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Straw Man

The first fallacy that the article contain is the “Straw Man” fallacy. The author, Ed
Rogers, misrepresented the position of the Democrats and simply attacked the
misrepresentation. Capitalism will not be abandoned by the Democrats nor they will
become the “kinder, gentler, communists” as Rogers stated in his article. A command
economy is never a preferable claim of the leaders of the Democrats.

There are also some industries that propose nationalizing by individual Democrats.
The health insurance proposed by Bernie Sanders, tax preparation proposed by
Elizabeth Warren, and other industries that are already nationalized like the Amtrak by
Joe Biden, also have vocal supporters within the Democratic party. No one has
proposed that the Democrats will abandon capitalism, not even Bernie Sanders. Some
of the policy planks of Bernie Sanders are free-market based like permitting the import
of pharmaceutical drugs Canada.

Hasty Generalization
In the first paragraph of the article, Ed Rogers explained and referred to Hillary
Clinton that “being a capitalist “probably” hurt her when campaigning against
democratic socialist Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in 2016.”

Ed Rogers draws from one Democrat saying a thing about one campaign:

“It is stunning to realize how in today’s Democratic Party, being a capitalist is


something one must either apologize for or at least give qualified acceptance.”

Rogers did not consider the other variables to support his claim about the
capitalists. From one democrat, he jumped into conclusion that if one is a capitalist in
today’s Democratic Party, he/she must either apologize or at least give qualified
acceptance. According to the paragraph in his article, Hillary Clinton will never
apologize for being a capitalist , nor is she giving “qualified acceptance” to it.
Qualified acceptance would be her saying she is “kind of a capitalist” or a “capitalist
in many ways,” or simply, she is saying that she a capitalist. The only part that she’s
qualifying is the idea that her capitalist ideals “probably” cost her votes in the
primaries.
She’s “probably” qualifying that claim, because it’s “probably” idiotic. But
jumping to conclusion without valid evidences does not end here, it is also based on
this evidence the author claims at the end of the paragraph:

“It seems that socialism is making a comeback.”

Hillary Clinton who is a former Democratic candidate for presidency said that she
lost votes for calling herself a capitalist… A candidate who still won the Democratic
nomination. If only Ed Rogers have discussed persuasive evidences to further back
the claim about rise of socialism in the United States, We suppose that this wouldn’t
be a hasty generalization.

Appeal to Authority
Ed Rogers also stated that three of the Democratic senators, namely, Bernie
Sanders, Cory Booker, and Kirsten Gillibrand supported a “so-called ‘job guarantee.’”

The scare-quote “so-called “job-guarantee”” was used by Ed Rogers to call into


question whether the words really mean what they seem to mean. The use of
“so-called” is a little redundant, but importantly, Ed Rogers never explained his
incredulity or gives more information about the policy but instead, we only know it’s
socialist.

And why is it socialist? Because Kevin Drum said it’s bad, and why should we
believe Mr. Drum? Here’s why:

“Kevin Drum, a liberal blogger for the progressive gospel Mother Jones, thinks
the jobs guarantee is a ludicrous idea.”

This statement of Ed Rogers is an appeal to the authority since Kevin Drum is a


known American political blogger and a columnist. The idea hereis that if a liberal
thinks it is too leftist, then it is communist. If some blogger thinks its super-leftist, and
three Democratic denators endorse the policy. Clearly, that party has fallen to the
teachings of Marx.

At least Kevin Drum makes an actual argument against a job guarantee in his
article entitled “Need a job? Call Bernie,” but remember the point of Ed Rogers’
argument is the Democrats shouldn not abandon capitalism, and this is really still not
cutting it.

Appeal to Probability/Slippery Slope


When there is an even more socialist idea out there-- Universal Basic Income,
why cite the appeal of a “job guarantee”?

As Ed Rogers explained to his article, socialism is definitely on the rise because:

“Clueless liberals such as Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes want to guarantee $500
per month for every American earning less than $50,000 a year. But why not $550? Or
should we go ahead and call it an even $600? A guaranteed monthly stipend would
become the floor.”

Let’s not forget, the point of all this meandering writing is to establish that
socialism is on the rise, and therefore Democrats are abandoning capitalism-- which
they shouldn’t do. Even though they are not thinking about doing that, there are
policies being discussed by people, like Chris Hughes.

Why not $600? Because it’s a higher number Ed, and the value numbers means
something that depends on the economy or the labor force.

Affirming a Disjunct
The closest Eg Rogers gets to really supporting his point is when he cited a
survey from the 2017 YouGov-Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation Report
on U.S. Attitudes Toward Socialism. He cited the source correctly, more millenials did
declare that they would prefer a socialist country to a capitalist one. But this survey,
and Rogers claims in general, revolve around the idea that Socialism (A) is
completely incompatible with Capitalism (B), and so:

A or B; A, therefore not B.

But that’s not how it works. In reality, there is no single country in the world that
is completely socialist or capitalist since no country have reached the criteria of being
a full-blown socialist or a capitalist country (Ross, 2018). Some countries are just
considered to be a socialist or capitalist country because they have adapted the said
political ideologies but it is hard to achieve equality. If a single socialist policy means
abandoning capitalism, which Rogers implies it does, then Americans should have
abandoned capitalism long ago. The Americans have socialized postage with U.S.
Postal Service, and commuter rail with Amtrak and also socialized healthcare for
some people (Medicare).

Forcing people to answer according to a fallacy, and then citing those flawed
numbers, is pretty fallacious.

That, or, Rogers is commiting a different fallacy:

Equivocation
There is more than one way to define Socialism, but Ed Rogers seems to be taking
advantage of both.

The first comes from Karl Marx’s economic theories and predictions. He saw
Socialism as the transitional period after the capitalists were overthrown and the
means of production was under the control of the community, getting ready for real
communism. Socialism is a stage of transition from capitalism to communism.
Socialism mainly aims to remove the contradiction of ownership and control by a few
into state control (Cliff, 2012).

The more modern usage is the political belief that production, distribution, and
exchange should be owned or regulated by the state. Since almost all production,
distribution and exchange is regulated or owned by the state, this definition does not
seem quite as provocative or controversial.

Ed seems to gravitate between definitions, explaining that socialism is just “kinder,


gentler” communism, which seems to assume the classic Marxist definition, even
though all the policies he cited are more in-line with the modern definition of the
word

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