ISM It Romantic?

Well . . . no. There is nothing romantic about ISMs. At least not the way we think and talk about them. I guess if you ignore all the historical gruesome bloodshed and mayhem, you might find something romantic about monarchism.

King Arthur and his knights of the oblong table, Princess Di, and Game of Thrones. Sure, you could make a little romance out of some of that shit. And not just romanticism. I attended some 14 or so political science classes about 104 years ago. Yet I recall my professor, Dr. Schindler, expressing that a “benign monarchy” was the most efficient and effective form of government. That is until the benign monarch dies, and you end up with Caligula or someone else equally shitty such as “Irving the Lesser”. Someone I completely made up. But the point is well made. That a monarchy in the right hands can really kick ass. But it can never be historically reliable because it is only ever as strong as its latest, increasingly inbred monarch.

So, for the purposes of this post, we will discuss the three most well known “isms”: capitalism, socialism and (cold shiver) communism. So, let’s start right away with pissing most of you off in two wonderful ways.

1. The isms are in no way as different from each other as your so-called leaders would have you believe.

2. Almost none of you have any fucken idea what any of them genuinely mean.

Anybody still here? Ok, great, let’s continue.

Let’s just dismiss communism straight away because there really isn’t any such thing. It’s never genuinely been tried. North Korea, The Soviet Union, and China called themselves communist. Or maybe we called them communist. No matter, none of them were or are communist. They are authoritarian dictatorships.

Anyway, communism is a completely centralized economy where all economic decisions are made by the state. And all the factories or other means of production are controlled by the state.

Cuba and the Soviets took some steps in that direction but quickly descended into corrupt absolute dictatorships. So no, it’s never seriously been tried and nor should it be, and it won’t be.

And despite what fox nuz or your slow adult uncle may say, there is not a single communist anywhere in American politics. Zero, zilch, bubkus, nada, none. Did I mention zero. So, we can safely move on to the only two serious contenders who, by the way, are by no means mutually exclusive of each other.

In fact, capitalism and real socialism (not the ginned-up strawman of the trolls) are almost impossible to separate. There are exactly zero historical examples of either socialism or capitalism existing independent of each other.

Capitalism and free markets are kind of synonymous with each other and I’m comfortable with that definition. Socialism means exactly that, socialized. Which in a democracy means that there are some things that we the people have voted to socialize.

It really is that simple. The United States is, and always has been, a democratic, free market socialist country. Before you go off shrieking and naked into the night, calm down and consider that this is a good thing. At least in theory.

It means that we the voters get to decide which things we need to do as part of our government, meaning socialized and together. And which things should be left to the free market. Which are most things.

That’s it! That’s the whole socialist/free market battle. And despite what the foreigners at fox nuz and the eastern European troll farms say, almost none of these public/private decisions are controversial.

We all agree on almost all of it. Law enforcement, military, courts, streetlights, roads, libraries, parks and dozens of other things are socialized and handled by our government. Social Security and Medicare are socialized and wildly popular. And here is the thing that makes me crazy—Social Security and Medicare are paid for by the people who receive it and operate almost exactly like insurance. They are not entitlements. They are not a handout. They are not welfare or anything of the sort. Social security and Medicare are 'entitlements' only in the sense that a person is 'entitled' to things he bought, earned, and paid for. Yes, I consider myself entitled to that loaf of bread I just paid Publix $4.99 for. And when I hear politicians repeatedly refer to them as “entitlements” it makes me want to throw something through the TV. Because they know God damn well that they are not entitlements and that people spend their whole working lives paying into them so that they will have something to protect them financially and medically in their old age. If these motherfuckers were to try and take it away it would be nothing short of outright theft and these politicians would deserve to meet their end Mussolini style.

Sorry, I got pissed off and distracted there for a second, but I’m back. So, the whole thing comes down to deciding, item by item, which things should be part of the free market and which things should be socialized as part of government.

I think a logical separation has to do with the things that we absolutely MUST HAVE. Water, power, internet, and healthcare just don’t work very well as part of the free market. Because private companies know we must have these things and then have the power to price them absurdly. You can’t really comparison shop for an appendectomy like you would lawn furniture. And when it comes to healthcare in particular, a for-profit model just doesn’t work.

Health care companies can only make money by giving less healthcare. The less you get the more they make. So, they do everything in their power to slow you down and create friction. They create co-pays, deductibles, referrals, quotas, waiting periods, pre-approvals and dozens of other ways to prevent you from getting health care. It’s their job.

No matter how much you may hate the government. No matter how much you think they can’t find their ass with both hands. They still can’t be worse than an industry whose specific job is to harm you. And that brings us to the point of the whole thing: corruption.

Call it what you want but what we have now is not democracy, socialism or free market capitalism. It is simply a corrupt corporate oligarchy run by mostly foreign owned corporations. They choose our leaders and literally write the laws to their own benefit. And they use fox nuz and social media trolls to keep us paralyzed and fighting with each other.

Corruption my friends. It’s all about the corruption. It doesn’t make a fucken difference what you call your government when corruption is as out of control as it is here.

Our only chance is to figure out a way to stem the tide and regain control of our democracy and our fate before it is too late. In my book “Why The Fuck Not?” I discuss how we can regain control and make our own decisions about what we want our government to do and what we want free markets to do.

But for now. Our opinion, no matter how loud we shout it, means nothing.

ISMs are meaningless.