Atlantic Regional Stewards Council: Fill & Download for Free

Stores were quite small, the much larger supermarkets are a 1930’s invention, and relatively specialized compared to the collection of separate stores/inventories/skills a supermarket became especially by the 1950’s-60’s. So specialist stores often on the same downtown city block handled meat, fish, fruit and vegetables, baked goods made on site (although large central bakeries go back millennias), pharmacies, ethnic foods, delicatessens/preserved meat & cheeses/sandwich shops, etc. So a grocer then stocked dry foods (bags or barrels of flour, sugar, crackers, dried beans, onions, potatoes, corn meal, oatmeal, etc.), apples, pears, oranges, coconuts and bananas, and canned/bottled foods and sauces (Campbell’s soups, beans Heinz ketchup & 57 sauce French’s mustards, canned salmon and sardines, peaches, apples, blueberries, etc.) as well as staple ingredients like gelatins, baking powder, baking soda, vinegar, ammonia, lye soap, hog lard, cooking oils, spices. By that time Kelloggs and Post breakfast cereals were popular. Procter & Gamble laundry detergents and gentle soaps like Ivory were already well established.The grocers still kept all of the merchandise on shelves or barrels/bins behind long wooden counters so the store clerk collected all of the goods from a shopping list (which might be a pre-placed order for weekly or monthly delivery rather than always purchased in person.) So it was time-consuming with a line of 2–3 waiting customers easily taking 20–60 minutes to handle completely. For many customers the grocers were friends or acquaintances and conversation (and local gossip) were significant parts of the visit.Many, especially farm or other seasonally paid households, could only buy on store credit (routinely unavailable to recent arrivals, minorities or other people the store owner disapproved of particularly or on general principles, farmers as they frequently went broke and fled the area, widows, young couples, people who went to different churches than the owner, etc.. Unrepaid store credit was the most common reason stores failed so as physical money became more available (drastic shortages of coins and currency throughout the 19th Century was crippling and forced a lot of credit extensions or barter.) Switching to all cash sales, no store credit was the new trend and made a remarkable difference in retail stores and small businesses in general survival.With the railroads by the time you’re asking about, individuals could buy their groceries at much lower prices through the now enormous Sears Roebuck & Co., Montgomery Wards, and other catalog merchants with centralized warehouses staffed by thousands…like Amazon today. That was the competition that worried independent small businesses of many types and public burnings of piles of their catalogs in the street in front of the stores was common. In this same era the rise of “the chain stores” so multiple stores under the same ownership and buying power using national advertising and strong branding were the other almost impossible to beat or survive competitors (J.C. Pennys, F.C. Woolworth’s 5 & Dime, S.E. Kresge’s dime stores, Atlantic & Pacific grocers, etc.). Many were grocery store chains or also sold some food.Figure 12–14 hour days 6 days a week, nearly everything was closed on Sundays, with no vacations or breaks for decades so exhausting but not narrowing since everyone in town came through the door as often as every few days so the grocer often knew the most people in town of anyone, especially the wives and children. Because of that and the importance of a grocery store to a town as a regional draw for the farm, ranch, and villages’ residents the owner would often be a member of the city council or even Mayor, a political party stalwart with the number of voters they met each day, a senior officer in the Masonic, Oddfellows, Knights of Columbus, Elks, Rotary, Kiwanis, etc. lodges/clubs, a School Board member, active in most of the town charities, church governing board member (Deacon, Steward, Council, etc.), and pressed on for sizable donations by every fundraiser thanks to being visible and familiar (even today the school kids and their parents routinely blackmail local grocers threatening to take their buying elsewhere if a suitable donation isn’t made to their school team, trip, etc.)

The floating brothel: The most scandalous convict ship of allHow does one successfully colonize an unchartered continent? With convicts, privateers and cargoes consisting of women discarded by society. What follows is the story of the Lady Juliana, a special convict ship transporting female prisoners sent to Australia, with the intent of reforming the struggling convict colony in New South Wales. This motley crew of British women had a lasting impact on the colonization of Australia, one that is quite often overlooked in historical sources.Turn of the 18th century, London, England was both a bustling metropolis and a dark and desperate place. With a population of 800,000 people[1] , London was the largest city in Europe and home to the wealthiest subjects of the British Empire, but it also contained a large population of poor and indigent citizens who sought to eke out a living on the city’s mean streets. In the 1780s, many poor Londoners were confined to the city’s overflowing jails under Georgian England’s “Bloody Code,” which created some 250 capital statutes that were punishable by death or “transportation to lands beyond the seas.” [2] Around 60,000 criminals were transported to British colonies in North America.[3]This all came to an end when the American War of Independence concluded King George III's rule in North America and subsequently the Americans, no longer under British control, decided to refuse any further convict transportations. This created a crisis back across the Atlantic, as its prisons continued to fill beyond capacity, until it was decided that Australia would be the most suitable destination for the next penal colonies. On 6th December 1785 the Orders in Council were given; the colony was to be established, instructions were given and transportation to Australia commenced.