Socialism has an economic meaning and a pop culture meaning. Officially, socialism is an economic system in which the means of production are owned collectively rather than privately. More colloquially, socialism is “whenever the government tries to make life easier.” I’m using the colloquial definition for this post.
Conservatives dislike socialism because they believe it rots an individual’s moral character if the government smooths away a few obstacles in life. Going into huge amounts of debt for things like healthcare, education, and a home is character-building. This is a stupid belief, yet it persists.
In this meme I found on the Internet and made zero effort to check for accuracy, Fox News is reporting that the younger generation is beginning to approve of socialism.
The anti-socialism propaganda is so intense that people believe that we, the U.S. of A., the most economically powerful country in the world, cannot afford socialism. Plus, it wouldn’t work because as soon as you remove profit motives, everything sucks. All the time. Really bad.
And yet.
The U.S. Military as Socialism
If you join the U.S. military, you join a large, well-funded, mostly effective, well-organized socialist organization.
Education and Job Training
The military will pay for your education, whether through ROTC scholarships or the GI Bill. After you’re done with college, they’ll provide on-the-job training. Private companies will only hire someone with ten years of experience right out of college. In contrast, the military invests in education and training.
And let’s be real, most of the people in the military are just doing a regular job, but in uniform. I work with a veteran. She went to boot camp, did the Army crawl through the mud, learned to field strip a rifle, and then specialized in HR and spent all her deployments in a cubicle in front of a computer doing HR stuff. Once she retired from the military, she got a civilian job doing HR. Another veteran I know was a mechanic. He shipped out to another country on military assignment to be a mechanic and fix tanks and other big military vehicles.
The point is that the majority of people in the military are not putting their lives on the line by engaging in gun battles with the bad guys. They’re just doing a job that isn’t too much different than a civilian job. The military is a fabulous jobs training program, funded by taxpayers.
Healthcare
The military pays all your healthcare. ALL your healthcare — there are no deductibles or co-pays. Not just for you, but for your dependents. Military healthcare is socialized healthcare. The military employs and pays the doctors. The military builds hospitals where it needs them. The military will pay for medical school, nursing school, medical assisting school for recruits. The military is not only single-payer healthcare, it is single-employer healthcare.
Housing
The military makes sure its soldiers and officers have somewhere to live. The military builds a bunch of housing, or it provides a housing allowance if someone wants to live off-base.
Why the Military Works
This post should be a book. Obviously I’m skipping a lot of detail. The ideas on why the military functions as effectively as it does deserve at least a hundred pages of analysis but I’m going to keep it to a couple of paragraphs. When I say the military functions effectively, what I mean is the military takes care of its own. It doesn’t really win wars anymore, and it’s never turned a profit [fn 1]. As a jobs training program that provides healthcare and housing, the military does a good job.
No Profit Motive
The military is not run to make the people in the military rich. The socialized healthcare works because the military isn’t turning shareholders into multi-millionaires by overcharging for premiums and then denying care. American healthcare is crazy expensive because the premiums we all pay don’t just pay for medical care, they also pay to turn healthcare executives into multi-millionaires.
Salaries in the military are rigidly regulated. I looked up the basic pay tables. An officer with 18+ years of service earns four times what a brand new enlisted soldier earns. So (making up numbers) if the newest newbie earns $65,000 then the most experienced person in charge earns $260,000. That’s very different from private companies. For example, this health insurance CEO is making over $20,000,000 annually, which is 278 times the amount that an average employee at his company earns.
Idealism and Respect
Reasonable salaries attract a certain sort of person — an idealist who wants a job in order to make the world a better place. The military (and federal employment in general) is full of people who believe that what they do is important. Not everyone wants to grind out their days making a rich guy richer in the hopes that someday they will also become a multi-millionaire by exploiting others. Pay someone enough to live comfortably and competent idealists will apply for jobs that are designed to help people.
