Democratic Socialism vs Communism vs Capitalism

Make no mistake about it, I’m a capitalist. I’ve always believed that one of the things that has made America a great country is the fact that everyone has a chance to be as successful as they choose to be, thanks to capitalism. And through hard work, talent, skill, and sometimes luck you can take advantage of the opportunity. I’ve certainly been able to do so in my career. Over the course of forty years, this high school graduate (with some community college credits) has managed to build a life, raise some kids, and have enough money to do exactly what I want to for the next twenty-five years, or so, in retirement. 

At this moment, our president along with his cronies – vice president, cabinet members, right leaning pundits – is running around telling any microphone and camera that the country is being taken over by “violent, communist, scum.” This is how he refers to the “Dumbocrats” and anyone that leans even slightly left.

(Let’s stop for a moment and consider this. I have never known an elected president to refer to over half the population with such horrible rhetoric. Have you? Why does he think he can get away with that? Why do all his followers think that it’s okay to do so? He claims to work for all of us and yet, he calls many of us these horrible names. I mean, what the actual fuck? I’ve had plenty of former Presidents that I didn’t agree with their policies. I never, for a second, felt like they were trying to stomp on half of the citizenry of our country!) 

I recently heard a wonderful conversation on the radio show, On Point, hosted by Meghna Chakrabarti where a professor from Columbia University was describing the difference between Democratic Socialism and Communism. If you have the time, it’s worth a google and a listen. I can only wish our elected officials took the time to do the same. Maybe they’d stop saying this stupid stuff and maybe our journalists could start asking questions of them that clarify what they really stand for. I digress. 

Here are my own definitions. 

Capitalism – anyone may become rich but everyone is on their own. 

Communism – no one may become rich but no one will be poor. 

Socialism – anyone may become rich but no one will be poor and we’re all in this together. 

Democratic socialism – See above plus the government, through the people, will make sure it all runs properly. 

Why is this important? Well, if you go with the notion that America is the greatest country in the world, it follows that all of our society should have enough food to eat, a place to live, affordable healthcare, the ability to earn a living, and free education. That sounds, to me, like the least one could expect from the greatest country in the world. And yet, we don’t. 

How bad is it? 

Let’s start with food. According to the USDA, 5.4% of the population have severe food insecurity meaning they routinely skip meals altogether. And 8.3% of the population face reduced food availability, skipping means or eating unhealthy food. In other words, 47.9 million people either go hungry or eat unhealthy foods. 

Next up, a place to live. According to HUD, at any moment, about 750,000 people are homeless in the US. These people are living in their cars, or in a cardboard box, or in a tent, or just sleeping on a park bench. In many cities, there is some form of support for them to sleep in a protected spot but many are simply out of doors. There are some that do it by choice but it is a small minority – most have no choice. 

Education – Only 38.7% of the population has a bachelor’s degree or higher. More importantly, 10.13% do not have a high school diploma at 25 years of age. 40% of the population never attend college of any kind. Despite this, the current debt load for higher education is $1.8 Trillion. (By the way, education has been proven to be the key to more quickly increasing GDP and a much higher happiness index among populations. Oh yeah, that’s in countries where education is largely free.)

Affordable health care – about 8.1% of the population have no healthcare insurance, around 27 million people as of 2024. Don’t forget, the “One Big Beautiful Bill” removed subsidies for Obamacare and the expectation is that another 10 million or so have probably fallen off health insurance rolls as a result. It’s believed that 80% of the people with no healthcare are among the mostly poor. Based on the cost of healthcare and insurance, that’s probably correct. 

Finally, let’s talk about poverty. As of 2024, 35.7 million people live below the poverty line. What is the poverty line? For a single person, it’s $14,960; that is just about minimum wage of $7.25 per hour at a full-time job. For a family of four, the poverty line is $29,890. Think about how much you make in your career and how you may struggle sometimes to make ends meet. How much more than this “poverty line” do you earn? And almost 36 million people earn that tiny amount, or less! Scarier to me is that the average household has around $450 available for an emergency and if faced with one, would be struggling to handle it.

Wait! I thought we were the greatest country in the world. It doesn’t sound like it! 

I know, right? My opinion is that it’s due to having what I would call unrestricted capitalism along with a “trickledown theory” of taxation. Some examples: For profit companies are allowed to make as much money as they can; they’re beholden to their shareholders to produce a return on investment. Fair enough. And they should also pay taxes on the profit the company produces, right? 

According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) at least 88 profitable US companies paid $0 in taxes in 2025. They earned over $105 billion in that same tax year. And paid $0 in taxes! You can google the list and see how many you currently do business with. Additionally, many of these companies pay their employees so poorly that many of them rely on government assistance. It’s estimated that over 40% of Walmart employees, are on Medicaid and/or SNAP benefits – both of which are driven by income. Or lack of it. 

Okay but I don’t want to be a Communist. Nobody that I know, does. But the Democratic Socialists are getting lumped with them by Trump and his clown posse. The fact is that we’ve had socialist programs for decades. Social Security? It’s in the name. Medicare and Medicaid? Both are social programs. Have you ever driven on the freeway or interstate highway? They’re both socialism in action since the Federal Government built them – with your tax dollars. Ever been to a National Park? That’s a social program funded by the US Government. (It’s responsible for putting $60 billion into cities and towns that are within an hour of these parks, thanks for tourists and visitors.) 

Then what are the Democratic Socialists proposing? 

