“A deepity is a proposition that seems to be profound because it is actually logically ill-formed. It has (at least) two readings and balances precariously between them. On one reading it is true but trivial. And on another reading it is false, but would be earth-shattering if true.”
Dennett’s standard example of a deepity, shown in the linked video, is the phrase “love is just a word”, which is a typical use-mention error, but there are other ways to use such ambiguity to both have your cake and eat it.
Take socialism, if you must. Socialism could mean social democracy, which is a system of regulated capitalism, or it could mean democratic socialism, which is a form of socialism that includes voting. One fits in comfortably in the left wing of the DNC, and is not particularly controversial. The other is Communism lite, and has been an unmitigated disaster in the banana republics that have tried it.
Wikipedia (currently) defines social democracy as “a political, social, and economic ideology that supports economic and social interventions to promote social justice within the framework of a liberal democratic polity and capitalist economy”. In contrast, it defines democratic socialism as “a political philosophy that advocates political democracy alongside social [meaning governmental] ownership of the means of production […]”.
What’s particularly ironic is that each of these articles helpfully links to the other, right on top, with a warning. For social democracy, it states, “Not to be confused with democratic socialism”, and for democratic socialism, “Not to be confused with social democracy”. And yet they’re confused all the time, in a way that the self-avowed socialists take full advantage of.
When a left-populist edgelord declares that they’re not a “liberal” but a trendily subversive “socialist”, this is a deepity.
If they just mean that they’re social democrats, that’s likely true but not particularly interesting. Social democracy works well in places like Sweden, and it’s entirely compatible with American liberalism.
If they mean that they’re democratic socialists, this is a view that’s very extreme, as it requires “replacing private ownership with social ownership of the means of production”.
This “replacing” is done by nationalization, in which the government forcibly seizes the assets of a business and runs it directly. Extreme versions of socialism, like Soviet Communism, would target all businesses. The more common, less radical forms instead focus on banking, energy, and media companies.
Even putting aside the nightmare that state-run media would be for free speech, the economic hardship would be catastrophic. These companies aren’t just owned by the rich; pension funds and 401(k) plans love to invest in these boring, stable businesses, so those hoping to ever retire would be hit hard.
And businesses which avoided being nationalized in the first pass are still at risk of becoming so successful that they attract the attention of the socialist government and become next in line. If NBC and Citibank can be taken over, why not Google and Amazon? Why run a business or invest in one if the price of doing well is losing it all? Ethically, where is the justice in this? Pragmatically, where is the motivation to work?
What’s funny is how the extremists on both sides are exactly opposite and still wrong. Whereas market fundamentalists insist that the government is never the right entity to run a business, socialists believe that the government is always the right one, and is in fact the only one that’s right.
So if you call out one of these people on such things as the poor track record of the Sandinistas or the craziness that is nationalization, these self-avowed socialists can retreat behind the interpretation that’s about Sweden. But when they’re not under fire, they can loudly endorse socialism to contrast themselves from the capitalism espoused by Democratic liberals. It’s unclear if they’re blurring the line because they really believe in socialism or they’re using this as a rhetorical trick to differentiate themselves from real Democrats.
This remains unclear even in the case of the most prominent example of such performative political transgressionism. Bernie Sanders seems to use “socialism”, “democratic socialism” and “social democracy” interchangeably, encouraging the confusion that he and others of his kind have taken advantage of.
Here are some cherry-picked data points, all quoted from a single article. Good luck figuring out where he stands.
- Bernie Sanders traveled to Nicaragua, where he attended an event that one wire report dubbed an “anti-U.S. rally.” […] Sanders was in a crowd estimated at a half million people, many of whom were clad in the Sandinistas’ trademark red-and-black colors and chanting “Here, there, everywhere/the Yankee will die.
