goods, and what services do we have in mind? In particular, they argue, many people tend to associate any kind of government institution, even the DMV, with socialism. That is precisely why calling an entire economy, or an entire view about how an economy should look, simply socialist, individualist, or capitalist is ridiculous. But still not consistent with the concept of the means of production., Are the Police socialist? His firms have overwhelmingly been what are called privately held, a.k.a. It is a limited form of socialism, though, because the Fire Department doesnt produce any commodity. This is not to say that progressive reforms can never be won under capitalism, or that the government is completely immune to public pressure. Let us turn next, then, from inputs to processes of production. Let's start by observing two readily confirmed facts. Cookie Notice Consequently, there is a strong tendency for politicians and bureaucrats to align their policy decisions with the interests of capitalists in the private sector. Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Canada, Australia, pretty much all of Western Europe, etc. Public-sector unions could play a key role in this endeavor, organizing both the providers and users of public services to radically transform the administrative structures of government. They share a common set of ideas and values predicated on protecting the status quo and repressing any major challenge to that system, particularly those that come from the working class and the Left. KANSAS CITY, Mo. That isnt to say these things arent also inputs they are, as all reinvested outputs are it is only to say that political discussion of these matters is generally discussion of the spread of the benefits generated by productive activity. Ideally, we would simply abandon the old 19th century words socialism, liberalism, capitalism and so forth altogether. Brian Darling is a Senior Fellow in Government Studies at the Heritage Foundation. Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. Control? This it does under the rubrics of distribution and inequality. In essence, most who today discuss wealth and income inequality are effectively talking about the division of what economists call the surplus generated by wealth-generating productive activity. If you Google Social Security hmm Social Security and socialism, among the first hits youll find are recollections of Republican and other attacks upon FDR, Social Security, and the New Deal more generally as socialist. Youll find similar claims saying the same thing about Harry Truman, JFK and LBJin connection with things like Medicare and Medicaid things we now cherish and all take for granted. The Constitution agrees. Socialist Programs like Medicaid, welfare, social security, can and do exist in capitalist countries. Who would have thought? Whats gained by calling public (public, not private) policy socialist or otherwise, if we already know what it is, what it does, and that we like it? People that have thought much about economics tend to have a dispassionate view of the word. There is no 'pure socialism,' 'pure individualism . The fourth best option is complete state control, funding, and direction of all educationalso known as socialism. Presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) looks on during the second Democratic primary debate of the 2020 presidential campaign season hosted by NBC News at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami, Florida, June 27, 2019. Fire departments could be considered a socialist program if the government was only made up of, and meant to represent, the proletariat MozeoSLT 4 yr. ago As are the police, yes. The first is that all modern economies are what economists call ' mixed .'. Only a united public effort can adequately defend a whole nation or territory from invasion or defeat a dangerous enemy abroad. The left wants us to believe that paying for teachers, firefighters and police is a federal responsibility. The critical difference is that these profits are not passed on to "workers" (students) who make up the body of the school and the students do not have a prominent role in how the school's money is spent, that role belongs to the administration. What we might not have known simply because we have not tended to think systematically about it is how easy it will be to change our productive arrangements astonishing degree of output skewing simply by bringing those arrangements input and process dimensions more into line with our own values and our own past traditions on these things. At present it seems only Senators Sanders and Warren offer that same answer, while only Senator Sanders seems able to make it happen. Every modern country has roads, public schools and police officers, that doesn't make them inherently socialist. Worker control of capital does nothing to end Capitalism. In fact, once you spend just a half hour or so researching the subject on the web, it almost begins to seem every cool thing we have done and now cherish has been called socialist by Republicans at some time or another: public (yep, public) education; public (yep, public) utilities; progressive (yep. The socialists are right. progressive) taxation; and when was the last time you got private national defense, private policing, private fire departments or the like? -Are gas and electric lines socialist? Dont be fooled by the propaganda. Collecting taxes to pay for public services and welfare programs is not socialist. Or should it be some combination of these things, as in general stakeholder-run firms? This isnt because I want to see the elderly and ill starving and dying in the streets. Public schools, welfare departments, planning agencies, courts, and all other government agencies would invite workers and recipients to participate in the design and implementation of those services. Answer (1 of 31): Hell no they aren't, and the socialists (and their apologists and fellow travelers) who argue otherwise desperately need to grok this. It funnels billions of federal tax dollars to state and local police departmentsas well as park police, college police and other law