"Everyone now is more or less a Socialist"

[Babel_17]

39. Labor existed before money

Once we had more than we (early humanity "we&quot needed for subsistence, then commerce, and later currency, could develop. Afaik anyway. And just to be clear, that's not a Sanders quote, it's a Lincoln quote, and it is proudly displayed in many union buildings. (my local included)

Once we had more labor available than we needed to keep our community alive, we could develop a system to allocate how that available labor could be deployed. People accumulated items not needed for survival, but which were desirable, and they could be bartered. The usefulness of a reliable and portable currency becomes obvious, but it's based on there being excess labor to start with.

P.S. Brutal capitalism in some of those countries people flee from in the Middle East. They, and people of other countries, find the idea of living in European countries that have some socialistic attributes quite appealing.

But anyway, the thread is dedicated to the history of the progressive movement here in the USA. It's not that much like what people think of as "socialism", though it's very big on the safety net, and things like government promoting schools, roads, etc., etc..

But all/most civilized countries have benefited from the ideas behind Socialism.