From Bernie Sanders is a democratic socialist, but what does that term mean?:
There are essentially two types of socialists in modern Western democratic politics. Social democrats are effectively what the left is in nearly every Western European and North American country. They might find socialism laudable, but have made peace with enacting changes to capitalism to make it more equitable. Social democrats enacted policies typically referred to as the mixed economy or welfare state, such as Social Security and universal health care. While U.S. Democrats don’t use these labels, social democrats generally define the center-left of the political spectrum in the West.
The above article makes some other points that are worth commenting on.
1. What the author calls “libertarian socialism” is also called Democracy at Work, by professor Richard Wolff, a self-taught marxist economist.
2. The author of the article indicts the profit-centric media by claiming they would be harder on Sanders than on Clinton. Thus Sanders would supposedly lose even though he represents the values of more Americans, than all the Republican candidates combined. This was not only self-contradictory but did its part in promoting a self-fulfilling prophecy that is applied to populists by both Reps and Wall $treet Dems.
To add to the above article on socialism is this one, by Richard Wolff, that reviews the history of socialism definitions and redefines it for the 21st century:
… Doing so culminates in new definitions of socialism for the 21st century focused increasingly on democratizing the workplace – at the micro-level. That is the key change that was missing from previous socialisms. It must be added to old definitions that were over-focused on substituting socialized for privately owned means of production and substituting planning for markets. …
Socialism in and for the 21st century must now define itself in clear distinction from both regulated private capitalism and state capitalism. Only then can we begin our strategic debates over precisely which socialist goal to set and pursue.
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Thank you so much for this article. I've loved having Bernie as my Representative and now Senator since I moved here in 1994. Bernie definitely self-identifies as a Socialist, but I think he get's a lot of support because where he really stands is outside of the left-to-right spectrum. He's focused on listening to Americans and responding with common sense and fairness.
You are right. I think he is a progressive across the board and he has been consistant for decades. By that I mean he believes that the moral responsibility of our government, as more eloguently stated in the preambles or our Declaration of Independence and Constitution, is to equally protect and empower the human citizens who elected it. I think as you read any of his quotes they will fall under either euqually protect or equally empower.