The woman you see in the screen is ALEXANDRIA OCASIO CORTEZ.
This is the politician who wants to turn America in a short of new Sweden.
She is the youngest congresswoman in American history and one of the best known faces in
the Democratic Party.
She openly defines herself as a democratic socialist, has millions of twitter followers
and… millions of critics too, both inside and outside of her party.
Think about it: in a country like United States, the word ´socialist´ is associated to the
soviet dictatorship.
Nevertheless, in a moment where the Democrats are in an identity crisis, her narrative seems
to be a winning formula for the next election.
But, what does Ocasio Cortez really stand for?
What is democratic socialism all about?
In this video, we are gonna tell you.
Some months ago, we published a video on VisualPolitik talking about the ideological shift in the
Republican Party after Trump’s victory in 2016.
Something similar is happening in the Democratic party too.
At the end of the day, when a political party loses some election, its members wonder why.
And this is when the ideological brainstorm starts.
In this case, we can talk about a brand new generation of Democratic politicians that
seem to be aimed to break all kinds of records.
They are mainly young women.
Here we have the example of ILHAN OMAR and RASHIDA TLAIB, the first Muslim women in the
Congress.
In the case of ILHAN OMAR, she will be the first woman wearing a headscarf too.
But we are not talking about gender and age.
This new wave of politicians is extremely social media savvy and… they are making
a break through inside of the traditional democratic platform.
Then again, the most famous of all of them is the woman you see on the screen: ALEXANDRIA
OCASIO CORTEZ, the poster child of the so called democratic socialism.
As you can imagine, Ocasio Cortez has soon become the target of all critics from the
conservative flank.
But make no mistake, even the old democratic guard is no big fan of her.
For example, one of her biggest political projects is the so-called ‘GREEN NEW DEAL’.
A package of social and ecological policies.
Nevertheless, not even the Democratic speaker of the house, Nancy Pelosi, agrees with this.
In some interviews she openly despised it.
And this is surprising given that both belong to the same political party.
And I know what you are thinking.
Democratic socialism is nothing new in America, right?
At the end of the day, this is what Bernie Sanders stood for back in 2016.
And yes, you are right.
The difference is that now, we are not talking about one candidate but a whole movement that
seems to be bigger and bigger.
But not only that!
Sanders, left winger as he was on economic issues, he tended to be much more conservative
on social ones.
For example, he was not big on anti gun laws, immigration or even racial issues.
Nevertheless, both Ocasio Cortez as her colleagues are a turning point in the Democratic history.
And maybe, a turning point too in American political history.
So the question now is… is it possible that one of the most capitalistic countries can
turn into a socialist one?
What kind of socialism does Ocasio Cortez proposes?
Does it really have something to do with that Nordic model that she claims to defend?
Today, we are going to answer to all of this questions but, before we do, let’s take
a look back at the history.
NEW FACES, OLD IDEAS
I know what many of you might be thinking now.
Come on Simon!
There cannot be socialists in the Democratic Party!
Basically, all politicians in America agree on the basics!
And perhaps, others might tell me ‘Oh, no way!
The democrats are undercover communist that hate America and love taxes!’
I know today we are going to have the comment section in flames.
And the truth is… both of you have a point.
The truth is, the Democratic Party is one of the oldest in World history.
They are almost 200 years old.
And this is a long time for ideological twists.
For example, during most of 19th Century, pro slavery politicians were inside of the
Dems.
Even several decades after Abraham Lincoln, who by the way, was the first republican president,
abolished slavery, many democratic politicians kept saying this like this one.
“We reorganized the Democratic Party with one plank and only one plank, namely, that
this is a white man's country and the white men must govern it.”
–Benjamin Tillman, Senator South Carolina (D) (1895-1918)
Of course, all of this has changed radically.
Nowadays, the Democratic Party has no racism anymore.
But this example helps to illustrate how parties can evolve ideology wise.
Something similar happened to economics.
During the 30s, Franking Roosevelt introduced radical changes in the American system.
Tax raises, welfare state and lots of regulations for companies.
