Socialism

   "America will never be a socialist country," said the president during his State of the Union speech.
   Reality check: It already is, and has been on the road to social welfare for all its people for several hundred years, beginning with the practice of free public education for all, regardless of ability to pay.
   Then came the right of workers to organize unions, followed by minimum wage laws, unemployment benefit programs, and government regulation of pharmaceutical companies along with laws requiring food to be prepared in clean facilities.
   There are also police and fire protection provided by governments.
   And by its very name, the government program to assist the elderly, retirees, the sick and the indigent is a form of socialism. It's called Social Security.
   More recently, the Medicare program expanded the social welfare program of benefits, along with Medicaid for low-income families.
   And there are many other government laws and programs designed to ensure the social welfare of all the people, not just the wealthy few who have the resources to pay for medical care, retirement and other needs.
   In the early days of America, people settled in communes to provide for the social welfare of all who lived there. At its root, socialism and communism carried forward the concept to a national level. Unfortunately, in some countries this concept was perverted by a few leaders who formed a dictatorship. Consequently, the terms socialism and communism have become equated with dictatorial governments. As a result, "socialism" and "communism" became dirty words.
   In America, however, the working class rebellion against dictatorial capitalists and their attempts to suppress labor unions resulted in a compromise, as the federal government enacted fair labor laws and the general public stood by workers' right to organize and fight for fair wages and working conditions.
   In effect, this prevented America from becoming a "dictatorship of the proletariat," as happened in Eastern Europe.
   This sense of compromise saved America from becoming such a dictatorship, even as it overturned the dictatorship of capitalists. In addition, widespread economic prosperity helped.
   Now we are faced with a problem, as the gap between the wage-earning workers and high-salaried corporate types widens, and ultra-conservative politicians and their allies try to take advantage of that gap to increase their power and influence over American life.
   In the early 20th Century, that gap had become so wide that only a revolution could resolve the problem. At the time, America escaped the worst of that as corporations and labor unions, pressured by government, forced a compromise.
   The question for today is whether government will side with corporations or whether it will fulfill its obligation to be a government of the people, by the people and for the people.
   Otherwise, it will surely perish from the earth.