[4]Governor, soldier, spy: Uncovering the history of Arthur PhillipGreat Britain began colonizing Australia in 1787, when British Home Secretary Lord Sydney launched the “First Fleet” under the command of Governor Phillip, shipping some 759 convicts and 13 children of convicts along with marines, seamen, merchants and officials as well as sheep, cows, and seed to Australia to create Botany Bay penal colony in present-day Sydney.[5] Upon arrival, Governor Phillip found that Botany Bay was in fact too shallow to allow the fleet to anchor by the shore and it was quickly discovered that strategically the bay was unprotected and open to attack.[6] To make matters worse, a lack of fresh water and poor soil quality added to the lack of potential in the area.[7] Attempts to cut trees and set up primitive living accommodation were futile, as the tools they had brought with them failed to bring down the large trees in the area. So he sailed up the coast into Sydney Harbor and settled at Sydney Cove. The cove had a much bigger natural harbor and its own water supply.Lady Juliana (1777 ship) - WikipediaThe Lady Juliana was part of the Second Fleet of ships meant to bring another round of convicts along with food and supplies for the blossoming colony.[8] The British government specifically commissioned the Lady Juliana to transport a group of no fewer than 225 (five of whom eventually died enroute) female thieves, prostitutes, con artists, and some five infants were rounded up from prisons in London and the English countryside to be shipped off to the failing Sydney Cove colony.[9] For the English government, the female convicts were to serve two purposes: to prevent the starving and isolated male colonists from engaging in “gross irregularities” and to act as a breeding stock for the troubled settlement.[10] They were to marry male colonists, which would supposedly create and maintain respectable family life in the new colony. The women's prison sentences aimed to transform them into moral vessels that would enable the re-creation of the British family unit abroad.Though some of the women aboard the Lady Juliana might have been prostitute's that's not why they were sent to Australia - solicitation was not a transistory offense. Moreover, many of the passengers' stories fell into the "fallen woman" trope that had become popular in novels and plays.[11] John Nicol, steward of the Lady Julians believed many of the women had been seduced at some point in their lives. He wrote about how Sarah Dorset, for example, had "fallen" into a life of alleged folly and sin:“She had not been protected by the villain that ruined her above six weeks; then she was forced by want upon the streets, and taken up as a disorderly girl; then sent onboard to be transported”.[12]Dorset and her illegitimate daughter would spend only 12 days at Sydney Cove before being transferred to Norfolk Island, a distribution center for goods entering and leaving the region.Mary Wade (1778-1859)Most of the women on the ship had been arrested and sentenced for various degrees of theft.[13] Their offenses ranged from highway robbery to shoplifting and pickpocketing.The vast majority of the women who embarked on the Lady Juliana were in their 20s and 30s. But no fewer than 51 of them- or around 22% - were teenagers.[14] Mary Wade was one of these. Though scholars debate her exact age - recent research says she was 13, while earlier records show she was only 11 - she was the youngest convict on the ship.[15] Mary Hook for example, was around 20 years old when the British court commuted her punishment for stealing her employer's money and goods from capital punishment to a seven-year sentence in New South Wales.[16] Women on board included Deborah Davis, who was sentenced to death by hanging for stealing 15 pounds and 13 shillings from a customer named Timothy Toppings.[17] But she was reprieved and put on the ship for Australia. Sex workers Mary Williams and Catherine White were convicted of robbery and ordered on board the Lady Juliana, while Ann Doyle and Ann Poor were given the same sentence for burglary.[18]Torn from their families and communities, they undertook a perilous sea journey to the other side of the world. Lives were on open display as husbands, lawyers, parents and their sobbing children paraded their woes in a series of last, then final goodbyes. Appeals submitted, denied, rejected, all in a very public cavalcade of emotions. Friends and relatives were allowed on board, bringing fresh food and provisions, clothing, money and the last glimpse of normality these women were to have for a very long time.[19]Though conditions aboard the Lady Juliana were better than they were on most convict ships, it was still a long, arduous journey - after a delay of six months, and the escape of several young women, Lady Juliana departed England in July 1789 and didn't reach its final destination until 11 months later in June 1790.[20] Part of the reason the passengers on the Lady Juliana enjoyed better conditions was because the British government oversaw it, unlike the other ships in the Second Fleet. All the other vessels were operated by Camden, Calvert and King, a notorious and prolific slave trading company.[21] Though they were prisoners being transported against their will, many of the women of the Lady Juliana ultimately made the most of their circumstances both during and after the voyage. Between their side hustles in ports of call and bartering their services aboard the ship, their legendary journey has to be shared.Black-eyed Sue and Sweet Poll of Plymouth saying goodbye to their lovers who are about to be transported to Botany Bay, 1792 (British Convicts to Australia - Historic UK)As prisoners, the women onboard the Lady Juliana were expected to wear convict dresses. At least one fashionable prisoner protested this. Elizabeth Barnsley actually "petitioned the government agent and captain to be allowed to wear her own clothes" while the ship prepared to sail.