It is embodied in the hearts and the exertions of many who believe in a country and world anchored on fairness, on genuine democracy of citizen participation, on equality and justice for all regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation, on freedom to learn and to be enriched by a growing culture, on living in peace, on sharing in the ownership and control of wealth created by the majority, and benefitting from an equitable distribution of income and property. Socialism will always be around because capitalism, despite its noisy self-congratulations, is making life increasingly harder for the working majority. The Dow Jones may be soaring, but Mary and John Jones are having a rough time. New technologies, instead of making life easier for working people, are eliminating jobs by substituting machines for bank tellers, telephone operators, machinists, and many others. The United States now embraces the most unfair distribution of wealth and income in the industrialized world.
Democracy is our most treasured tradition.
But it is sullied by the domination of politics by big money. No wonder that a majority has simply stopped voting. Socialism, to be sure, has seen hard times. Most socialist states started out with technological backwardness, terrible poverty, and the hostility of powerful western industrial states. Despite that, they contributed heavily to the defeat of fascism, eliminated illiteracy, and however inadequately, addressed critical human needs.