Trending
There has been a lot of discussion and assumptions about democracy and socialism that seem to be misunderstood. This led me to review the root causes of our misconceptions. First, Democracy is a Greek word (demokratia) meaning people (demos) and rule or power (kratos). It encompasses the following concept: citizens vote directly on laws and policies for their society.
Representative Democracy means citizens vote for representatives who make laws and govern on our behalf. Here in lies the rub: do our representatives make laws for us or corporations? "Corpus" is Latin for "body", so Mitt Romney was correct when he said corporations are people too! While corporations don't vote, they lobby for laws and tax cuts that benefit them but not the American people!
The core principles of democracy are: Free and fair elections, rule of law that applies to everyone equally, individual rights and liberties to think and be themselves, and majority rule with minority rights.
How do we, as a society, function in a world where we want to be treated equally under the law but often are not? Should we follow the golden rule to treat others as we wish to be treated? Could this be the underpinning of "people rule" so we may collectively create laws to be free and equal under the law for the betterment of society?
Socialism has deep roots in the idea of the golden rule to treat people equally and to discourage class distinctions and discrimination. The unfortunate side of socialism is the potential for the government to control how much wealth and power an individual may have. To some, freedom in America says that government should have no say about our wealth or possessions. So here is the dilemma, should our society limit the wealth of the rich to help the poor? Should we follow the golden rule and treat others the way we want to be treated by ensuring every citizen has a pension, healthcare, education, living wage etc.?
Would it be better for society if monopolies ran our government? Do we really want the rich to become the centers of power with their wealth and ability to manipulate the nations laws for their benefit instead of our benefit?
A representative democracy is supposed to represent all of us not just the rich few. Socialism's intent is to equalize the economic playing field so that everyone wins the monopoly game not just one person. What we have in America today is a monopoly game of six players where only one player gets to collect $200 when they pass "GO" (Like disproportionate tax cuts we give the wealthy, do they reduce the national debt?) Only the top 10% of Americans win in America's monopolistic economy! Everyone else is responsible for paying off our national debt!
A representative democracy is how we govern. Socialism is an economic system. The question is how do we apply the concepts of freedom, democracy and socialism with the "Golden Rule" to our American society? Your vote this November will help determine that.
Edward Vos is a Jamestown resident.