[22] Her request was denied, but the crew allowed her to wear whatever she wanted once the boat went to sea. Since the convicts all wore issued dresses, the ship's captain had the right to dispose of all the passengers' clothing - but he didn't, and instead held it for them.[23] He reasoned that the garments "would be of use to the poor creatures when they arrived at Port Jackson."[24]Drunkeness appears to have been a huge concern on board. To curb her so-called "rowdiness," crew members made passenger Nance Ferrel wear a repurposed wooden barrel "jacket."[25] When that didn't work, they resorted to flogging her 12 times. At night, the women onboard were to be battened down in the quarters to prevent illicit activity between the prostitutes and crew. The Lieutenant in charge, Thomas Edgar, preferred his drink at night, rather than keeping check of a group of women who were not innocent to begin with.[26] Matronly passengers, like Elizabeth “Lizzie” Barnsley a highway woman convicted of stealing a bolt of cloth, tended to run interference for younger counterparts who may have been mistakenly transported, and managed the accounts for more experienced women.[27] As John Nicol recalled:"She was very kind to her fellow convicts, who were poor. They were all anxious to serve her. She was as a queen among them."[28]After becoming the colony’s midwife and serving out the remainder of her sentence, Elizabeth Barnsley is thought to have earned enough money to purchase her passage back to England.[29]The Life and Adventures of John Nicol, MarinerWhether out of love, lust, coercion, necessity, or boredom, many of the women on board the ship became the "wives" of the ship's officers and crew members. The steward on board wrote"I first fixed my fancy on her the moment I knocked the rivet from her irons upon my anvil.”[30] A few days into the voyage, Whitlam was settled in Nicol's bunk.While these marriages were not legal, they nonetheless served a practical purpose: taking a lover onboard the ship often meant favorable sleeping conditions for the women. Most of the passenger-convicts slept just above the ship's bilge (garbage and sewage deck).[31] But the women of the Lady Juliana had something that their land-imprisoned counterparts didn't: consistent access to medical care. The ship had a surgeon, Richard Alley, who impregnated and abandoned a female convict named Ann Marsh, after arrival in Sydney and was kept relatively clean.[32]But at least one partnership was rooted in genuine feeling: Nicol seemed to have fallen in love with prisoner Sarah Whitlam.[33]“When we were fairly out at sea, every man on board took a wife from among the convicts, they nothing loath. The girl with whom I lived, for I was as bad in this point as the others, was named Sarah Whitlam. She was a native of Lincoln, a girl of modest reserved turn, as kind and true a creature as ever lived. I courted her for a week and upwards, and would have married her upon the spot, had there been a clergy man on board. She had been banished for a mantle she had borrowed from an acquaintance.Her friend prosecuted her for stealing it, and she was transported for seven years. I had fixed my fancy upon her from the moment I knocked the rivet out of her irons upon my anvil, and as firmly resolved to bring her back to England, when her time was out, my lawful wife, as ever I did intend anything in my life. She bore me a son in our voyage out. What is become of her, whether she is dead or alive, I know not. That I do not, is no fault of mine, as my narrative will show.”[34]Though he intended to marry her upon completion of her term, the two never wed and Sarah gave birth to a daughter on board. Upon landing in Sydney Bay, Nicol lost contact with Sarah, forced to return to Britain. He searched for the pair for years, posting notices in ports of call and Australia but they never saw each other again.[35]Photo: Thomas Rowlandson/Metropolitan Museum of Art/Wikimedia Commons/Public DomainNot all partnerships were as affectionate as Nicol and Whitlam's appears to have been. The lack of privacy for prisoners on convict ships meant that crew members had access to them, and their relations and interactions could be coercive. The age of consent in 18th-century Britain was ten years old, so some crew members took teenage wives during the voyage.[36] 14-year-old Jane Forbes was one of the youngest wife, having a baby before reaching port in Australia.[37]Nicol, the ship's steward, recalled that:One, a Scottish girl, broke her heart and died in the river; she was buried at Dartford. Four were pardoned on account of his Majesty's recovery. The poor young Scottish girl I have never yet got out of my mind; she was young and beautiful, even in the convict dress, but pale as death, and her eyes red with weeping. She never spoke to any of the other women or came on deck. She was constantly seen sitting in the same corner from morning to night; even the time of meals roused her not. My heart bled for her, - she was a countrywoman in misfortune. I offered her consolation, but her hopes and heart had sunk. When I spoke she heeded me not, or only answered with sighs and tears; if I spoke of Scotland she would ring her hands an sob, until I thought her heart would burst. I endeavoured to get her sad story from her lips, but she was silent as the grave to which she hastened. I lent her my bible to comfort her, but she read it not; she laid it on her lap after kissing it, and only bedewed it with her tears. At length she sunk into the grave, of no disease, but a broken heart. After her death we had only two Scottish women on board, one of them a Shetlander.[38]At the ports of call seamen from other ships were freely entertained, and the officers made no attempt to suppress this licentious activity. No provision had been made to set the convicts to any productive work during the voyage, and they were reported to be noisy and unruly, with a fondness for liquor and for fighting amongst themselves.