- Among other things, during the 1970s and ’80s, Sanders regularly called for public takeovers of various businesses, including utilities and the oil industry. Sanders advocated seizing money from corporations and from one of America’s richest families. And, as a mayor, Sanders made forays into foreign policy that included meetings with representatives of hostile nations, rebel groups and Canadian separatists.
- In addition to inquiring about Sanders’ past support for nationalizing various industries, Yahoo News asked about Sanders’ presence at the Sandinista rally. This included a request for the campaign to confirm whether a report in the alternative weekly Seven Days that claimed the trip to Nicaragua was paid for by the Sandinista government was correct.
- [His] record reflects just how far outside of the two-party system he started out. In fact, throughout his early career, Sanders expressed distaste for both Democratic and Republican politicians. His first campaigns were long shot bids as a member of the Liberty Union Party, a radical, anti-war group that he helped found.
- Rather, he suggested the Liberty Union Party could serve as a force to mainstream socialist ideas ahead of an eventual national shift.
- Other parts of Sanders’ Liberty Union platform went well beyond anything he is currently advocating. In 1973, UPI reported that Sanders urged Vermont’s congressional delegation to “give serious thought to the nationalization of the oil industry.”
- The first [issue] was rate increases for electric and telephone service, which the paper said Sanders sought to confront with “public takeover of all privately owned electric utilities in the state.” Sanders’ plan for public ownership of utility companies involved the businesses being seized from their owners.
- It was a view he would carry forward into his 1976 gubernatorial bid: That year Sanders said the Liberty Union platform called for a state takeover of utilities “without compensation to the banks and wealthy individuals who own them.”
- However, his plan for the Rockefellers went much further, with Sanders implying he would push to have the family’s fortune used to fund government programs.
- In 1979, he penned an opinion column for the Vermont Vanguard Press about another industry he felt was ripe for a public takeover — television. […]
Sanders suggested a public takeover of the airwaves could remedy the problem. - Though he identified as a socialist, Sanders ran as an independent when he won his shocking upset.
- “I don’t believe in charities,” Sanders said before explaining that he felt government should be responsible for social programs.
- ‘I am a socialist,“ Sanders told the New York Times in 1987. “But what we’re doing here is not socialist. It’s just good government.”
- Sanders found multiple ways to involve himself in the war between the Sandinistas and the Contras in Nicaragua. In addition to traveling to the country and attending Ortega’s rally, Sanders’s Progressive Coalition on the board of aldermen passed a 1985 resolution pledging Burlington would defy President Ronald Reagan’s embargo of Nicaragua. Sanders also established a sister city relationship with a Nicaraguan town, Puerto Cabezas.
- Along with visiting Nicaragua, UPI reported, Sanders traveled to Cuba and the Soviet Union during his years as mayor.
- “A handful of people in this country are making decisions, whipping up Cold War hysteria, making us hate the Russians. We’re spending billions on military. Why can’t we take some of that money to pay for thousands of U.S. children to go to the Soviet Union?” Sanders asked, adding, “And, why can’t the Soviets take money they’re spending on arms and use it to send thousands of Russian children to America? We’ve got to start breaking down the walls of nationalism. We’ve got to get people to know one another.”
- In November of last year, as his campaign gained steam, Sanders gave a landmark speech defining his “democratic socialist ideals.” In the address, he explicitly said he does not “believe government should take over the grocery store down the street or own the means of production.”
- “The basic socialist plank is … public control of the means of production,” Jaffe said. “He believed that because he said it and I quote him as saying that. … He’s totally changed that.”
- Indeed, leftists have criticized Sanders for no longer supporting nationalization of industries and openly speculated about whether his current brand of “democratic socialism” is socialism at all.
I could go on, but I think I’m at the limits of fair use already. He has played both sides of the socialist deck over the years, and has never disavowed his more Communist past or made it clear whether he’s a democratic socialist anymore or just a social democrat.
Clearly, Sanders is the Schrödinger’s cat of socialism, but I’m uninterested in opening the box. As far as I’m concerned, the cat is already dead.