In any system there will be powerful people and there will be people in charge of regulating it. Ideally you'd need those two sets of people to be different and, in theory, capitalism should allow this. The powerful people are the business owners and market makers. The regulators are the government. I'd argue our current problems stem from the powerful people having bought the regulators.

In a socialist system the powerful people will always be the regulators as well and that is why it is a far more dangerous system from the get go. Those in power will attempt to directly engineer the citizens and the class warfare you want will be truly fought in the streets. That's pretty twisted.

>Those in power will attempt to directly engineer the citizens
Yeah, capitalist governments never directly engineer their citizens. That is why we live in a nation where nobody becomes educated, people are discouraged from taking on debt, we don't pledge our allegience to our nation in school or before baseball games, the armed forces are just bands of farmers with guns that don't advertise, religious isn't pushed as a core value, and planned real estate development is banned.

In a truly socialist system there would be direct democratic accountability, the people at any institutional level would have powers of immediate recall. Yes (aptly named) "cliche", in THEORY government oversight is not institutionally captured by big business but in practice this has never been the case. The US government, with policy both foreign and domestic, has always been at the beck and call of the capitalist class. You could try to point to the New Deal and the subsequent era of reformism as evidence to the contrary but that would be unwise, as those reforms followed intense pressure from below and some more enlightened portions of the capitalist class. Those reforms ushered in the "golden age of capitalism".

Socialism means democratic control over the economy as well as the political system, not some Stalinist bureaucratic state as the propagandistic cliche would posit. But regardless capitalism is a system that is by definition dependent on never-ending growth. We are destroying the planet and the best the US government can do is make some nice speeches while continuing to wage war for more oil. Obama recently gave a speech explicitly saying the US government will use its military might to defend our strategic interests in the Middle East i.e. oil. This system is not dangerous in theory, it is ravaging our planet as we speak, not to mention the disgusting levels of inequality that leaves a tiny minority to bask in opulence while the 99% (more like 99.99% globally) live on the scraps. Or don't live, as the case may be.

@1 - Really? How So?

@6 And Reagan/Thatcher economics/attacks on the working class turned out to be just swell.

@9 I don't think it is fair to say they were brought on by systemic problems with social democracy. Moving away from social democracy didn't fix those things, and other things, like reliace on fossil fuels, had a lot to do with the problems in the 70s. Ceratainly the economy worked better from the 40s-70s than it has since the 80s?

@ 11, Well I guess you are entitled to your opinions, although it is best not to present opinion as fact. And it is worth pointing out that you attribute the down economy in the 70s purely to the economic system (depsite the prior 25 years of success and the other things going on, such as the oil crisis) and then go on to blame the problems of the post-Reagan economy on everything but the system--the types of outside sources that you didn't take into account in the 70s. And, it is also worth pointing out, that the countries with the most robust middle classes are the ones that still practice a type of social democracy (i.e., the scandanavian countries) and that the countries that adopted Reagan-style policies have all experienced out of control growth in income disparities, shrinking middle classes, and stagnation for all but the richest few (in addition to a host of social, economic, and environmental harms caused by deregulation). I would argue that a quick look at the Scandanavian countries compared to the countries that abanoned social democracy tells a different story than the one you paint.

@11 @10, Ken's last point is partially accurate, in terms of what drove the golden age of US capitalism. But the attacks on workers were by no means "necessary". It is a matter of class warfare waged from above and not met with strong enough resistance, partially due to failures of the movements of the 60s to develop class consciousness. The stagnating wages were one side of a coin that saw inequality skyrocket. That was not "necessary" but a precondition for the current stagnation we are currently witnessing.

The"systemic problems" are not with social democracy, but with capitalism, of which social democracy is just one form. Social democracy was a reaction to the deep crisis capitalism faced in the 30s, in order to stave off the both the let-wing and right-wing challenges to the broken system. But the inherent contradictions of capitalism cannot forever be overcome with some social welfare. So Ken is correct in his view that social democracy is not the long-term answer. His acceptance of a move to more severe capitalism that serves a tiny elite, however, is deeply misguided. But understandable given the control held by that elite over our institutions of education and dissemination.

