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I am puzzled. The party that is asking me to fear encroaching socialism assures me that it will protect Social Security and Medicare.

Social Security and Medicare are perfect examples of socialistic programs, as are in my view the 40-hour work week, workers compensation, public education, the interstate highway system, government financing of virus research, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Small Business Administration and many programs fundamental to our daily lives.

We have been a socialist country at least for the past 90 years, and it could be argued that many of the original colonies that formed our country were founded on concepts now considered socialist.

The term socialism has been made into a swear word by those who would use We the People for their personal enrichment.

Fundamental to the freedom we enjoy is capitalistic opportunity for the entrepreneur balanced by social programs to protect the worker and consumer. The tough part is maintaining the balance. Fear neither socialism nor capitalism. Fear losing the necessary balance.

J. Phillip Eisemann

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Socialism is part of our balance (letter) | Letters To The Editor - LancasterOnline

Dr. Daniel Sutter has been the Charles G. Koch Professor of Economics with the Manuel H. Johnson Center for Political Economy in Troy Universitys Sorrell College of Business since 2011. He's also a contributor to Heartland's blog, the Freedom Pub.

Opinion polls consistently find that young Americans view socialism favorably. For example, in a recent Gallup poll, 49 percent of millennials and Gen Zers held a favorable view of socialism versus 32 percent of Baby Boomers. Does support for socialism indicate a need for more economic education in Americas high schools and colleges?

As an economics professor, I would certainly like more college students to take economics! States could emulate Texas requirement of a high school class in economics teaching the benefits of free enterprise.

Does learning about economics and markets necessarily reduce support for socialism? Or would economic education about markets just amount to indoctrination?

Our views on most public policy questions mix information and values. By information, I mean facts about the world and testable predictions about cause-and-effect. Values refer to ethical evaluation of outcomes in the world.

Economics education should improve the information content of peoples policy views. I can use electricity without understanding electrical engineering and people can use markets without understanding how they work. The amazing coordination that occurs through markets, what economists call the invisible hand, should inform policy view. Markets allow people enormous freedom while delivering a rising standard of living.

Understanding how markets work does not require acceptance of the values of capitalism. Two people might agree on the effects of the minimum wage (reduced jobs and higher pay) and disagree on the policys desirability due to differing values.

Economic education could also teach young people what socialism meant historically. A hundred years ago socialism meant government ownership of the means of production (e.g., factories). Today politicians likeBernie SandersandAlexandria Ocasio-Cortezprimarily advocate a generous welfare state. They point to Scandinavian countries, not the Soviet Union, as examples of socialism that works.

In the 1930s and 1940s, economists debated whether bureaucrats could coordinate an economy as effectively as markets. Potentially bureaucrats could mimic markets by setting the same prices. In practice, political influence over price setting and the lack of a profit motive leads to inferior performance.

The position of modern socialists, I think, reflects this learning. The gains from substituting bureaucratic commands for prices are nonexistent and the U.S. Postal Service shows the limits of government production. Taxing a prosperous market economy to fund government spending better achieves socialist goals.

Scandinavian countries employ this approach, as the 2020 edition of the Fraser Institutes Economic Freedom of the World Index demonstrates. Countries are score between 0 and 10 in five areas, with 10 representing more freedom, and the components to generate a countrys score. The U.S. ranks 6thwith a score of 8.22; Hong Kong ranks first at 8.94. (The data do not reflect COVID-related spending and restrictions.)

Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden rank from 11thto 46th, with scores ranging from 8.10 to 7.58. Venezuela, a more traditional socialist country, ranks last with a score of 3.34. Clearly, the Scandinavian countries resemble the U.S. far more than Venezuela.

Their reliance on markets is even greater than this. The Scandinavians lag the U.S. in the size of government component because they choose more government spending and higher taxes. On the other four areas property rights, money and inflation, international trade, and regulation the Scandinavians match the U.S., with Denmark averaging one third of a point higher on the other areas. The nations where socialism works are largely market economies.

If market forces and not politics determine prices, wages, and salaries, an economy can continue to prosper. High taxes will reduce prosperity some; when the government taxes away half (or more) of incomes, people will work less hard. Exactly how much high taxes and government-paid health care, college, and housing reduce prosperity is an empirical question.

Socialism today does not mean what it did a century ago. This is fine and arguably reflects economic education. Economic education may additionally ensure that young Americans know that the countries so many socialists admire rely on prosperity generated by market economies.

[Originally posted on Alabama Today]

Socialism and Economic Education was last modified: September 30th, 2020 by Daniel Sutter

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Socialism and Economic Education | The Freedom Pub - Somewhat Reasonable - Heartland Institute

Socialism is currently a hot-button word that is too often misused. In 1952, President Harry Truman called the term a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years .... Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.

Seems not much has changed in almost 70 years.

Here are three stories, one from each of us, about our own experiences at the intersection of free markets and public goods. Theyve helped us see that if government partnerships to promote public goods are what we are calling socialism, then a little well-placed socialism might be a good thing.

