Democratic socialism

The US pressures on President Nicolas Maduro’s Venezuela emerged from that country’s socialism drift linked to mounting allegations of state corruption. In this, our country stood in the middle, valuing Venezuela’s sovereignty, a position not favoured by the capitalist-driven US. Of course, it is history that the US has applied various forms of pressures on Caribbean and Latin American countries which adopted or promised to adopt socialist policies.

Imagine now, a major issue heading into the US November presidential election is socialism. In the exciting but awkward Democratic party preliminaries, of the seven competing candidates Vermont’s 80-year old socialist-leaning Senator Bernie Sanders is leading.

To us, candidates from the same party publicly and noisily attacking one another seems like treachery, even attracting punishment. After all, the “enemy” is on the other side.

However, the in-house Democratic scrimmage has its electoral advantages. One, it compels presidential candidates under scrutiny to publicly declare their political views and policies while also clearing up character allegations. Two, candidates’ positions become sharply distilled so that broken promises will bring public shame. And this is energised by a vibrant media and politically mature TV anchors.

Former UNC leader Basdeo Panday promised a system of party preliminaries, presumably to reduce party dictatorship. Nothing has changed. Incompetent politicians become too immunised. Political leaders and their respective parties, small or big, should now realise that party reforms are just as important as national constitutional reform. That is, if deeper democracy is the overall objective, and notwithstanding that politics has its own morality.

So far, it seems that the coming election will meet the same old party politics and cat-in-bag promises. While the US has chosen preliminary contestations over party unity, we here seem contented with party stability over freedom to compete.

The concept of democratic socialism is nothing new to this country. It essentially means voting rights will be preserved. During the fierce 1961 election and after, the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) leader, Dr Rudranath Capildeo, unsuccessfully advocated a system of democratic socialism. Sanders’ use of the term does carry some public appeal, especially with younger voters and against Trump’s “rich man” one percent status. So far, Trump’s support remains strong.

In the 2016 Democratic preliminaries, Sanders came second to Hillary Clinton, but has so far persisted to lead his six competitors, and taking licks from both inside and outside for his acclaimed socialist ideas.

Some of the licks are really unfair. He does admit being a “democratic socialist,” calling for free tertiary education, free medical treatment, a living wage for all, criminal justice reform, reversing economic inequality, heavy taxes on Wall Street and powerful interests.

Now these are not really hard socialism, democratic or otherwise. He is left of centre, of course, especially with heavy taxes and reversing inequality, but far from die-hard socialism, which includes, for example, public ownership or nationalisation of the means of production (eg factories), ending unemployment, centralised planning, emphasis on social welfare and equality of opportunity (to each his need, from each his ability), developing the individual’s potential as a humanistic endeavour.

Sanders does not call for public ownership, only high taxes for private wealth. Though he wishes more, social welfare were already in the US. He publicly expresses a dislike for millionaires, though he is one himself, a fact not ignored by his Democratic competitors. The challenge for socialism is that capitalism is resilient, stoking mobility aspirations, often showcasing itself as compassionate capitalism and demonstrating the power of individual initiative. Socialism counts the human costs. Both capitalism and socialism possess inherent contradictions, for example between freedom and equality.

This country, however, already practises a lot of what socialism is meant to be, if only to a degree. For example, substantial social welfare, state housing, state ownership of companies, public education, centralised planning. But still, we appear neither as pure socialist nor capitalist. Since 1956, governments behave as political pragmatists, switching policies backed by extensive patronage.

With what is now faintly called mixed economy, the inefficiencies and waste, educational inequities, weak public services and consumer protection and broken institutions unfortunately persist. For such reasons, the population eagerly awaits the political promises, the manifestos, from the various parties. Hopefully, each leader will appear on a common platform to present and discuss their respective policies. And keep their promises.