Panorama Volume 2 Issue 2

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November 2018

4 Making Healthcare Care Spencer Klink

Volume 2, Issue 2

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Disciplined: Law Enforcement on School Campuses Kyra Hudson

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‘It was a wake-up call’ Sofia Heller on the cover

12 In Full Bloom: the Rise o Democratic Socialism Kaitlin Musante

20 The Last Straw Lindsay Wu

24 Breaking the Bank Joanna Im


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4 Making Healthcare Care By Spencer Klink

12 In Full Bloom: The Rise of Democratic Socialism

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‘It was a wake-up call’ Jews react to the Tree of Life Shooting By Sofia Heller on the cover

16 Disciplined: Law Enforcement on School Campuses By Kyra Hudson

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By Lindsay Wu

24 Breaking the Bank: How Companies Fake Ethicality By Joanna Im

By Kaitlin Musante

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The Last Straw


EDITORS-IN-CHIEF: SOFIA HELLER KAITLIN MUSANTE SENIOR EDITORS: RYAN ALBERT LUCAS GELFOND SOPHIE HABER JENNY LI

JUNIOR EDITORS: CAITLIN CHUNG KYRA HUDSON MADISON HUGGINS CASEY KIM SPENCER KLINK LAUREN NEHORAI EMMA SHAPIRO LINDSAY WU

ADVISER: JIM BURNS HEAD OF VIDEO PRODUCTION: KERRY NEIL

PANORAMA MAGAZINE is the student magazine of Harvard-Westlake School, and is affiliated with The Chronicle, the student newspaper. It is published four times per year. Letters to the editor may be submitted to chronicle@hw.com or mailed to 3700 Coldwater Canyon, Studio City, CA 91604. Letters must be signed and may be edited for space and to conform to Chronicle style and format.

Behind the Cover: In light of the recent shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Editor-in-Chief Sofia Heller writes about Jewish communities’ reactions to anti-Semitism in the United States. The photograph on this issue’s cover aims to show the beauty and solidity of a Jewish synagogue. It stands tall, strengthened by the Hebrew letters carved into the exterior, in the face of adversity. The synagogue photographed is Temple Judea in Tarzana, California, where Heller and her family have belonged to as members since she was an infant. Temple Judea has offered Heller peace, spirituality and joy throughout her life, as synagogues have done throughout history for many people internationally. Panorama Magazine is a space for: in-depth stories stories that extend beyond the bounds of our campus human-interest articles powerful design This issue, we’re covering stories ranging from the rise of democratic socialism amongst millennials to the anti-plastic straw movement. Our goal is to uphold the truth, share narratives that matter and document the spectrum of human experiences. We hope our articles inform you on topics you hadn’t thought about before and make you think about issues in a new light.

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By Spencer Klink

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he United States of color, are more likely to healthcare system be pushed into tricky situdoesn’t seem to care. ations. Families that can’t Despite the passage of the afford medical insurance but Affordable Care Act, which choose to purchase it can be granted subsidies to low pushed toward bankruptcy income families in hopes of due to high costs, thus exacmaking access to healthcare erbating inequality. However, universal, lack of healthcare the households that choose coverage remains an overto opt out of insurance altowhelming problem in the gether face a lack of vaccinacountry. 29 million Ameritions, therapy or other forms cans are currently uninsured of treatment, such as disease and in vulnerable positions, or chronic illness symptoms. according to a Gallup SurA study published in March vey. of 2009 by the American The poor condition of Journal of Public Health American healthcare is found that lack of insurance largely due to prohibiresults in 45,000 deaths on tive insurance premiums, a yearly basis. or the amount of money Professor of health policy that individuals must pay and public health at the to receive coverage from a City University of New York certain insurance policy. School of Public Health at These insurance companies Hunter College David Himare only motivated by profit melstein said that the rise and act as a barrier preventof neoliberal economics has ing millions from receiving shaped the healthcare treatment. Additionsystem in a ally, the efforts negative the Affordable way. Care Act made “The vast The only way in benefiting majority of to both solve the Americans are new coverfinancial problems currently beage under of people who can’t ing undercut the Affordafford care and of by the Trump able Care people who can’t AdministraAct was hold down the costs tion, which has government of our healthcare attempted to funded but system is a very roll back the delivered fundamental change program and through overall.” is expected to private continue to do insurers,” x David Himmelstein so in 2019, acHimmelcording to Vox. stein said. These short“That’s comings are a classic also intricately linked to raneoliberal approach—govcial and class-based divides. ernment funds some sort Although upper-class houseof need but relies on the holds are afforded the luxury private sector to deliver it. of receiving quality healthThat just doesn’t work with care, less affluent citizens, healthcare. Because the especially lower class people neoliberal market solutions

