Socialism
Not that anything about the current “socialism” rhetoric is meant to be taken seriously, but isn’t the closest thing to socialism on the American policy agenda the status quo situation in . . . Sarah Palin’s Alaska? You have collective ownership of valuable natural resources that generates lots of revenue for the state, and then the government makes “spreading the wealth around” through the Permanent Fund, etc. its main priority. It’s actually, for all the flaws of Alaska politics and public policy, a pretty good system. But I think the best way to think about it is that it’s an example of a somewhat special case in which socialism is a good idea.
Of course another time where you need a dose of socialism is if, for example, there’s a financial system emergency and the government needs to partially nationalize large banks in order to recapitalize them. But that’s been brought to us by George W. Bush with the support of John McCain.
39 Responses to “Socialism”
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October 21st, 2008 at 10:01 am
i’ve been noting since she was selected that palin is this very odd mix of right-wing yahoo and socialist, except she doesn’t know what socialism means and so doesn’t understand that the latter is true.
October 21st, 2008 at 10:22 am
The sight of Republicans divvying up the spoils in Congress has always reminded me of the Soviet Union’s Politburo.
And The difference in managerial technique between the US defense industry and People’s Collective No 5 in Bumfuck, Russia is not vast.
October 21st, 2008 at 10:23 am
if john mccain doesn’t like socialism does that mean he will exempt me from paying the property taxes that pay for the new school that my neighbors kids go to?
October 21st, 2008 at 10:25 am
Alaska proves once again that the big-gummint hating, stay-off-my-land-and-leave-me-alone brand of American conservatism is all too often dependent on the largesse of that same hated government. Think of Western Ranchers and Farmers, who hate the government more than anything and yet are dependent on public land being given to them for pennies on the dollar for grazing, or on a century of massive, tax-payer-funded water reclamation projects to funnel precious water to their fields, again for pennies on the dollar.
October 21st, 2008 at 10:30 am
Didn’t the US Treasury cut the check that was used to purchase Alaska? Why aren’t the oil and other natural resources revenues being paid to the US Treasury instead of the Alaska state treasury?
October 21st, 2008 at 10:42 am
Didn’t the US Treasury cut the check that was used to purchase Alaska? Why aren’t the oil and other natural resources revenues being paid to the US Treasury instead of the Alaska state treasury?
The truth is, Alaska should never have been a state. It’s ridiculous that they have a sovereign wealth fund and they are a net recipient of federal dollars. They are just a bunch of thankless moochers.
October 21st, 2008 at 10:46 am
According to this 2000 report from the Alaska Department of Natural Resources [pdf] “Land in private ownership (other than Native land) comprises less than one percent of the total land in Alaska.” 60% of Alaskan land belongs to the federal government.
October 21st, 2008 at 11:14 am
I think it’s a damn shame that the right has been allowed to turn “socialism” into a dirty word, like “liberal.”
October 21st, 2008 at 11:27 am
McCain/Palin 08: Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor!
October 21st, 2008 at 11:46 am
Pithly said. It’s been what’s on my mind about Sarah Palin and the Republicans for awhile.
I also think the American military is the closest thing to a socialist sector in our society. Why they generally pretend to be against ’socialism’ is beyond me.
cradle to grave health care, command style economics, fairness as to color of skin or family connections (John McCain maybe was an exception in that regards), all-for-one and one-for-all. Team spirit. Socialism!
October 21st, 2008 at 11:47 am
If I’m not mistaken - Arizona is largely dependent on water and electricity subsidized by the federal government. If it weren’t for the rest of us picking up the tab, both Arizona and Alaska would be complete wastelands. I’m always amazed at the anti-government hatred that comes from those kinds of places.
October 21st, 2008 at 11:54 am
Eh, the Alaska Permanent Fund isn’t so much socialism as Georgism.
Worth emulating at the Federal level nationwide, IMO.
October 21st, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Don’t forget McCain’s spectacular “Nationalize subsidized mortgages to anybody whose property value is less that the principal owed on their current mortgage” plan. My favorite McCain campaign moment so far was the stop in New Mexico a week or so ago when he talked about his mortgage plan and the audience clapped and hooted, while a few minutes later his mention of Obama was met by shouts of “Socialist!”
Like Michelle Bachmann, his supporters know the talking points, they just have no idea what they actually mean. It’s hysterical.
October 21st, 2008 at 12:40 pm
The truth is, Alaska should never have been a state.
