SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS ARE SOCIALISTS
Loeb, James I.
Below is a communication we have received from James I. Loeb, a prominent liberal and a friend of Dissent, with responses by two of our editors. --EDS. What's in a name? Frequently not very...
...Let no one mention Amtrak...
...Should not this simple and, in my view, undeniable fact give some pause to those who seek to carry on what seems a utopian, illusionary dream...
...Traditionally, he said, socialism had two major aspects: economic equality and human freedom...
...despite the great social upheavals throughout the world in the century and a half since the original concept was conceived and given a name, there is as yet not a single example of a genuinely socialist state...
...Frequently not very much, not even in the name of a political party...
...The result was a headline in every paper in the country, and the pressure grew to such an extent that FDR had to withdraw Amlie's name as a nominee for the I.C.C...
...A half-hour at the Public Library produced the following: 88 • Webster's International Dictionary: "Socialism: A political and economic theory of social organization based on collective or governmental ownership and management of the essential means for the production and distribution of goods...
...New Yorker January 10, 1977, p. 23...
...Many of Dissent's older readers will affectionately remember Sam Romer who fought in Spain, survived a Franco prison camp, became a first-rate labor reporter in Minneapolis, and died more than a decade ago...
...Necessarily my answers were rather vague, stressing some of the New Deal measures (such as the Tennessee Valley Authority) but indicating that the Socialist party in the United States was still very small...
...Clearly the word connoted more than just a political party...
...I am reminded of the case of the late Tom Amlie, the very liberal Wisconsin congressman of the 1920s who was defeated when he ran for the Senate and again when he tried to regain his seat in the House...
...To put it crudely, socialism is an inspiring concept for large masses in Europe and elsewhere, but it is almost a dirty word among the great majority of Americans, a word used most widely by reactionaries in their attacks on the mildest forms of social reform or governmental activity...
...It is an unfortunate fact," he wrote, "that if men and women are to work hard for a desirable reform, its blessings must be exaggerated...
...Early on the trip I fell into the habit of asking all those who were socialists, or close to the socialists, what they understood by socialism...
...These two aspects were often in conflict, especially after the Russian Revolution...
...But from no socialist leader did I receive anything resembling the original "dictionary" definition of socialism...
...I would submit the following questions: • Is it not a remarkable fact of history that, despite the widespread continued use of the word...
...2) A state of society in which things are held or used in common...
...Misled as he was by the Detroit Free Press, the old man in upstate Michigan was serious about being a socialist...
...Indeed, it is interesting that human rights are never mentioned in any of the formal definitions...
...It was an enlightening experience, to put it mildly...
...IN 1949 1 was privileged (with some financial help from a foundation) to make a survey of the postwar non-Communist left in Europe, a kind of political Cook's Tour of Western Europe, interviewing political leaders, mostly socialist but also some who called themselves liberals or Christian democrats...
...Those socialists whose major concern was economic equality tended to sacrifice civil liberties and many became Communists...
...and the Democratic party accepts the republican form of government, however it may be interpreted...
...The children of darkness are evil because they know no law beyond self...
...The fact, of course, is quite the opposite...
...After recovering from the shock, Sam quietly explained that Hitler's National Socialism was not really socialism, and he described the growing concentration camps, the horrors inflicted on the Jews, the crushing of all labor unions, etc., etc...
...One newspaperman with a long memory and a deep desire for a sensational story uncovered a statement Amlie had•once made calling for the nationalization of our railroads...
...After all, even Adolf Hitler made advantageous use of the word...
...It could be defined...
...Note: Because I am informed that the views I have expressed, if printed by Dissent, will be followed by comments from some of its editors, I would like to underscore that our agreements are far more significant than our disagreements...
...The dictionaries, it seems, should revise their definitions...
...This leads us to a major point, perhaps the incentive for this article...
...The old man's jubilation quickly turned to sadness, and he sorrowfully explained, "We didn't know all that...
...It may well be that all dictionaries are wrong but, if so, they are united in their mistake...
...But he added that there was one elderly man whose future was far behind him and who was a bag of wind but, if I had nothing to do before my plane left, I could easily see him...
...IN HIS LAST published work, Socialism Reexamined (1963), Norman Thomas came far closer to the realities of American political life than in his more active years as the leader of the Socialist party in this country and its indefatigable presidential candidate...
...But it is equally undeniable that the opposite is just as real in the United States, namely, that only tiny minorities openly advocate socialism in this country, and the number is not growing...
...all we knew was that the Detroit Free Press was against it...
...I often recall that episode as I ride on Eurail Pass in the 90 wonderfully comfortable trains of such revolutionary countries as Switzerland...
...Niebuhr, who had once been an active Socialist, expressed, in his own religious and philosophical idiom, his views in the following paragraph written in 1948: The children of light have not been as wise as the children of darkness...
...But his major point, although perhaps more obvious than original, was important...
...I recalled 89 this answer some weeks ago when our steel companies again were raising their prices, not because of the great demand for steel but, on the contrary, because of the lag in demand and the "necessity" to maintain the profit margins of the steel companies...
...The adjective "liberal" is generally (but by no means unanimously) well received in the United States but I shall never forget an incident several decades ago when, at a dinner of the Union for Democratic Action (the minute predecessor of the A.D.A...
...Those whose major concern was civil liberties found themselves yielding on economic issues...
...Perhaps the best answer, in a pragmatic sense, came from Norway's Economics Minister Erik Brofoss...
...socialism came to take on different meanings and applications in various countries, and even within various countries...
...IN WESTERN EUROPE, an increasing number of countries are governed by political parties that may or may not call themselves socialist or social democratic but do consider themselves socialist political parties and belong to the Second International...
...The political officer (whom I later met as a fellow ambassador in Africa) was at least correct on one point: Papandreou talked continuously until I had to leave to make my plane...