James Glenn Just last week I slipped my kayak into the Provo River, not far from my home, on a beautiful sunny Saturday. There were already many people out enjoying the river. At the first bend, I passed a father with his five kids floating on tubes. Around another was a group from Brazil on a large, chartered raft. There were fly fishermen in waders, catching and releasing some very nice trout, a group from one of the local universities in rafts, and people in lawn chairs along the riverbank just enjoying the sun and beauty.

But the river didnt always look this way. Turns out that in the 1950s and 1960s it was dammed, channeled and straightened to make way for a new highway, at the cost of much of its beauty. It looks like it does today, including the gentle current for kids in tubes and deep holes for trophy trout, only because of a major restoration project in the 90s, funded with $45 million in federal dollars. Now its a public treasure for thousands of us to enjoy.

Richard Saltzman My wife and I recently returned to the U.S. after a 29-year short-term work assignment in England. While there, we frequently heard from friends and family back home about the high cost of medical treatment, especially for prescription drugs. But we were paying 9 ($12) for a prescription, no matter what it was, so we thought the talk was overblown until I got a $123 prescription in preparation for a colonoscopy once we were back in the states because, I was told, there was no generic substitute.

Later, a nurse at the hospital told me there was a $6 alternative, but some people dont like it because they have to drink more of it. In a free market system, shouldnt that be my decision? A month later, my wife had the same procedure and was prescribed the $6 version. Now I am relieved that next year, when I turn 65, Ill be able to get Medicare (socialized medicine).

James Smithson When I landed in a wheelchair 10 years ago, (dis)courtesy of multiple sclerosis, I learned that uneven joints on the sidewalk can jar your teeth out, pulling a big door toward you can be downright impossible, and some stores display so much stuff in the aisles you cant get through. Thankfully, someone is usually nice enough to help me get an item from a top shelf, open a door or get through a crowded restaurant (pre-COVID-19).

But niceness cant get my 400-pound wheelchair up a flight of stairs. And thats where government programs come in. In 1990, President George Bush (the first one) signed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to start establishing national standards for things like handicapped parking spaces, automatic doors, public restrooms and, my favorite, wheelchair ramps. Because, lets face it, people in wheelchairs dont have enough economic clout to motivate stores to build ramps and movie theaters to leave a few spaces for wheelchairs, or enough political clout to motivate municipalities to make public buses accessible or lower the curbs at street corners. The free market just doesnt address those kinds of issues, so selective government programs become necessary.

Since the 1940s, far-right pundits have labeled almost anything that protects vulnerable citizens or our shared natural resources socialism. But if government efforts to promote public goods are defined as socialism, then its clear we need a little of it. Without it, we wouldnt have national forests in which to camp, hunt and hike. There would be no national parks, which typically bring almost $1 billion a year into Utahs economy alone. There would be no interstate highways to get goods to market. There would be no public schools, access for the handicapped or affordable health care for the elderly.

We shouldnt be so quick to assume that socialism is always a bad thing.

A recent report by the Brookings Institute states, Not one economically advanced society can be described as purely capitalist; every one of them is a mixed economy that includes some elements of socialism.

And none of the examples weve given has resulted in a loss of freedom, undermined individual productivity, or led us down a slippery slope to communism.

James Smithson is a retired researcher.

Richard Saltzman recently retired from international finance.

James Glenn is looking forward to retirement and conducts international research. They met 20 years ago in London over plates of Indian takeaway. All three currently live in Utah.

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Commentary: Too many are misusing the word 'socialism' - Salt Lake Tribune

The Fourth International is the World Party of Socialist Revolution. It was founded byLeon Trotskyin 1938 to carry forward the fight for Marxism in opposition to the Stalinist degeneration of the Soviet Union and the Communist (Third) International.

Trotsky had founded the Left Opposition in 1923 to oppose the usurpation of power by a nationalist bureaucracy headed by Joseph Stalin and defend the program of socialist internationalism that had animated the Russian Revolution in 1917. In 1933, with the coming to power of the Nazis, facilitated by the disastrous policies of Stalinism, Trotsky called for the formation of a new (Fourth) International.

In the decades after its founding, revisionist tendencies repeatedly emerged inside the Fourth International, advocating in one form or another the abandonment of its orientation to building a revolutionary party in the working class, and calling instead for an orientation to one or another petty-bourgeois, Stalinist, Social Democratic or bourgeois-nationalist tendency.

The International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) was established on November 23, 1953, following a split in the Fourth International between the orthodox Trotskyists, led by James P. Cannon, a founder of the Trotskyist movement in the United States, and an opportunist faction led by Michel Pablo and Ernest Mandel. The ICFI, which publishes the World Socialist Web Site, has upheld the principles of Marxism and is today the sole representative of revolutionary socialism in the world.

On this page, readers will find links to essays, books and topics on the history of the Fourth International. We also encourage our readers to explore the works available in our Library.

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History of the Fourth International - World Socialist Web Site - WSWS

With todays edition, the International Editorial Board is initiating the relaunch of the World Socialist Web Site. The WSWS has undergone a complete and fundamental redesign. The changes in the appearance of the site have been motivated not only by important technical and aesthetic considerations, though we certainly hope that our readers will appreciate the many improvements in the functionality and appearance of the site. But as significant as these advances are in themselves, they are secondary to the essential issues of theory and political perspective that have guided all aspects of the relaunch project.

