Lite om amerikansk socialism

Jag är barnsligt intresserad av amerikansk vänster. En vänster som har lite svårt att etikettera sig (om politiska etiketter ska jag skriva senare). Länge var "Liberal" standardetiketten för amerikansk vänster. På senare år har "Progressive" blivit allt vanligare. En etikett som ligger mig varmare om hjärtat för dock en tynande tillvaro i USA. Därför var det kul att läsa Ronald Aronsons artikel i USA:s största politiska tidskrift, The Nation. Det är inte så ofta man får läsa sådant här i amerikanska sammanhang:

"What a new progressive movement needs can be simply stated: more socialism.

There can be no future social movements without key socialist themes: the importance of economic class, the centrality of labor and workers in shaping the world, the idea that people must act to create their own destiny. Not to mention themes already suggested: the decisive role of the economy in determining the rest of our life, the fact that today it is above all driven by the pursuit of profit, the insistence on freeing people from its domination and the need to think and act politically in terms of the socioeconomic system rather than in terms of individual policies. Whatever language people use, socialist ideas, experience, models, aspirations and analyses will help form the heart and soul of the alternative-in-the-making, or there will be no alternative.

Equality is the most important among these. Socialists have conceived a society that provides for the needs of every individual, including adequate means to live a decent life and develop each person's capacities. Our society, in contrast, is ambivalent and ultimately incoherent about equality. We are all said to be equal politically and before the law, but socially and economically our individual worth varies enormously. This is built into the American system: Social and economic inequality, a hallmark of life under free enterprise, make a mockery of a proud hallmark of American democracy, civic equality. In its own terms our society should be taking steps at least to insure that we are equal to become unequal. In other words, fair competition requires an equal starting point. Yet today this is not a liberal but a radical demand. Unequal schools, the rising costs of higher education, the growing gap in living conditions between well-off and poor, the abolition of the estate tax encouraging a plutocracy--all heighten the system's unfairness. In fighting against our increasingly unequal society, liberals and progressives will need to draw upon socialist thought in developing clear and consistent ideas, critiques, programs and watchwords about equality."

Dessutom så kan jag passa på att tipsa om senaste numret av Democratic Socialists of Americas (Socialdemokraternas systerorganisation i USA) medlemstidning Democratic Left. En del intressanta artiklar där med.