Opinion of Bernie Sanders' buzz phrase: "Billionaire Class"

[Antonio the Sixth]

Unclear and convoluted. The phrase he should be using is capitalist class, but that scares liberals, and thus he's going to try and make a distinction between "good capitalists" and "bad capitalists," as he's doing here.

Are you putting small business owners (I'm talking about real small business here, not what the Republicans call "small business") in the same category as Bill Gates, then?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Unclear and convoluted. The phrase he should be using is capitalist class, but that scares liberals, and thus he's going to try and make a distinction between "good capitalists" and "bad capitalists," as he's doing here.

Are you putting small business owners (I'm talking about real small business here, not what the Republicans call "small business") in the same category as Bill Gates, then?

Do small businesses not make a profit from the exploitation of the labor of their employees? If the answer is yes, small business owners are still capitalists. Sure, they're not big time capitalists, and I wouldn't necessarily put them in the same class category as capitalists (I'd make a distinction that they're members of the petty bourgeoisie, rather than the big bourgeoisie, of course), but that doesn't negate the fact that the actual problem at hand is not billionaires or millionaires, but capitalism itself. You can go on and on about how terrible the Koch Brothers are or how monopolies should be held to account, but if you take on the Kochs or bust up AT&T without busting up capitalism, there will be another Koch Brothers and another AT&T because that's how capitalism works.

My issue here is with confusing who the actual enemy is. Sanders is doing the public a disservice when he, as a self-proclaimed socialist, does not indict capitalism as the problem. He's essentially reinforcing liberal ideas about how we can continue going about our business once the 'bad apples' have been removed and certain policies reformed, which contradicts the entire history of the 20th Century. We tried busting trusts, regulating the economy, and setting up a welfare state to reform the excesses of capitalism. Trusts reformed, regulations were either tailor-fit to help business or agencies were captured by businesses and then undermined, and the welfare state has been gutted. Don't you think that the failure of those policies warrants something else being tried in the 21st Century? Something that makes it impossible for regulations to be undermined, trusts to be formed in the first place, and the welfare state to be undone?

For the record, I agree that Sanders' claim to being a Socialist is incorrect. I always took it more as a provocation aimed to combat the negative connotation that this word carries in US politics, than as the expression of a genuine ideological commitment. Still, he has a better claim at being a Socialist than, say, François Hollande.

All I can really say is that, since I'm not an orthodox Marxist, I don't view ownership of the means of production as the main issue to be contested in the modern economic system. It is one issue, certainly. But ultimately, what matters isn't how wealth is produced, but in whose hands it ends up going. Small business owners are net losers in this regards.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Trying to play both sides, engaging in communist class warfare while attempting to reassure the averages that he's not talking about "them". In the end, they always are.

First they came for the billionaires...

[Antonio the Sixth]

Trying to play both sides, engaging in communist class warfare while attempting to reassure the averages that he's not talking about "them". In the end, they always are.

First they came for the billionaires...

Then the millionaires, then the "elites", then the academics...

Yes, that's usually what happens in Communism. And at some point, the nice old man who thought he could keep Communism in line this time is usually taken out too.

Haha, keep it up, it's hilarious.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Stringent and comprehensive regulations of political parties and the media can effectively neuter the influence of money in politics. Of course, their implementation would have to be carefully watched, but this is not an impossible task. Many countries, while not perfect, do a far better job than the United States in this regards. I would go much further, of course (ban all private donations to political parties, have the State entirely fund electoral campaigns), but regardless, it's pretty ludicrous to claim that the American situation is an inevitable product of capitalism.