demand that we try and run healthcare like a business, we incur not just inequalities in care that result from markets but also tremendous transaction costs.” Lack of healthcare also endangers transgender people, as many are unable to undergo hormone replacement therapy or surgery, due to financial struggles, Julie Hollar, a Ph.D candidate at the City University of New York Graduate School, wrote to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Without these resources, transgender people have to obtain money through illegal methods such as sex work or crime in order to receive these treatments, which are often medical requirements, according to a study conducted in 2010 by the Seattle Journal for Social Justice. The current web of private and public control of healthcare has also resulted in the creation of “death gaps,” where families who earn just enough money to avoid needing subsidies under the Affordable Care Act are left without healthcare, despite needing financial assistance. Himmelstein said that these problems are inevitable given the current structure of the American healthcare system. “The healthcare isn’t just failing around the edges, but it’s failing in a way that is central to its operation,” Himmelstein said. “The only way to solve the financial problems of people who can’t afford care and of people who can’t hold down the costs of our system is a very fundamental change overall.” One proposed solution to these problems is single-pay-

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er healthcare. As opposed to the current model of healthcare, where patients give premiums, or a payment to serve as income for insurance companies, in exchange for treatment, the federal government replaces insurance companies, and it uses taxes instead of premiums to sponsor medical providers under a single-payer system. Politicians such as Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) have publicly supported a healthcare expansion of this sort, and some politicians such as Governor Gavin Newsom have sought to create a statewide single-payer healthcare program in California. Himmelstein said that such a national healthcare program would be effective. “We ought to have what most other developed nations have: some sort of national health insurance where everyone is covered, people are guaranteed a reasonable living and hospitals are guaranteed reasonable operating costs,” Himmelstein said. “Canada is a reasonable example of a system that works well. Hospitals would get paid the way a police department or fire station is paid in the U.S.” The efficacy of such a system has been recognized on a large scale. A 2012 study by the New England Journal of Medicine found that state-sponsored medical insurance played a substantial role in decreasing death from disease or infection in the states that had reformed their medical programs. Additionally, research scholar under Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security Laura Kahn wrote in The Bulletin that she has found that healthcare expansions will also prevent the out-

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break of deadly viruses. “America’s piecemeal healthcare and public health systems are inherently less able to handle [medical] crises,” Kahn wrote. “The Affordable Care Act helped fill in the gaps, but really, the only way to prepare for the eventuality of pandemics or bioterrorist attacks is with a single-payer governmentrun system that covers everyone.” The main objections to singlepayer healthcare are that the program would devastate the American economy, stifle medical innovation and increase the rate of unemployment. Another large criticism is that single-payer healthcare is politically infeasible, given that it was one of the most controversial issues in the 2018 midterm elections, according to Business Insider. These arguments, while they do have some credence, do not account for the full scope of the current state of America’s medical system. Although single-payer healthcare may seemingly damage the economy since it requires an ambitious restructuring of American taxation policy, in reality, it would benefit the U.S. in numerous ways. According to Doctor of Medicine from University of Illinois at Chicago and Chair at the Physicians for a National Health Program Ed Weisbart in an article published under the American Medical Association Journal of Ethics, a national healthcare program would streamline the medical health system by creating one unified administration to monitor public programs, as opposed to the complex network of public and private systems that currently exists. A single-payer medical system would also allow for mass acquisition of drugs as opposed to smaller purchases from various companies, which reduces the cost of services. Additionally, Himmelstein said that a single-payer system would slim the budget for healthcare, empowering other sectors of the economy. “For most of the American

