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Vermont elects America's first socialist senator

category north america / mexico | the left | news report author Thursday November 09, 2006 18:39author by Anarcho Report this post to the editors

An anarchist analysis of Bernie Sanders victory

Amidst the Democratic mid-term election victories on November 8th, an independent won the Senate race in Vermont. What is significant is that he is a self-proclaimed socialist and so the first socialist senator in US history. The previous best result in a Senate race by a socialist was in 1930 when Emil Seidel won 6% of the vote.

Bernie Sanders is an unapologetic socialist and proud of it and has won eight consecutive elections to the US House of Representatives after being elected mayor of Burlington in 1981. However, do not get your hopes up too much as his vision of socialism is, well, simply reformed capitalism. According to Sanders, "Twenty years ago when people here thought about socialism they were thinking about the Soviet Union, about Albania. Now they think about Scandinavia. In Vermont people understand I'm talking about democratic socialism."

Sanders says his electoral success reflects the widespread discontent with rising inequality, deepening poverty and the lack of affordable healthcare. "People realise there is a lot to be learned from the democratic socialist models in northern Europe," he said. "The untold story here is the degree to which the middle class is shrinking and the gap between rich and poor is widening. It is a disgrace that the US has the highest rate of childhood poverty of any industrialised country on earth. Iraq is important, but it's not the only issue."

Somewhat ironically, the head of a free-market Vermont think-tank, the Ethan Allen Institute, said that "Bernie Sanders is an unreconstructed 1930s socialist and proud of it. He's a skilful demagogue who casts every issue in that framework, a master practitioner of class warfare." Yes, of course. To practice over 30 years of class war by the capitalist class and its political lackeys is just the normal way of things but to point this fact out means you are "a master practitioner of class warfare." What a strange world the ideologues of capitalism inhabit!

As much as it is nice to see that some Americans are recognising that things need not be as they are. It is sad, though, that the best on offer is simply a reformed capitalism which, while better to survive in, is hardly the best we can hope for. Equally, the history of social democratic parties in office hardly supports Sanders' rationale for standing: "I tried to make the government work for working people, and not just for corporations, and on that basis I was elected to Congress." Anarchists need no reminding of the anti-working class policies implemented by this and previous Labour governments.

There is understandably great unease in all capitalist societies. The task for anarchists is to encourage people to solve their own problems themselves, by their own self-organisation, direct action and solidarity, and that relying on politicians to act for you is part of the problem. By that struggle people will realise that another world is possible and, moreover, start to create it.

Related Link: http://anarchism.ws/writers/anarcho.html
author by professor ratpublication date Fri Nov 10, 2006 07:50author address author phone Report this post to the editors

The best way, imho, to attack capitalism is at its weakest point - God and the state.
Libertarian socialists or anarchists also provide much needed 'product differention' when they reframe the revolutionary subject this way as authoritarian socialists are generally the ones squealing loudest about the evils of capitalism - and at the same time doing the least about overthrowing it.
Of course there is a weakness in the death-star...it's the reliance of it on God and the state.
Follow in the tradition of Stirner, Bakunin and Proudhon and you won't go far wrong.
Trust Marx and you're lost.

( just my 2c worth )

author by tpublication date Fri Nov 10, 2006 08:32author address author phone Report this post to the editors

"It is sad, though, that the best on offer is simply a reformed capitalism which, while better to survive in, is hardly the best we can hope for."

This seems particulary not solid from an anarchist perspective.

One- who's voting? Not very many people.

Two- Even if they vote, do they think their senator is going to be their savior?

Three- Does make a choice imply embrace of reformed capitalism? What role does the conscious selection between options have to do with the struggle against power?

You could make a similar arguement about unions, but we see again and again people act collectively against capitalism and the unions without consciously having that orientation. Likewise people's perspective towards the State will be complex, and their actions again may reflect a number of tendencies, some of which are anti-state. Nor is making compromises inherently suggestive of them embracing all the above.

author by Anarchopublication date Fri Nov 10, 2006 18:17author address author phone Report this post to the editors

""It is sad, though, that the best on offer is simply a reformed capitalism which, while better to survive in, is hardly the best we can hope for."

"This seems particulary not solid from an anarchist perspective."

I really have no idea what you mean. The article is explictly anti-parliamentarian and anti-electioneering. Do you not think that it is sad that the alternative most people are aware of these days is reformed capitalism? Surely it is our task as anarchists to show that real alternatives exist -- and how to achieve them?

Related Link: http://www.anarchistfaq.org
author by toddpublication date Sun Nov 12, 2006 03:56author address author phone Report this post to the editors

I just meant that just because some people voted for a socialist doesn't mean that they even think that is a real alternative. For example in non-presidential elections only about a quarter of the population votes (not sure about this one). Amongst those who vote for a candidate the percentage that actually thinks the candidate is more the a lesser evil is probably quite slim.

The second point is just that what constitutes an alternative can be seen from a person's thoughts and actions as an individual and a group. None of these things line up though, they have their own logic. So workers in the auto factories in WWII voted to not strike during the war, but then struck more than before the war. At home, as an individual, they supported the war and war time production. As a factory worker, their consciousness in a social context was completely different. They resisted these things on every level.

So I'm just trying to drive a wedge between the inference that since a socialist (whose been in the house anyway for a long time) got elected people are seeing it as an alternative in the strong sense.

author by Pat Murtaghpublication date Sun Nov 12, 2006 09:10author email murtaghpatrick at hotmail dot comauthor address author phone Report this post to the editors

Accoring to what I read Saunders has had a long political career in both local Vermont politics and in the House of Representatives. He seems to be quite popular with his constituents.
The CBC perhaps had the best quote on this man when they said that "in Canada he would be considered slightly left of centre". To my mind his election to the Senate is a marginal event that hardly says anything about "socialism", anarchist or otherwise. In Canada he would be considered to be part of either the centre or the moderate right wing of the NDP.
His election is ONLY significant in the context of American politics, and I would hazard a guess that there are more "socialists" in Wisconsin, the Dakotas or Minnesota than there are in Vermont. His election builds on his own personal popularity and effective action more than it builds on his ideas.

 
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