kimilseung

Kshama Sawant, a socialist , has just been elected to the Seattle City Council, she is campaigning for a 15 dollar minimum wage. As socialists seem to be few and far between here in America, I was wondering if anywhere else currently has any?

She is not just a Socialist, but a Trotskyist.

sir_eccles

Sounds a bit foreign too :-)

kimilseung

I found it interesting that in the media, her being a socialist is mentioned left, right and center, but not her being a trot, which I thought might be more incendiary. Although maybe it is because many, if not most Americans do not know what a Trot is.

Bob

Well our state was voting in or not to raise minimum wage from $8 odd to $11 within a year or so.

We already had the medical insurance thing.

We're practically a communist state.

kins

To be fair most of them don't know what a socialist is either...

Sally Redux

Yeah my brother is cock-a-hoop about it. It is rather amazing.

Boomhauer

If the right wing had a monopoly on definitions, a Socialist = Communist.

Sally Redux

or Hitler.

Boomhauer

That seems to be a trend in right wing quarters, namely to claim the Nazis were Socialist and thus ideologically in the same boat as today's Socialists.

TheCreature

Capital control.
Labour control.
Price control.
Wage control.
Production control.

Nazi Germany had them all. You can see why people might be putting two and two together...

rpjs

Senator Bernie Saunders of Vermont runs as an independent but is an avowed socialist.

Mrs Danvers

Sanders runs on an independent ticket though, he daren't actually say he's a socialist, given that the word in America is basically an insult.

I doubt most Americans do know what a Trotskyist is, but I think the folks in Seattle do.

robin1234

Yes, but all that says is that Nazi Germany was in an existential struggle to become a European power again, then simply to win the world war and survive. The democratic UK had similar controls in place in order to survive and win the world war. In fact, Britain essentially "conscripted" all adults, including women, while Germany had a more traditional attitude towards German women and their economic role. Admittedly, that was partly because Germany was able to draw on labor from defeated nations to work in essential industries etc.

Another way of looking at Nazi Germany and its command economy is that it closely emulated that of the Soviet Union, which is not a good example of socialism or communism.

nun

Well as a life long socialist, I'm glad to see that they can win elections somewhere in the US.

FYI Bernie Sanders, Sen Vermont, is a socialist.

My Rep in the house is a Democrat, but very progressive and would be described as a democratic socialist in most countries.

In Presidential elections I usually vote Green Party as they have policies that most closely align with my own philosophy. National Democratic Presidential candidates must run in the center so I can't bring myself to vote for them.......hey Obama isn't my fault, I didn't vote for him, too right wing for me!

nun

What always amazes me is that today's US Libertarians are focused entirely on Government, they ignore other authoritarian structures like corporations and particularly religion.