Kathleen Parker on “Socialism” Oct 15^th

Kathleen Parker (KP) is not your ordinary far right wing, constantly outraged, commentator of the Laura Ingraham or Ann Coulter variety. When she appears on CNN and other talk shows as a commentator she impresses one as an imminently sensible person. Her column today is different. She goes after Bernie Sanders, an “admitted socialist.” She is amazed “because no one running for President today would dare to admit wanting to change the nation’s economic system.” But Bernie Sanders hasn’t said that he wants this country to have a classically socialist economic system. A check of any dictionary will tell you that socialism means the government owns the means of production and distribution. Sanders is pushing for an economic system that no longer concentrates the country’s wealth in fewer and fewer hands. That might sound like socialism to people in whose hands the wealth is concentrated, but it isn’t.

 Parker thinks of this as a capitalistic country but it is not altogether capitalistic. Individuals do not assume all the risks in the production of food. The huge farms and other means of food production are owned by individuals but the government is very helpful when things begin to go sour. There are various price supports, and many other Department of Agriculture assists, that are paid for primarily by the government, and which mitigate the risk of failure. This is also true at the State level; there is advice on everything from forest management to growing tomatoes available from the local state agricultural agent. Many on the right would call any of this socialism.

The distribution system is similar; in this capitalist country the highways are mostly publicly owned and so are the airports. The right would like all roads to be toll roads but that would be a stretch. In addition to the highway system that is publicly owned, so are the National Parks and millions of acres of other public land. What we have in this country is far from pure capitalism much to the dismay of many on the right who would prefer to strangle all these   socialistic leanings. In addition to private ownership of just everything in the country they would like to eliminate Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Ms. Parker is quite dismissive of Bernie Sanders. She says that Sander’s model, “…is vaguely reminiscent of a 1960s-style commune where everybody was One and nobody was rich or poor and it was, like, far out. If somewhat odiferous.” This personal attack has nothing to do with Sanders position and betrays the fact that Ms. Parker would have been just fourteen years old at the height of the hippy movement in 1965 and knows little about it except what she has read. Her “odiferous” remark is  surprising and beneath her.