industry, this would be a tremendous shot in the arm,” Himmelstein said. “At this point, there’s more money going into healthcare than steel for American automobiles. When we’re competing with other countries, we’re draining our industrial base to pay for healthcare. When we pay twice as much per person than what the Germans, Canadians or French are, that saps our economy.” Even if there is an economic downturn as a result of a singlepayer healthcare program, that should not matter over the lives and well-being of millions of Americans. To say that impoverished communities should again be put on the back burner because the economy matters more than them is flawed logic that allows for issues like poverty to go unnoticed and remain pervasive within society. Arguing that single-payer healthcare would stifle innovation of medical products is also a misguided critique. Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School Aaron Kesselheim wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association that publicly-funded research through non-profit centers is responsible for the development of innovative medical technology and not the work of private corporations and researchers. Privatization also stifles medical research, as scientists are incentivized by profit rather than genuine desire to create better technologies. In fact, two-thirds of applications for new drugs sent to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are for slight modifications in existing medicines, according to John Geyman, professor emeritus of family medicine at the University of Washington, in his book How Obamacare Is Unsustainable: Why We Need a Single Payer Solution for All Americans. Additionally, although singlepayer healthcare would result in the loss of some jobs, a 2012 study published under the New England Journal of Medicine said


All Illustrations by Spencer Klink

that a more efficient public health program would enable resources to be invested in such fields as education or retirement savings. This would create more jobs in other sectors, which would account for any jobs lost and benefit other parts of the American economy. Reshaping American healthcare would simply result in the reallocation of workers instead of mass job termination, Himmelstein said. “We need to find some useful work for the vast numbers of people employed in healthcare but doing nothing but paperpushing,” Himmelstein said. “We could readily use those people to do useful work in the healthcare system taking care of people. There are clear transition plans for helping move the million and a half people who are currently doing useless things like billing.” Despite the fact that Americans see divisions in how healthcare should be approached, a substan-

tial push for single-payer healthcare could turn the concept from paper into policy. Given that Democrats were able to claim the House of Representatives after the midterm elections, the party now has a more substantial footing to reach their goals. According to the New York Times, Democrats should now have the ability to resist President Trump’s efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Also, a 2018 August Reuters poll showed that 70 percent of the American public would support a national healthcare program providing insurance on a universal basis to citizens. Even if single-payer healthcare is seemingly impractical, Himmelstein said that the nature of social reform is unexpected and fast-paced. “Major social changes happen suddenly and unexpectedly with things that often seemed impos-

sible just a few years earlier,” Himmelstein said. “Few would have thought that gay marriage would be legal throughout the U.S. fifteen years ago. We have every reason that this can happen in our healthcare system because such a broad cross-section of the American people and of American industries are in trouble with this system.” Every politician seems to be in agreement that American healthcare is in need of change. Although Republicans are currently pushing for less government intervention, with an end goal of expanding privatization, it is important for the left to counter those demands with an embrace of single-payer healthcare. Fighting for the well-being of the Americans whose interests are not currently being defended by the federal government is important, and continuing to push for a national healthcare program will help the left do so effectively.

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‘It was a wake-up call’ Jews react to the Tree of Life Shooting By Sofia Heller A neighborhood united in prayer at the Tree of Life synagogue, serving that morning as a bright refuge from the Saturday Pittsburgh rain. The group’s prayers were soon cut silent, however, when gunshots hammered at the families and long-time friends. Light from the stained-glass windows above illuminated the blood below. The harmonies of the “Shema” and “Amidah” were replaced with the sounds of guttural screaming. Approximately 600 miles away, in Middleton, Massachusetts, Emma Mair, 17, was working the morning shift at her local café. When Mair realized that the tragedy occurred in Squirrel Hill, a neighborhood in Pittsburgh where her Jewish friend lived and worshiped, she anxiously tried to determine whether her friend belonged to the Tree of Life synagogue and if she escaped that morning’s Shabbat services with her life. Her fingers started whirling across her screen, typing rapidly as tears welled in her eyes. Mair said she only released the breath she didn’t realize she was holding in after she confirmed that her friend was not one of the 11 people whose lives were taken Oct. 27. “I shouldn’t have a gut reaction to text someone that I know to make sure that they’re okay [after service],” Mair said. “I shouldn’t have to do that. But it could have so easily been her.” While Mair immediately felt horrified from merely seeing the headline, it wasn’t until she clicked on the Facebook link and read the article that her typical desensitization wore off to rec-