@13 - I do think that a type of social democracy is stable. I mean I don't think you ever do away with capitalism alltogether. Capitalism is well suited to some things and poorly to others. Same with Socailism. I wish I could remember who said it, but someone wise said that capitalism is a great tool and a terrible dogma.

Whoa! This is awesome. A substantive, non-ad-hominem-attack-fueled back-and-forth about economics in the comments to an online article. Don't stop!

@14 - Capitalism as a system and each capitalist firm depends upon growth (even small mom and pop shops will always lose if they are faced with the competitive advantage of large corporations). While social democracies have blunted the edge of capitalism for their own population, they cannot overcome the limits that a system based on unlimited growth run up against vis-a-vis the environment.

The capitalist economies of social democratic states depend upon a world system that exploits not only the resources of developing nations all over the world, but their brutal labor practices and slave-wages. The goods that were created in crumbling Bangladeshi factories are sold in Scandinavia as well. And Ken above was partially accurate in pointing to the problems of social democracies competing on the world market. If, in this age of neoliberal trade policies, some company somewhere else in the world pays lower wages they can outcompete. With no (or little) barriers to capital megacorporations can play us all off of each other in a race to the bottom.

But the environment is central. Look at planned obsolescence. It is more profitable to make widgets that only last a couple years than to design something that will last a lifetime. The profit motive under capitalism cannot be relegated to a secondary position following social welfare, because it is the driving force of the economy.

One last point, I don't see any problem in a world without capitalism. Capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production, with the vast majority dependent on the private owners of capital not only for goods and services but for access to the means of sustenance (a job). What is the need for decisions about what is to be produced and how, and how those goods and services will be allocated, and where the surplus (profits under capitalism) is distributed, to be made by a tiny capitalist class? You can say the democratically elected government will curtail the private power held by a minority, but if you have political democracy without economic, that economic elite will always have a greater influence over the political system, and thus be able to gain even greater advantage in the economic realm. Sorry for the length!

@1:We never had social democracy here (well,us POCs and the Lower Class,that is!),but any candidate from the Socialist Workers Party is a Moral improvement over any so-called "Democratic" Klandidate!!! ---- http://www.politicalcompass.org/test ,and -- http://www.themilitant.com .Vote for Edwin Fruit for Seattle City Council!(and Naubert for Port of Seattle!).

@11 - Why or how were the auto industries of Japan and Germany able to provide the level of competition they did for our own auto industry without reducing or suppressing quality of life for their workers? Or to ask from the other side, why were we only able to achieve what they had achieved at the expense of the worker on the ground?

This is one of the rare times when I'm going to diverge from a Stranger endorsement. Don't get me wrong, I adore socialism...but its Nordic/Japanese version. Sawant's type of socialism (or, at least her talking points) reads like a guidebook about the tragedy of unintended consequences. The socialism I want is the one that makes Seattle function a little more like Stockholm (or Tokyo, Copenhagen, Oslo...), which means huge public investments in infrastructure, health care and education, and not demonizing the middle class.

In what ways is Sawant a socialist?
She is a conventional albeit energetic liberal with the usual (and often good) positions.
But she is -- very cleverly -- using "socialist" as a way of getting attention.
It's all about marketing herself to appeal to people who are disaffected.

@15 - I think that there is still a place for (regulated) capitalism--or capitalist enterprise anyways--in a steady state economy. Especially because much of our economy does not fall into the "means of production" definition. If you are talking about hotels or restaraunts or non-essential goods, (regulated) capitalism works fairly well. And I think that in some areas capitalism has been adept at innovation. I also think that we can curb some of the worst effects of consumerism without taking over all the private companies. For example, I think we should replace the income tax with a progressive consumption tax. To some extent the growth problem is intrinsic to capitalism, but more than that we make a choice to emphasize growth. The government acts as if the one and only cure for every economic ailment is to grow the GDP (which means the Deepwater Horizon spill was fantastic!). I think that if we focus on something more meaningful than GDP, we can use some (regulated) capitalism to our benefit.

That beings said, there are some things that capitalism just doesn't do well. Medicine, prisons, military, etc.

