America and media mis­in­ter­pre­ta­tion about social­ism con­tinue to fuel mis­con­cep­tions about President Barack Obama’s administration

Dr. Thomas Jorsch, Ferris State University his­tory instruc­tor, gave a speech enti­tled “Why Barack Obama is not a Socialist”.

Humanities Department Colloquium series put on the speech to edu­cate the cam­pus about media mis­con­cep­tions of President Barack Obama and social­ism. Jorsch’s speech on Oct. 22 com­pared and con­trasted the Obama admin­is­tra­tion with social­ist views.

Socialism can be defined as an eco­nomic orga­ni­za­tion advo­cat­ing pub­lic or direct worker own­er­ship, admin­is­tra­tion of means of pro­duc­tion and resource allo­ca­tion. Socialist soci­eties are char­ac­ter­ized by equal access to resources for all indi­vid­u­als with a method of com­pen­sa­tion based on the amount of labor expended, while democ­racy is defined as a sys­tem in which gov­ern­ing is car­ried out by either the peo­ple or an elected representitive.

Although Jorsch claims that Obama is not a social­ist, he believes that democ­racy and social­ism are closely related.

“Socialism is democ­racy, there is no dis­tinc­tion,” said Jorsch. “But Obama is a lib­eral who hopes to use gov­ern­ment to reg­u­late the abuses of capitalism.”

Obama’s auto and bank bailouts were one of Jorsch’s com­par­isons. Jorsch said that Obama’s actions do not add up to social­ism because social­ism would not have given money to pri­vate busi­ness own­ers; rather, it would put the power into the work­ers’ hands.

“Socialism is the pub­lic run­ning busi­ness for the ben­e­fit of the pub­lic, not the ben­e­fit of pri­vate enti­ties,” said Jorsch.

Healthcare reform was another issue that Jorsch dis­cussed. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Obama’s reform plan will cre­ate more secu­rity for those with health care, make health care afford­able, cre­ate cov­er­age for the unin­sured and reduce the profit of insur­ance companies.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau sta­tis­tics from 2008, there are 47 mil­lion unin­sured Americans. 18,000 peo­ple die yearly because they can­not afford med­ical bills. Jorsch believes that Obama’s health­care tac­tics mir­ror his pre­de­ces­sors, Presidents Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt, more than socialism.

Jorsch, who con­sid­ers him­self a social­ist, believes that America could oper­ate eff­i­cen­tily under a social­ist regime.

“Our present cap­i­tal­is­tic sys­tem is based on greed,” said Jorsch.  “What we need to do is demol­ish that sys­tem and cre­ate one based on cooperation.”

Socialism may appear to cre­ate utopian soci­eties; how­ever, some peo­ple think that America could fall under such a sys­tem. Many audi­ence mem­bers ques­tion the incen­tives for indi­vid­u­als to excel when every­one is con­sid­ered equal.