Toward a Democratic Socialism

We need to remember that we are bastards and forget that we’re obedient citizens. Indeed, that our absolute loyalty lies in the disobedience to power and in our identification with poor.

For every daydream of the few, there are nights of nightmares for the many.

When our expectations become low and when we learn the language of compromise, conciliation, we “see” below the horizon. We become used to “seeing” below the horizon.

And so seasoned imperialists, with resumes in hand, are lining up at the Chicago presidential transition office. After Joe-pro-war-Biden, the most desired are those who “…have worked with the Clinton administration as a corporate lobbyist or militarist:”

Robert Rubin’s protégés, Summers and Geithner, “are the protective guard-dogs of America’s vested interests,” according to Michael Hudson (The Neo-Yeltsin Administration? The Obama Letdown, November 26, 2008). The president-elect Obama appointments, Hudson states, are the “same anti-labor, pro-financial team that brought the kleptocrats to power in Russia in the mid-1990s.”

And all this change will make Sen. Hilary Clinton as Secretary of State feel right at home within a third-term Clinton Administration.

You can almost expect a long Black limousine pulling up outside the president-elect’s transition office in Chicago. Before the limo door opens, the bourgeoisies, standing on either side of the walkway, are cheering wildly. The door opens and out steps King George (most notorious criminal #1) followed by Darth Vader (most notorious criminal #2) carrying his and the King’s resume.

“Be careful of the people’s gods,” warned Black activist and thinker, Hubert Harrison.

Who is speaking? Who is allowed to speak? Who is allowed at the meeting table? Most important, who defined “change” and who discussed what it would look like?

You can’t image an assembly of the people, the nurse, the teacher, the factory worker, the Walmart clerk, the home care worker, the homeless, and the returning disillusioned Iraqi vets. Father Bourgeoisie won’t be there. Activists for peace and justice won’t be there.

The intellectuals like Professor Cornel West say we are coming out of the Reagan era where indifference to the poor was the order of the day. His language is conciliatory: “Brother” Barack Obama and “brother” Larry Summers. “Brother” Eric Holder, good friend, Eric Holder. Dr. West is not aware of Holder’s involvement with Chiquita Brand Corporation, but he will ask “brother” Holder to explain to him why Brother Holder is defending the corporate thugs (Democracy Now). Dr. West’s mixed message to those below: We need a movement outside the State, but – but, but, but, let’s wait. Let’s hope some more! Let’s quiet our voices; tone down the anger down there! In the meantime, mellow out to the beat of my hip hop CDs while you wait. I’ll met and eat with my band of bourgeoisie brothers.

And, in the background, the young consumers of everything that glitters appear on the corporate airwaves chanting: We aren’t like our parents. Not their generation. We’re different. We’ve everything in common with the American mainstream, with our white friends and their parents. And the white youth and parents are grateful. Elated! Change has come!

In this current capitalist crisis, these class-conscious people will struggle – but struggle to purchase the latest gadget, produced in part by mutilating women and children or by people paid pennies on the dollar. That’s depressing. We want happiness and a piece of the American pie.

Barack Obama, what do you mean by change? Did your followers ask? Were they permitted to ask?

Change today is pretty much the same as yesterday because those in love with reform are afraid of changing the status quo. Change is “urban renewal” (better known as gentrification) in which assisting Black politicians, intellectuals, and middle class citizens shoved poor and low-waged earning Blacks aside. Change is the Black declared first Black president’s “welfare reform” and “crack-cocaine” (incarcerate-as-many-young-Blacks-as-possible bills.)

“They have a new gimmick every year,” Malcolm told us. A Black, “one of their boys,” walks around Washington with a cigar. “Fire on one end and fool on the other end.”

And because his immediate personal problem will have been solved he will be the one to tell our people: “Look how much progress we’re making. I’m in Washington, D.C., (sic) I can have tea in the White House. I’m your spokesman, I’m your leader.”… But how many sitting here right now feel (sic) that they could [laughs] truly identify with a struggle that was designed to eliminate the basic causes that create the conditions that exist? Not very many. They can jive, but when it comes to identifying yourself with a struggle that is not endorsed by the power structure, that is not acceptable, that the ground rules are not laid down by the society in which you live, which you are struggling against, you can’t identify with that, you step back…it’s hard for you to cut that dollarism. When they drop those dollars on you, you’ll fold though.

(The Prospects for Freedom, Jan. 7, 1965). This year saw the biggest gimmick with the biggest amounts of money dropped right back in the pockets of the corporate-backed Democrats.

The current African American president-elect is no more a member of the masses of Black Americans than the first. Like the first, he doesn’t represent the incarcerated, the undereducated, the undernourished, the under insured, the unemployed, overworked, and overwhelmed. He is not a member of the oppressed class in the U.S. His interests are necessarily, by virtue of his status in a racially oppressed country, the interests of the capitalists. The personal is political. He wants history – that is, history to record his rise among the “great” American people. The president-elect will “save” the Black and white middle class, the corporate Wall Street class, and the government of the U.S. – but from what? Clue: His ascendancy to the Head of State will assure that the unread narratives of the “little” people and their struggles will be left – unread.

And the “beloved” man, the current African American president-elect has been compared to – the “beloved” man the State and some ingenious Black intellectuals employ to tame the desperate and despairing – isn’t heard or read by anyone now:

Again from the unheard and unread Martin Luther King:

“There must be a better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism.”

Democracy means “the majority rule,” writes Roland Sheppard. The word is from the “Middle French democratie, from Late Latin democratia, from Greek demokratia, from demos ‘common people,’ (see demotic), + kratos ‘rule, strength.’” Sheppard continues,

The majority controlling the means of production is contrary to waiting like spectators for the politicians to trickle down to the bottom wage earner and the salaried worker a 300 dollar check! The majority doesn’t rule when 1 percent of the population controls government and owns the wealth and resources of the land.

In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. As of 2001, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 33.4% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 51%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 84%, leaving only 16% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers). In terms of financial wealth, the top 1% of households had an even greater share: 39.7%. Table 1 and Figure 1 present further details drawn from the careful work of economist Edward N. Wolff at New York University (2004).

Table 1: Distribution of net worth and financial wealth in the United States, 1983-2001