During the Cold War the term “socialism” had some interesting connotations.
Socialism is a widely practiced form of governance, and highly effective in so many aspects of life. In matters like health care and education, socialism as a management tool is highly functional and effective. It’s a far more efficient form of management of utility-like functions than the profit-driven private-sector form in these matters. Government for sure can’t make a decent automobile. But it sure can run a health care system, as seen all over the world.
So during the Cold War most of the supposed “free” world practiced socialism, and still does.
Even so, the best description for the U.S. style is “corporate,” or perhaps even “masked” socialism. We are a business-run country, and most important decisions affecting everyone are made at a very high level for the benefit of a few powerful interests. That’s why the word “corporate” works so well in describing it.
But there is really no viable alternative to socialism as a management tool even as those who practice it find it philosophically repugnant.
From a propaganda standpoint, during the Cold War, the U.S.S.R. was labeled “communist” by the West, but they called themselves “socialist.” Consequently, socialism had to be demonized, and so became a mere “stepping stone” to communism, which was always “creeping” up on us. In the United States in my youth any use of government to solve real and pressing problems was labeled “socialist,” and screamers on the sidelines claimed that we were descending into communism.
That was a really impressive propaganda achievement for a corporate socialist country.
In the U.S.S.R., on the other hand, there was not the innate fear of socialism that we had here, and so their claim to be a socialist empire hid another aspect and played a similar trick on their own people. By calling itself socialist, the U.S.S.R. hid the fact that it was a military dictatorship (which also describes the U.S.).
Confused? That’s understandable. Anyone who wants to understand the world as it really works first has to unmask it. That can take a lifetime.
The word “democracy” has a similar function, though unlike socialism, it only really exists in a meaningful sense but in a few places. It is roughly described as “rule of the people, for the people, and by the people.” But in real life, when those words are actually honored and attempts made to implement them, the result most often is some form of socialism.
Socialism and democratic governance go hand-in-hand. To love democracy and hate socialism is a contradiction.
But at best we are only going to get shades of democracy, as the masses of people everywhere are poorly educated, poorly informed, and too damned busy to keep abreast of politics. So fake democracy has to take its place. But the “fake” varies in degree.
At the very top of the list of “fake” democracies sits the United States, and perhaps at the bottom a place like Venezuela.
In the U.S. public opinion has no impact on government policies, and elections are just word circuses with no lasting impact. Voting is no more than a tool to create the illusion that people govern themselves.
In Venezuela, public opinion has twice now since the year 2000 prevented a violent overthrow of their government by agents of the United States, and installation of a Pinochet-style military dictatorship. In Venezuela, people are far better informed about their country and its government than here in the United States, where most people only know fairy tales. Democratic governance in Venezuela is a matter of life and death. Here in the U.S., no one dies for opinions, since they do not matter anyway. We are free to think anything we want, so long as we don’t think well.
That’s but one example. It is not easy to test the degree of democracy in a country, since it can be used for real or for window dressing. In Cuba, for example, people are very well-educated, but their votes mean nothing, and they largely understand that fact. In Venezuela, people are poorly educated, but their votes have so far staved off totalitarian rule, most recently just this month, February 12 to be precise (of course, not reported here). In the United States, people are poorly educated, but imagine otherwise, and our votes mean nothing, but we imagine otherwise. The U.S. is kind of la-la land writ big.
Complicated world, isn’t it.
Perhaps this short essay will help readers translate the barrage of disinformation as the U.S. goes about attacking and destroying countries around the world. Usually the U.S. says it is advancing democracy, but since it does not even exist here, that cannot possibly be the reason. Often enough, as in Vietnam, Indonesia, Central America, Iraq, Libya, Ukraine, Venezuela and Cuba, the U.S. is attempting to crush countries more democratic than itself, even if not exemplary.
But none of that matters. The U.S. will tolerate almost any form of government so long as U.S. corporate interests are given free access to a country’s resources.
The U.S. will always claim it fights for democracy. That is never true.
