[lbo-talk] Socialism v. Liberalism

turbulo at aol.com turbulo at aol.com
Thu Jan 26 16:54:07 PST 2006


Jim F. wrote:

Not too many now a days. But if we look back to the 1930s there were many people in the Democrats who were, at least rhetorically, committed to ending capitalism. The CPUSA threw its support behind FDR in his second term and lots of genuine radicals were staffing the New Deal agencies. Both Paul Sweezy and Harry Magdoff were examples of the kinds of people who attempted to make the New Deal work.

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Just because socialiats supported the New Deal doesn't mean that Roosevelt and the people who ran the New Deal supported socialism. Case in point: In 1934 Upton Sinclair, a leader of the Socialist Party (as well as famous author), won the Democratic nomination for governor of California. He ran on a platform of "production for use," which called for the expropriation for public use of all idle capitalst property in the state. Roosevelt gave his support in this election to the Republican candidate. He opposed the candidate of his own party before he would associate himself with encroachments upon private property. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20060126/176d66c5/attachment.htm>



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