THE FIRST AND SECOND POSTS in this series outlined the following points:
- The political struggle—and spiritual struggle—in this country is a continuation of a struggle which has been with us as long as there has been a human race.
- In our early, hunter gatherer, days it was a struggle between the community as a whole and the occasional power-hungry freeloader.
The community as a whole—early humanity—opted for equality, individual liberty, sharing, and democracy.
The occasional freeloader, a bully who would run roughshod over the rest of the community if given half a chance, preferred a hierarchy, with himself at the top, cherry picking the wealth of the group.
For over a million years we won that battle, establishing egalitarian communities which shared their power and wealth while preserving freedom and taking care of each other. - About the time of the agricultural revolution—a very short time ago compared to the amount of time we spent in our natural, hunter gatherer, state—the freeloaders managed to wrest control of the culture away from the democrats.
They instituted kingdoms, and began calling themselves kings.
This period lasted, with constant struggle between the freeloaders and the rest of us who do the work, for about the last twelve thousand years. - Recently, the democrats have been on the move again.
Modern democracies began to replace kingdoms.
The United States was created. - But we haven't rid ourselves of the freeloaders, or even brought them under any lasting control.
They still exist.
They don't wear crowns or make grand public appearances anymore.
Instead, they work behind the scenes, disseminating misinformation, financing lobbyists, and generally continuing to make sure that the vast majority of the wealth created by working people ends up in their bank accounts.
One way they do this is with political rhetoric—by getting us to buy into a false picture of the world.
And this is where the constant talk of socialism comes in:
- They want to convince us that there's no difference between a Stalinist dictatorship and a program like Medicare.
- They want to convince us that this wonderful invention—this democratic government which allows us to extend our hunter gatherer ability to cooperate to an entire country—is one of them: a king or dictator that we should be afraid of.
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They want to convince us that our normal human desire to take care of the sick among us is somehow a violation of our own freedom of choice, rather than a group decision to pool resources and give ourselves a better life.
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They want to convince us that the only motives that have any meaning to humans are motives of self-interest.
That a free market only works because everyone always behaves selfishly .
They call this set of ideas "capitalism" and try to get us to believe that its opposite—the set of normal human tendencies to share, to take care of each other, and to keep the freeloaders from getting too rich or too powerful—is some horrible thing called "socialism".
Well, if that's true then the police force is socialism, the fire department is socialism, our roads and national elections and public libraries and social security are socialism.
And, what's more, the laws and government institutions that create the possibility of corporations and private wealth are socialism.
There have been countries that called themselves "socialist" but weren't really democracies, and they have failed.
There are, right now, countries that are both "socialistic" and democratic which are doing quite well.
It's not about a word.
It's about what kind of country we want.
It's about who we are.
It's our government.
No one is doing anything to us.
We are making some choices about whether our children and grandchildren and parents and grandparents will get the care they need.
We are making some decisions about whether a handful of wealthy and powerful freeloaders can continue to game the system, putting thousands of our fellow Americans through misery so they can get a few extra bucks that they don't even need.
And the kinds of proposals that are on the table right now, the proposals of representatives we elected, are, every one of them, designed to strengthen a free market while achieving those goals.
The only thing they endanger, and then only slightly, is the ability of the freeloaders to call the shots.
At least, that's what I think today.
