Who Is Bernie?

For John, BLUF:  People have been talking about the "Corbynization" of the Democratic Party for a while.  sometimes it was about Antisemitism and sometimes about ideas on how to organize the economy.  Infrequently it touches on individual freedom.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Bernie Sanders is far more radical than Corbyn’s Labour

From CAPX, ♠ By Ryan Bourne, 17 February 2020.

Here is the lede plus one:

• It is wrong to downplay just how radical Bernie Sanders would be
• Sanders is no European-style social democrat - just look at his platform
• You thought Corbyn was radical? Just wait till you see Bernie Sanders' proposals

It may be early days in the Democratic primary race, but Bernie Sanders is now the favourite to win the party’s nomination and set up a Trump-Sanders presidential election.

As the prospect of Sanders winning becomes ever more real, some commentators are downplaying his socialist credentials, painting the veteran Senator as no more than a moderate social democrat.

“Memo to left-wing Americans who adore Sanders’s radical ‘socialism’…” says Al Jazeera’s Mehdi Hasan, “in most other Western/European countries, Sanders would be considered a pretty mainstream, centre-left social democrat.”

His view is shared by the economist Paul Krugman. Dastardly Republicans might have the audacity to use Sanders’ own preferred label to describe him, but since he doesn’t want to “nationalise our major industries” or “replace markets with central planning”, Sanders “isn’t actually a socialist.”  Ignore scare stories about Venezuelan economics then, Krugman advises.  Sanders just wants the US to look more like Denmark.

Krugman is right to say that Sanders shuns nationalisation.  To simply label him a socialist, without any caveats, is misleading.  But it’s even more grossly misleading to suggest his “democratic socialist” ambitions stop at a Scandinavian-style welfare state.  More redistribution is central to his agenda, sure, but he also proposes massive new market interventions, including the Green New Deal, a federal jobs guarantee, expansive price and wage controls, overhauling labour and corporate governance laws, and enforced mutualisation of companies.

Based on his performance as a prognosticator during the era of Trump, I wouldn't put a lot of trust in Dr Krugman's views.

I wounder why the media is not working on helping us understand the core of Senator Sanders' beliefs.  It is one thing when he is one of one hundred Senators, and from Vermont at that.  it is another if he is President, with a pen and a telephone.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  From the Centre for Policy Studies.