July 29, 2008
is barack obama a socialist?
The New Republic asks this important question:
"Is Barack Obama a socialist? Well, let's see. His campaign platform makes no mention of proletarian revolution or nationalization of industry, and he trumpets his belief that "America's free market has been the engine of America's great progress. It's created a prosperity that is the envy of the world." Not quite Leninesque. On the other hand, Tom DeLay has made a logically rigorous counter-argument sure to convince second-graders everywhere: "I have said publicly, and I will again, that unless he proves me wrong, he is a Marxist." No word on whether DeLay proceeded to put his fingers in his ears and hum loudly."
Maybe this is some sort of residual disease I contracted in the philosophy department, but I have a real problem with imprecise labeling (which is not the same thing as saying I'm not guilty of it at times). Words have meanings. I'm pretty sure the meaning of 'socialist' is not "someone who I disagree with", but that's what it seems to be reduced to in some quarters (this would, of course, be reflected on the other side by those for whom, for instance, "evangelical" means "someone who I disagree with"). So when I'm told that Obama is a socialist (as I have been), I have to assume that the person I'm talking to is probably more interested in using words as verbal baseball bats than as means to communication. (Which, again, is not to say that I am never guilty of using words in that fashion.)
[The article that I linked to is actually a discussion of the methodology used by the National Journal to arrive at their rankings for the relative liberalism/conservatism of senators, and worth reading for that.]
Posted by eatingbark at July 29, 2008 12:19 PMGlad to see they mention the DW-NOMINATE scores although they improperly cite them. These are the standard used by political scientist. Scores like the National Journals (or any measure that uses a subset of votes) are known to be biased and inefficient (in the statistical sense).
NOMINATE is not perfect but its the closest once can come with current technology and knowledge to assigning an ideal point to a member of congress.
Posted by: Robi at July 30, 2008 10:59 AMI agree that sloppy definitional work is endlessly frustrating. I also agree that there's a huge amount of it going on in this campaign--no small part of which is pre-emptive mislabeling from the Obama camp. I'm no fan of the NJ's ratings, and don't consider them to be particularly helpful.
But if "socialist" is not defined narrowly as "one who advocates proletarian revolution," as I don't think it should be (that would be "communist," and there aren't really any of those around outside of English departments), but simply means "one who thinks that the economy can and probably should be more centrally planned," then yeah, Obama may well be a socialist. Most European states are significantly socialist but not communist. Even the US has significant socialist programs, e.g. the Mediplans, Social Security, etc. Obama certainly seems to be in favor of those.
By that definition, the vast majority of Americans are socialists of some stripe. Which reveals what the pundits are really doing here: using political labels as perjoratives. But we already knew that.
Posted by: ryan at July 31, 2008 10:56 AM1. Don't want to make disagreement where there isn't much, since using political labels as pejoratives is essentially what I meant by using words as baseball bats.
2. However, I'd have to disagree with your definition of socialism. While the group of people "who think that the economy can and probably should be more centrally planned" certainly includes socialists, I think its too wide a circle. If your definition defines essentially all American liberals as socialists, then I think there's something wrong with it. Its clear that you're ok with that (and tossing plenty of Republicans as well), so fair enough.
3. But I'd argue that its more productive to restrict the label "socialist" to its traditional meaning as a definition of a stance on economic policy, which, roughly, is "one who argues that the means of production should be nationalized" (that would be the second part of the phrase from the quote, "nationalization of industry). I'm much more comfortable with this, because it makes it clear that socialism is a relatively rare stance in the United States.
Obviously, we're in disagreement about whether it is or not -- but I think maybe one of the advantages of my position (and this is somewhat tortured logic, but whatever) can be explained like this:
You and I are each confronting a person, Dave, who insists that Barack Obama is a socialist and that he, Dave, is not. While Dave is a Republican, he is facing foreclosure on his home because he was "suckered" (his words, not mine) into a subprime mortgage. Dave believes that the government should have done something before he got suckered, and that it should do something now to prevent him from losing his home.
Based on your definition of socialism, you have to persuade him that he is a socialist. Based on mine, I have to persuade him that Obama is not. Who do you think will have an easier time?