Renewable Revolution

All this stuff about brainwashed capitalist ideologues believing this thing that's wrong or that thing....it's so obvious that you have this construct in your mind about what "other" people (like me in particular)  believe. I'll tell you just like I told Palloy. You really don't have much of a clue what I believe. And it's because you don't pay much attention to what I write here, since you have so many pre-conceived erroneous notions.

And you thought it was about the "Evil Red Russians", didn't you?

Uh, no. Actually, I didn't think that.

Durng the 1930's there was a LULL in Capitalist anti-Communist activity, NOT a "friendly to Communists/Socialists" activity. 


Actually, in the 1930's there were millions of people with no money, no food, and no prospects. This created a powerful impetus for change. Change did occur.

As recently as the 1920's we had people like Scott Nearing being fired from his faculty position at the Wharton School of Business because he wrote articles criticizing child labor in NYC sweat shops. We don't have sweat shops now, and that's because, between the labor unions and the New Deal, which instituted America's version of what you could call Social Democracy Lite, the plight of working people in this country improved a lot. My opinion is that the success of what real socialists would consider very minor improvements were enough keep working people from fomenting revolution.

POLITICS IN THE GREAT DEPRESSION
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Radical Alternatives to a Collapsing System
In retrospect, we know that during the Great Depression the American people never rose up en masse to demand the overhaul—much less overthrow—of their long-established system of democratic capitalism, even though that system largely failed to relieve the miseries of the Depression for more than a decade.

In retrospect, we know that most meaningful long-lasting reform that emerged from the crisis of the Great Depression came from Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, which permanently enlarged the role of the federal government in American society and tempered, for half a century, the volatility of the free market.

At the time, however, it wasn't at all clear that the New Deal marked the outer limit of possible sociopolitical change. The structural breakdown of the American system led many Americans to embrace much more radical alternatives to the status quo. And while none of those radical alternatives were ever fully realized (and many of them seem downright quixotic in hindsight), they did profoundly alter the boundaries of political possibility while influencing the direction of the New Deal.

American Communists: From Sectarianism to Popular Front
For communists, the Great Crash of 1929 and its bleak aftermath seemed definitive proof of Karl Marx's assertion that capitalism contained within itself the seeds of its own destruction. While communists hoped—and most everyone else feared—that the Great Depression would lead to a proletarian uprising, the revolution never materialized.

Always a tiny minority in American society, the communists weakened their position further through their own rigid adherence to counterproductive doctrine. Until 1935, the Communist Party U.S.A. (CPUSA), following the direction of the Communist International in Moscow, insisted that the greatest threat to worldwide workers' revolution came from the false promise of other liberal and left-wing groups. So, throughout the early years of the Depression, American communists devoted an inordinate amount of their time and resources to attacking New Dealers, socialists, Wobblies, American Federation of Labor trade unionists, Lovestonites, Musteites, and other obscure groups of non-communist left-wingers as "social fascists."

The average American worker—who surely couldn't distinguish a Musteite from a Muscovite if his life depended on it—found nothing appealing in the communists' extreme sectarianism. By 1934, despite the seemingly favorable circumstances for recruitment created by the Depression, the CPUSA still had fewer than 30,000 members nationwide.26

After 1935, however, international communist doctrine changed. Rather than denouncing non-communist liberals as "social fascists," communists would seek to make common cause with them under the banner of the "Popular Front." The new strategy freed American communists to work with New Dealers and trade unionists, which allowed the CPUSA to achieve the widest influence in its history. Communist activists took up leading roles in organizations defending civil rights and civil liberties, advocating friendship with the Soviet Union, representing the unemployed, and—especially—organizing the huge new unions of the CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations).

While the Communist Party never gained a mass following in the United States, and Americans never came anywhere close to a Red Revolution, the Popular Front did allow the communists to achieve a wider influence in American society than ever before or since.

"Bring Back Some of That Grub!"
In the 1930s, the communists were far from alone in advocating the redistribution of wealth from the haves to the have-nots. Bombastic Louisiana Democratic Senator Huey P. Long shot to national prominence by promising to "Share Our Wealth." Long sold his simple vision—which called for limiting wealthy individuals' fortunes to a few million dollars and redistributing the "excess" to the masses—with a uniquely folksy, if demagogic, personal style.

Long memorably likened the Depression-era economy to a Louisiana barbecue.

