why police and fire departments are not socialism

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. Some of the institutions socialists claim as examples of socialism are anything but. Only under these conditions would government activity be synonymous with democratic socialism. -Are hospitals socialist? However, there is an argument that major highways are part of defense infrastructure and should remain in government hands. There is a postage fee. That's an example of socialism in our society today\"The fire department is not socialist. The DSA is a political movement with adherents in both the current U.S. Congress and fourteen state legislatures. Interestingly, now that Yangs out of contention for President this year, there are no outright Resource Socialists running for President. The 2009 stimulus plan likely saved the country from another Great Depression, but it was inadequate to the scale of the crisis and weighted in favor of tax cuts for businesses who simply pocketed the cash instead of hiring new workers. Why? Should it be labor suppliers, whose shareholding or shot-calling tracks their labor contributions as in those firms we call labor coops? No centralized Department of Education. And when billionaire owners of monopolistic and oligopolistic platform companies pay less in taxes than their own secretaries and line workers, isnt it clear whose socialism ours is? The temptation to loot that pot of gold is overwhelming. If the government takes large chunks of your wealth to fund whomever it wants to please, thats socialism. So long as the fundamental structures of the economy remain unchanged, state action will disproportionately benefit capitalist interests at the expense of everything else. Socialist Programs like Medicaid, welfare, social security, can and do exist in capitalist countries. Man on the street videos depicting students are one thing, one could say. Use it or lose it. The word, socialist, means different things to different people. Roads dont producewealth quite so much as they enableproductivity and consumption. 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. He comes to the position with a purely law enforcement and administrative background . Heres what I mean in a bit more detail. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); (that is taxed), all with capital resources. For the most part, yes. 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. The tax revenues or debt financing governments rely on are directly related to the state of the capitalist economy and its rates of growth and profitability. closely held corporations autocratic personal fiefdoms. Why Are So Many Young People Dying Suddenly? With that in mind, a road does not generate a profit, the police do not participate in the market, students do not receive wages for their "work" and libraries do not typically sell products in order to become wealthy. Everyone gets government provided housing, health care, and even government clothing. 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. And its a movement that has endorsed Barrack Obama, John Kerry, Walter Mondale, Jesse Jackson, and other familiar Americans for office in past elections. No taxpayer-funded charter schools. Mixing the profit motive of the private sector with the low accountability levels of the public sector is a recipe for corruption and co-option by radicals. In the war of ideas, its important that those of us who love liberty and oppose socialism actually understand the difference. These are also the kinds of questions that are handled by the Third Wayphilosophy. Allyson Hinzman, a firefighter and the president of Tacoma Firefighters Local 31 in Washington, said local unions are opposed to Democratic Gov. They must be completely neutral and follow the laws set down by the peoples representatives. Socialism, no matter what you learned in High School, is a labor inspired revolution aimed at defeating the class barriers and wealth inequality created by capitalism. Benjamin Franklin pioneered public libraries, and Thomas Jefferson built public schools to educate a new frontier society. This is also relatively true for fire departments. Regardless of the type of society one lives in there will always be a place where you work, a 'workplace'. Our national debt now stands at $15.8 trillion , up from $10.6 when Obama took office. There is no 'pure socialism,' 'pure individualism . Is it about the mechanisms by which resources, goods, or services move from some hands or uses to others? Residency . There are many sub-questions that this question implicates, to each of which many distinct answers have historically been given. These are rights all modern societies but our own now guarantee. That requires a community effort. For more than 30 years, he has researched radical left, Marxist, and terrorist movements and their covert influence on mainstream politics. But lets be honest: thats probably not the case. 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. So please, once and for all: can we retire the tired fallacy that government services and socialism are one andthe same? -Are gas and electric lines socialist? Ask them "How much gross profit did your fire department make last year? Nov 9, 2015. 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. 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. Others arebasic operational activities that any modern government, regardless of its ideological orientation, would carry out (the census, fire departments, garbage and snow removal, sewers, street lighting). Capitalism and social programs exist in most countries. Are Libraries Socialist? More importantly, conflating all government action with socialism forces us to defend many of the most objectionable forms of state activity, including those that we would want to abolish in a free and just society. As he recently said: When you go to your public library, when you call your fire department or the police department, what do you think youre calling? No. If so, then ownership of what? You have paid for a road to drive on, but your tax dollars dont buy you a vehicle. At one campaign stop last year, he endorsed the thinking behind the most simplistic of these memes: When you go to your public library, when you call your fire department or the police department, what do you think youre calling? 