@16 - Well put. But what is the alternative? Do the alternative models you imagine allow for what does work, at least nominally, in our systems? I'm not worried about not having my smartphone; I only have it now because I'm expected to have one, because I cannot function professionally without one. But would a system in which there were no markets be able to sustain, say, professional artists? Or do you envision a market in which power was somehow less centralized, but which would still allow for some free movement between occupations based on interest, aptitude, and a viable audience or consumer base?

For example, I think we should replace the income tax with a progressive consumption tax.

What does this look like? I know of no consumption tax that is not, in effect, regressive, but I'm open to the idea that there's a better version with which I'm not familiar.

@21-As I pointed out above, unfortunately if capitalism is the dominant system, growth is not an emphasis. If a capitalist economy is not growing it is shrinking, which means unemployment, less tax revenues, more pressures on government to break down regulations to "spur investment". If investment is determined by private capital holders, they will only invest if they believe their capital will be augmented. If not they will withhold their funds resulting in stagnation.

These arguments aside, PLEASE DO NOT VOTE FOR KSHAMA SAWANT.

While I do not share Mudede's unsubtle perspective on political history, I too am a card-carrying socialist who is excited about the prospect of someone who actually represents my views serving in city government. But DENSITY and TRANSIT are huge social justice issues, and Sawant has consistently proven herself to inept on density (see her comments on rent control) and outright hostile to transit (see her comments that Link is "elitist"). Furthermore, look at who she'd be replacing: Conlin is easily the most pro-density, pro-transit member of city council.

I'd love to vote for a socialist, but I won't do it this time.

@22 - I think markets in and of themselves are not anathema to socially just system, or to socialists. But markets need to be looked at as tools, not determinative ends in themselves (w/o getting into the myths surrounding "free" markets). I envision a democratically planned economy (planning can include the use of markets where they are more suited to efficient distribution of some goods and services, Dave Schweikart has a couple books that create market socialist models) that serves first and foremost the core needs of the population, which includes curbing environmental degradation, over the opulent luxury of a minority. This would definitely require a rethinking of our consumer goods system. Many mainstream commentators (i.e. representatives of the dominant system) seem to care only for the "freedom" of the minority to consume endlessly without considering the negative impacts on the "freedom" of the poor majority on the planet.
Workers should have democratic control over their individual workplace, and society as a whole should have a say over our production methods and systems.
Artists are definitely vital, and I think markets of some sort could help to determine the "success" for artists rather than some bureaucratic apparatchiks. But many of our greatest artists have not been recognized in their time. A sane system would harness the enormous productive capacities that have been developed under capitalism to give everyone much more time to pursue their passions and interests, meaning artists could produce without depending on the profitability of their work for a publishing firm etc. We produce endless amounts of crap to keep the capitalist economy moving. How many little rubber duckys do we really need? Do we need ever more plastic disposable razors? I don't think so.

Mehlman: Where the fuck do read history?

Reagan and Thatcher were elected not due to a "collapse of Socialist Systems," but as a result of the economic hits due to the 1970's oil embargo, and the economic bubbles caused by said same energy speculation and the shenanigans by big institutional investors and colluding oil corporations.

Not to mention fall-out from losing and paying for the Vietnam war plus the Iranian Hostage crisis.

And, yes, the simultaneous loss of post WW-II US economic hegemony as we had to compete with the SOCIALIST systems of northern Europe (that we, ironically, helped engineer at the end of WWII).

Other than the truth about our post-war position as Last Man Standing the rest of your thesis doesn't make any sense.

The US didn't have much in the way of socialist systems.

What we did have, until Nixon, was MUCH a higher tax rate. MUCH higher.

But that got cut in the late sixties and early seventies (and more drastically under Reagan), so we couldn't pay for all this shit we wanted - like our grossly inflated Military spending and we began borrowing.

@29 - Excellent answers. Thank you!

@23 - A consumption tax has the obvious benefit taxing something that is harmful(consumption) instead of something that is good (income/work). You can make a consumption tax progressive by exempting the cost of living (or something like that) from taxation. So you pay taxes on whatever you spend over that. It could also have graduated brackets. It would also need (in my opinion) to be paired with a substantive estate tax (which could also exempt a reasonable amount, but this would be money that was never taxed otherwise).