[39] The ship docked and resupplied at Tenerife and St.Jago, and spent forty-five days at Rio de Janeiro, and nineteen days at the Cape of Goid Hope.[40] The women were lucky that the ship stopped at three ports for repairs, so they were able to benefit from having fresh meat, fruit and vegetables.The convicts made the most of their global tour by bartering their services in these ports. Nicol, the ship's steward, recollected with a touch of glee:"We did not restrain the people on shore from coming on board through the day. The captains and seamen, who were in port at the time, paid us many visits."[41]The ladies kept at least part of their earnings. Some of the ship's officers and sailors allegedly even helped manage the women's activities and earnings and their involvement raises serious questions about the degree to which these captive women were coerced into their activities.[42]The floating brothel: The most scandalous convict ship of allSome of the women aboard the Lady Juliana were already mothers before the ship departed England, and so they brought their children with them.[43] Every man on-board the Lady Juliana indulged in a sexual relationship with a convict woman, so — not surprisingly — most of the women either arrived in Sydney pregnant or gave birth at sea. Many of the convict-passengers became pregnant and even gave birth during the long voyage. Historians generally believe five to seven babies were born on the ship,[44] but steward John Nicol suggested no less than twenty had been born while the ship was in port at Rio. They were prepared for the births - the ship had received a small donation of baby linens before leaving England.[45]When Lady Juliana arrived at Port Jackson she was the first vessel to arrive since the First Fleet's arrival almost two and a half years before. With the colony in the grip of starvation, (Six marines had recently been hanged for stealing food and 90 per cent of the diet in Sydney consisted of rice wriggling with weevils.) and with HMS Sirius having sunk off Norfolk Island,[46] Judge Advocate David Collins was mortified at the arrival of "a cargo so unnecessary and so unprofitable as 222 females, instead of a cargo of provisions".[47] Lieutenant Ralph Clark was more blunt, lamenting the arrival of still more "damned whores".[48]A seaman who witnessed the arrival of the women from the Lady Juliana wrote:"They were all fresh, well looking women."[49]The ship carried letters bringing the first news of events in Europe to the settlement since the First Fleet had sailed in May 1787. However, the colonists’ ire eased after the supply ships Justinian, Surprize, Neptune, and Scarborough arrived in Sydney Cove just three weeks after the Lady Juliana.[50]Australia’s tragic beginnings: The grotesque story of the the Second fleetFor their part, many of the women convicts experienced a newfound sense of freedom at Sydney Cove. Freed from the strictures of traditional society and class, these women saw their new home as a chance to create a new life for themselves — a life filled with unprecedented opportunities. Women arriving in Australia were free from certain British moral codes, even while colonial officials expected them to be vessels of morality. English laws that marked children of unwed mothers as illegitimate, for example, were not enforced.[51] The women of the Lady Juliana were also fortunate in that they avoided the fate that awaited future generations of convict women bound for Australia - the notoriously brutal Parramatta Female Factory didn't open until 1821, well after their sentences ended.[52]Though being transported to a new colony to get married and propagate British family life was no doubt daunting, many women made the most of their circumstances in Australia. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the Australian colonies were societies on the rise - and they created new opportunities. Some Lady Juliana passengers became upwardly mobile once their prison terms ended. While some returned to England, others remained in Australia to make their fortune. Ann Marsh, for one, found success after being abandoned by her ship husband. She started and ran a variety of businesses, including a liquor shop and founding the Parramatta River Boat Service, which still runs today.[53] In 1823, Rachel Hoddy applied for a license to sell liquor, beer, and wine and became the only woman in Hobart Town to operate a pub, “The Horse and Groom.”[54] And by the time she died at 87, Mary Wade had become Australia’s greatest matriarch, heading a five generation family with more than 300 members.[55] These women had a lasting impact on the land, becoming yhe "founding mothers of Australia."Footnotes[1] A Population History of London[2] Rethinking the Bloody Code in Eighteenth-Century Britain: Capital Punishment at the Centre and on the Periphery[3] British Convicts to Australia - Historic UK[4] Orders in Council (1807) - Wikipedia[5] British Convicts to Australia - Historic UK[6] Who was Governor Arthur Phillip?[7] Governor, soldier, spy: Uncovering the history of Arthur Phillip[8] Second Fleet Ships and Passengers[9] Voyage of the Courtesans | The Lady Juliana And The New World | Secrets of the Dead | PBS[10] The little-known story of Australia’s convict women - Australian Geographic[11] Seduced and dying: the sympathetic trope of the fallen woman in early and mid-Victorian Britain, c. 1820-1870[12] The Life and Adventures of John Nicol, Mariner[13] The little-known story of Australia’s convict women - Australian Geographic[14] Australia’s tragic beginnings: The grotesque story of the the Second fleet[15] Mary Wade: The Littlest Convict[16] The history of how Australia obtained Sheilas; the story of The Lady Juliana, The 18th-Century Prison Ship Filled With Women[17] The 'Floating Brothel' Lady Juliana: A Convict Ship That Became a Love Boat[18] Lady Juliana Convict Ship 1789[19] MYTHS: THE LADY JULIANA[20] Lady Juliana[21] Legacies of British Slave-ownership[22] The Life and Adventures of John