Socialist Goals for the 21st Century
- Socialist economic reforms encompass a variety of goals, ranging from a higher minimum wage to collective ownership of corporations. The website of the Socialist Party of the U.S.A. (SPUSA) calls for a minimum wage of $15 an hour with indexing for inflation, a graduated income tax in which people pay a higher percentage of their earnings in taxes as their incomes rise, worker ownership of corporations and government policies of full employment that provide a guaranteed annual income.
- Modern socialism views the modern global economy as a means for concentrating the world's wealth into the hands of a few powerful multinational corporations. SPUSA advocates U.S. withdrawal from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and opposes such global institutions as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization as oppressive institutions.
- The United States stands alone among the world's leading economic powers in its lack of a health care system that provides coverage to all people. Writing in "Monthly Review" in 2009, authors Fred Magdoff and Michael Yates called the U.S. system a wasteful, costly disgrace that fails to cover all people. Modern socialism views health care as a right that should not be subjected to the profit motive.
- A major socialist goal for the 21st century includes a renewed concern for the quality of the environment. Magdoff and Yates wrote in 2009 that anything that increases pollution or raises the earth's temperature should be rejected. The capitalist mentality treats natural resources as private property suitable for exploitation. Modern socialism, in contrast, advocates a view of the earth and its natural resources as "the wealth of us all," Magdoff and Yates wrote. Better stewardship of the earth includes more use of renewable resources and environmentally friendly trade.