Nevertheless, the Clinton or even the Obama administration was much more moderate on this.
I am a strong believer in the free market.
I am a strong believer in capitalism.
But, I am also a strong believer that there are certain common goods (…) that require
to have some regulation.
–Barack Obama
In other words, the Democratic party holds a huge range of ideologies that go from the
centre to the left.
For example, ABIGAIL SPANBERG is one of those politicians who belongs to the so-called ‘blue
dog coalition’.
This is the moderate group.
But we also have more radical ones.
And withing those, there is our protagonista today, ALEXANDRIA OCASIO CORTEZ.
On an interview given to PBS, she was asked about the end of capitalism and this was her
answer.
I do think that we are going to see an evolution in our economic system of an unprecedented
degree, and it’s hard to say what direction that that takes.
–Alexandria Ocasio Cortez
But, as we said before… she is not the only one.
For example, ILHAN OMAR is the first Somali woman making it to the congress, and she self
identifies as a democratic socialist too.
Nevertheless, she is so extreme on her proposals that not even the socialists put her in their
group.
Why?
Basically, because of her position against the Israeli settlements and the military occupation
of Palestine.
In America, this kind of position is extremely controversial.
So yes, we can say this new wave of Democratic politicians is ground breaking.
While we were making this video, they are now investigating DEUTSCHE BANK for some loans
they gave to Donald Trump.
And they even claimed the bank to be one of the World’s biggest money launderer.
And all of this comes in a time where primary elections are getting closer and closer in
time.
Many of these congress women might run for candidates.
And this means that the next American president might be a self proclaimed socialist.
But what does democratic socialism really mean?
Let’s have a look at it, shall we?
A EUROPEAN IMPORT
If you are watching this video from Europe, I’m sure you are familiar with the Word
SOCIAL DEMOCRACY.
In fact, one of Europe’s biggest political parties is the socialdemocrat.
But where does social democracy come from?
We should travel back in time… till the beginning of 20 century.
In the year 1917, the Bolshevik revolution started in Russia.
Out of a sudden, the biggest country in Europe made a radical shift to their political system
and decided to go for a Marxist-leninist system.
What are the principles of Marxism?
In this video, we published years ago, we tell you what Marxism is all about.
The thing is, since the very first time, those Bolsheviks had an internationalist aim.
This is why in 1919, they created the so called COMINTERN.
This was an organization to manage all the communist parties worldwide.
Their goal was to help, both with training as with Money, to all the political parties
that wanted to follow Russia’s stops.
In other words, all of those parties that wanted a communist revolution.
But, as it always happens in this life, devil is on the details.
And there is a very important detail here when we speak about the communist revolucion.
Pay attention.
The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims.
They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of
all existing social conditions.
–Communist Manifesto *chapter IV
Yes, you heard this right.
Communist wanted to end with capitalism through violence.
And this is where the big break inside of Marxism-inspired movements started.
On one hand, we had the pure communists, that wanted a revolution.
On the other hand, we had the so-called social democrats, with famous intellectuals and politicians
like Rose from Luxembourg.
Basically, socialdemocrats wanted to end with capitalism using the toolset of a liberal
democracy.
This means, they wanted to run for elections and, little by little, change the laws until
they would get to a socialist system.
For the Russian communists, socialdemocrats were betraying the working class.
If you sleep with the enemy, you will end up joining him.
But the truth is, socialdemocrats worked pretty well in all across Europe.
At least, elections wise.
And the place where they were the most successful was in the Scandinavian countries.
Sweden, Norway and Denmark had socialdemocratic governments for decades.
This is why, these countries have very generous welfare states with universal healthcare,
lots of public services and, of course, high taxes.
And this is why many of these democratic socialist politicians say they are inspired by the ‘nordic
model’.
Chief among them is Alexandria Ocasio Cortez.
Of course, it makes sense.
At the end of the day, Denmark or Sweden are very rich countries, with wonderful standards
of living.
Who wouldn’t want to live in Copenhaguen, with a salary of 3000 dollars a month, free
school and free hospitals?
Right?
