Who said this? “These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to fleece the people.” a) Marx b) Debs c) Lenin d) Lincoln e) FDR
The correct answer is Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president. Lincoln also said, “Labor is prior to, and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.” Those are sentiments no longer shared by the party Lincoln.
Lincoln is not the only famous American who helped to shape the American credo and espoused ideas that can be called “socialist.” They include Thomas Paine, Emma Lazarus, Walt Whitman, Carl Sandburg, Francis Bellamy (author of the Pledge of Allegiance), Teddy Roosevelt, Upton Sinclair, A. Philip Randolph, and Martin Luther King, Jr., albeit their socialist views are rarely get much attention. John Nichols, who is Washington correspondent for the Nation, wants to change that. His book spotlights what these American icons had to say about the “S” word.
Why does this matter? To correct the faulty narrative coming from the Limbaughs and Hannities, who insist the USA “was founded as a capitalist country, that socialism is a dangerous foreign import,” and that Obamacare was “shredding the Constitution.” (Ironically, it was Obama who took the single-payer option off the table when negotiating the Affordable Care Act.) “The United States is a country,” writes Nichols, “that has always been and should continue to be informed by socialists, socialist ideals and a socialist critique of public policies.”
One of America’s most popular authors during the American Revolution was Thomas Paine, who wrote Common Sense, the pamphlet that justified and inspired the American Revolution. He is frequently quoted by conservatives, like Glen Beck, who contend the founders wanted a capitalist country. But Paine was a “forefather of socialism.” An early advocate of the abolition of slavery, Paine argued for progressive taxation and is recognized by the Social Security Administration as one of the first great advocates of a program for retirement security. His rejection of tradition and embrace of liberty, equality and fraternity was a key part of his philosophy. Considered a founding father of the political left, Paine was a favorite author of Lincoln, Debs and other reformers.
Alvan Bovay was a radical agrarian reformer in the Paine tradition. One of the main founders of the GOP, “Bovay named the party Republican because it was synonymous with equality,” states the US Senate Republican Conference history of the GOP. “It is indisputable,” writes Nichols, “that the Republican Party had at its founding a red streak.”
The first Republican President gave away “land to the landless” when he signed the Homestead Act of 1862, which awarded 160-acre parcels to people who agreed to farm them. As President, Lincoln also urged workers to “combine” into unions, “uniting all working people, of all nations, and tongues, and kindreds.”
Open socialists won elections early in the Twentieth Century, but the success was at the local level. Though Eugene Debs never came close to winning the presidency, he got 6 percent of the vote in 1912, and Socialists elected 34 mayors around the country. His running mate, Emil Seidel, was the Socialist mayor of Milwaukee, which was governed for decades by Socialists. The first Socialist congressman came from Milwaukee, and served on and off from 1911-1929.
Though Debs lost in four presidential elections, the Socialists nonetheless had influence shaping the policies of the Democratic Party, and even with some Republicans, such as Robert LaFollette, who ran for president in 1924 endorsed by the Socialists. LaFollette garnered 16.6 percent of the vote, and is called one of the five greatest senators in history by a Senate committee chaired by JFK.
In 1932, FDR ran a cautious campaign with vague promises about change. By contrast, the Socialist candidate, Norman Thomas, had a specific platform that included old-age pensions, public works programs, unemployment compensation, and legal protection for union organizing. Once in office, FDR adopted all of those proposals and more from the Socialist platform. (So the GOP critics who decried the New Deal as socialist weren’t wrong.)
As Roosevelt coopted the Socialist platform, the Socialist Party lost electoral appeal, and former Socialists turned Democrats, such as Paul Douglas, who was a U.S. Senator from Illinois for 18 years. Other Socialists became labor leaders, including Walter Reuther of the UAW and A. Philip Randolph, who founded the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.
For almost half a century, Randolph was the most prominent African American labor leader, and a powerful voice against segregation and discrimination. An unabashed socialist, Randolph persuaded FDR to issue and executive order to end racial discrimination in the defense industry, and Truman to issue his executive order integrating the armed forces. Randolph was also a mentor to Martin Luther King, Jr.
While conservatives today selectively quote King, they rarely pay attention to his views about the need for wholesale economic reform. “Something is wrong with capitalism,” King said in 1966. “There must be a better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism.”
LBJ enacted Medicare, a limited form of socialized medicine that remains highly popular. His War on Poverty was inspired by Michael Harrington, a former Socialist, who wrote a best-selling book on poverty in America. Harrington believed democratic socialists should work within the Democratic Party to push it leftward. Though President Obama’s critics assailed him “as the world’s best salesman of socialism,” Nichols and others on the left were disappointed by his cautious and compromising approach.
Since 2010, polls have found surprising levels of support for socialist ideas, particularly among the young. The record-setting 2017 hurricane season reminded us that everyone’s a socialist after a natural disaster. Socialism “is the one word that still has to power to frighten, inform and inspire Americans,” Nichols writes. The incredible enthusiasm for Bernie Sanders in 2016 suggests Americans have a growing interest in the socialist alternative to the status quo of wage stagnation, widening economic inequality, and a shrinking middle class.
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Pieter Vandenbroucke
Great book as was the delivery
Reviewed in France 🇫🇷 on February 26, 2018