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ognize the magnitude of the tragedy, she said. As a Jew herself, Mair said she was exposed to lessons about the Holocaust from the time she was a child, making the notion of anti-Semitism seem abstract to her at an early age. However, in 6th grade, Mair’s classmate told her a joke that brought the history lessons to life, she said. “A boy at my school asked me if I knew what the difference between Jews and pizza was,” Mair said. “I said no, and he said, ‘Pizza doesn’t scream when it gets put in the oven.’” A few years later, Mair said a different classmate saluted her with “Heil, Hitler” as she sharpened her pencil during a standardized test, and a few weeks ago, students at her high school sprayed swastikas in the boys’ bathroom. “Even seemingly small things, like doing a ‘Heil, Hitler’ at someone in the hallway, throwing pennies at someone or saying that someone’s a Jew in a really derogatory tone of voice, are really significant and certainly impact the human psyche,” Mair said. “I hate that I have grown accustomed to it. I hate that it doesn’t faze me anymore, but it doesn’t. Honestly, it’s just it’s a part of life. I see it and it upsets me, but it doesn’t stop me from functioning.” While Mair has experienced anti-Semitism throughout her life, she said she has seen a noticeable rise in anti-Semitism in recent years. Hate crimes against Jewish people in the United States rose 37 percent from 2016 to 2017, according to the FBI’s annual hate crime statistics. Additionally, 60 percent of religious hate crimes in the United States in 2017 were directed at Jews, despite their making up only two percent of the American population. Dorrit Corwin, a 17-year-old

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from Los Angeles, said she strongly believes that the rise in anti-Semitism is partially due to Trump’s election as president in 2016 and his subsequent actions in office. “Though he might not himself be an avid anti-Semite, he is not at all encouraging of people who are different,” Corwin said. “People generalize Jews as being liberal democrats, which makes it easy for Trump supporters to hate Jews, not only for their religion but also for their political beliefs.” Associate Director of Research at the University of California, Los Angeles’ Center for Jewish Studies Saba Soomekh agreed that the increasing anti-Semitism generally comes from people who align with right-wing politics. “Just in general, there’s been a rise in nationalism [recently] where anyone who people don’t see as the ‘white’ American does not fit in,” Soomekh said. “Certain people, and I’m not going to name names, have stoked the fire and allowed it to be okay in our everyday discourse. I think there is such a fear of the other, and you’re seeing it all over the world with nationalism.” Conservatives are not the only ones at fault; people who align with left-wing politics add to anti-Semitic rhetoric and actions as well, Soomekh said. “From the left perspective, you have the demonization of Israel, the demonization of Jews, the belief that Jews are subhuman and that Jews are responsible for all the [problems] in the world,” Soomekh said. “If you look at Linda Sarsour, Tamika Mallory and Carmen Perez and their defense of Louis Farrakhan and Linda Sarsour’s dehumanization of Jews, then you see it’s not just coming from the right; it’s also prevalent in the left.” Despite these statistics, Helene Landau, who now lives in Los Ange-