Nicol, Mariner[23] Facts About The Lady Juliana Ship: Convict Women Sent To Australia[24] The Life and Adventures of John Nicol, Mariner[25] Lady Juliana 1790[26] Convict Ship Lady Juliana 1790[27] Elizabeth Barnsley[28] The Life and Adventures of John Nicol, Mariner[29] Voyage of the Courtesans | The Lady Juliana And The New World | Secrets of the Dead | PBS[30] The Life and Adventures of John Nicol, Mariner[31] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/curated/floating-brothel&ved=2ahUKEwiHicvXo63qAhXFGM0KHUWeCaYQFjABegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw395V4a06jGRrQS3jC_dtt3[32] Ann Marsh[33] In These Times[34] The Life and Adventures of John Nicol, Mariner[35] Sons of the Waves[36] Children and Youth in History[37] Young Offenders[38] Lady Juliana[39] MYTHS: THE LADY JULIANA[40] Lady Juliana (1777 ship) - Wikipedia[41] Lady Juliana[42] Weight of Evidence[43] LADY JULIANA 1789[44] Lady Juliana women to VDL 1807-1813[45] Historical Records of New South Wales: Grose and Paterson, 1793-1795[46] The most devastating shipwreck in Australian history[47] The Pacific Muse[48] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/ozlit/pdf/clajour.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwj_o6HNiK3qAhVaV80KHWc3Ab8QFjADegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw3au78wyTvnQkrfPGxdAKov[49] Weight of Evidence[50] Voyage of the Courtesans | The Lady Juliana And The New World | Secrets of the Dead | PBS[51] Convicts, Thieves, Domestics, and Wives in Colonial Australia: The Rebellious Lives of Ellen Murphy and Jane New[52] Parramatta Female Factory[53] Ann Marsh Convict c.1767-1823[54] Australian Royalty[55] Mary Wade to Us : A Family History 1778-1986

What Would a Socialist America Look Like?We asked thinkers on the left—and a couple of outliers—to describe their vision for a re-imagined American economy.THE FRIDAY COVERJust a decade ago, “socialism” was a dirty word in American politics. Debates over its merits were mostly limited to obscure blogs, niche magazines and political parties on the other side of the Atlantic. But more recently Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and a handful of other politicians have breathed new life into the label, injecting a radical alternate vision for the U.S. economy into the mainstream political debate. Ahead of the midterms, politicians like Ocasio-Cortez, Michigan’s Rashida Tlaib, and Kansas’ James Thompson have proudly held up their endorsements from Democratic Socialists of America, the country’s largest socialist group, whose numbers have swelled since Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign.For Fox News viewers, it’s the stuff of nightmares—not to mention that skittish Democrats fear alienating swing voters more comfortable with their party’s post-Lyndon B. Johnson incrementalism. According to a pollfrom August, however, for the first time since Gallup has asked the question, more Democrats approve of socialism than of capitalism. Could socialism really come to America—and what would it look like? Politico Magazine invited a group of socialist writers, policy wonks and politicians (and a few critics) to weigh in, and their responses were as diverse as the movement itself—reflecting, if nothing else, the expanded political horizons of our post-Trump brave new world. —Derek Robertson***If it’s good enough for the Nordics, it’s good enough for us.Matthew Bruenig is the founder of the People’s Policy Project, a progressive think tank.One way to implement socialism in the United States would be to copy many of the economic institutions found in the Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Norway. These countries, which consistently rank near the top of the world in happiness, human development and overall well-being, have highly organized labor markets, universal welfare states and relatively high levels of public ownership of capital.To move in the Nordic direction, the United States should promote the mass unionization of its workforce, increase legal protections against arbitrary termination and allow workers to control some of the seats on the corporate boards of the companies they work in, as Senator Elizabeth Warren has recently suggested.When it comes to the welfare state, the country should create a national health insurance system, akin to some Democrats’ “Medicare for All” proposals, extend new parents paid leave from work, provide young children free child care and pre-K, and give each family a $300 per month allowance per child. The United States should also provide housing stipends to those on low incomes and increase the minimum benefits for those on senior and disability pensions.To increase public ownership over capital, the government should establish a social wealth fund and gradually fill that fund with capital assets purchased on the open market. Over time, the returns from this fund could be parceled out as universal payments to every American, or used for general government revenue. The government should also build at least 10 million units of publicly owned, mixed-income social housing, which would both increase public ownership of the U.S. housing stock and provide a much-needed boost to the housing supply in prohibitively expensive metropolitan areas.