RON RIDENOUR—The first social democratic government in the world occurred in Finland, in 1907, eight years after the founding of the social democratic party. In 1916, S.D. won an absolute majority and governed alone for the only time. German social democrats achieved their first government in 1918 upon the end of the First World War. Sweden had its first S.D. government in 1921. The second oldest social democrat party was led by postal worker Louis Pio in Denmark, in 1871, inspired by the Paris Commune. The social democrats formed its first government in 1924, the same year the social democratic Labour Party was elected to govern in England. Norway’s S.D. ruled first in 1928 but fell after two weeks. The party split into two, one fraction created the Communist Party.
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ALEX LANTIER—EU austerity overseen by Syriza has blighted millions of lives, throwing the working class back decades. The ending of universal healthcare has meant a surge of deaths by preventable diseases, or because cancers are discovered only in late stages of the disease due to a suspension of testing. In the workplaces, workers are routinely forced to agree to pay back part of their salary to employers as a precondition to find employment, or to forgo their salary for long periods of time. Hundreds of thousands of Greeks were forced to leave their country to try to find jobs.
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PATRICK MARTIN—Karl Marx, the founder of scientific socialism, proclaimed long ago that the working man has no country. But Bernie Sanders takes the opposite stance. He defends the national interests of US imperialism. His country is that of Wall Street, the Pentagon, the CIA and corporate America.
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PHILIP A. FARRUGGIO—What could occur if our nation was a mix of socialism and capitalism? Well, all major industries that are vital to the public’s health and well being would be nationalized. Imagine if Banking, Energy, Pharma, Health care, Defense, Real Estate were owned and operated by the citizens through local and federal government. No more excess profits from our taxes going for mortgages, residential and commercial real estate rentals, doctor visits and medicines, home heating and electric, surgeries, dental care, weapons systems and military needs… all working at non profit or low profit.
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ROBERT HUNZIKER—In order to receive Troika’s financial bailout, Greece has undergone a massive transfer of public assets, all the best stuff, to privatization interests, part of the hardcore hypothesis behind neoliberalism, e.g., (1) 14 major regional airports sold to Germany’s Fraport, (2) the Port of Piraeus, one of the largest ports in Europe sold to China’s Cosco, (3) the Port of Thessaloniki, which is Greece’s second largest city, sold to a German consortium, and (4) privatization funds created, under Germany’s direction, for water utility transfers to private hands, prompting the president of the Greece water company trade union to forewarn that the for-profit model often times raises prices for consumers and sometimes service degrades.