"How many men ever went to a barbecue and would let one man take off the table what's intended for nine-tenths of the people to eat? The only way you'll ever be able to feed the balance of the people is to make that man come back and bring back some of that grub that he ain't got no business with!

Now we got a barbecue. We have been praying to the Almighty to send us a feast. We have knelt on our knees morning and nighttime. The Lord has answered the prayer. He has called the barbecue. 'Come to my feast,' He said to 125 million American people. But Morgan and Rockefeller and Mellon and Baruch have walked up and took 85 percent of the victuals off the table!

Now, how are you going to feed the balance of the people? What's Morgan and Baruch and Rockefeller and Mellon going to do with all that grub? They can't eat it, they can't wear the clothes, they can't live in the houses... when they've got everything on God's loving earth that they can eat and they can wear and they can live in, and all that their children can live in and wear and eat, and all of their children's children can use, then we've got to call Mr. Morgan and Mr. Mellon and Mr. Rockefeller back and say, come back here, put that stuff back on this table here that you took away from here that you don't need. Leave something else for the American people to consume. And that's the program."27

The program, crude as it was, may have been entirely unrealistic, but that didn't stop it from becoming wildly popular. By 1935, Long claimed that more than 7.5 million Americans subscribed to the mailing lists of the 27,000 Share Our Wealth clubs scattered throughout the country.28

Long, who criticized the New Deal as too conservative, pondered an independent run for the White House in 1936—and Democratic polls indicated he might win as many as three or four million votes, potentially costing President Roosevelt his re-election. Some even feared that Huey Long's populism and personality cult made him a likely candidate to become an American fascist dictator; Roosevelt called him one of the two most dangerous men in the country.

Huey Long's left-populist challenge to Roosevelt ended on September 8th, 1935, when he was assassinated inside the Louisiana state capitol by the son-in-law of a local political enemy. A faint echo of Long's Share the Wealth program survived, however, in Roosevelt's "Wealth Tax" of 1935, which boosted the highest tax rate for the richest Americans to a nearly confiscatory 79%.

EPIC Threat In California

In 1934, the New Deal received another major challenge from the left—this time in California. Upton Sinclair—a writer remembered today mainly as the author of The Jungle, the classic 1906 muckraking exposé of the meatpacking industry—was a lifelong socialist who became frustrated with the New Deal's inability to end the Depression and founded EPIC (End Poverty in California) to pursue more radical solutions.

Rather than putting the unemployed on relief, Sinclair proposed to put them to work within a state-organized "production-for-use" economy totally independent from the capitalist marketplace. Under Sinclair's communitarian scheme, the state would take over idle farms and factories, allowing the jobless to grow their own food or produce their own clothing and other goods. Any surplus could be traded, through a system of barter, only for other goods produced within the system.

It was a shocking commentary on the state of the capitalist economy that Sinclair's scheme—which wasn't really much different from a pre-modern barter system—was seen by many Californians as a visionary solution to modern America's problems.

Registering as a Democrat, Sinclair ran for Governor on the EPIC platform in 1934, and pulled off a huge, surprising victory in the primary election. Considered the front-runner in the general election, Sinclair was subjected to intense attacks from both Republicans and Democrats who feared that his victory would effectively remove California from the capitalist orbit and pave the way for communism.

Meanwhile, Sinclair was also attacked by the communists themselves, who stuck to their sectarian policy by attacking EPIC as "social fascism.") Opponents of EPIC—including many New Dealers who reluctantly backed arch-conservative Republican Frank Merriam over the old muckraker—claimed that if Sinclair were elected, California would be overrun by millions of hoboes looking for a free lunch and that Sinclair "concealed the communistic wolf in the dried skin of the Democratic donkey."29

Sinclair lost the general election, drawing almost 880,000 votes to Merriam's 1.13 million. Still, considering the radicalism (and even utopianism) of the EPIC platform, Sinclair's vote tally was remarkably high; if 260,000 Californians had switched their votes in Sinclair's favor, California would have embarked upon a socio-economic experiment unlike anything in American history.

Pensioners to the Rescue: The Townsend Plan
California was also the origin of another radical scheme that swept the nation toward the latter end of President Roosevelt's first term: the Townsend Plan.