@31 - You should do a little digging on the social mobility thing. The "American Dream" is a persistant theme in American culture, but it is becoming ever more unatainable for people not born into it. Upward mobility is actually worse in the US than it is in countries with more regulated markets, and worse than it has been historically.

http://business.time.com/2012/01/05/the-…

@21/bogart14 - I'm not sure that we aren't envisioning the same system, or at least a very similar one. I was only saying that in some areas markets and private enterprise for profit work fairly well, and are near impossible to extinguish even if you wanted to. I'm pretty sure we are on the same page. You said, "markets need to be looked at as tools, not determinative ends in themselves" and I said "capitalism is a great tool and a terrible dogma." I certainly think that we need to transition to a steady-state economy. The idea that we need growth is insane. We, as a nation, have clearly ammased enough of the worlds resources. We have is a problem with distribution of resources--not a shortage.

@25 - Please STOP SPREADING LIES. These are LIES about Kshama's position.

The Erica Barnett smear piece (one in a string from her) saying Kshama called the light-rail is "elitist" is absolutely false. There is a video of the debate in question in which Kshama clearly states that the rail is positive, but that it only serves 3-4% of Seattle's population, that it we need far MORE investment in mass transit. Erica Barnett was in the room and is either lacking in mental abilities or an outright liar, you choose.

Kshama has clearly called for increased affordable housing AND rent control that would simply put a cap on the % increase in rents per year, as the NYT recently reported rents are going up faster in Seattle than any other major city.

And Conlin the most pro-transit council member?! I'm afraid I'll have to say that you share Erica Barnett's mental capacities or her dishonesty. Conlin rammed through the tunnel project that included zero funding for mass transit.

@34 - If taxes on capital gains increase, then, I feel silly saying this its so obvious, but that means taxes went up.

@44 I was responding to this comment:

At least everybody has a shot at the American Dream - as evidenced by the hundreds of thousands of people who apply for US citizenship every year and the millions who enter this country illegally searching for their piece of the pie.

And I wasn't talking about the ability to work hard and become a dot com millionaire either, I was talking about the ability to transition from working poor to middle class, which is usually what people are talking about when they reference the "American Dream" and particularly poor immigrants coming here to find it.

@31 - Good thing you're in Shoreline and your opinion is meaningless in this election ;)

This might be the most substantive, even-keeled debate on the vagaries of economics in Comments history.

Ah, Kashama. A perfect picture. Using someone else's event, someone else's campaign, someone else's resources and funds, and making it all about her. The work her campaign does is, understandably, campaigning for her, but they turn out to put her face all over whatever it is as if she invented it, when most of the time she didn't raise a finger to help. If you believe her campaign, Kashama Sawant IS Occupy. She's also PRIDE, the Low Wage Jobs campaign, the $15/hr candidate (funny, it was unions that got that on the ballot in Seatac, not her . . .), the Rent Is Too Damn High guy, and probably Vermin Supreme, though I haven't seen her claim that one yet. She's worse than hope and change. She's honestly blind to her hypocracy, believing that she's building a peoples' movement, while using the people around her and anything she can get her hands on for her own self promotion and gain.

The main reason the U.S. economy went into a downslide in the 1970's was NOT high wages(Germany and Japan did and still do have higher wages and benefits for workers there)but management refusal to innovate and change.

Detroit's auto industry, for example, collapsed NOT because of anything the UAW did(the UAW was actually quite flexible in the face of management demands)but because, after the Oil Crisis of '73, management refused to retool and redesign to make the kinds of cars Americans were saying they wanted...high fuel-efficiency cars at a lower price.

The same pattern occurred throughout U.S. industry. The U.S. capitalist class wasn't being brought down by "union thugs", it was deliberately letting our economy die out in order to justify outsourcing and layoffs.

@31 BULLSHIT! This technology wouldn't exist without government spending money on programs that were later released into the public domain.

Have you ever heard of a BSD license?
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/articles/b…

By god! The government spending!

Charles Mudede's article was good and this has been an interesting thread. One of the weaknesses of the article (and much of the discussion here) concerns the distinction between what is meant by the terms "social democracy" and "socialism".

