This.
The correct take about Bernie's praise for the USSR in the 80s is not "Bernie is a commie", it's that Bernie doesn't think that deeply about what a functional system really looks like.
The correct take about Bernie's praise for the USSR in the 80s is not "Bernie is a commie", it's that Bernie doesn't think that deeply about what a functional system really looks like.
Ultimately, airy theories about "capitalism" or "socialism" have to take a back seat to pragmatism. What works, works. And no matter what ideological label you want to apply, it was clear that the 80s USSR was not working.
I'm just frankly worried about Bernie's ability to craft a system that works. His egalitarian instincts are good. But we're at a point in American history where we need to *build institutions*, and I am deeply concerned about what he might build. Or try to build.
For generations, all we've done is to tear down the systems we built in the early 20th century. Some of those systems needed to be torn down, especially systems of oppression. Some of them, such as New Deal economic systems, should have been reformed instead of torn down...
Bernie is different. He's not going to keep tearing down. He's going to build something new. And that's one reason I think young people are attracted to him, because on some level they've had it with institutional degradation and deconstruction, and they want to build something.
But WHAT you build is important.
The Bolsheviks and Stalinists built something in the USSR. (Often they built on a mountain of corpses.) But what they built was a dysfunctional system that lurched along for decades, sustained only by high oil prices and stubbornness.
The Bolsheviks and Stalinists built something in the USSR. (Often they built on a mountain of corpses.) But what they built was a dysfunctional system that lurched along for decades, sustained only by high oil prices and stubbornness.
Bernie isn't going to be like Stalin or Lenin. He won't have nearly that much power to reshape institutions, and he's not a totalitarian monster.
But I worry that he will build dysfunctional systems that will serve us poorly for the next half-century.
But I worry that he will build dysfunctional systems that will serve us poorly for the next half-century.
As an aside, I supported Warren because the CFPB showed that she was capable of building an institution that wasn't just effective, but timely. It was something we needed, something no one else was building, and it was built well.
As another aside, I think AOC and the DSA might have an advantage over Bernie here. The DSA has been electorally far more effective than Our Revolution, for instance. AOC's allies in the Sunrise Movement also seem like effective movement builders.
Anyway, I worry that Bernie will build a system like Britain's postwar socialism or India's License-Quota-Permit Raj, that will stumble along dysfunctionally for a couple decades and ultimately be dismantled -- probably by ghoulish Thatcherite libertarians. To all our detriment.
In sum: Distrust of Bernie's ability to recognize and build high-quality institutions, rather than instinctive distaste for the word "socialism" or for bold egalitarian policy, is why his ascendancy worries me.
(end)
(end)
