Some of the comments in this thread do a phenomenal job corroborating the notion that American public education is criminally underfunded. The idea that a center-left Green party-kinda candidate in a global context (Sanders) is a communist is so mindbogglingly ignorant it skips 'plainly stupid' and goes right to 'redneck caricature' territory. Honestly, while yes education funding cuts do contribute to this kinda shit, there's also the fact that Google exists; you can type in "communism" into your browser and get a blurb about some basic principles at the very least. Seeing this level of ignorance makes me feel lucky my highschool offered a comprehensive comparative politics class that examines historically significant regimes like the USSR and the PRC. I hope that one day a comparative politics credit is required in highschools nationally; it'd do the world a looooot of good if the sole superpower's voter pool wasn't brimming with people only capable of thought on a gun-toting-hick level.
I love how "hey maybe we should have government health insurance like virtually every other developed country and maybe not contrivedly burden swathes of young people with crippling student debt and also not make the Earth uninhabitable for human beings" somehow prompts "OH MY GOD VENEZUELA THE SOVIET UNION IT NEVER WORKS" without fail every single fucking time. Sanders isn't even a good example of a socialist; his policies are all essentially all reformist. If you look at
his workplace democracy plan, there is nothing about transitioning from private ownership to worker ownership of enterprise---the basis of socialism---it's all about strengthening the power of unions and combating the hierarchical and oligarchic nature of how capitalism organizes enterprise that way. Yeah, I know he calls himself a democratic socialist, but an actual DSA member or what have you would outflank Sanders economically 100%.
And this isn't to say that the best way to respond to "omg socialism bad it never works venezuela the PRC" is to cite than Sanders isn't actually a socialist---defending capitalism is an absurdly uphill battle for the poor soul who takes up the challenge, but it's important to note that these kinds of people are so profoundly ignorant they don't even understand where their opposition stands politically. I implore you to educate yourself on lefty economics ideas---
Dr. Richard Wolff is the best orator on this in the context of the US (he is going to do a better job of explaining things than I could since I don't have a PhD in econ---I did write a
big-ass post earlier you can check out, though)---but given the sub-middle school level of reading comprehension the "OMG VENEZUELA" people tend to have, I have little hope they'll sit through a 2 hour video that actually challenges their preconceptions.
Last thing: "worker owned enterprise" and its spirit have various interpretations in terms of substantive policy. State capitalism (USSR, PRC, what most people mean when they say "communist/communism") is one where the employer-employee undemocratic dichotomy remains in tact, but the employer is no longer a private entity---the immensely authoritarian nature of many regimes that employed this style would be the common evil. Reformist models like the Nordic countries are often considered "socialist"---socialism has an aim of destratifying class, which to an extent can be accomplished with reformist policies like hiking up the minimum wage, using highly progressive tax brackets, having an expansive social safety net, etc. Finally, worker co-ops (so a collective of private entities) owning enterprise is picking up interest (Dr. Wolff is a big proponent of this approach) and would be the most direct form of socialism of the three. It has limited experimentation to my knowledge.
edit: MikeDawg, you should probably read the post before you drop a like. I'm nowhere near being your ideological ally, and there is zero chance in hell any of what I just wrote resonates with your "woke centrist" alignment.