The term "social democracy" has come to mean a political trend which is obedient to our current ruling class, the bourgeoisie, but which advocates giving a better deal to the working class and oppressed. The term "socialism", on the other hand, is often used to describe society after the class rule of the bourgeoisie has been overthrown, and the working class runs everything.

There is much confusion today about the term "socialism" because the police states that came to power in Russia and China described their societies as "scientific socialism" (although the term "scientific feudalism" would probably have been more accurate). Because the term "socialism" now creates so much confusion, I no longer use this term at all in my writing, but instead use the phrase "the rule of the working class" to describe the period, in the future, when the working class will run society.

Social democracy (as the article explains) also represents a policy that our current ruling class uses when the class struggle intensifies and millions begin to think about fundamental change. The spirit of social democracy is captured in a conversation that a reporter overheard at a Beverly Hills party during the Rodney King riots: "By god, we've got to help these people--before they come up here and burn down our homes!"

My view is that the Kshama campaign represents social democracy. The Occupy movement proved to our ruling class that it may be time to create a new party of liberal illusions, if the Democratic Party no longer has sufficient credibility to fulfill this role. So our local ruling class may be experimenting to see how this may work out. The other function of the Kshama campaign may be to function as kind of a "gateway drug" to help channel activist energy into its traditional graveyard: the Democratic Party.

Recently, two friends and me put together a short joint statement (as well as individual articles) on the Kshama campaign, which said, in part:

"activists who are serious about creating a better world deserve to know (and need to know) what her campaign represents–which is politics-as-usual (with a twist) as our current ruling class, the bourgeoisie, creates a defensive political barrier against the class struggle they know will intensify as austerity deepens."

This thread also touched on the question of our alternative to capitalism and its social-democratic face. My conclusion is that humanity's alternative will be what is sometimes called a "gift economy", based on the idea of "pay it forward" rather than "pay it back". I have written about this at length and anyone who is interested can click on my name and follow the links.

If she sticks around and accomplishes a bit more, she'll probably get my vote next time.

@56 Ben Seattle - I'm sorry, but if you think that a campaign running outside of the Democratic Party, against the establishment 16-year incumbent Democrat, refusing any corporate money, with consistent criticism of the role played by the Democratic Party, is somehow leading people towards illusions in that same party, then I would have to skip reading any more of your analysis as you are quite clearly analytically impaired.

i was lucky to escape alive the botched socialist experiment in mother Russia...

now i have to deal with socialists in america
Scheiße!

@59 bogart14 -- "I would have to skip reading any more of your analysis". Actually, if you got to the part where I said that the Kshama campaign may be functioning as a "gateway drug" to channel activist energy back to its traditional graveyard, you pretty much already read my analysis ;)

We live in a class-divided society and, for this reason, politics is generally saturated with deception. Stranger things have happened (many times) than someone running a campaign (that had formal independence from the Democratic Party) that had the function of channeling energy back to the mothership (Ralph Nader and the Green Party come to mind). Certainly, Kshama has a strong base of support from people and institutions which are normally in orbit around the Democratic Party. I consider it likely that many of these people believe that this will put pressure on the Democratic Party and help move it to the left.

The other possibility is that the Democratic Party, as we know it today, may eventually split in the decades ahead, with the more mainstream section of the party filling the "responsible, conservative" role that was played by Republican Party in the 1950's (inasmuch as the current meltdown of the Republican Party may be leaving that role open) and with the left wing of the Democratic Party forming a social democratic third party (similar to what exists in Canada and Europe).

I think that the development of such a social democratic party would be a good thing, but not for the usual reasons. I do not believe such a social democratic party would be genuinely independent from our current ruling class. But the emergence of such a party would awaken broad sections of people to political life--and would help to raise the idea of a political party that represented the interests of the working class and oppressed and was genuinely independent.

Ben, you obviously have no actual knowledge of the functioning, the perspective, or the strategy and tactics of the Sawant campaign. And thanks for letting me know that your inaccurate post sums up your analysis. The "gift economy" sounds super, I love presents. And Pay It Forward was an awesome movie.