les but grew up in Squirrel Hill, said she does not believe that anti-Semitism in the US has increased in her lifetime. “My leaning is more conservative, so, therefore, I am more in agreement with things our current president has done, but I can’t say that I think there are [more hate crimes] now,” Landau said. “I think there have always been hate crimes. With social media and with the media in general, reporting things in the smallest, little hamlet across the country or around the world, things are reported and we’re aware of them now. But, I think they’ve always happened, and we just didn’t know it 20 or 30 years ago.” However, Landau said she could have never imagined that such a tragedy would occur in her hometown. “I felt absolutely felt safe in my synagogue growing up,” Landau said. “I never thought for a second that anything awful could happen there or anywhere around me. When I [found out] about the shooting, I was in total shock. I was in disbelief that, in the town I grew up in, something this horrendous could happen. It was a sad day.” When she goes to services now, Landau said she still feels a semblance of safety; yet, simultaneously, the persistent violence against Jews throughout the world weighs on her. “I think there is a subconscious prejudice that everybody has and no matter what we’re taught, how we’re raised or what happens in our lives, that always exists,” Landau said. “I think it’s always been there beneath the surface. People will always hate people for God knows what reason. Maybe they’ve had some reverses in their own life or perhaps their life didn’t go as planned and they need someone to blame, and the Jews have been historically scapegoats.


All Photos by Sofia Heller

It’s convenient to blame the Jews.” For a group that makes up so little of the world population, Soomekh said she believes that the Jews have received a disproportionate amount of hate. “Jews have always known that we are the other,” Soomekh said. “We have dealt with a lot of anti-Semitism. We’re Jews in the world. I think what the shooting showed the rest of the world is that Jews are just as susceptible to violence and racism toward them as other religious communities and other ethnicities and people are. It was a wake-up call to the Jewish community that in the most suburban, safe, open suburb of America where Jews have been successful for decades, this could happen, which shows us that it could happen anywhere and everywhere.” In the aftermath of the shooting, Mair said she hopes to see a rise in education about anti-Semitism, which she thinks will contribute to solving the issue. “If you just let that moment go by without putting in any effort to solve the problem, then it’s going to stay the same,” Mair said. “I feel like the more that we talk about the problems, the more that people will think about it, and the more they will want to act or feel that they really don’t have a choice other than to act.” Mair finds the lack of knowledge her peers have about the Holocaust especially troubling, she said. “I know that there are schools, even in Massachusetts, which has the best schooling in the country, that just breezed over the Holocaust,” Mair said. “That’s not something you can just walk over. It’s a huge event in history. You have to take the time to delve into the subject and educate people. There are millennials walking around who don’t know what the Holocaust is. That blows my mind.” Corwin, however, said she firmly believes that quelling anti-Semitism begins with civil discourse. “Being able to understand others’ perspectives and respectfully discuss our differences opens up avenues for social change,” Corwin said. “Like many movements these days, it needs to start with young people––young Jews who care deeply about their

faith and are proud to be unapologetically Jewish, even in times like these.” Corwin said the outpouring of support in response to the Tree of Life shooting has given her hope for the future of Jews in America. “I think the Tree of Life shooting has interestingly created a really powerful and beautiful shortterm effect both within and beyond the Jewish community,” Corwin said. “I think that while there is certainly a lot of sorrow and pain in especially the Jewish world right now, there is also an immense light of hope for the future. I hope these short-term effects manifest into long-term progress towards a more pluralistic and accepting attitude towards religion in America. I trust in my generation to strive towards, not simply religious tolerance, but religious celebration.”

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In Full Bloom the rise of democratic socialism

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By Kaitlin Musante

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eafening silence pounded in Leah Ma’s ears as she looked across the cracked wood tabletop at her parents. Mouths agape and eyes swirling in disbelief, they stared back at her. Ma had just revealed a deadly secret–– in a decade compounded by red scares and post-war patriotism, she was a democratic socialist. Over fifty years later on a chilly November evening, the now 74-year-old Ma sat on her couch in southern Illinois, squished next to her husband as they watched the 2018 midterm elections results pour in. Cheering as fellow democratic socialists pulled ahead in the polls, Ma said she finally felt the acceptance she had hoped for for so long. “I am ecstatically happy that people are finally coming to realize that we badly need to change this system,” Ma said. “More people are seeing that this is not the way even a capitalist country is supposed to be run, and they are seeing European or democratic socialism as their only way to change things. I’ve waited almost 60 years for the rest of the country to agree with me, and boy has it been a long

