Howard Dean -"We need Capitalism and Socialism"

If I had any lingering doubts regarding the possibility that Barrack Obama and the liberal left are attempting to transform our nation from one of capitalism to that of socialism, they are now gone!.


Last April, while making a speech in Paris, France, Howard Dean, the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said the contest between Socialism and Capitalism in America is over. Speaking for all of us, Dean declared that Americans have decided to have both!   Dean stated:

" Capitalism is always going to be with us because capitalism represents part of human nature. But the other part of human nature is communitarianism. The debate for the new generation is instead of capitalism or socialism, is we're going to have both and then which proportion of each should we have in order to make this all work."

[Note: When Howard Dean refers to “communitarianism” he is speaking about a political and social philosophy that emphasizes the importance of community in the functioning of political life, in the analysis and evaluation of political institutions, and in understanding human identity and well-being, affording much less importance to the concepts of individual freedom and autonomy.]

America is already a nation that functions both as a capitalist and a socialist society.  This has been true in the US at least since 1933 and FDR’s New Deal. It became even more true during LBJ’s “Great Society” efforts. We have had a mix of socialism funded by capitalism for several decades, and not coincidentally, we have the national debt to show for it.

The debate now is whether we want to extend governmental corporatism in the finance, energy, and health-care fields, which will be an entree to complete government control of those industries in the long term, or whether we want to pursue the free-market solutions that actually create and expand prosperity.

The simple fact of the matter is that all of our nation's "socialism" from FDR's "New Deal", to LBJ's "Great Society", to the "Welfare State" and "Food Stamps", were only possible via funding by capitalism.

Unfortunately, Obama's election has been accompanied by a full court press by the left in this country to expand socialism at the expense of capitalism.  TARP, the stimulus bills, the bail outs of failing private corporations, the cap and trade energy tax, national health care, etc., will all serve to drive our deficit into an area from which we will not be able to recover beause the government will have hammered the private, free market segment, of our economy into oblivion.

If we allow this to take place, we will truly be left with a communitarianism society.

Peter J. Mahon