Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Finance, the economy & Economics The Debate: Is America’s future capitalist or socialist?

Democrats, on Jan. 16, introduced the Raise the Wage Act, which would gradually increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 by 2024. After 2024, the bill would index the minimum wage to median wage growth.
Democrats have also taken up sweeping anti-corruption measures aimed at many things but including expanded voter rights.

Medicare For All is in the conversation, marijuana legalization is inevitable which will lead to improvements in the "war on drugs, and certainly fewer incarcerations.

The Green New Deal is a brand new concept, but it's a popular catch phrase and Democrats are already probing around the edges of it.

So did you want your list of demands met immediately? That's how Donald Trump negotiates.


I really don't know who these "neoliberals" are but as I understand it all these things are being fought by Republicans. Democrats in general are supportive of them so I'm pretty sure your war against democrats is somewhat misdirected.

Yeah, that pretty much defines Republicans.

A bump in half a decade? Imagine the sound of solitary sarcastic hand clapping.
What will $15 be worth in 5 years? Centrists Dems-lowering expectations since 1972.
Green new deal, medicare for all, legal weed, fight for 15. These are all external pressures outside of the centrist aligned democratic party, not from within. Credit where credits due.

I've watched for decades the steady erosion of the public space, labor wages, consumer rights, etc, etc I no longer listen to the slow rollers and the incessant capitulation to corporate interests. I don't think I'm alone in this.

I can't help you with your lack of understanding with the neoliberal project within the democratic party. Plenty of information out there by respected reporters and political observers. I've posted links out to well documented articles on the subject. You might start with the Powell Memo

Neoliberalism describes the first and second terms of every Administration and Centrist 'Third Way' senate/congressional democrat since Carter. There has been no left alternative voice in decades and, until recently, only a small but vocal emergent left offering a real alternative to the "there's no other way" neoliberal political consensus of the Democratic Party.

Nice follow on article out today AOC winding up the Mandarins

Be happy then, because everything you're claiming wasn't happening in the party, IS HAPPENING.
And I predicted that it just might while you were being the biggest pessimist I've ever seen.
Believe in it and it just might come to pass that the Democratic Party will get knocked over and rebuilt again as a true LIBERAL party.

It won't happen unless we try.

No, you're not. But the socialist left simply hasn't got the votes to make the sweeping changes you demand. Or start the revolution you want.

I've tried to make it clear that I want exactly the same things you want. And I want them to happen overnight.
I even know about the problems within the Democratic Party. No matter how many times you repeat them to me I will still know about them. Repeat them again and I will continue to know about them. Which is to say...all those walls of text you link to to get your point across? I already know.

And I agree.

But when I look into my cracked crystal ball I don't see things changing at the pace that you and I and almost everybody else wants to see. I am ever so slightly optimistic there may be some small improvements in the near future.

I am equally aware that untold misery, suffering, and likely extinction of our species will be the result if we ultimately fail to reign in capitalism and the greed of our corporate overlords.

That crack in my crystal ball is where the future diverges. On one side of the crack I see only rats and cockroaches. It's not so far away and tends to blur whatever future might await us if we survive.

"I really don't know who these "neoliberals" are but as I understand it all these things are being fought by Republicans. Democrats in general are supportive of them so I'm pretty sure your war against democrats is somewhat misdirected."

Sorry, I thought you were suggesting that the neoliberal camp is in the republican party only. My mistake. I also thought you were suggesting a lack of understanding of our current political consensus of the last 30 years by the use of the world 'Neoliberalism'.

No, the war is in the democratic party where it belongs. Jumping up and down and pointing out republican behavior is ignoring the chronic problems within the Democratic party and helps to distract us from those issues. Posting here does nothing really except as an exercise in organizing thoughts. Nuff Said.

My own personal war is against Republicans. I hope to see the party relegated to the dustbin of history within my lifetime. I lost everything in The Great Recession and I blame it entirely on Republicans. You can jump up and down and scream neoliberals all you want...every time something really sh*tty happens...It's the Republicans.

2020 is important to me in more ways than one. The next president will likely be my last and I'll be able to die happy if it's a Democrat and progressive changes are underway.

It was a neoliberal Democrat that repealed Glass Steagall.
Just thought you should know lest you vote for one in 2020.

Nobody I would consider a neoliberal will be on the ticket in 2020.
Laissez-faire economics is not as popular in the Democratic Party as I think you would like to imagine.

"History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals."

The party is what it is. Some get it some don't.