In 1901 Annie Edson Taylor became the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, and, significantly, to survive. It was her sixty-third birthday. A long time widow whose only child died in infancy, Annie worked mostly as a teacher, although she tried her hand at a number of enterprises, none with great success.
Facing old age and penury, and desperately wanting to avoid the Poorhouse, she took this gamble hoping it would lead to a steady living. It didn’t work out well, and she was forced to turn her hand to various other projects to avoid that fate she feared most. She ended her years posing for photographs with tourists, dying at 82.
I find myself thinking of Annie, and our human condition, how fragile life is, and what we can be forced to turn our hands to in order to survive. Her desperation led to a footnote place in our American folklore. And not a lot more.
For me in an era where the fragile social net that has been woven in the United States since the New Deal is fraying, even unraveling here and there. What’s left would be completely taken apart were the circumstances of our political processes to take just a small wrong turn. I think of Annie’s desperation. I think of the rising inequities among us. And I think there has to be a better way.
Let’s be frank, the Republicans have abandoned, long abandoned any concern with the economic well being of the American people. The two leading candidates for their nomination include a reality television star and real estate developer who sounds disconcertingly like an early twentieth century fascist, and a Christian Dominionist seeking to turn the country into a theocracy. Trailing far behind is a candidate who would do everything he could to dismantle the welfare state in favor of laissez faire capitalism, postulating some imaginary invisible hand that will take care of all social ills.
This brings us to the Democratic race. Secretary Hillary Clinton clings to the lead in the race, at this writing she has some two and a half million votes more than her principal rival, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. Let no one be mistaken, he is a serious contender for the nomination. And as pretty much anyone who is paying any attention knows, when asked if he were a “capitalist,” didn’t hesitate. He said, “No.” Instead he offered that he is a “Democratic Socialist.”
Now, on Social Media there are on occasion tests you can take to see how various presidential candidates line up with your views. I always come up closest to Senator Sanders, although only a couple of points off from Secretary Clinton. So, I’ve thought about this.
I have been a Democrat for all of my adult life. on many issues I’ve staked out a place a bit farther to the left than the mainstream of that party, but have always considered myself first and foremost a pragmatist. What that means has shifted over the years. In my youth I called myself a Fabian Socialist. And, I am, I admit uncomfortable with claiming the word capitalist. It is so closely tied in my mind to so many excesses, to those very conditions that forced poor Annie to climb into that barrel.
However socialism isn’t right, either.
The first definition of socialism that pops up on Merriam Webster’s online dictionary defines socialism as “any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.” In fact the senator does not seem to mean that. Rather he is talking about the development and sustaining of a social welfare state, where the good of the many is seen as the purpose of government. One can argue around the edges of whether thinking public utilities should be collectively owned, but what Mr Sanders seems to actually mean has little to do with that government ownership of the means of production and distribution.
I believe the senator’s rhetorical embrace of “socialism” is both inaccurate in as much as he doesn’t seem to actually believe in that primary definition, and that as a politician, while he is currently enjoying the warm embrace of many of my friends as a breath of fresh air and clarity, I see him as likely to lose to whichever candidate currently striving for the Republican nomination prevails into the General, and I include the neo-fascist, the theocrat, and the neoliberal governor.
I can just imagine the multiples of millions of dollars going into advertising showing the senator sporting a lovely hammer & sickle tat, or morphing into Stalin or Lenin, or, just video clips of him going to the Soviet Union on his honeymoon. Over, and over, and over again. It will be past ugly, and at the end of the day, there will be no doubt in many, many people’s minds that when the senator says he is a socialist “everyone” will know it means communist.
I’m going with Secretary Clinton, the person that I agree with nearly as much as the senator, but who actually stands the best chance of winning that General Election. No guarantee. There are those millions and millions of dollars. And, of course, should the senator prevail, I will support him with all my heart. Although, I’m almost certain we would lose. Those millions and millions, and those pictures of a smiling senator with the hammer and sickle tattoo…
But, this meditation has me most of all thinking of the social contract, of the point of government. And what it is I really want to support. What I can assert to any of my friends who think that it is the senator or the status quo, you are as wrong as wrong can be. We are at a pivot moment where there is no status quo, only two directions, and they are set up starkly by the two dominant political parties in this country. In the one direction the dismantling of the welfare state, wiping away the advances of the New Deal and the Great Society. One of the candidates here offering a secular authoritarianism, the other principal candidate a straight on theocracy. On the other hand, a fierce protecting and advancing the cause of social welfare. One candidate advocates a “pragmatic” approach, which I agree with, the other believes more can be achieved, which I would like, but do not in fact believe likely. But, both of these candidates, both stand in favor of the welfare state and starkly against the calls of the other party.
I personally feel the main point of government is to even the playing field so everyone gets a fair start, and then, beyond that when people stumble for whatever reason, the fall isn’t into the abyss. In practice this means as a human right people should all have access to a free and high quality education as far as their talents can take them, that everyone should have access to some pretty solid baseline of health care, and that everyone has access to a pension in their older years, or, earlier based on need, that allows dignity throughout their lives. There are other things, of course. I think we also need a political center strong enough to deal with other forms of national crisis ranging from war and peace to social pathologies such as racism, and the looming threats of climate change.
However, I have no belief in command economies. Rather I see capitalism, while profoundly shadowed, profoundly shadowed, is also an amazing engine of economic advance. Of the various economic theories put forth it seems the only one people really actually want. People like the idea of enterprise, of investing time and energy, and making a profit. And in practice capitalism is past dangerous. It needs to be seriously watched for several inclinations that quickly become moral evils. The first is an inclination to monopoly, the consolidation of power. The second is what people will do for short term profit, opening avenues to perfidy that seems to know no limit. But, properly watched, and its excesses brought under control through meaningful regulation, it becomes the engine that supports a proper welfare state. Which is what I care about.
Apparently there are names for this view of the social contract, although the principal philosophical term appears to be “Social Market Economy.” A bit of a mouthful. Another term is “Rhine Capitalism.” But the term I find most useful is “Social Capitalism.” This is what when we dig past Senator Sanders’ romantic embrace of the term socialism, he really means. And I’m confident it is what Secretary Clinton believes. Not “democratic socialism,” but rather “social capitalism.”
And, it is what I believe. Capitalism in service for the people, in service of a culture where people are educated, healthy, and cared for when they’re old or unable to care for themselves. That’s what I believe in. And that’s what I want to see fostered, and advanced. I want to protect the advances made during President Obama’s years, and I want to continue to push as hard as possible until we achieve a genuinely just and caring society.
I look to a country where someone rides over Niagara Falls because they’re foolish and want that footnote place in a history book, not because they see it as their only chance to not starve to death. And I think a conscious embrace and advocacy of a social market economy, Social Capitalism can get us there.
My feeling is that those of us who believe in this should get over whatever lingering romance we might have with the term socialism. What we’re actually advocating is Social Capitalism, is a social market economy. Not neo-conservativism. Not neoliberalism. Social capitalism.
Clarity of language. Clarity of purpose.
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