Dear Editor,
I’m writing to respond to the article, published in the April 3rd edition of The Mount Observer, titled “Socialism and Women in the Workplace.”
One of the assertions in the article is that socialism is responsible for the lack of progress women have made achieving management positions in Scandinavian countries. A quick Google search does seem to confirm that not many women in the countries listed have been promoted to these positions, but the argument that socialism is responsible is not convincing.
The implication in the article is that women have a better chance of being promoted to executive positions, including CEO, in our capitalist system. But that’s not the case. According to the NY Times, as of May 2018, there were only 24 women CEOs of the Forbes 500 companies, a figure that is down 25% (from only 32) the previous year. Women still only make 79 cents for every dollar a man makes and African-American women make less, 63 cents, according to HuffPost.
It’s also difficult in our capitalist system for women to break the glass ceiling and enter the boardroom of American companies. Last year, California passed a law to do something about this and became the first state to “require publicly traded companies to have at least one woman on their board of directors,” according to an NPR report.
So there doesn’t seem to really be much of an advantage for women in our capitalist system.
It’s important though to state one other fact: there are no socialist countries in the world and there never have been. Not in Scandinavia, not anywhere. Countries that have representative democracies, with a hierarchy of leaders, cannot be socialist because socialism gets rid of hierarchies in government and in business.
In fact, from our perspective in the 21st century, where our “democracy” is for sale to the highest bidder, socialism is extreme democracy. It is a leaderless system, a system that replaces a hierarchy with a form of direct democracy like citizen assemblies. The closest we have to it is the Town Meeting, but even that’s a very crude analogy. For socialism to exist in America, there would need to be a new constitution.
The article however also misrepresents socialism and I think that’s an equally important point here.
I think the error is in the way socialism is understood in this country. In fact it may be the most misunderstood term in our lexicon. The term socialism has been used by totalitarian governments, like Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, for propaganda because socialism is a synonym for democracy. The phrase democratic socialism, often used today, is actually redundant. It’s like saying democratic democracy.
Unfortunately throughout history it wasn’t only totalitarian governments who co-opted the term socialism. Its propaganda use was a convenient tool for capitalists in America too.
So what does socialism mean then?
Looking for a “neutral” source I consulted my American Heritage College Dictionary 4th edition and found this: 1. Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.
The first part where the means of production are owned “collectively,” that is by the workers, is accurate. The second half about centralized government is propaganda.
Disappointed, I decided to find a less neutral source, and maybe let the socialists define themselves which they rarely get to do.
I found this from the Socialist Labor Party, Mtn. View California: “Socialism does not mean government or state ownership. It does not mean a closed party-run system without democratic rights. Those things are the very opposite of socialism.”
And this is from the Democratic Socialists of America: “The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is the largest socialist organization in the United States. We believe that working people should run both the economy and society democratically to meet human needs, not to make profits for a few. We are a political and activist organization, not a party.”
This means democracy everywhere, not only in government but business as well. In a socialist system, capitalist corporations would be replaced with workers co-operatives, businesses that have no hierarchy, no leaders, no CEO, no BOD, no shareholders, no executives—only workers and the workers would own the business together, which is what collectively is supposed to refer to.
One of the strongest proponents for socialism today is Richard D Wolff, Professor of Economics Emeritus at UMASS Amherst, a self-described Marxist economist.
In his Youtube lecture, “Socialism for Dummies,” Wolff stated, “In any American audience to even say let’s talk about Socialism gets scary vibrations surging in the room” because the term has become a “taboo” in our culture.
Wolff traces the history of the slurring of the term socialism back to the post WWII era when capitalists in America began to undo the gains of the New Deal. This included demonizing organizations like the Socialist and Communist parties and labor unions. They wanted to destroy the left so something like the New Deal, which raised taxes on corporations and the rich, could never happen again. And they have been largely successful, even today.
In his book, Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism, Wolff describes a very compelling and comprehensive vision of how the economy might be transformed to work for the 99%. And it’s a socialist idea. He argues for the development of a co-operative sector of the economy to rival the private sector by creating Workers’ Self-Directed Enterprises, a kind of workers co-op 2.0. The idea is that WSDEs could end the boom and bust crisis cycle of our economy, create more income and wealth equality and install a “genuinely democratic distribution of power among individuals inside both their workplaces and their communities.”
Ironically if this were to be implemented, women would gain more than they have now in Scandinavia or America because, though there would be no CEOs, they would be equals, co-owners of the companies they worked for.
In many ways capitalism has failed not only women but all of us. It has corrupted our politics with dark money, created the greatest wealth and income inequality since the 19th century and it has given us climate change, as a by-product.
But the taboo around seriously discussing socialism is itself significant. And this goes against one of the key objectives of a college education which is to challenge personal and cultural assumptions, research and examine the facts, and make informed decisions.
And that too is something socialists would support.
David Wyman
MWCC English Professor
Member DSA
Comments are closed.