More on Soltysik

So, I researched Mimi Soltysik further and have more things to add to my analysis.

1) The guy is from Reading, PA. As you guys know, I'm also from southeastern PA and it looks like we have a common background in terms of shared experiences that may have ultimately had a massive impact on our views. If you want to see the problems with capitalism, look no further than Reading. The place has like a 40% poverty rate, and actually surpassed the likes of Detroit during the recession in terms of poverty, being the poorest city in the US in 2011 and it was still second as recently as 2013. As of last year it was 7th. Here's a recent article I've read explaining just how poor this city is. It's a mess, and no amount of mainstream politics is going to fix it. Soltysik called it "a city devastated by neoliberalism." That's not far off the mark. Good to have a candidate who is likely influenced by similar forces as I have been, and who sees the world in a similar way, if not in actual solutions, in seeing the problem. This is a problem I have with Clinton. She's like an aristocrat. She seems to want the presidency for her own gain, wanting the legacy of being the first woman president, and performing all kinds of machiavellian actions to knock out the competition. I want a sincere candidate with a serious desire for social change, not an aristocrat who is out of touch, paying lip service, and is in it for their own gain. This is what I get from Clinton. Mimi Soltysik seems far more sincere.

2) Despite common ground in the development of our views and environmental facts on it, we ultimately do have different solutions. This guy is a socialist, first and foremost. A full fledged democratic socialist. Not a social democrat using the same name like Bernie was, or someone with my mixed economy ideology. He is definitely to the left of me, and wants more radical change than I want. I really just want a more extreme form of welfare capitalism, and am open to democratic socialism as a possible solution. It's just not my primary goal. As I've stated before, I'd rather focus on an anti work left wing ideology that seeks to reduce forced labor and giving people the power to say no. Meanwhile, Soltysik and the socialists push for full employment, which I see as impractical and undesirable. He rejects all forms of welfare capitalism it seems, which is a good way to summarize my views. Socialists think worker exploitation and lack of freedom ends when everyone has a job, and everyone has a democratic stake in said job. Meanwhile, I think we're better if we're free to reject employment from the get go. The difference can best be summed up by Karl Widerquist's "Big Casino" essay, in which he criticizes both capitalist and socialist economies as not really giving people the freedom to live their life as they want, and believes the best way is to give everyone the ability and freedom to say no (for reference, Widerquist wrote a whole book about this and it's made a huge impact on my views).

This is not to say that socialism as Soltysik wants it is bad. As I said, it's comparable to the socialism the green party recently adopted. I think Soltysik has a lot of good ideas to bring to the debate, and believe socialists have made many positive contributions in the past to economic policy in the US by forcing presidents like FDR to the left (one of my favorite presidents if you recall). And the idea of economic democracy is a good one in theory. I like the idea of socialism. The real question has to do with implementation. Can it work? I believe capitalism and the profit motive, despite their flaws, still do a lot of good. I reject both wholesale pro capitalistic ideologies, and ideologies that seek to eliminate the very concept of it. I think the truth is somewhere in between.

As such, I'm skeptical of a lot of Soltysik's ideas and believe he is more extreme than I am. However, I admittedly think the same about Stein all things considered. I really would like to see a third party take the middle ground between the democrats and full on socialism, trying to bring together the best ideas of both capitalist and socialist movements. I believe Bernie Sanders was pretty close to that ideal. I'm maybe a tad to the left or right of him depending on how you classify basic income as a policy.

The real question now is Soltysik or Stein? Stein is maybe slightly to the right of soltysik, but both have some pretty awful policies and ideas at times. They both try to promise these radical things that are impractical and possibly damaging. While Stein is more pro basic income and perhaps a little more pro capitalist in some ways, she also has some awful ideas on GMOs and the like, whereas Soltysik seems to potentially be far more well informed and articulate. Stein comes off kind of scatter brained sometimes to be honest. I only support her for lack of a better option and my refusal to support the democrats this election. Soltysik seems a bit more on point, but is even more radical than Stein in some ways, and this isn't something I really support.

As I said, I see the world in a problem definition way similarly to socialists, but my solutions are a bit different. I'm open to some socialism but don't see it as an end all, and also have some reservations about it too. So honestly, it's really a question of who is a better candidate, and this requires a lot more thought from me.