It is nearly 23 years since the World Socialist Web Site was launched on February 14, 1998. The International Committee of the Fourth International appreciated at a very early stage in the development of the Internet the revolutionary potential of this immense advance in communications technology. We seized the opportunity to utilize a technology that would make possible a more favorable alignment between the power of our Marxist-Trotskyist ideas and the size of our audience. The old barriers imposed by the physical demands of circulating a printed newspaper were transcended with a technology that enabled the instantaneous transmission of information and ideas all over the world.

It was especially the global character of this technology that convinced the International Committee, almost a quarter century ago, that it should transfer its publishing efforts to the Internet. Not only could we reach a world audience, but it would be possible to politically integrate and unify, to an extent unprecedented in the history of the Marxist movement, the political work of all the sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International. Here, too, the new technology made possible a far better alignment of the daily practice of the International Committee with its international strategy and program. With the founding of the World Socialist Web Site, the International Committee of the Fourth International could respond to daily events, wherever they occurred, with a single political voice as the World Party of Socialist Revolution.

During the first decade of its publication, the World Socialist Web Site achieved an immense expansion of the audience for authentic revolutionary Marxism, that is, for Trotskyism. In its response to the events of the first years of the twenty-first centurydominated by the nightmarish crimes committed by US and world imperialism under the bloody banner of the War on Terrorthe World Socialist Web Site provided the essential critical revolutionary orientation for, at first, tens of thousands, then hundreds of thousands, and, by 2008, even several million readers throughout the world.

After 10 years of publication, not only had the growth of the readership placed demands upon the WSWS that could not be met within its original structure. It was evident to the International Committee and the International Editorial Board that the rapidly intensifying crisis of American and world capitalism was confronting the World Socialist Web Site with challenges that required a significant advance in both its technical infrastructure and presentation. We did not have to wait for the assessment of the objective situation that motivated the redesign of the WSWS to be proven correct. The first edition of the redesigned World Socialist Web Site appeared on October 22, 2008, in the midst of the greatest economic breakdown of the global financial system since the Wall Street crash of 1929.

In the statement posted on October 22, 2008, explaining the political conceptions underlying the redesign, the WSWS made the following points:

More on the History of the Fourth International

The International Committee of the Fourth International is the leadership of the world party of socialist revolution, founded by Leon Trotsky in 1938.

The events of the last twelve years have completely substantiated the assessment upon which the redesign was based.

In light of the most recent developments, it should hardly be necessary to argue at great length that world capitalism is confronted with the specter of a full-scale political and economic breakdown. The crisis is so far advanced that no intelligent bourgeois commentator can state, with any reasonable degree of certainty, that the United States will still have even a semi-democratic government in three months time.

The 2008 redesign of the World Socialist Web Site was undertaken in anticipation of an intensification of the world capitalist crisis.

The 2020 relaunch of the World Socialist Web Site occurs in the midst of a global political and socioeconomic breakdown and emerging revolutionary crisis.

This situation has not taken the International Committee by surprise. In the first edition of the WSWS published in the New Year, on January 3, 2020, we stated that the decade of socialist revolution had begun. Even before anyone knew that the world would be struck by a pandemic, the WSWS predicted the eruption of a global crisis of historically unprecedented dimensions.

However, the International Committee was not content to simply make predictions and passively await their realization. The decisive issue was, and is, how the International Committee will respond to this crisis, how it will prepare the working class for conditions of revolutionary struggle.

The changes in the World Socialist Web Site that are being introduced with this relaunch are being made in the expectation that the global expansion of class struggle will generate an immense resurgence of interest within the working class in socialist politics, history and theory.

The World Socialist Web Site will continue to provide, as it has since 1998, unequaled coverage and analysis of the major events of the day. But the changes in design and structure are aimed at creating a more direct and dynamic interaction between the coverage of the news and the historical experiences and theoretical foundations of the Fourth International and the socialist movement.

The site has been redesigned to provide readers far better access to the the vast archive of essays, reports, historical documents and lectures on a vast range of subjects published by the WSWS since 1998. The material already posted on the siteclose to 150,000 itemswill be augmented by the inclusion of previously unpublished material from the archives of the International Committee and its sections.

The International Editorial Board has assembled teams that will create and curate online exhibits of political, cultural and theoretical topics that will provide greater depth to the understanding of contemporary events.

At the conclusion of the 2020 New Year statement, the WSWS declared:

The enormous historic foundation upon which this movement rests, the conscious repository of the experiences of the international working class, must be brought forward in the developing struggles of the working class and in the forging of the path to socialism.

This is the essential aim of the relaunch of the World Socialist Web Site. We are setting out to arm the working class with the theoretical understanding, historical knowledge and political insight necessary to wage a highly conscious political struggle against capitalism, smash the fascistic conspiracies of the corporate-financial oligarchs, and secure the victory of socialism.

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Welcome the relaunch of the World Socialist Web Site! - WSWS