Recently
“socialism” has become a principal pejorative in political rhetoric. The label
is applied to anything and everything that smacks of affecting, usually to
their benefit, the majority of the population. The Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act (PPACA), so-called Obamacare, has been labeled as
“socialist” in the same sense that Social Security was so labeled by its
critics when it was created in 1935, during the Great Depression. One might be
excused for confusing the “social” in Social Security with “socialism” were it
not for the fact that such confusion, particularly now, is political rather
than definitional. In the eyes of Obamacare’s critics, socialism equals bad,
therefore any program that can be painted with the brush of socialism can be
characterized as bad for the nation. This is patent nonsense, of course. But it
sells well in some sectors.
Social Security
was created at a time when more than half of all senior citizens lived in
poverty. PPACA has been enacted—and upheld by the Supreme Court—at a time when
more than 50 million Americans are without health insurance, which in this
country amounts to being shut out from adequate health care. More than 60
percent of the uninsured live in households earning less than $50,000 a year.
Children living in poverty are more likely to be uninsured than others. Indeed,
the lower one’s income, the less likely one is to have health insurance or
adequate health care. This situation might be excused in a developing nation
but is unacceptable in one that claims to be the world’s leading democracy and
is the world’s wealthiest nation.
Socialism is an
economic system wherein means of production are owned by the society, the
government in the case of state socialism, which is what most politicos who use
“socialism” as a pejorative mean. To conflate “socialism” and the “common
good,” which is a tenet of American democracy, is disingenuous at the very
least. One is reminded of something Hubert Humphrey said, “Compassion is not
weakness, and concern for the unfortunate is not socialism.” The idea of our
nation being founded on the belief that democracy provides the best possible
hope for the common good is imbedded in the first sentence of the Constitution,
in the phrase “promote the general Welfare.” The common good is fundamental to
our “more perfect Union.”
Faith in the
common good also is a tenet of Christian belief, though the Christianists on
the far right seem to disavow it. For those crying “socialism” of a religious
bent, it might be piquant to quote Woodrow Wilson, himself highly religious, a
Presbyterian and the son of a Presbyterian minister: “There is no higher
religion than human service. To work for the common good is the greatest
creed.” I also like Rev. Matthew Dutton-Gillett’s take on the notion. In a commentary
dated February 19, 2010, on the blog, Below the Surface (subtitled A
Conversation Between a Priest and a People about Life in Christian Community), Dutton-Gillett
of Trinity Episcopal Church in Menlo Park, California, writes:
All that stuff about loving your neighbor as yourself, taking care of the poor, giving people who asked you for your coat more of your clothing than they had asked for, the suggestion that we should sell what we have and give it to the poor, the parable about the rich man and Lazarus the beggar—these are all teachings about redistributing one’s own wealth so that the more vulnerable in society would be protected and provided for. It seems clear to me that if we were to classify Jesus’ views according to today’s political definitions, he would probably fit into the category of “socialist” more easily than any other.
Faith in the
common good seemed evident when Mitt Romney, as governor, signed the
Massachusetts healthcare insurance reform law (referred to as Romneycare) in
2006. The law mandates that state residents obtain government-regulated minimum
health insurance coverage and provides free health insurance for residents
earning less than 150 percent of the federal poverty level. Now, ironically, as
the Republican presidential candidate, Romney must—in order to align with the
“socialism”-shouters in his party’s rightwing base—argue against the common
good, against the very law he championed that is mirrored in Obamacare.
Faith in the
common good—for the good of us all and for the good of American democracy writ
large—ought to be unwavering. When it is smeared by epithet and battered by the
hot winds of political expedience, we should be wary of those doing the
smearing and blowing the hot air.