wait.” Ma said she first began doubting the capitalist ideals she had been brought up with after her fourth-grade teacher showed her a photo of Russian children with eyes mirroring her own, allowing her to realize they were normal kids just like her. “They had always painted the Russians, even children, as being monsters,” Ma said. “Seeing them in this new light shocked me to my core. I began to wonder what else our government might be lying about.” This newfound understanding, along with the social isolation spawned by her tiny Midwestern town, led her to question the country’s current setup and notice the economic disparities around her, Ma said. A full-blown socialist by age 16, Ma said she often felt isolated and misjudged for her beliefs. “Americans didn’t realize that socialism and communism are not the same thing,” Ma said. “Even my parents would call me a communist. I know that idea has been tried and failed. They didn’t understand what makes socialism different, and the parts

of it that would make people happier, help them lead more stress-free lives and reduce crime across the board.” While Ma might have felt ostracized by the strong anti-socialist sentiments of her era, she said she has recently found herself surrounded by a new generation more open and accepting to its ideals. Socialism’s popularity has skyrocketed throughout the nation since President Donald Trump’s election, especially among millennials, according to NPR. A 2016 Gallup poll found that 55 percent of voters aged 18-29 said they had a positive view of socialism, while 57 percent supported capitalism, and the membership for the Democratic Socialists of America has increased sevenfold since 2015, expanding from around 6,000 members to 43,000 as of early July. Barnard University professor of political science Sheri Berman attributed this rise to the increasing inequality and declining social mobility stemming from the 2008 financial crash. “A lot of young people are feeling much more at risk and much more uncertainty than

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folks their age would have felt a generation ago,” Berman said. “They are graduating with huge amounts of debt, and they’re not sure what kinds of jobs they are going to get. Therefore, for a lot of young people, socialism is an attractive alternative to capitalism because they understand that, on some level, the system is not quite working as well as it has in the past and as well as they would like it to. They want the same opportunities that their parents had, and socialism is how they feel they can get to them.” For Andrew Swetland, a 33-yearold dues-paying member of the Democratic Socialists of America, the appeal of democratic socialism lay within its message for change. Originally a politically unmotivated Democrat, Swetland said a 2015 speech from politician and Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders about the need for Americans to take accountability for problems in their country inspired him to shift his platform. “Hearing that changed my lifelong paradigm of feeling generally hopeless about government and politics ever helping normal people,” Swetland said. “It sank in for me that all we need to do to create

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change is replace enough politicians and shift public opinion enough that they finally get the message, very much like what we millennials did when it came to achieving marriage equality. I already believed in several parts of the democratic socialist platform. The Bernie campaign just kind of stitched it all together for me in a cohesive picture.” Since then, Swetland has thrown himself into the movement, serving as an organizer on the first Sanders campaign, phone banking for New York Congresswoman and Democratic-Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and visiting the state capitol to lobby for single-payer healthcare. As someone who was once apprehensive about the idea of government, Swetland said that the democratic socialist movement has ignited a fire within him and encouraged him to stand up for his political beliefs. “We’re all motivated by the task of lifting up millions of working-class people out of poverty,” Swetland said “That’s our north star. We all share solidarity around that idea. We’re not involved for political careerism or to immediately sell out to corporate lobbyists. We reject that type of

politics. It’s about millions of people standing up together to demand a better deal.” Socialism’s only other entry onto the American political scene in the early 20th century was motivated by similar ideals, Berman said. The country was at the height of its shift from an agricultural economy to an industrialized one. Consequently, working and living conditions were abysmal, Berman said, which inspired citizens to look toward a different system. “Socialism was a reflection of, consequence of and symptom of a system that was pretty raw and unregulated,” Berman said. “I think we have something like that today––a capitalist system that is causing a lot of dislocation, making a lot of people worried about the future, getting rid of a lot of occupations and changing where wealth is in this country.” Once the Great Depression hit, however, support decreased for this socialist group, and by the time Americans had stopped suffering enough to rejoin the cause, anti-communist and anti-socialist messages had infected the media, political scientist and Hobart and William Smith Colleges professor Jodi Dean said. “These negative messages were pushed by the U.S. government, pushed by hysterical newspapers and pushed by big capitalists, and it’s because the capitalist order was afraid of the power of workers,” Dean said. “They want to demonize systems like socialism and communism because they want to demonize the idea that workers can control their own lives.” This stigma has stifled socialism’s success for years, Chapman University Professor in Critical Studies Peter McLaren said. “When you define yourself as a Marxist, it’s an uphill battle, even


