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.

There is plenty of work to do, but big business isn't investing in rebuilding a green economy for the 21st century. Instead, they put their money into a gigantic financial casino, and when that led to catastrophe in 2008-9, they made us pay for it.

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.

Capitalism is based on ruthless exploitation and competition, and leads inevitably to the development of mega monopolies.

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.

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.

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