{"id":1896,"date":"2018-08-27T23:06:35","date_gmt":"2018-08-28T03:06:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/?p=1896"},"modified":"2018-09-02T23:23:58","modified_gmt":"2018-09-03T03:23:58","slug":"my-primer-on-american-socialism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2018\/08\/27\/my-primer-on-american-socialism\/","title":{"rendered":"My Primer on American Socialism"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Because<\/strong><\/p>\n

They’ll go to the moon
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0and beyond,
to places even telescopes can’t see.
But when will no one go hungry
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0on earth
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 or fear others
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 or push them around,
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 shun them
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 or steal their hope?
Because I responded to this question
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I’m called a Communist.<\/p>\n

Nazim Hikmet (1958)\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A combination of factors over the last 18 months – my lack of enthusiasm for Hilary Clinton as a candidate, the election of Donald Trump as President, the rapid growth in wealth disparity<\/a> in America, and the ever increasing prospect of a high growth, jobless future economy<\/em> – \u00a0has jump started my search for a new political and economic identity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So I did some reading<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Polyani’s book forced me to ask myself why I thought we lived in an economic model that was a tide which lifted all boats, and I realized – very quickly – that we don’t. His clear – yet dense – treatise on the imperfections of our economic & political system helped me start to build a framework and a new political identity built around Socialism.<\/p>\n

But Socialism is a bad word in American politics. I think this comes from misinformation, and charged rhetoric. So – I wanted to start a different conversation where we can share in this framework together, and have a better informed conversation about the America we want to build in the 21st Century.<\/p>\n

What is Socialism?<\/h3>\n

American Socialism is a theory that proposes that, at the same time, we maximize wealth and minimize poverty. American Socialism is a system that says that American citizens should bear the cost of minimizing poverty while guaranteeing the integrity of free and dynamic markets that make Americans rich. With Socialism, a business,\u00a0corporation, or market that can only exist by maintaining, or expanding, poverty, will fail (primarily because it cannot support basic costs that a Socialist society would demand). A recent example –<\/p>\n