Whether or not you agree with Bernie Sanders' version of socialism, it is enormously significant that, for the first time in US history, a presidential candidates who calls himself a socialist has had an actual shot at winning the presidential election. And to his credit, he has not backed down from the label.

We need a break from Capitalism.

Socialism is a society where the resources are used democratically to provide a better life for all, based on ending the dictatorship of big business over the economy and politics.

There is a myth that the New Deal programs on their own pulled the US out of the Great Depression and created the conditions for the economic boom after World War II. As an economist, I can tell you, that is not true. In reality, it was mainly World War II that launched the boom - the massive war mobilization, the horrifying destruction and death caused by it, and then the reconstruction in its aftermath. he US was the only advanced capitalist country that was not bombed during the war.

Bernie Sanders has shown that socialism is no longer the barrier that it used to be during the Cold War.

On the basis of capitalism, victories like raising the minimum wage are only temporary.

For a whole historic period after World War II, US capitalism was the strongest in the world and could afford to concede rising living standards.