***Democratic socialism is about expanding democracy.David Duhalde is the senior electoral manager for Our Revolution, the Sanders-inspired progressive nonprofit.The often-ignored core of how we would implement socialism is the expansion of who makes decisions in society and how, including the democratic ownership of the workplace. Democratic socialism in the United States is as much about expanding democracy as it is anything else.In the short term, socialists, like liberals, want to protect, strengthen, and expand social services and public goods. We do so, however, not just because those programs are humane, but to move us toward a social democracy where people’s lives are less bound to the whims of the so-called free market. Universal health care and a jobs guarantee, two seemingly radical ideas that are in fact currently before the Senate, would be just the first steps toward social democracy.Establishing democratic socialism means democratizing ownership of capital, our jobs and our personal lives. Socialists believe that if you work somewhere, you should have a say it in how it’s run. Through unions, worker councils and elected boards, this is possible at the company level today. Furthermore, if your labor generates profit, under socialism you would have an ownership stake and a democratic say in how your workplace is run. Co-ops and public enterprises like Mandragon in the Basque country, Cooperation Jackson in Mississippi and Red Emma’s in Baltimore give us a partial glimpse into what such ownership could look like. This type of democratized economy would grant autonomy to historically neglected communities, and it would be the foundation of any socialist United States.***Call it what you want, it’s about making communities more equal.Rashida Tlaib is the Democratic candidate for Michigan’s 13th Congressional District.Socialism, to me, means ensuring that our government policy puts human needs before corporate greed and that we build communities where everyone has a chance to thrive. I’m resistant to labels, even ones that might obviously describe me, like “progressive,” because I feel like once the media starts defining you, instead of letting your actions speak volumes, you start to lose a bit of who you are. I’m proud to be a member of the Metro Detroit DSA because they are working for the same things I’m working for—a living wage for all people, abolishing ICE and securing universal health care, to name just a few.We’re trying to create communities where the education you have access to, or the jobs you’re able to get, don’t depend on your zip code or your race or gender. People aren’t looking for a “progressive” or a “democratic socialist” representative, necessarily, but they also aren’t scared of those words—they’re just looking for a fighter who will put their needs ahead of corporate profits and never back down. So, if other people want to call me a democratic socialist based on my fighting for public goods that make us all better off, that’s fine with me, and I certainly won’t tell them otherwise. But I define myself through my own unique lens—I’m a mother fighting for justice for all. Ultimately, I’m trying to build coalitions and inspire activists to create a society where everyone has a chance to flourish. That’s the socialism I’m interested in.***Socialism would remedy the systemic deprivation of people of color.Connie M. Razza is director of policy and research at the think tank Demos.A more democratically socialist—or equitable—American economy would require a re-engineering of the structures that have systematically stripped wealth and other resources from communities of color. To see these structures, one could look back hundreds of years to Europeans stripping land from Native Americans and enslaving Africans to till that land; one could look back just nine months to Republicans passing a tax cut to benefit their big-money donors at the expense of the working and poor people.Additionally, a new system would adjust how corporations are treated, recognizing what is already true: We invest in corporations and the infrastructure they rely on because they should serve us. With the current mood for deregulation and cutting taxes, we’ve shifted power to corporations. Appropriate regulation and fair taxation help business to pool resources—whether money (as in finance), power (as in energy companies), technology, food—and distribute them where they truly need to go.Crucially, an equitable future requires that everyone has an equal say in American democracy—equal ease in access to voting, free of overly restrictive hurdles. Smart public financing would enable voters to participate meaningfully by donating to candidates and enable all qualified citizens to run for office. Money should not give the wealthy extra votes. A more balanced political economy would recognize that only speech is speech, and the opportunity to influence the thinking of representatives is through the soundness of ideas.***Democratic socialism means democratic ownership over the economy.Peter Gowan is a fellow with the progressive nonprofit the Democracy Collaborative.A democratically elected government should own natural monopolies such as utilities and rail transport; provide social services like health care, education, housing, child care and banking; and create a general welfare state that eliminates poverty through guaranteeing a minimum income, with assistance for people with disabilities, the elderly and families with children.But we have to go beyond that. We need measures to establish democratic ownership over the wider economy, and eliminate our dependence on industries that rely on pollution and war for their existence. There need to be strategies to allow workers in the defense, aerospace and fossil fuel industries to repurpose their facilities for more socially useful production, drawing on the example of the Lucas Plan in Britain, where workers designed and published a viable “alternative corporate plan” that included funding for renewable energy, public transport and medical technology. We need a mechanism to transfer corporate equity into sector-oriented social wealth funds controlled by diverse and accountable stakeholders, which would gradually transfer ownership away from unaccountable elites and toward inclusive institutions.A democratic socialist America would be a society where wealth and power are far more evenly distributed, and it would be less cruel, less lonely and less alienating. Democratic socialism aims for the liberation of human agency and creativity—not just in America, but in all the countries that capital exploits and invades for the profits of our nation’s billionaires.