"Socialism" doesn't reductionistically equate to "freedom"

Corey Robin, in a new op-ed for the NYTimes Sunday opinion section, says that today's socialism ultimately reduces to the word "freedom."

As I said in a set of semi sub-Tweets in a thread there, then a retweet of somebody who dug it, and was retweeted herself by Robin, I'm not sold. In fact, I think the piece has problems.

I'm going to post each Tweet in my thread individually for commentary. Let's start.

Not quite buying defining socialism as "freedom." 1st, "freedom" is wingnut word; of course, Robin may have used it deliberately. That said, anarchism is at least as arguably abt "freedom" as a 1-word definition. Libertarians wld of course claim word too https://t.co/Fjft6e1NK7

— @realDonaldTrump  🌻 (@SocraticGadfly) August 24, 2018

I don't know if Robin was deliberate or not. Whether he was, and was trying to scene-steal, or something else, I simply disagree. And I didn't have room in that Tweet to quote Janis Joplin. But, there are various ways to achieve "losing the last thing," to riff on "freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."

But let's let somebody else sing it:

So, no, socialism isn't uniquely reducible to freedom.

Next I said:

Bigger issue, IMO, is Corey's talk about socialists crossing two-party system boundaries. None of three he features, nor Virginia's Lee Carter, do that. They're all Doinks. Oh, sure, they criticize national neolib Dems. But, they're still Dems themselves.

— @realDonaldTrump  🌻 (@SocraticGadfly) August 24, 2018

Again, I am by no means alone in still being skeptical — not cynical, but skeptical — about Democratic Socialist of America Democrats. That's why I don't put the rose icon in my Twitter handle. Only the sunflower. (If the Socialist Party USA had an icon it uses, I'd put that one in, too.) That's coupled with an eyebrow on duopoly issues I still have toward Robin himself. On this issue, he's only talking the talk, from most of what I've seen on his social media. He does occasionally give a nod to Greens or others, but that's it.

Now, @Ocasio2018 .@carterforva and others may stand their ground against state & national Dem hierarchies in the future on controversial issues when actual vote nutcutting time comes. Or they may not. We know Bernie has gotten the Vermont Dem Party to clear the field 4 him 4 yrs

— @realDonaldTrump  🌻 (@SocraticGadfly) August 24, 2018

Yep, goes back to Bernie.

And, while we're at this point, it also covers foreign policy. See, while I'm more of an actual socialist than any of the above (none of them has touted an American version of a British National Health System, like I have; hell, Corey may not have), I'm more than "just" a socialist of some sort.

I'm also a left-liberal to leftist on foreign policy. (Socialists can be various types of hard-nosed, just like conservative atheists exist.) I know Bernie opposes BDS, and I know Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has dodged it like a speeding bullet. Carter, being at state government level, gets to dodge it more easily. Dunno about Salazar and others. They're generally not trumpeting it.

So, other than just coloring me skeptical, color me as saying this is glass half full, or two-thirds if we weight domestic policy that much more.

OK, the last tweet in the thread.

Corey is right that the new movement has just started. It may do all it says and more. Or it may not. Never forget that Jerry Rubin eventually became a stockbroker, then an MLM marketer. We shall see.  (And, I'd still prefer my socialist politicians with a policy agenda, Corey.)

— @realDonaldTrump  🌻 (@SocraticGadfly) August 24, 2018

Here's the why on that tweet, especially the stuff in parentheses.

Robin said:

Socialism is not journalists, intellectuals or politicians armed with a policy agenda.

If he had had the word "just" after "not," I'd agree. But he didn't.

Look at the original Occupy in Zucotti Park. It was a semi-disorganized semi-rabble — on the surface; below that surface it had a leadership indeed, with an agenda we don't know to this day. (We do know that some claiming to represent that original movement turned out to be capitalist grifters, and per the previous link, that may well have been the intent of Occupy leader Malcolm Harris.) Again, it's not just me alone thinking that. It's the likes of Doug Henwood. That said, those "socialists" weren't even workers, certainly not of the proletariat. Per their own self-identification, most were the kids of 10 percenters and many the kids of 1 percenters; a strong minority had graduate degrees as well.

Anyway, journalists are "workers," too, Corey. Don't sit in your academic ivory tower and think that journalists are all part of the 10 percent. Not even close.

And, maybe not in the US, but in Britain, Jeremy Corbin is a worker — and a socialist.

OK, finally, the quote-tweeted retweet.

I guess Corey accepts the idea that one prob w/ capitalism is being "gendered." That ignores, oh, Betsy DeVos of Trump's cabinet. Carly Fiorina. Iron Lady PM Margaret Thatcher. Maggie's a good starting point. Plenty of Scotch men and women alike were economically crippled by her. https://t.co/cNJdYcLLM4

— @realDonaldTrump  🌻 (@SocraticGadfly) August 24, 2018

I mean what I said. Capitalism is not so "gendered" as he claims, or is presented as claiming, since Robin liked the Tweet.

Yes, women have been in a power imbalance in capitalism. But, that's not necessarily an issue of the structure of capitalism. I don't think it is at all. As I've argued with Doug Henwood, and through him to Adolph Reed, and also with Jacobin, that not all race issues reduce to class issues, neither do all gender issues so reduce.

Let's remember that France and Italy, while both allegedly being to the left of the US on a democratic socialism scale, and both having paid family leave time, have both otherwise long been regarded as having more sexism than the U.S.