When the New Deal programs were passed in the mid 1930s, millions of workers were joining unions, striking, and occupying factories to fight for a better life. It was this radical labor movement that forced the establishment to make concessions.

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.

To break the power of the big corporations, we would propose that the biggest 500 corporations that dominate the rigged economy and political system should be taken into public ownership, and run democratically.

Like the healthcare industry, the banks should be taken out of the hands of the 1% and brought under democratic public ownership.

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.

It's not just an economic crisis that capitalism has created. We also face an environmental catastrophe created by a handful of gigantic fossil fuel corporations.