Miner Queries: What is in a name? Democratic socialism or communism?

A recent Facebook meme noted, “The fact that people think democratic socialism equals communism is proof that we need major educational reform.”
However, confusion about socialism stems less from faulty education than powerful marketing messages. Using media outlets purchased and built over the last 40 years, conservative corporate interests have convinced average Americans government is their enemy. And they target popular socialist programs (like Social Security and public education) by equating them with communism and saying they cost taxpayers more than they really do. Meanwhile, these corporate interests buy politicians with campaign contributions and send them to ritzy conferences where they pack politician’s briefcases with corporate-friendly legislation.
The results are a populace that has given up on politics and a government that no longer enacts laws to ensure the common good. That’s what’s so amazing about Bernie Sanders’ campaign. Despite labeling himself a democratic socialist, he’s drawing crowds.
As Timothy Egan wrote in the New York Times last October, “socialism” as a word is “poison in this country.” Yet, he also noted polling shows most Americans favor strong social policies:  “A majority of Americans feel ‘money and wealth in this country should be more evenly distributed,’ according to a CBS News/New York Times poll. Sanders wants to raise the minimum wage; so do 71 percent of Americans. Sanders believes corporations have too much influence on politics, as do 74 percent of Americans. And one of the biggest socialist programs — the single payer Medicare system that is a lifeline to more than 50 million people — is also one of the most popular.”
And former Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower writes: “Sanders happily calls himself a ‘democratic socialist,’ a loaded term that initially spooks many people. But as ... people turning out to hear him are learning, the phrase essentially means being a feisty FDR populist, willing to take on the economic royalists (and welcoming ‘their hatred,’ as Roosevelt put it) in order to (in Bernie’s words) ‘revitalize American democracy so that government works for all of us, not just the large campaign contributors.’”
Hightower says discussion of these issues is long overdue, a view highlighted by a Salon Magazine article Thursday morning in which Ann Jones writes of her experience living in Norway. She notes politicians in the current presidential race, including the Democrats, gloss over the real benefits of Scandinavian social democracies as well as the costs of our current capitalist economy.
“In the last century, Scandinavians, aiming for their egalitarian goal, refused to settle solely for any of the ideologies competing for power — not capitalism or fascism, not Marxist socialism or communism. Geographically stuck between powerful nations waging hot and cold wars for such doctrines, Scandinavians set out to find a path in between ... Thanks largely to the solidarity and savvy of organized labor and the political parties it backed, the long struggle produced a system that makes capitalism more or less cooperative, and then redistributes equitably the wealth it helps to produce.”
I think that’s the real issue for corporate capitalists – sharing equitably. They’re worried about losing not only wealth, but power. Maybe that’s why Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein describes Sanders’ campaign as “a dangerous moment.” It also explains Michael Bloomberg’s possible presidential bid.
Because as another Facebook post with Franklin Roosevelt’s image reads, “Democratic Socialism is so unpopular in this country that the last time someone ran on its platform, they were only elected four times.”