“Socialist” Factors in the US Presidential Election

ABSTRACT

Bernie Sanders, who claims to be a “socialist,” surprisingly rises from the 2016 US Democratic presidential primaries, and has created a socialist vision for future America. The “socialism” he has self-claimed for is virtually democratic socialism. Sander’s meteoric rise in the election polls indicates that capitalist crisis is increasingly exacerbated; meanwhile, socialist thought tends to revitalize in the United States and other capitalist countries. The “socialism” Sanders has claimed will not take place in the United States, yet the historical tendency that socialism will inevitably replace capitalism is not going to change.

KEYWORDS:

• Systemic crisis in the United States
• democratic socialism
• socialism

Acknowledgements

Zhang Xinning would like to thank Professor David Kotz for his insightful comments about the main trends in the revival of Anglo-American Marxian economics during the author’s stay as a visiting scholar at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2012–13.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Zhang Xinning (following Chinese practice, the surname, Zhang, is placed first) is Associate Professor at Henan University of Finance and Economics in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, China, and a post-doctoral research fellow at the Institute of Contemporary China Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, China. His research focuses on Marxist economics.

Pei Shaohua (following Chinese practice, the surname, Pei, is placed first) is a PhD student at the College of Human Sciences, Iowa State University, Ames, USA. Her research focuses on critical race theory and higher education theory.

Notes

1 See “The Transcript of Bernie Sanders’s Victory Speech.” The Washington Post, February 10, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/02/10/the-transcript-of-bernie-sanderss-victory-speech.

2 See “Bernie Sanders, Big Spender: Our View.” USA Today, October 19, 2015. http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/10/19/bernie-sanders-spending-deficits-benefits-editorials-debates/74230978/.

3 See “The Transcript of Bernie Sanders's Victory Speech.” The Washington Post, February 10, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/02/10/the-transcript-of-bernie-sanderss-victory-speech.

4 See “The Transcript of Bernie Sanders's Victory Speech.” The Washington Post, February 10, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/02/10/the-transcript-of-bernie-sanderss-victory-speech.

5 See “The Transcript of Bernie Sanders's Victory Speech.” The Washington Post, February 10, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/02/10/the-transcript-of-bernie-sanderss-victory-speech.