***It’s about giving everyone a voice in decision-making.Maria Svart is national director of the Democratic Socialists of America.Our collective power is the key to what socialism in America would look like, because democratic socialism rests on one key premise: We don’t have a blueprint, so expanding democracy to include all of us is both the means and the end.The problem with capitalism is not just that a system fueled by a wealthy, profit-hungry elite is inherently unstable, or that it leaves whole layers of society starving in the streets. It is that it relies on the dictatorship of the rich. The fundamental difference we expect from a socialist society is that we will all have a voice in the decisions that impact our lives. Workplaces will be owned by the workers who run them, rather than an authoritarian boss.The political system will be truly democratic, rather than run by those who have bought the politicians. Family life will be more democratic, and no one will have to depend on a breadwinner to survive because public services like health care will be available to all, and will be run with community oversight. Finally, government investment will be democratic, rather than decided by corporate donors or Wall Street gamblers. In other words, we will have true freedom, not just survival—the choices available to us now that depend on the whims of the few.***It’s much simpler: social insurance.Samuel Hammond is director of poverty and welfare studies at the free market think tank the Niskanen Center.Almost a century after FDR signed the Social Security Act into law, it remains his most enduring legacy, helping to keep more than 22 million seniors out of poverty each year—and protecting millions more from the risk of outliving their savings. And yet, we generally don’t think of Social Security as, well, “socialist.” But why shouldn’t we? Not only is it the federal government’s largest outlay—one third of the budget, at nearly $1 trillion per year—but its establishment signified that even the most rugged American individualist is ultimately bound to his or her fellow citizens.The frontier spirit of American entrepreneurship, and the enormous heterogeneity that comes with being a nation of immigrants, means the United States will never have the high-trust brand of social democracy one finds in Northern Europe. Yet the success of Social Security provides a two-word hint for how America can become more “socialist” overnight: social insurance.Social insurance is the public pooling of risks that markets struggle to contain, from pre-existing medical conditions to the sudden loss of employment. It can be done efficiently by any government competent enough to cut checks. And while the bureaucratic opacity of the Social Security Administration can be infuriating, it appears perfectly compatible with America’s low-trust brand of pluralism. This suggests that the path forward for American socialists is not occupying Wall Street, but the streets of Hartford, Connecticut—the nation’s insurance industry capital.***Forget social democracy. America is ready for actual socialism.Joe Guinan is executive director of the Next System Project at the Democracy Collaborative.When socialism comes to America, it won’t be “one size fits all”—although it will have universalist aspects and aspirations. Rather than imposed from above, it will be bottom up, in line with America’s best traditions—able to draw, like the New Deal, on a rich tapestry of experimentation in state and local “laboratories of democracy.” It will be democratic, decentralized and participatory. It will be rooted in racial, gender and sexual justice, recalling Langston Hughes’ “and that never has been yet—and yet must be.” It will dismantle an already-existing American gulag—today’s racialized regime of mass incarceration, encompassing the largest prison population in the world—rather than imposing one. It will be about living safely, wisely and well within a flourishing commons, in solidarity with our nonhuman comrades, rather than overshooting ecological boundaries in the pursuit of financial accumulation.This will be actual socialism, rather than social democracy or liberalism, because it will have socialized the means of production—although in plural forms that do not all center on the state. Instead of concentrated wealth, it will have broad dispersal of ownership. Instead of frictionless global markets, the rooted, participatory, recirculatory local economy. Instead of extractive multinational corporations, the worker, community and municipally owned firm. Instead of asset-stripping privatization, myriad forms of democratic public enterprise. Instead of private credit creation by commercial banks and rentier finance, the massive potential power of public banks and sovereign government finance—harkening back to Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt.***A radical alternative to an American capitalist system that is anything but free.Thomas Hanna is director of research at the Democracy Collaborative.A practical form of socialism in the United States in the 21st century would occur when democratic ownership displaces and supersedes the current, dominant extractive corporate model. There is no single, ideal form of democratic ownership, but an enormous variety including full state ownership, partial state ownership, local/municipal ownership, multi-stakeholder ownership, worker ownership, consumer cooperative ownership, producer cooperative ownership, community ownership and sustainable local private ownership.Despite all the rhetoric about the “free market,” the American capitalist system is anything but. It’s already reliant on a heavy dose of government policy, regulation, administration and accompanying interventions at various levels—in some cases even approximating soft planning, as in, for example, the farm sector. Some such mix of markets and planning will, at least at first, inevitably be a feature of an American socialist system, ideally with more democratic involvement in determining long-term national, regional and local priorities, on one hand. On the other, it will feature greater rationality in efforts toward more geographically equitable economic development—not to mention dealing with the increasing threat of climate change.