Who would run socialism programs designed to spread healthcare to everyone? And education and training and housing? We could start by hiring the military personnel who did these jobs for the military. Don’t hire rich people whose only real skill is getting richer. Hire former military and let them find others with an idealistic spark.
Respect the people in the system. Propaganda has encouraged a lot of hatred towards anyone that needs help. If a soldier becomes disabled and is medically discharged, the government doesn’t cut him off entirely. Some benefits remain. Everyone deserves respect and everyone, at some point in their lives, is going to need help [fn 2].
The Religious Connection
Clearly, government-led socialism functions well enough to meet peoples’ needs; it doesn’t rot your moral character; and even conservatives are happy to have their tax dollars support military socialism.
Why doesn’t religious communalism last? Why didn’t the United Order work? Why didn’t all the hippie communes (not religious) that sprang up in the 60s last? The earliest Christians tried a communal lifestyle (Acts 4:32-37) and it didn’t last.
Frankly, I don’t know; that isn’t a topic I’ve studied. The lack of structure is a huge factor, I would guess. Socialism requires strong guidelines and guaranteed rights. You can’t just rely on “everyone should help everyone else” because it’s the right thing to do. The military has strict rules and procedures; socialism needs those. A government can make socialism work but a religion cannot make communalism work.
Another factor is that too much power cannot be vested in one individual. The Peoples’ Temple practiced communalism, but then Jim Jones made everyone drink Kool-aid. I read Raven: The Untold Story of the Rev. Jim Jones and His People. He was a dictator who could not be questioned and that really messes people up. Religion is too prone to trusting one individual too much and so the whole system collapses when one person collapses.
Conclusion
America wants its military to be trained, educated, healthy and housed. Therefore, we taxpayers invest in these areas. The thing is, all of society is stronger if these benefits are available to all people. One of America’s strengths is a highly educated and trained workforce. A healthy population works harder and for more years. Housing for everyone keeps the crime rate down and makes cities safer and more pleasant. There is simply no downside to providing these basics to the entire population.
As for the cost, well, Americans already pay enough in healthcare premiums, student loan debt, and outrageous housing costs to pay for these goods twice over. The free market economy doesn’t work well for things that are life necessities because demand isn’t flexible. Opportunists and exploiters are wringing unfair profits out of ordinary Americans. Leave capitalism intact for goods that really do respond to market pressures and remove the profit motive from housing, healthcare, and education.
Freeloaders? The fear of poor freeloaders is vastly overblown. The real freeloaders on America’s economy are the health insurance executives who are being paid $15,000,000 to deny claims and increase premiums. The real freeloaders on America’s economy are the private investors who buy single-family homes and drive up prices. The real freeloaders on America’s economy are the mega-rich.
[fn 1] Why do conservatives get upset the post office doesn’t cover its own costs on what it charges? The military doesn’t cover its own costs either.
[fn 2] I’ve posted occasionally about my son who has some special needs. He’s unlikely to ever work 40 hours per week because he doesn’t have the emotional and mental stamina. He’s also unlikely to ever qualify for Medicaid or disability payments under Utah’s rules. I don’t need my tax bill cut; I need to know that my son will be able to go to the doctor after I die, even if he isn’t working full-time.
Questions:
- Okay, yeah, the religious connection is pretty weak in this post. Jesus was very concerned with healing sick people. Despite being a carpenter, he never did a miracle to build a house. He also never did a miracle to get someone a job. Why do you think Jesus didn’t spend much time dealing with people’s physical needs? Sure, he fed everyone at least twice, but he also criticized people for following him just for bread and fish.
- Do you believe that making healthcare, education, and housing easier will really rot someone’s moral character? If a government spreads around resources so these basic needs are met, are they really “doing everything” for people? What other challenges do people still face even if they have healthcare, housing, and education?
- Should religions try to meet these basic economic needs? Why or why not? Is it dangerous to require people to believe and do a certain thing before they can access healthcare, housing, and education? The military requires obedience. Is that as dangerous as religions that require obedience? Why or why not?
Wheat & Tares 