...It is surely an undeniable reality that socialism, however defined, is an acceptable, indeed inspiring, word for large masses of workers and intellectuals in Europe (and in the so-called Third World...
...In the United States, for example, the Republican party does not reject the political system of democracy, at least not in theory even if frequently in practice...
...In Greece, after almost three days of interviews, the political officer told me that I had seen just about everyone who might be considered related to the democratic left...
...One evening Haakon Lie, then general secretary of the Norwegian Socialist party (which had briefly adhered to the Third International), took me to a workers' summer institute and served as my interpreter as the workers asked questions about the United States...
...Sam told of his experience when, in 1933, as a young socialist at Detroit's Wayne College (now University), he made use of his spring vacation to do some organizing for the Socialist party in upstate Michigan...
...That issue is surely still with us in most countries...
...Hence the division and weakness of the socialist movement...
...His name, of course, was Georges Papandreou and he became the next prime minister of Greece...
...it was an economic system, a philosophy of life, a revolution (he hoped peaceful) in human relationships...
...From the beginning of the trip in London, through all of Europe as far south and east as Greece, then north to the Scandinavian countries, I talked to chiefs of state (if they were of the democratic left), party leaders, journalists, intellectuals, parliamentarians, Marshall Plan Americans (some of whom I had known), a few State Department people (usually political officers), etc...
...President Roosevelt then sent his name to Congress to fill a vacancy on the Interstate Commerce Commission...
...So far as the word "socialism" is concerned, the most extreme example I can recall is the story told my old Socialist friend (across the hall on New York's old Third Avenue when the passage of the old elevated trains interrupted conversation every few minutes...
...Thus, in the foreseeable future, we may develop a national health service program that will inevitably be attacked (with a degree of accuracy) as socialized medicine by the opposition...
...And it is the definition of socialism that prompted my query to Dissent with respect to an article on socialism by an ex-socialist...
...They are usually foolish because they do not know the power of self-will...
...Prime Minister Tage Erlander of Sweden, for example, cited full employment as the key to his socialist government's policy...
...Despite my profound respect for Norman Thomas with whom I worked closely until 1941, I prefer the more complicated reality of Reinhold Niebuhr whose deep pessimism never diminished his untiring devotion to progressive causes...
...And Webster adds a second definition marked "Rare": "A state or system in which there is no private property...
...I still find it enlightening to review my notes after almost 28 years...
...It does not mean nationalization, but rather that those economic decisions that affect the life of an entire nation must be made democratically—in other words, by the democratically elected government...
...They are wise, though evil, because they understand the power of self-interest...
...The children of light are virtuous because they have some conception of a higher law than their own will...
...As might have been expected, there were a number of questions having to do with the progress of socialism in the United States...
...I CITE these dictionary definitions not to suggest that socialism always meant precisely the same economic and political system to all peoples in all lands...
...In many cases, while the Socialist leaders offered mild reformist views, they admitted that much of their rank-and-file still demanded that the old socialist ideas and slogans be included in their party programs even though they were quietly aware that these basic concepts were more illusionary than realistic...
...Jennie Lee, the dynamic Welsh member of the British Labour party, was introduced by a not very sophisticated toastmaster as "one of Great Britain's most distinguished liberals...
...Although I had no formal or informal relationship to the State Department in those days, sometimes staff members, especially the political officers, were helpful in suggesting people to see, and even assisted me in getting appointments with them...
...Not having seen a Socialist comrade in years, the old man welcomed Sam enthusiastically and ecstatically remarked that Karl Marx had so accurately predicted that socialism would come first in the most industrialized countries of the world, and now Germany was socialist...
...Indeed most answers sounded more "New Dealish" than socialist...
...He had few contacts to work on and the going was tough...
...So far as socialism is concerned, Olof Palme, recently defeated socialist prime minister of Sweden and now elected vice-chairman of the Socialist International, told a group of students at Columbia University: "We long ago left the old idea that the nationalization of the means of production will solve our problems...
...And in Italy where most of the large cities are Communist-run there is more "good government" than any doctrinaire socialism, not to say communism...
...The American Heritage Dictionary (1969): "A social system in which the producers possess both political power and the means of producing and distributing goods...
...Socialism is very much alive today but the original meaning of the word has, in effect, been taken over in great measure by the Communist movement...
...His answer to my query about his definition of socialism was (as my rather rough notes remind me), "For us it means the extension of democracy to economic life...
...The answers were generally rather vague, but hardly Marxist...
...This brings back another recollection from my 1949 political survey...
...Poor Jennie kept her composure with remarkable self-discipline...
...But one worker spoke up to insist that socialism meant the public ownership of the means of production, and Lie whispered to me that the comment came from the only Communist in the group...
...But in one small upstate town he was effusively welcomed by an old couple whose name he had found in a list of expired subscribers to the Socialist Call...
...except those cases in which individual human rights have been totally sacrificed...
...Similar political misnomers could be cited endlessly, such as the old French Radicals who were essentially conservative...
...Especially in the United States, what is the relevance of an effort to form a socialist movement...
...These countries include Great Britain, West Germany, now Portugal, Norway, not Sweden for the moment (but even in Sweden the Social Democrats received by far the largest vote), and France may have a socialist government after the next election...
...But I would suggest that the far less radical versions of socialism in recent years differ totally from the original concept, namely, ownership of the means of production by the state as indicated in the dictionary definitions already cited...
...The Oxford English Dictionary, after indicating that "The early history of the word is somewhat obscure," also offers two definitions: "(1) A theory or policy of social organization which aims at or advocates the ownership and control of the means of production, capital, land, property, etc., by the community as a whole, and their administration or distribution in the interests of all...
Vol. 25 • January 1978 • No. 1
