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Apparently, many people don’t know the difference between socialism and rheumatism. It seems there is a common mistaken notion about the nature of socialism in that the way it is usually characterized confuses it with rheumatism. So let us differentiate the two for clarity.

Rheumatism is an immune response by the body to what is mistaken to be an invasive infection of the joints, whereby the body’s reaction to fix the problem — to counter the threatening corrupting forces — results in greater damage to the mistakenly perceived infected areas and only further adversely affects the health and mobility of the body. By analogy, this actually corresponds more closely to the reactionary popular support for Trumpism with its mistaken identification of the problem — i.e., economic and cultural injustice as the fault of people of color, immigrants, foreigners, the government itself (deep state). This diagnosis leads to a kind of immune response that cripples even more Trump followers themselves, as a result of policies of racial divisiveness, giveaways to the rich, corruption and the undermining of civil rights, freedom and democracy — some of the very things said to be threatened by socialism.

Socialism, on the other hand, correctly identifies the problem as capitalist exploitation, together with colluding government corruption, and proposes a united popular political immune response that democratically empowers working people to recover what the corporations and wealthy class have taken from them, enabling them to control and plan the use of resources to meet the common needs of the people, generally enhancing the public welfare.

Socialism/rheumatism — know the difference.

Mike Kelly

Albert Lea