Socialism is really happening because there has never been anything else but this form of wealth production. If it was not there, if all you could you see was markets and bankers, this was because its very fact was obscured by neoliberal nonsense. All one had to do was look at, say, cotton subsidies in the US to see that even under Bush, even during the economic boom of the mid 00s, socialism was alive and well.

The real question is do we want socialism for the rich or for everyone?

Me, I’m a hybrid kind of gal. I like shiny shoes and cheap computers. But I also like making sure everyone is fed, housed, educated and treated by doctors. I don’t think we should have to give up shiny shoes to get universal health care. If you listen to the rethuglikans and their tea party protests you would think that very shortly we will be living in Soviet style apartments and only have shoes for our left foot (has everyone heard the story about the Soviet shoe factory that couldn’t respond to market pressures because it was part of a communist economy or have I just had that story crammed down my throat by free market blowhards more often than most?).

I am not generally a fuzzy brained idealist on the topic of human behavior. I believe that people act in their own self interest most of the time. I think that it is the government’s place to moderate the extremes of that. People should not be allowed to be too rich or too poor. A worker should expect that any job will pay for the basic necessities of life, but no job should give you enough wealth to topple an entire economy. Basically, I think the government is there to act as our better angel and force us to practice enlightened self-interest, or the idea that if we don’t take care of the bottom and control the top that our society will fail (For proof ask the Spartans, the Athenians, the Romans or any other “great society” that eventually failed when stratification became to much. Shit, ask the Mayans too.)

But what I really want to know is, now that Marx will be replacing Che Gueverra (murderous, sexist fuckwad) on the t-shirts of the all the young newbs of the progressive front, can some love for Antonio Gramsci be far behind?

Gramsci says “It would be a horribly ironic joke on my theory of cultural hegemony if my face was plastered on the mass marketed t-shirts of the youth”