By Ustaz Mark Bang
Franklin D. Roosevelt was able to rebuild the United States with what plenty today would decry as a dangerous slippery slope into Communism.
But the Roosevelt administration actually saved America from having its own October Revolution by laying down hundreds of public works projects, regulating the excesses of the banks and industries, and even buying the products of farmers in rural areas to tackle issues of agricultural surplus. Stuff that curtailed the excesses of past power players and gave the workforce some actual spending money ensured, for a time, that America would not be a land of a few new-money aristocrats running roughshod over everyone else.
The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men were products of Great Depression experiences and a laissez-faire approach not unlike the free-market experiments in 18th century France. The author of the former even once wrote, “I want to put a tag of shame on the greedy bastards who are responsible for this.” If that sounds in any way similar to the rhetoric being passed around fresh after the Great Recession, yeah, there might just be a reason for that.
This isn’t innate to the modern era either. Julius Caesar, one of the most iconic dictators of ancient Rome, capitalized on the failings of a society very reminiscent of pre-Revolutionary France. Where an elite few made all the decisions regardless of the needs of the many, and anyone in government who could actually speak for the common man was either ignored or found buttocks-up floating down the Tiber. Caesar was inspired by a previous dictator, Sulla, who also became unpopular with the patricians. If the patricians had considered the needs of the plebeians and not simply gone back to their pre-Sulla habits, Caesar might never have crossed the Rubicon with an army.
Revolutions come about when a significant proportion of the general population is so unhappy with their lot that they take aggressive action in changing things. If the status quo doesn’t fix things, you get passionate populists like Caesar, Che Guevara, Maximilien Robespierre, and Vladimir Lenin, who will invigorate the general populace when the people with all the power aren’t doing anything for them.
For any kind of uprising or revolt, it’s much more convenient to convince a man who has nothing to follow a radical promise than a man who has all he is happy to have. You can’t convince a man of means to topple the status quo unless the prospect promises something he wants. Give a man what he needs to be happy, and he won’t complain. Western Europe did this in the 1920s and 1940s, and it paid off so well that migration waves to the United States for a better life are no longer coming from where that moderation was the most effective.
Democratic socialism, social democracy, whatever you want to call it; controlled implementation of left-wing ideas doesn’t bring what these violent revolutions brought about. Having a pragmatic control of how social policies are implemented for the benefit of everyone is completely different, and for the better, than allowing the desire to fester in ignored corners; that’s how you encourage extremism. And we are talking to everyone here.
None of that “but Those People” garbage. No “only those who deserve it”—if” you exclude or handicap one group, you handicap a lot more who happen to overlap with the excluded, and you’re back to square one. The most dangerous things to be ignorant about socialism are how it gets popular, why it gets popular, what is a society going through that might make socialism appealing to the people. Then presuming their difficulties are just personal failings. If the people have no bread, you’re not doing any favors suggesting they eat pastry crusts.
Ignoring the problems of people would be highly dangerous. Dictatorship does not go well with human rights. And a centrally planned economy is too inflexible to react sufficiently to the demands of markets. But of course this is not about that. This is about universal health care, free education, fair wages, and such, which not only has nothing to do with people’s well-being but is also commonplace basically everywhere in the western world except African countries, where you undoubtedly come from. Look, I don’t know you.
I don’t know where this misconception comes from. Chances are you are a victim like millions and millions of your fellow countrymen. But South Sudan is a highly unbalanced and unfair country. The whole system is rigged in favor of the rich and large corporations. Look at the MPs you elected. They aren’t the very embodiment of that. They’re not only lapdogs of the mega-rich; they are for themselves, and I lie others will tell us. And it were people like them who stuck a label onto anything that would have meant that they would have to pay more attention to people’s demands, and they would oppose it. And it worked! But the truth is the things you oppose because you were made to believe that they are socialism and would therefore inevitably turn South Sudan into basically a new Soviet Union would have helped you and your children and your children’s children lead a better and more humane life. And your family, your friends, your acquaintances, your colleagues, basically anyone and everyone except the upper 1%.
Stop listening to their lies. What your upper 1% calls socialism is not socialism but is to be embraced for the sake of you and your country. Everybody else is doing it, and it works quite well. There is no reason to assume that it would not work for you. You know there’s a correlation between empathy and intelligence. That’s not to say that all intelligent people are empathetic. Look at Hitler. It is to say that all empathetic people are educated, though. One of the things this world lacks isn’t intellect. It’s empathy.
This seems to be the answer for everything. These days, the message is an ether surrounding all social context. But nobody seems to get it. A major problem with this generation is we’ve equated empathy with being nice. Empathy is anything but being nice. Empathy is the ability to place yourself in someone else’s shoes. Our parents used to tell us to walk a mile in our enemy’s shoes before chastising them. Now, we don’t do that. If someone is a bigot or homophobe or anything else, they’re automatically inhumane and must be taken out. If someone is suffering or almost dying or having their rights violated.
We just know what we’ve been told our entire lives about their rights. If you think this is directed to denying the rights of other humans like us, you really need to take a look in the mirror and ask yourself, do you really understand the rights you’re fighting for someone else, or are you just doing it because society has told you that it’s something to fight for? Have you actually taken the time to see how others are affected by society or government and what steps it would take to get them treated equally, or are you just throwing a fit? Thanks for reading. Never hesitate to read the next part coming soon. “Public Staunchest Ally”
The writer of this article is a human rights activist, writer, and professional teacher.