@62 -- "Ben, you obviously have no actual knowledge of the functioning, the perspective, or the strategy and tactics of the Sawant campaign." This may be true, but I don't need any of those things because I have something more important: the ability to carefully observe the actions of the campaign. I can observe that the campaign is entirely dependent on support from the trade union bureaucrats, The Stranger, and other people and institutions which are normally part of the Democratic Party machine. So what is more important: what people in the campaign think of themselves--or what they actually do?

@ 60 - Nobody is advocating the type of authoritarian regime that you escaped in Russia. You can do socialism of varying degrees without the authoritarian regime (nobody is fleeing the socialist scandanavian states...).

@34 For fuck sake. You didn't even read your own links.

The Tax rates of Truman and Eisenhower, at nearly 91%, were TWICE what they were under Reagan at 50% and 70% under Nixon.

@ 56/61 - I think you fall into the same trap as the people who consider the free market dogma. Socialism, like capitalism, is a system with advantages and disadvantages. It is sometimes the best tool and sometimes not. Ideally, social democracies try to find a balance between the two. It is better to start from a position of "what do we want from the economy?" and then to try to build an economy that does what you want/need. That will probably inolve some markets and some socialism. An absolutist hard-line take on socialism or communism (i.e. no private property or industry and no markets) really doesn't work much better than unrestrained capitalism.

@Ben Seattle,

So you are charging the Sawant campaign with successfully breaking off major points of support for the Democratic Party? Does your political analysis tell you that the left can field serious electoral challenges to the Democratic Party machine without eroding their support base? Huh, interesting.

@31 - the days when you could get rich working at Apple or Google are long, long gone. Unless you think people work long hours at those places in order to be in position to do a later startup at which they can get rich (a nonsense stance -- why not just do the friggin' startup?!), you have to accept that it is the intrinsic reward of the work and its results, and the not-rich-but-comfortable standard of living.

A slippery slope indeed for the HERD of Seattle hippy liberals. You want Soviet Russia...it's coming to your door step. The reason the grass looks so green on the other side of the SOCIALIST WALL is because you cannot smell that shit from this, the better side. Once you are knee deep in SOCIALISHIT it will not be possible to climb back over.

Just like you trusted Obama with obamacare LIES of "you can keep your current health insurance" and "it is not a new tax". LIES that are revealed as such years after they are spoken and years after its too late.

With Sawant it's not too late.
Trust me as someone who has lived on both sides of the SOCIALIST WALL in USSR. We don't WANT Sawant we don't need Sawant and she is no savant.

We need to create incentives for people to want to achieve the ideal of "American Dream" by rewarding hard work and talent. Not rewarding lack there of by creating incentives for everyone to do nothing (e.g. flipping burgers for $15 /hour). Why should I study and contribute to society if I cannot live a better life afterwards? This candidate will serve to further drive the decay downtown Seattle and push ambitious talent away.

@70 - First, I would like to thank you for some intelligent questions.

First question:

> So you are charging the Sawant campaign
> with successfully breaking off major points
> of support for the Democratic Party?"

Well, that is how some people might describe it, but I do not necessarily see it that way. There are two ways to understand what is going on.

(1) The Kshama campaign may represent the beginning of a realignment of the two party system, as I noted. In this case, the Democratic Party may be splitting such that the left wing of the party forms a social democratic party.

(2) The other way to see this is as part of process to refurbish the Democratic Party by pressuring it to move to the left in order to compete with a nominally independent party that actually talks about the need for the workers and oppressed to participate in the class struggle.

The two possibilities above are not necessarily mutually exclusive, because this will likely play out over time.

So, yes, the Kshama campaign has won (for now) the support of a number of institutions and bureaucrats that normally are totally subservient to the Democratic Party. But, no, I think that "breaking off" is too strong a term to use because (1) this may be a temporary phenomenon and (2) such a term implies that the Kshama campaign is really running the show.

But in these kinds of alliances between a nominally "socialist" or "revolutionary" group and established institutions of this kind, the alliance is made on the basis of certain kinds of agreements (even if unspoken) and the institutions that enter into these alliances are not going to betray the fundamental interests of the ruling class because this would threaten the mission of these institutions (and would tend to be career suicide for the individuals involved). To say this may sound strange to many readers, but this is how class society works: if you don't play by the rules, then you are not considered responsible and are "too toxic to touch", as Dominic Holden put it, in the January 11, 2012 issue of The Stranger, when he attacked the militant core of the Occupy movement because this core refused to back down on the principle that activists have a right to decide for themselves what actions are appropriate when police attack a mass action.

