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.

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.

What Bernie Sanders is calling for is incredibly important. Things like a $15/hour minimum wage, single-payer healthcare, taxing the rich, and free education. The radical reforms he has popularized are a key part of any socialist program today.

Bernie Sanders talks about socialism in Scandinavia, and he's correct to point to the huge victories the working class has won there through struggle, such as socialized medicine, free college education, and paid family leave. But if you talk to working people in Sweden or Norway today, you will find out that many of those past gains have been eroded and some virtually eliminated, including massive under-funding of healthcare and other public services and a return to for-profit systems that are unaffordable to working class people.

Big business has many tools to make us pay for the crisis of their system.

We need a break from Capitalism.

The programs that came to be known as the New Deal were not simply handed down by the benevolence of FDR and the Democrats. They were fought for. And in the 1960s, it was the similar. You had incredible movements against Jim Crow, poverty and the Vietnam War in the 1960s.