I’m glad Obama bailed out the automobile industry. I think it was the right thing to do. The unemployment rate is high enough. Do we really want to see how high it would go if the auto industry collapsed? That industry generates millions of jobs. It’s not just about the people who make the cars and trucks. It’s about the people who work for hundreds if not thousands of companies that make parts for the industry, and it’s about people who work at thousands of dealerships around the country: salesmen, mechanics, accountants, advertising people. And it’s about people who make a living supporting all those people: from the waitress at the diner where the mechanics eat lunch, to the shopkeeper who sells the sales manager a suit, to the semi-retired senior citizen who drives you to work in a dealership minivan after you’ve dropped off your car for maintenance. Allowing the auto industry to collapse would tip the first domino in a very long chain.
Yet Republicans who criticize Obama for not doing more to reduce unemployment were, ironically, united in their opposition to the bailout and boasted proudly that they would have let the industry go bankrupt. The bailout was against their orthodoxy, so by definition it was a bad idea. But you can’t have your cake and eat it, too. You can’t accuse Obama of not doing enough to reduce unemployment and at the same time accuse him of being a socialist for saving a million jobs. Well, you can – and Republicans do – but there’s a name for it: it’s called “two-faced.”
Remember the Chrysler bailout of 1979? I don’t remember hearing people call President Carter a socialist just because he helped Chrysler survive. Maybe that’s because people didn’t hate Jimmy Carter. There were reasons why some people disliked Carter: he refused to go to war when Iranians captured our embassy in Tehran (weak), he established full diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China (cozy with communists), he made good on a long-standing American promise to return control of the Panama Canal to Panama (gave away what was “ours”). But no one called him a socialist – a label that Obama-haters frequently apply to the current president.
Socialism may be the bogey-man to Republicans, but America has plenty of socialist programs. If the government plans for and provides goods and services to its citizens and those goods and services are paid for by taxes and fees collected from the public, that is socialism in action. Here is a partial list of socialist organizations and programs in America:
- Defense Department
- Social Security
- Medicare and Medicaid
- Police protection
- Municipal water systems
- Municipal sewage treatment
- Municipal garbage collection
- Municipal airports
- Street lights
- Public education
- Interstate highway system
- City streets and state roads
- Air traffic control system
- Bridges
- Parks
- Museums
- Libraries
- Weather and spy satellites
- Centers for Disease Control (CDC)
- NASA
America is a mix of capitalism and socialism. However, the most essential products and services are socialist in nature (provided by government) while less-essential products and services are free market (provided by business).
Just to be clear: if the government takes part ownership of an auto company in return for guaranteeing loans to that company, that’s not socialism. Socialism is when the government takes control of the auto company and decides where the cars will be built, how many will be built, and where the cars will be sent after being built. That is called “central planning” and it’s a key part of socialism. Simply owning stock in a company isn’t socialism, it’s just a way of making sure you’ll get your money back if the company is successful.
I favor free markets over socialism; however, the government obviously has a place. Government defends our borders. It provides police and fire protection, sanitation services, clean water at our kitchen faucets, and a basic level of education for its citizens. In other words, government provides services that are essential for public health and safety. The government doesn’t own but does regulate certain businesses, such as electric and gas utilities, because their products are essential for the public good. A citizen’s access to health care is something that most of the world considers essential for public health and is therefore regulated by government in most countries. It’s time for all people to accept the idea that government has a place in a nation’s health care system, just as it has a place in ensuring safe neighborhoods and workplaces, ensuring that goods get to their markets, and ensuring that the buses, trains, and airplanes we depend on for travel have been properly maintained. A wealthy nation should not be satisfied with any health care system that falls short of universal coverage. It doesn’t have to break the bank. If it does break the bank then we’re doing it wrong!
It took a century of struggle and a disastrous war to abolish slavery in this country. It took decades of mass protests, murders, and lynchings to establish equal rights for the descendants of slaves. I mention this only to point out that it sometimes takes a very long time to change minds, but that doesn’t mean the effort will never bear fruit.
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