How socialist is Bernie Sanders?

Young Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders has de-demonized the word “socialism” in American politics.  But what does his socialism consist of?

For him, it means being on the side of working people and poor people and opposed to big business and rich people, and not being worried if somebody calls what he does “socialism.”

He is no Jeremy Corbyn.  He does not plan the overthrow of capitalism.  There is nothing Sanders proposes to which an old-time New Deal Democrat of the 1930s and 1940s would object.  The New Deal’s purpose was to reform and tame capitalism, not replace it.

This is meant as an observation, not a criticism.  Sanders deserves credit for pushing the limit of acceptable radicalism.

Below is a link to an old article by Murray Bookchin, the anarchist thinker, questioning Sanders’ socialist credentials.

Bookchin lived in Vermont when Sanders was mayor of Burlington.  A friend of mine who knew both of them said they didn’t get along.  This isn’t surprising.  Anarchists have disliked socialists since the days of Karl Marx, Mikhail Bukharin and the First International.

LINK

The Bernie Sanders Paradox: When Socialism Grows Old by Murray Bookchin for Monthly Review (1886)