What is “Radical” About Taking Care of Each Other?

And why do Americans fear the word “socialist?”

My son’s friend Emily, born and raised in California, met a German woman, fell in love, and moved to Berlin. When she first moved, she felt certain she would return to the San Francisco Bay Area one day. But a few years later, she’s not so sure. Although she loves the climate and beauty of San Francisco, and has family here, life is just too good to pass up in Germany, which has a “social market economy” that has resulted in the “largest national economy in Europe,” and “the fourth-largest by nominal GDP in the world,” according to the Economy of Germany Wikipedia page.

Her experience makes me wonder what President Trump even means when he tries to scare voters with terms like “Radical Left” and “Socialism.” What does he mean by “Radical?” What does he mean by “Socialism?” What is radical about equal opportunity, support, and taking care of each other?

I get the feeling Donald Trump and the GOP are trying to invoke the spectre of the former United Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR), which every Baby Boomer was taught to hate and fear in elementary school. But that’s not the government system that any American politician is advocating, including Bernie Sanders, who identifies as a Democratic Socialist. It’s just an imaginary boogeyman.

Here are the facts about what it’s like to live in a social democracy like Germany.

Free Healthcare

In the first place, Emily doesn’t have to worry about healthcare. Taxes are taken out of her paycheck to cover that. And yes, people pay a lot of taxes in Germany. But I would gladly pay more taxes if I didn’t have to worry about healthcare and all the other things the German government takes care of for residents.

Here in the U.S., I’m currently paying an astonishing $1,250 a month to insure both me and my husband — and I’m on Medicare! We dropped dental insurance, because that was going to cost another $200 a month and had an annual cap that made it a bad investment. Plus, we can’t really afford it. We dropped vision insurance, even though we both wear glasses, for the same reason. We need to cut costs. Forget long-term care insurance. It’s highway robbery. So when we get older and debilitated someday, we have no guarantee that we’ll be taken care of. Look for us under a flap of cardboard in the Tenderloin in 20 years…

Yet despite our financial insecurity, we’re relatively well off. I have a pension after working as a teacher for 17 years. I’m annoyed that “double dipping” laws don’t let me also get my full Social Security, which I contributed to for 25 years, working various jobs before becoming a teacher. But my husband has a job, at least. And we inherited some money, some of which we used to help our three kids get established via going to college, starting a small business, and receiving needed healthcare; and some of which we hold in reserve for emergencies for ourselves and our grown children. We aren’t going to become homeless anytime soon. That will happen later.

But honestly, is that all we should be able to expect from living in one of the richest countries in the world?

Free or Paid College

Emily married her sweetheart, and thereby became a citizen, I think. I’ve sent her a number of detailed questions and will write a follow-up story when she replies. But what I do know for sure is that she had little to no trouble with immigration and now has been accepted into a PAID internship program which is going to teach her how to be a surgical nurse.

Let me repeat. Emily doesn’t have to go into debt to go to college in Berlin. Berlin is going to pay her — a lowly immigrant — to learn a useful and well-paid profession. Nice. Plus she wasn’t forced to get a BA first before pursuing a worthy career goal. Smart system.

In fact, all college is free in Germany. And of course they take taxes out to pay for that. But there’s NO WAY they take out more taxes than it costs to go to college — or send your children to college — and pay for health insurance in the United States.

When I hear politicians threaten that the “Radical Left” is going to raise taxes, I just roll my eyes. Because when I do the math, I realize that I would wind up with much more money in my pocket if I didn’t have to pay for these basic needs.

Affordable Rent

I’m not sure how this is achieved — more will be revealed when I get Emily’s email— but I do know that she pays half the money for twice the apartment in Berlin than she did in San Francisco.

My husband and I are currently paying a knee-buckling $3,350 a month for a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco. And it’s not a fancy apartment! It’s in a nice neighborhood — because I don’t want to walk by homeless people crapping on the street or doing drugs on the sidewalk if I can possibly help it — but it’s a bit run-down. The hardwood floor is stained and buckled. The carpet on the stairs coming up from the lobby is ragged. The tiles in the bathroom are chipped. There’s no view. The building is noisy. One neighbor “plays” drums. Everybody has a dog, or two, some of whom bark when they’re left alone in the apartment. And still there’s no way we would be able to afford living here if we hadn’t bought a home (using inherited money for the down payment) on the Peninsula 40 years ago, which we now rent to our son so we can pay our rent here.

My father was a dentist. My mother worked in a library. My husband’s father was a lawyer. His mother had a knitting shop. If we hadn’t had these high-paid professionals for parents, who were able to accumulate and then pass on some wealth to their children, god knows how or where we’d be living today. By which I mean to say, America isn’t really the “land of opportunity” that’s advertised, so much as it’s a land of perpetuating the status quo. We are “middle class” because our parents were. Likewise our children.

Emily, on the other hand, didn’t have high-paid professionals for parents, which is a big reason she didn’t go to college here. And if she were still living in the United States, she’d be juggling a number of low-wage jobs just to pay the rent in a crappy apartment on the border of the Tenderloin, where yes, crapping and injecting in public commonly occur. Whereas in Berlin, she’s living in a nice home while being paid to learn a new, interesting, and well-paid profession. So which is the real land of opportunity?

Healthy Food

Germany has laws against genetically modified organisms. Whether or not GMOs are healthy is a matter up for debate. But while that debate is going on, Germany comes down on the side of protecting its residents from unexpected outcomes. The United States, on the other hand, comes down on the side of corporations. “Make as much money as you can!” is the U.S. motto, and if residents get birth defects, or cancer, or early onset of puberty, or immune system deficiencies, or other conditions as a result of GMOs, or tobacco, or dirty water, or polluted air, or hormone- or antibody-injected farm animals, or or PCBs, or anything else, it’s not their problem! the government says.

So what is the government’s problem, if not taking care of its residents?

Apparently, their only problem is how to help corporations destroy the planet while lining their own pockets by doing their dark overlords’ bidding.

Happiness

So what’s the overall result of living in a country that thinks every person deserves healthcare, every person deserves a good education, every person deserves a good job, every person deserves a decent place to live, and every person deserves a healthy environment, including healthy food?

I have to believe it’s happiness. Because Emily is happier living in Germany than she is living in the United States.

Because those are the traits we try to teach our children: be kind, be fair, take care of yourself and each other. Those are the building blocks we believe make a good life. They’re also the building blocks that make a good country.

I’m not saying Germany is perfect. What I’m saying is that America is horribly wrong-headed when it puts the profits of corporations before the basic needs and general well-being of residents. And I’m saying it doesn’t have to be that way. Other countries do it differently, and they’re doing very well.

So let’s be clear what politicians on the “Radical Left” like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are calling for: Not authoritarianism. Not bread lines. Not social collapse. Not demagoguery. The “Radical Left” is calling for human decency.

And that’s a goal we should all get behind.

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