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. The third best option is what the United States has nowa mix of public, private, and charter institutions, all directed to some degree by the corrupt and socialist federal government bureaucracy. Were JFK, LBJ, and Nixon (who with Milton Friedman proposed a negative income tax for the poor)? Firefighters, Teachers and Police - Not a Federal Responsibility, Drama in Electing Speaker McCarthy: More Than Sound and Fury, 17th Amendment Weakened Balance of Power Between States, Federal Government, COVID and Federalism: Rich Opportunities for Public Accountability. So if youre a fan, and like calling everything the government (and in turn, we collectively) owns socialism, then consider this: If we each own the military, the bombs, bullets, tanks, and so on, then you know what that means, right? Instead of posing an abstract concept of government against the forces of capital, we should begin the hard work of conceiving and building new institutions that can make government of the people, by the people, and for the people a reality. If they were socialist, each firefighter would own a part of their respective company. The old Latin query cui bono? (who benefits?), on which our contemporary follow the money is a variation, highlights whats most salient to most people the purpose or point, in effect, of productive activity. This is, of course, completely immoral and antithetical to the principles of a free and just society. Use a private highway and you pay a small electronically collected fee, just as most public tolls are collected now. Just like most other forms of infrastructure and social services, they do not all receive the same priority and attention as a truly socialist society should provide. Capitalist production is just production that produces further inputs for production, which is why it is not really a contrast term to socialism, and is how things like state capitalism are possible but more of this presently. Transfer mechanisms? In Federalist 45, James Madison wrote that the powers of the federal government are few and defined. 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 Constitution is the federal government given the explicit power to supplant the traditional police powers of the states. If your government takes a small amount of tax to defend you from forceshuman or naturalthat could destroy your property, steal your wealth, or take your life, thats liberty. The following is a letter to the editor that was published in the Loveland Reporter-Herald in April 2019, reproduced in its entirety. You pay a water bill based on your use. Worker control of capital does nothing to end Capitalism. No one who tells you otherwise has investigated the matter, let alone thought about it. You simply take what you need in a socialist society, so if you need to get from A to B, you only need to board the vehicle. And these claims continue to this day. It is the collective production and provision of a society to meet its own economic needs. Not so. This article first appeared on townhall.com. And by industry, I mean anything capable of providing an income. The first is that all modern economies are what economists call mixed. There is no pure socialism, pure individualism, pure capitalism, or pure anything else where political and economic systems are concerned. No Bernie, the Police and Fire Departments Are Not Socialism. 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. This includes personalizing content and advertising. Achieving an optimal mix should be an important goal of the government. But we shouldnt stop there. For one thing, the rich and powerful invest heavily in political activity to promote their interests and block progressive reforms. In fact, you could say that these redefining tactics happen intentionally for the very reason of defeating logic: Sure but thats not what it means to me.. In any true form of deterministic socialism, the government is always the one signing,as well as cashing your paycheck, eventually eliminating the need for a paycheck altogether. The president argued that these highways were needed for military purposes. The House That Low Information VotersBuilt. Which seems more socialist in such case Lincolns, Reagans and Sanderss labor republican capitalism, which actually produces outputs from inputs, or Mr. Trumps state-funded oligarchical feudalism, which simply brands already existing entities that earn money by luring working people into gambling casinos and overpriced low-quality hotel accommodations? The answer is to roll back that socialism, not expand it. Nor do they call for changing our practices of market exchange. If the level of economic activity declines perhaps , because capitalists are unhappy about new legislation that benefits workers the state will find it increasingly difficult to fund its activities. And still others involve the vast apparatus of coercion and force (police departments, the FBI, the CIA, the military, courts, prisons, and jails). Socialism, loosely defined, is "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need." Some people pay, while some people receive, often those paying are excluded. 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. I believe the vast majority of transport infrastructure should be privately owned and maintained. Fact: In 1806, more than a decade before Karl Marx was born, the United States Congress passed, and President Thomas Jefferson signed, legislation authorizing construction of the Cumberland Road, an interstate highway that would stretch more than 600 miles, connecting the Potomac and Ohio Rivers. They are a public resource, and health care is becoming subsidized more and more. It is intriguing, in this connection, again to contrast Senator Sanderss vision to Donald Trumps. Those resources are privately generated, and you pay a bill based on your use. No. The Constitution is clear. Before he became a founding father of the United States, Benjamin Franklin established one of America's first volunteer fire departments. Something else? Trump, who passes himself off as a corporate whizz, has not in fact worked within multiple-shareholder-controlled corporations, and has only once issued shares publicly in a Trump family enterprise. As a liberal, Ive always found myself disappointed in the alarmist tone of conservatives whenever the governmentproposed a new social program. Some seem thrown in for no good reason at all (Amber Alerts? But that doesnt make the practice prudent or proper. Why do we need public libraries? It is also a movement to which many people you know and admire either belong or belonged: for example, Martin Luther King, Coretta Scott King, Upton Sinclair, Michael Harrington, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib. There is socialism, like the fire department. All we would have to do is elect sympathetic politicians to office and let them legislate their way to even more socialism. And defined $ 15.8 trillion, up from $ 10.6 when Obama took.! Let them legislate their way to even more socialism a private highway and you pay a bill based on use... Which resources, goods, or services move from some hands or uses to others economic needs of Tacoma Local! And socialism are one thing, the rich and powerful invest heavily in political to! All ( Amber Alerts in its entirety it about why police and fire departments are not socialism mechanisms by which resources, goods, or pure else. 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