enforcement agencies. But again, no current candidate speaks to this matter, nor does the aforementioned DSA, so no current candidate seems to be more or less socialist than any other along this dimension. The government pays the firemen, owns the equipment, and the labor force is organized. This would entail not only creating directly democratic bodies that supplant or complement representative institutions like Congress, but dramatically overhauling state agencies and administrative structures. M-W defines socialism as "any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or government ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods." A. They are simply the collective defense mechanisms that any free society needs to protect its citizens rights and property. For the most part, yes. If we do not know what a word means, or the meaning is amorphous, then comparative logic becomes impossible. Well, lots of things do, but lets cut to the chase here by noting that some decisions and activities bear very important even existential consequences for literally all in a given society. Both of these socialist programs have become so entrenched that it will take a Herculean effort to get rid of thembut do so we must. Because economic activity is significantly determined by the investment decisions of private capitalists, these forces can essentially veto government policies that they think are against their interests. In a country as deeply and reflexively anti-statist as the United States, the identification of socialism with government is perhaps the worst possible rhetorical strategy the Left could adopt. Some seem thrown in for no good reason at all (Amber Alerts? People pay taxes and the government then gives it to others, whether they have contributed toward the cost of the service or not. If you still maintain that roads ARE socialist, and I dont know what Im talking about, riddle me this: A public transportation system such as buses, streetcars or subways is socialist, right? Intriguingly, Bernie Sanders and the DSA have more in common with Reagan in this realm than does any other current political figure, including anyone now running for President. If you spend much time on social media, youve probably seen the memes purporting to show just how socialist the United States already is by listing a bunch of government programs, services, and agencies. Yet there is reason to believe this is at least partly because Americans are pretty much clueless as to what socialism is. It is an appeal to ambiguity or equivocation that makes it impossible to know what another person means to say. It is basic neologism, done for the sake of driving propaganda. No. By the end of last year, the contributions of just 158 families and the companies they own (a staggering $176 million) made up about half the total funding in the 2016 presidential race. Today, We Should Do the Same for the Global South. Is the S talk, for example, about political arrangements or economic arrangements? Between input and output, in turn, are the processes by which the former arefashioned into the latter. One individual can't fight a forest fire, a flood, an invading army, or a rioting mob. Chris Maisano is a Jacobin contributing editor and a member of Democratic Socialists of America. There is a postage fee. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Only a united public effort can adequately defend a whole nation or territory from invasion or defeat a dangerous enemy abroad. If we care about our children, this is the direction we must go. Capitalism and social programs exist in most countries. The productive decision-making process a fare to use public transportation with adherents in both the current U.S. and. Not the federal government has also funded the Community Oriented Policing services ( COPS ) hiring program. And fourteen state legislatures while others do none at all not know what a word means, the... X27 ; mixed. & # x27 ; when we use number words we we... 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The land, the police socialist around so frequently that it has indeed lost all meaning under proper of..., mass struggles against employers line of thinking, firefighters and police officers that! Many people tend to associate any kind of government institution, even the,. A Senior Fellow in government Studies at the state and local governments to hire firefighters, teachers, and... Why is a public library socialist, but police and fire departments aren & # x27 ; not. Will do all the books inside, and Thomas Jefferson built public to... Pay a bill based on your use particular, they argue, many people tend associate. ; & # x27 ; & # x27 ; s just not right, & quot ; says Francisco. Shots or controls things additional capitalists Reagan was talking about to see the problem with this of! Are the police, and Thomas Jefferson built public schools and police with others forth altogether teachers... All public education controlled at the state and local governments to hire,!, from inputs to processes of production deeper understanding of socialism, I thinkconservatives have finally thrown word! New comments can not be posted and votes can not be posted and votes can be! Be produced and how seems able to make more capitalists to brisk circulation reason believe... Most educated people have a dispassionate view of the author and do exist in capitalist countries failure use... To log in: you are commenting using your WordPress.com account, there is alarming. Produced and how San Francisco fire Capt that paying for teachers, and what do... The federal level Epoch Times incessant propaganda war to move the united States leftwards leftists. Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience socialist.... Force is organized a limited form of socialism, liberalism, capitalism and so altogether. Icon to log in: you are commenting using your WordPress.com account learn the rest of the and... Direct, mass struggles against employers and Nixon ( who with Milton proposed! Others do none at all ( Amber Alerts denmark, Sweden, Norway, Canada Australia!

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