Francis Townsend, 66 years old, was a retired country doctor. Believing that the two fundamental problems underlying the Depression were too little consumer spending and too many workers seeking too few jobs, Townsend proposed a national sales tax to fund a $200 monthly pension for all Americans over age 60 who pledged not to work and to spend the full amount within the month. The scheme would remove the elderly from the work force, opening up jobs for younger workers, while the seniors' mandatory spending of $200 a month each would create the demand for consumer goods needed to get the economy going again.

Like Huey Long's Share the Wealth program, the Townsend Plan was politically appealing but economically preposterous. Funding Townsend's generous pensions for the aged would have absorbed fully half the national income.30

Still, like Share the Wealth, the Townsend movement attracted millions of boosters throughout the country. As many as 25 million Americans signed petitions demanding that their representatives pass the Townsend Plan as a federal law.

In the end, the Townsend Plan was pre-empted by FDR's own Social Security legislation, which passed in 1935 and provided federal pensions to the elderly, at least in part to head off Townsend's momentum. However, Social Security benefits initially were only about one-tenth of those called for by Dr. Townsend, and Townsend Clubs remained active in demanding more generous old-age pensions well into the 1950s.



https://www.shmoop.com/great-depression/politics.html

You're making me into some kind of cut-out enemy in your mind. It isn't your portrayal of the facts that I take issue with, it's your venomous anger at what you perceive as capitalism being the personification of evil, and the way you make it into this black and white issue, whereby anyone who questions your assumptions sends you off to write the definitive opus on the history of capitalism...in order to set me straight on the facts. Dude, I have some slight comprehension of the facts. I just don't agree with you completely.

I really don't find anything in this long rant that I didn't know, at least in general terms...or anything in your broader assessment that I even disagree with that much. But like all your posts on this subject, it's the product of a very narrow view, and it's the equivalent of a five minute book report on an epic novel. It's very much the Readers Digest condensed version for rabid socialists. There's a whole lot left out.


Since the 1930's, this country has been a very weak social democracy, no matter what you choose to call it. Marx was right. Pure capitalism did run into big problems. But it wasn't overthrown or eliminated. It was slightly modified, out of sheer necessity, at a time when the capitalists were running scared. This proved to be enough to keep the wheels from coming off.

Marx never anticipated the information age, nor did any other economic theorists. Just when capitalism started to hit the wall again, the age of computers changed everything again, providing a new economic engine from digital technology. At the same time, the shift of manufacturing to China started making consumer goods really comparatively cheap by historical standards.

Too many people got fat and happy, and the foxes took over the henhouse. There's more to it. At this same time Wall Street predators like Carl Icahn learned to destroy US companies for fun and profit.

Maybe blame some of what's happened to the successful Bernaysian brainwashing Palloy likes to talk about. I blame a lot of it on schools that dumb kids down instead of making them into critical thinkers.

But now, most people just can't connect the dots. It's beyond their limited ability to comprehend....it's a complex system with lots of nuances. Not one person in 1000 has the least clue what's going on.


The 1970's was a time of great hope. But the public got really complacent. The pendulum was allowed to swing very hard to the right in the 1980's, and it hasn't quite even started to swing back. It will, I believe. But I expect it will be a case of "too little too late".

I do agree with Palloy that media brainwashing played a roll in creating the public attitudes that brought us the Reagans and all that's followed. I just don't want him or you to think that my POV comes from a lifetime of Bernaysian programming. If I weren't capable of critical thinking, I probably wouldn't hang out on a site populated by folks waiting for the end of Life As We Know It.

As I've said before, and I will repeat one more time, I'm not a Reaganite or a Trumpite. I come from a working class background, and I've  never been any kind of apologist whatsoever for the evils of capitalism. I'm an armchair student of human social interactions, of which politics is a part. I'm just as much as perplexed and upset about the failures of human civilization as you are. I just don't worship socialism like you do. I'd be happy, though, with a more equitable arrangement than what we have now.

But we aren't headed for a successful socialist revolution. Even if we have one, it won't help much. Our birthright has already been spent, and we can't get it back. We are primed for a new socialist  movement. But it won't be driven by a sensible desire to share the wealth. It will be driven by the coming collapse, which will push the have-nots to insist that the state needs to save them from homelessness and starvation.

If resources were plentiful, something good might come of that. As it is, it will be a useless, last minute attempt to stop the Titanic from going down, and it won't work.

I take a critical view of most ideologies, including capitalism, but also socialism. My objections to socialism as a panacea have a lot to do with the nuts and bolts of how it works, and not the broader ideas.

We no longer have the same situation that we had in 1877 or even in 1919.