The last couple of months does make you wonder, doesn’t it? It’s run like a colonial outpost — or the Saudi Arabia of America, depending on your perspective — and seems to fit the model elsewhere of remote resource-heavy, people-light bits of fuck-all that tend to be run on the territory model rather than as states or provinces.
(I’m still curious about Palin’s interactions with the Canadian government, given that Alaska’s longest border is with the Yukon.)
And yeah, that kind of western-expansion libertarianism has been underwritten by the federal government since… well, since Andrew Jackson at very least.
October 21st, 2008 at 3:03 pm
somewhat special case in which socialism is a good idea
While I am not a marxist-leninist, the idea that there are only a few special cases in which some degree of socialism is ok, is kind of absurd.
From healthcare, education, to full employment, and retirement, socialism is the basic model for most advanced countries, to varying degrees of course.
Now, I know you want to free the “Joe Plumbers” of the world of the fetters of compulsory licensing and other such nanny state offenses, not the chains of capatalism to which Marx spoke; but even you could admit there might be more than a few special cases, right?
October 21st, 2008 at 3:54 pm
The truth is, Alaska should never have been a state.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Simmer down, Ms. Pftonehauer. Just because we gave you a yahoo governor (and that was really McCain, not us, we knew she was not about much when we elected her anyway…) doesn’t mean we no longer belong in the union. I mean, I give you Arnie, Jessie, innumerable Texans, and so on if that’s your criteria.
October 21st, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Arnie
The Governator has actually turned out to be a fairly deft politician. He’s pushed some good environmental legislation, for example, and after getting his big 4 ballot initiatives rejected he learned how to work with the state government.
I’m not saying he’s great or anything — he’s still loathe to do anything contrary to big business — but he’s not the embarrasment a lot of people feared he would be.
October 21st, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Just the other day while Sarah was spewing her “patriotism,” back in Alaska the Rooskies were invading. Representatives of Gazprom, the Russian oil giant, were talking with state officials and oil executives about investing in Palin’s big natural gas pipeline project. Like certain other women, she’ll go where the money is after the election.
October 21st, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Um… I don’t mean to be rude, but at least at this time, Alaska is still part of the US of A. Why aren’t all Americans receiving a little checky-wecky for their little piece of American oil that just happens to be under Alaska???
October 21st, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Ziply,
I had a long comment which wordpress just ate, so I will briefly resumarize.
A) State of Alaska doesn’t get more in the way of royalties from oil than do other producing states, at least on a % basis. In fact, I believe we might be on the low end.
B) The US Gov’t also gets a cut.
C) Many years ago, out of these royalty payments, the Alaska Permanent Fund was established, and from the profits to this fund are paid out yearly dividends. Other natural resource producing states COULD have done so but have chosen not to. I personally think the PFD is kinda dumb, as those monies would be better spent on roads, schools, power grids and other infrastructure stuff, but that would be about as popular a platform as privatizing Social Security at an AARP meeting.
October 21st, 2008 at 9:53 pm
Sounds like some people are afraid of the positive impact Sarah Palin is having on America. Thank God for fresh air!
As far as socialism goes - it might be good to consider that any time a government does for people what they should do for themselves, then government is in control of that potion of their lives.
The surprising thing is - that “liberals” want to be controlled by their government.
Democrats might want to study up on their political science. Republicans, not Democrats, have always been the “people’s” party. Martin Luther King, himself, was a Republican!
October 21st, 2008 at 11:48 pm
don’t forget medicare, the minimum wage…socialism is deciding that yes, you are your brother’s keeper-because life is funny like that;you’re riding high in april and shot down in may… in other words, have compassion for each other- one never knows…
October 22nd, 2008 at 3:29 pm
As was stated above, something like 70% of Alaska’s land and the resources therein is owned by the Federal government, the rest of the country gets the lease money and such from that federal land, as they would from, oh, ANWR.
Most Federal dollars going to Alaska are directly used to support and maintain that Federal territory, they aren’t handed to the citizens of the state. When you look at the massive amount of land (60% of AK is about 1/6th of the contiguous states in area) and the incredible logistic issues involved, the spending disparity up here versus the rest of the Lower 48 becomes clear.
But god forbid someone want to actually use their brain and do some research.
Contrast, say Illinois where <3% of the state’s land is locked up by the Federal government, thus unavailable for the state to use to support itself.
If Alaska, in fact most of the Western states, had access to that percentage of their lands and resources we wouldn’t be taking any money at all from the Feds.
But since we are treated like territories, with less than half of our land available to us to develop, we have to take ignorant comments from people who have no idea what they are talking about.
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