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.

Today, we live in a world of incredible wealth and technology, alongside the most horrendous conditions of poverty, war and environmental crisis. This is result of capitalism, a system based on prioritizing profits not human need where the wealth is concentrated in the hands of a capitalist elite.

This is what happens under capitalism - as long as corporations and the super rich own the economy and the politicians, every new generation has to fight hard just to defend itself.

We've seen the weakest economic recovery since World War II, and massive levels of inequality and debt.

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.

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.

Bernie Sanders says that the biggest banks that dominate the economy should be broken up into smaller banks. This would be far more radical than Hillary Clinton's proposals to regulate Wall Street.