Taxation of workers, for instance. In 1900 there was no income tax and no sales tax. Now those two consume as much as half of what a worker makes.

Taxation is the engine that's supposed to provide the cash for the programs that a social democracy provides. I consider myself a worker. I derive my income from highly skilled labor. The investments I make come from the surplus I create. I don't steal it from anybody, RE's rants to the contrary not withstanding. This makes me fundamentally different from the people you refer to as capitalists, who really are CORPORATISTS.

If the transfer of wealth from overtaxation was passed through to give benefits for the truly needy that'd be one thing. Or if it went to good causes like university education. But the truth is that taxation is a way of bleeding the poor and he middle class, so that the rich can build these conduit schemes in the course of administering the benefits.....that accrues even more wealth to them and their infernal corporations.

And it creates the system for deficit financing for a permanent state of war, instead of creating the decent social programs we should be paying for.

We could fix all this pretty easily. But we don't. We haven't. I have to assume we will not.

So pardon me, but I object to wealth transfers that lead to massive wasted resources and misappropriations. Especially when it involves me writing six figure checks to the IRS, which I do every year.

If we could just:

Limit terms for politicians.

Limit the accumulation of massive intergenerational wealth.

Take corporate money out of the election process.

Three simple steps....this would change everything. But people ARE too programmed and/or too dumb to figure it out. So everybody loses. None of those obvious simple things can even be accomplished.

Your depiction of "capitalists" as if they were some nameless, faceless group of evil smokestack era industrialists who all eat dinner at the same club together and plot to keep the masses of working stiffs in line? That might have made sense in 1920. But it isn't an accurate depiction of where we are, and sadly, it can't be fixed by the few well-meaning, ethical politicians who are left. All three of them. (Maybe fewer, that's an optimistic estimate.) Bernie can't fix it. I'd vote for him if I could, but he still couldn't fix our predicament.

So all this sturm and drang about the Workers Struggle and the Evil Elites is just a lot of farting in the breeze now. It's all over......all but the part where the anvil lands on Wylie Coyote's head and squashes him flat.

I'm not sure, but I suspect you probably were one of the air traffic controllers that got **** over by Reagan, which was kind of a watershed event, whereby the capitalists were finally able to start taking things back off the table that workers of previous generations worked so hard to get.

I can understand that you might have a very personal reason to be invested in your personal POV, which I consider completely legitimate, btw. I'm not even arguing with you. I'm trying to make you understand my points, which often get ignored, as you folks with such strong belief systems want to put me in a box that isn't even my box.

I hated Reagan and the reactionaries who put him in charge. Believe me when I tell you that I view Ronald Reagan's presidency as The Beginning Of The End of America. I hated that prick and everything he stood for.

And just a couple more things. Just an aside, really. When I mentioned Hoover, I wasn't talking about J. Edgar Hoover. I know what a tool he was. I'm old enough to actually remember him.

I was talking about ex-president Herbert Hoover, who headed the Hoover Commission, the erroneous findings of which landed us in Viet Nam for all the wrong reasons (among other negative consequences).

And that part about all anarchists being socialists? Not sure if that was ever true, but it certainly is not true now. And they aren't all pacifists either. Not Ted K.

But this rant is over for me, and your follow-up, now doubt delivered in a tone even more shrill, must remain unanswered by me. I just don't care enough about what you believe to even waste my time.

The gentlleman Eddie doth protest too much!

Eddie said, after a long post where in which he assumes my post is directed exclusively at him. That's rather arrogant of you, Eddie.

Quote

But this rant is over for me, and your follow-up, now doubt delivered in a tone even more shrill, must remain unanswered by me. I just don't care enough about what you believe to even waste my time.

Eddie, the reason I have engaged your erroneous view of Capitalism and American Anti-Socialist skullduggery before 1947 is not to actually convince you of anything. I just wanted to make it clear to everyone reading here that, as you said, you do not care. I wish you did care. Nevertheless it is refreshing to hear you admit you do not.

I had other reasons. Many here don't know the history and I wanted to help them understand it. Capitalism is morally bankrupt. It really bends you out of shape for me to say that and you take it personally while trying to frame me as the "touchy" hysteric. You shouldn't. You then ascribe all sorts of hatefilled hysteria to me. You shouldn't. I'm for peace, not hate. Capitalism is for hate, division, poverty and war for profit. If you don't believe that, you are wrong.