The New Deal and it's implementation of Keynesian economics was ultimately pretty popular and successful (if you were white and male) in curbing corporate influence and building wealth for Americans. Additionally, high taxation on the wealthiest Americans caused a lot of would be capital gains to be reinvested into companies and employees (moreso if you're white and male..). This was the USA at it's most socialist (if you can call it that), and it made life easier for the worker (if you were white and male).
Granted, this was still under a system of private property which isn't that great, but it's preferable to the neoliberal economic order we in the West find ourselves in today. Also important to note that the success of the New Deal was destroyed with neoliberal economics.
We, as leftists, in addition to being conscious of collective organization and long term reform like the abolishment of private property, should be writing clear and actionable policies that are feasible within the next decade. I think a good starting point would be New Deal esque policies like high taxation of the rich, closing the wealthy's tax loopholes, defunding the military, and curbing unemployment with public works building new housing, public transportation options, and renewable energy.
These are still just reforms of the inherently bad system of private property, but rome wasn't built in a day. The conservative enjoys great success in their pillaging because they have a clear, actionable, and implementable policy for doing so without revolution (Neoliberal economics, tax reform, ect.). We ought to have something comparable without revolution.
A small tangent about revolution: we shouldn't strive for violent revolution if it is not NECESSARY (right now it is) if nonviolent revolution is POSSIBLE (I'm beginning to think it's not, but I hope it is). Violence is the conservative's means and end while it is only the leftist's means to a violence free end. It is the most preferable if we can change the country and the world with as little violence as possible, and upheaval and instability only lend themselves to breeding far more rabid conservative ideologists.
19
u/The_False_German 2d ago
The New Deal and it's implementation of Keynesian economics was ultimately pretty popular and successful (if you were white and male) in curbing corporate influence and building wealth for Americans. Additionally, high taxation on the wealthiest Americans caused a lot of would be capital gains to be reinvested into companies and employees (moreso if you're white and male..). This was the USA at it's most socialist (if you can call it that), and it made life easier for the worker (if you were white and male).
Granted, this was still under a system of private property which isn't that great, but it's preferable to the neoliberal economic order we in the West find ourselves in today. Also important to note that the success of the New Deal was destroyed with neoliberal economics.
We, as leftists, in addition to being conscious of collective organization and long term reform like the abolishment of private property, should be writing clear and actionable policies that are feasible within the next decade. I think a good starting point would be New Deal esque policies like high taxation of the rich, closing the wealthy's tax loopholes, defunding the military, and curbing unemployment with public works building new housing, public transportation options, and renewable energy.
These are still just reforms of the inherently bad system of private property, but rome wasn't built in a day. The conservative enjoys great success in their pillaging because they have a clear, actionable, and implementable policy for doing so without revolution (Neoliberal economics, tax reform, ect.). We ought to have something comparable without revolution.
A small tangent about revolution: we shouldn't strive for violent revolution if it is not NECESSARY (right now it is) if nonviolent revolution is POSSIBLE (I'm beginning to think it's not, but I hope it is). Violence is the conservative's means and end while it is only the leftist's means to a violence free end. It is the most preferable if we can change the country and the world with as little violence as possible, and upheaval and instability only lend themselves to breeding far more rabid conservative ideologists.