Second question:

> Does your political analysis tell you that
> the left can field serious electoral challenges
> to the Democratic Party machine without eroding
> their support base?

First, to avoid a misunderstanding, we should be clear on a matter of language, since the term "the left" means different things in different parts of society. What you call "the left" is probably what I would call "mainstream social democracy", and what I call "the left" might be closer to what you might call "the hard left".

Having cleared that up, let's consider: Can social democracy in this country mount a serious electoral challenge to the Democratic Party without eroding their support base? Obviously not. But also, as I noted, I believe we would gain more clarity into the nature of this process if we see it as the visible and public manifestation of a _split_ within the Democratic Party that has _always existed_ in a somewhat hidden (or, at least, less visible) form. So what we are seeing is not so much something _new_ (although new features are appearing) as a _change of form_ of what we have always had.

More to the point, the social democratic party would still be subject to the normal mechanisms that keep things under control today. In other words, it would be allowed to claim that it was genuinely independent -- but it would still be on the same leash (even if the leash was now longer).

The basic background here is that economic growth in the U.S. has slowed down and is unlikely to recover in the next two decades (at least, that is the way it was described in the October 28 issue of Barron's, a magazine for investors). As Barron's puts it:

> slow growth will only magnify social tensions
> and coarsen the political disputes [...] "If
> the pie stops growing enough, the squabbles
> over who gets what slice will only get worse
> and spark lots of demagoguery,"

Translated from the language of investors into words that might mean more to ordinary people, this means that austerity, and the misery of the working class and oppressed, will deepen and, as this happens, the class struggle is likely to emerge again in center stage. Occupy was only the beginning. This is only getting started.

And, as the struggles of the masses make themselves known, our ruling class will find it necessary to offer them change and hope they can believe in. This means either that the Democratic Party will need to be more social democratic in its appearance (as it was in the days of FDR, in the 1930's) or that it will need to split--and its social democratic wing will declare independence. In either event, what will drive this process forward is the need of our current ruling class to give to the masses the idea that necessary and fundamental change is coming--and will not require the overthrow of their class rule.

There is another question that comes up at this point. If there _was_ a genuinely independent left in this country, that was _not_ owned by social democracy and that _had_ the ability to put forth a clear vision of a society run by the working class (ie: something the world has never seen, except in brief or embryonic form) -- would it run in elections and, if so, what would its campaigns look like? Would they look like the Kshama campaign?

I would argue that such a genuine left would make use of elections, as part of its work to mobilize the working class and oppressed in their millions for the overthrow of the class rule of the bourgeoisie. But such a genuine left would not create illusions about what can be accomplished with elections, and it would make clear that the main benefit of winning an election would be to prove how meaningless such a thing would be--and that it would only represent a small step in a difficult struggle. We have seen what happens when the ruling class is unhappy with the result of an election (Indonesia in 1965, Chile in 1973, and many other examples). Similar attempts to defeat the popular will by means of terror on a mass scale may eventually happen, here in the U.S., before this century is over.

Don't worry. Sawant is just a populist, not a socialist.

Well, she didn't lose by much.

If she just had a bunch more of other people's money, she could have won.

@Jimmy the Greek:When Sawant throws a victory party,will you be there to eat crow? -- http://www.votesawant.org

What amazes me is this:despite having a Morally superior voting system,Minneapolis' Socialist-Alternative candidate for Ward Nine - Ty Moore - lost in the second round of voting (even though Minneapolis has both Ranked-Choice Voting,district elections representing thirteen districts of a city with only two-thirds the populace of Seattle:Wow!).Make voting mandatory (and double the number of districts on the federal,state,and local levels,and much will change for the Better!)

#78. Uh, it's not clear that she actually did LOSE. She was slightly ahead of Conlin as of this Tuesday.

Socialism is merely Communism Lite.

Socialists, just like Communists, should be shot on sight.

Then shot again, to be sure.