First is that everyone should pay their fair share of taxes. Back in the 1950s and 1960s, the highest tax rate was over 90%. (Bear in mind, that was on the amount of money earned over a certain amount, not all.) The current rate is 37% and that’s for income over $640 thousand earned in a year. I’m not saying we go back to 90%, we shouldn’t, but we need to do a better job of people paying their fair share. (I consider it a sense of personal pride to pay taxes as it’s my country and I’ve always gotten a lot back from living here.) 

Next is that healthcare and education should be free or close to it. If the citizenry isn’t well educated or healthy, we start with a handicap when it comes to competing with the rest of the world. In other words, it’s tough to be the best in the world if you’re people aren’t at their best! 

Finally, we need to help people out of poverty. Many years ago, FDR got the country out of the depression by creating millions of jobs that got people back to working, back to getting paid, and back on their feet. A program or programs like that would go a long way to curing many of our ills – hunger, poverty, healthcare, homelessness.

 

Is that it? 

 No, there are other proposals out there, too, many having to do with how government works, like term limits, eliminating the Electoral College for National elections, increasing the number of Congressional Representatives. Those are going to take far more time to debate and put into place. Frankly, I’m okay with all of them as our elected officials scare me. 

 That’s my take on all of this. What’s yours?

The Art of the Deal????

It's being reported this morning that the US and Iran have reached a "deal" in the conflict started by the Melon Felon two or three months ago. The details have not yet been released as of this morning but it appears that there will be a cease fire for 90 days to allow time to work on an actual treaty instead of the "Memorandum of Understanding" or MOU that this is. Bear in mind that President Obama, along with a number of other leaders, had negotiated a deal back in July 2015 called the JCPOA or Iran nuclear deal for short. By all indications, this was working in keeping Iran for manufacturing a nuclear weapon and had achieved some form of uncomfortable peace in the Middle East. In 2018, Trump removed the US from the deal and it fell apart. According to him, the Iranians were ignoring the deal anyway, Obama had negotiated it so it had to be horrible, and only he could fix it. He never got around to doing so in his first term and had to wait until now to take charge. According to intelligence sources, Iran was nowhere near a nuclear warhead. According to Trump, it was imminent - within 2 weeks! - and he had to do something. So, he and Israel decided to completely set the Middle East into turmoil. (Oddly, 2 weeks is what he said it would take to come up with a new healthcare program; that was about 6 years ago, during his first term. Should be here any day, now!) It appears that the terms of this new deal with Iran will not be as favorable as Obama's deal was. And there you have it! Just so much winning! 7,000 dead, including a lot of kids and innocents, about $40 billion spent on munitions, 13 dead soldiers, gas over $4 a gallon, and inflation at the highest rate since during the pandemic. Why do we even have a 25th Amendment?

So, we're at war...

So now, we’re at war… I was born a few years after the end of the Korean Conflict, a war that my father served in. (In Germany, not in combat, mind you.) It was also a few years before the start of the Viet Nam war, another horrible war that ended up killing over 58,000 US service members. I remember one time, a cousin visited us in Arlington during the Viet Nam days. She and her brother were both in the Army at the time. Watching the news in the evening, she was physically disturbed at the reports of service members dying that day and that week. It made an impression on me. It would have made a bigger impression if I’d been drafted but the war ended before I was at that age. My father told me, once, that he’d have told me to go to Canada if I had been drafted. That also made an impression on me. Here we are again, having entered a completely avoidable conflict all because one man – President Donald J. Trump – wants to show the world how strong he is and how strong the USA is. He claims it’s because the Iranians were “weeks away” from having nuclear weapons, something that intelligence sources say is highly inaccurate. Other sources believe it’s to take away interest in the Epstein Files, in which he’s named over 3,000 times. (The FBI apparently has reason to finally believe a woman who testified, under oath, that Trump sexually abused and beat her at 13 of age. Nice.) His Secretary of Defense – Pete Hegseth – a former Fox News weekend host, alcoholic, cosplaying Army wannabe, is directing the military festivities with help from his self-appointed cronies. To say it’s a shitshow is about the nicest way to put it. It’s costing $1 Billion a day and all it’s done so far, is kill the ancient leader of Iran, get his son elevated in his place, drive the price of oil up about about 50% in a week, and get a couple of dozen US service members killed or badly injured. Winning! Hegseth appeared on 60 Minutes last night and gave an incredibly pompous account of what had happened so far and what we could expect. It allowed me to confirm that he is no more qualified for that role than I am to be competing on the PGA Tour. He’s lost and he knows it but he puts up a brave front, tying everything back to the incredible leadership of dear leader, Trump. At a solemn occasion of “dignified transfer of war dead” this past weekend, Trump appeared wearing one of his signature baseball caps that are part of his merchandise sale offerings. I’ve not seen anything so disrespectful in my life; and I’ve watched Congress in action for over 6 decades. The man has zero respect for anything but himself, truly. What’s next? Look, I know that the moral arc of the universe is long but it bends toward justice. I so wish it wouldn’t take so bloody long! In only 13 months, this administration has embarrassed the US on the International stage, turned our allies into standoffish observers, set fire to the financial works all over the world economy, and driven prices into the stratosphere for all Americans. If this isn’t stopped, or at least inhibited, by the various checks and balances that are in place, we may not recover in my lifetime. And I don’t want my kids having to clean this up because the public was stupid enough to elect this assclown twice! For me, I’m going to keep doing what I can to keep the pressure up. I’ll keep writing my Congresspeople, keep posting on social media, continue to debate the cult members when I get the chance. I do this not because I think I can change other’s opinions it’s to ensure that I don’t change my own from being beaten into submission by them. I know this much. We can’t continue down this path, not if we want the great American Experiment to continue. Not if we value our freedoms. Not if we value our country. And certainly not if we value life. Do not give up the fight!