But the question we should ask now is…
Can we really say the Nordic countries are socialist?
Let’s find out!
THE NORDIC MODEL
Communists got one thing right: if you play the the rules of the bourgeoisie, you will
end up becoming one of them.
And this is exactly what happened to all this socialdemocratic parties.
Little by little, they ended up abandoning Marxism and anti capitalism on their platforms.
You see, the basic foundation of Marxism is the social property over the means of production.
Despite what a lot of people might say, Marx wouldn’t have any problem with you owning
an iPhone or a house.
Those are consumption goods, which you use for yourself.
The problem comes when you want to own things to produce other things you can sell in the
market.
This are the so called means of production or means of capital.
Communist are against the private property over those.
But as I said before, we have a video where we explain what Marxism is all about.
You can find the link on the description box below.
And, by the way, if you are interested in this kind of topics, remember that we publish
brand new videos every week so subscribe to VisualPolitik and hit the bell button so you
won’t miss any post.
But… going back to our story: how do you socialize means of production?
Well, you can achieve this by lots of ways, from nationalizing companies to having cooperatives,
where the workers are also the shareholders.
And now you might wonder… are there so many state owned companies in Sweden?
So many cooperatives?
Not really.
In fact, the opposite is true.
Sweden tops global privatization ranking No country has privatized and deregulated
public services as fast as Sweden, according to a new report from the conservative think
tank, The Heritage Foundation.
For a better understanding, every year, this Heritage Foundation publishes an World economic
freedom ranking.
According to this, America is the 12th freest economy on the planet.
Denmark ranks the 14th and Sweden ranks the 19th.
During the last two decades, these countries have made lots of radical free market reforms.
In many areas, you might even argue that Sweden can get even more capitalist than America.
Want an example?
Here is an example: the educational system.
United States was one of the first countries in providing universal access to Education.
This education is provided through public schools, funded and managed by the Federal
Government or the States.
Sweden is a different animal, though.
Here we have more and more private schools in competition with the state-owned ones.
Of course, Government guarantees the universal access.
But instead of micromanaging education, what they do is give the money to the citizens
so they can choose which school they want to hire for their children.
This system is called ‘school voucher’.
And it seems their going to a similar model when it comes to healthcare.
Denmark is following sweet.
And, of course, this countries have no minimum wage.
Yes, you heard this right.
Of course, Denmark has a great unemployment insurance program but there is no minimum
wage.
So, for example, when Ocassio Cortez wants to have a 15 dolars an hour minimum wage…
well… it might or might not be a good idea.
But definitely, it has nothing to do with the Nordic model, where labour market is pretty
deregulated.
And this is why the Dannish Prime Minister said this during an official visit to America.
"I know that some people in the US associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism.
Therefore, I would like to make one thing clear.
Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy.
Denmark is a market economy,”
Of course, Denmark has higher income taxes than America.
For example, the top marginal tax rate is 56%.
But this means a more stable fiscal system.
Just think about it.
America’s debt surpasses 105% of their GDP.
This means the government owes more as much Money as twice the size of the whole American
economy.
In Denmark, this number is as low as 35%.
And the same goes with public deficit.
While the White House spends more than what they collect in taxes, Denmark is much more
responsable.
And, in the long ran, this means much less problems and much more stability.
This explains why the Scandinavian economies are so Business friendly and so attractive
for foreign investors.
In fact, big firms like H&M, the fashion retailer or Spotify, the music streaming platform,
and many other have been born in Sweden, which is a country with as little population as
the State of Georgia.
Of course, many of Ocasio Cortez, or even Bernie Sanders issues really match the Nordic
model.
For example, everything regarding the Medicare.
But many others have nothing to do with the Scandinavian countries.
So now the question goes for you…
Do you think this brand new wave of Democratic politicians can conquer the soul of their
party?
Shall we see a new ideological shift in the Democracts, just like what we have witnessed
in the Republic Party?
Please, leave your answer on the comment section below.
Also, don’t forget to visit our friends at RECONSIDER MEDIA, the podcast that provided
the vocals in this episode that were not mine.
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