***America could turn into Western Europe. But should it?Carrie Lukas is the president of the Independent Women’s Forum. She lived in the European Union for the majority of the past decade.When Americans talk about socialism, they typically aren’t referring to government seizing property and taking control of industry. Rather, they mean more aggressive and redistributive policies, with more regulation and higher taxes to fund more generous welfare services—similar to policies already implemented in Western Europe.While this path is clearly preferable to more extreme versions of socialism, Americans should still be wary. Higher taxes and more generous welfare services discourage work and invite people to rely on the state. Countries with strong cultures of work and personal responsibility are held up as examples of how this system can succeed, but these are the exceptions; high unemployment rates and lower incomes are the norm.Americans also face unique budgetary concerns: Europe has been able to forgo massive spending on defense and national security largely because of the role the U.S. military plays in our global alliances. The United States has no such guaranteed backstop. Meaningfully cutting defense spending will make not just our country, but the world, less secure.Just as importantly, Americans ought to consider how welfare-state socialism undermines people’s basic gumption. Europeans can hardly bother to reproduce, are less charitable, have less civic engagement and are less entrepreneurial than Americans. American innovation, risk-taking and our fundamental commitment to leaving the next generation better off than the last would all be jeopardized if we embrace European socialism. These are the virtues we would undoubtedly miss the most.***A complete welfare state, a transformed labor market and state ownership of the means of production.Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent for The Week.The moral motivation for a move to socialism is egalitarianism, taken from John Rawls or Jesus Christ or whomever. The basic objective would be to harness the wealth developed by the collective operation of the economy on behalf of the entire population, because it is unjust for a tiny elite minority to hoover up a gigantic fraction of income and wealth while millions are destitute or just scraping by.In general, there are three main socialist policy objectives that make the most sense. The first is a complete welfare state, in which the state will catch every category of person who either falls out of work or cannot work—the unemployed, children, students, elderly, disabled, carers and so on. Once complete, the welfare state removes the capitalist compulsion to work by threat of destitution, and replaces that threat with the offer of job placement, training and so forth. Second would be a radically transformed labor market, in which virtually all workers are unionized and covered by union contracts, wage differentials between skilled and unskilled are sharply compressed, and workers hold perhaps 33 percent to 50 percent of corporate board seats. Third is the direct state ownership of the means of production, either through building up productive state enterprises, nationalizing certain key companies, or scooping up large swathes of corporate equity into a social wealth fund (as Alaska has done).This last one is the most radical but, I think, necessary to really hammer down inequality. A third of all national income goes to capital, ownership of which is increasingly concentrated. Indeed, all the top 1 percent income growth since 2000 has come from capital.***Markets are not enough to solve the problems we face.Sean McElwee is a writer and the co-founder of Data for Progress.Socialism is the radically simple idea that democratic values should guide our economy toward the maximization of human flourishing, rather than the accumulation of capital. We would never accept decisions about our government being made exclusively by old rich white men, and we shouldn’t accept decisions about our economy being made that way. Historically, rich white men as a group have not been the best stewards of the common interests of humanity.When our economy is not democratic, it’s impossible for our government to be. We cannot steer our society toward maximum well-being as efficiently as the interests of capital override the interests of our shared humanity. Take, for example, climate change: The math is simple. Our largest corporations have fossil fuel supplies that, if burned through, would push global concentrations of carbon to more than twice the dangerous threshold. The choice is simple: Humanity exists, and companies take a write-off, or companies maintain profitability and human life is extinguished.How do socialists differ from liberal Democrats? First, socialists recognize that markets alone are not enough to solve the problems we face. In the current moment, the market capitalization of just a few large fossil fuel companies has been enough to override the will of not just American voters, but the international community. More of the economy must be taken out of the hands of markets—not just energy production, but health care, through socialized medicine. Second, socialists recognize that a welfare state built on imperialism is not a progressive goal. The United States, as many Democratic politicians like noting, is the wealthiest country in the world. That wealth is built on violence tantamount to murder on a global scale. It is the wages of empire. A socialist politics strives for a radical flattening of the global income distribution.Socialists believe that without democratic control of capital and an end to imperialism, the goals of progressivism will be left unfulfilled. Socialists argue that capitalism is incompatible with democracy. To those who disagree, we pose a simple question: which will be wiped out sooner—the market capitalization of ExxonMobil, or the city of Miami?