“We’re all motivated by the task of lifting up millions of working-class people out of poverty. That’s our north star.” -Andrew Swetland

as a Christian Marxist like me, just because of the common interpretations behind these words,” McLaren said. “For years, when people have heard the name Karl Marx, they’ve just shuddered, and they do so largely because of the kind of propaganda that has existed in the media. It’s closed people off.” The death of the Soviet Union allowed Americans to overcome these stigmas and finally see the reality of capitalist exploitation, Dean said. “There’s now a generation of people who have grown up not hearing anti-communism and anti-socialism media all the time,” Dean said. “They’ve grown up under a situation where they see the declining expectations that they can have under capitalist life and where the reality of the deprivations of the capitalist systems pushes through former ideology. When you tell people all the time that they are having the perfect life and they still can recognize that they are $80,000 in debt, they’ll never own a house and they can’t pay their rent, they aren’t going to buy into the ideology anymore.” The new generation of support has also led to a shift in ideological focus, McLaren said. Ecosocialism, which aims to examine socialism in terms of its effect on environmental issues like global warming, sustainability and GMOs, has arisen largely due to millennial influences and attracted a new

demographic, McLaren said. “Wherever I go speak, if I use old-fashioned terms like forces of production or relations of production, a lot of people are turned off to the idea of socialism,” McLaren said. “When you put the argument in more environmental terms, however, it’s much more appealing to people and that’s all thanks to young socialists.” McLaren has also spurred left-wing millennials to follow socialism by highlighting the flaws behind Trump’s racial biases and hateful rhetoric, he said. “Capitalism has brutalized people,” McLaren said. “99 percent of people are undergoing struggles, including white people. Instead of pointing fingers at immigrants or pointing fingers at Latinos or African Americans, the white majority should be trying to analyze how capitalism is exploiting everyone. The struggle to build a viable and democratic alternative to capitalism could and should bring us together.” It is the current lack of such a system, however, that leads Berman to doubt socialism’s capacity for long-term success, she said. “There is a nod to moving the economy away from capitalism, but since nobody really advocates moving towards a Soviet-style communism, what moving away from capitalism would actually mean is extremely unclear and unlikely to be popular among a big

sector of the population,” Berman said. “A place where the government controls all means of production is never going to be democratic. While an idea could work in theory, without a practical solution, the ideals won’t survive.” Berman also expressed concern with the murkiness of democratic socialism’s definition. While most members agree that it is loosely a system to the left of the current democratic party, which hopes for an expanded welfare state and increased social policy, the specifics beyond that are unclear and candidates often contradict each other, Berman said. “When you ask young people if they support democratic socialism, you get a relatively high number saying yes,” Berman said. “But then, if you ask them what they mean, they are all over the place. They really have no agreed upon consensus, reflecting both American history and the fact that folks in the political sphere who call themselves democratic socialists don’t have a lot of similarities.” Despite these issues, Swetland said he continues to have faith in the future of democratic socialism. “People are hanging on by their fingernails,” Swetland said. “If one thing goes wrong– –a car accident, an illness, a lost job––they could lose everything. As long as these conditions persist, democratic socialism will rise in response.”

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By Kyra Hudson Nabil Romero was on his second bus of the morning. His single mother, overwhelmed with work, had been unable to drive him, and as the minutes ticked by, he knew he was going to be late. The then 18-year-old Roybal Learning Center student never made it to class. Instead, upon his arrival at school, he was forced into the back of a police car and fined $350. “[In order to pay the fine,] we started cutting back on food expenses, clothes expenses, shoes,” Romero said in an interview with Huff Post. “This was all my fault for not being in class.” Romero’s experience is not unusual for Los Angeles Unified School District students. Within LAUSD, similar policies have been implemented in many schools since the passing of Proposition 13, American Civil Liberties Union Deputy Litigation Director and Staff Attorney Victor Leung said. Police departments have stationed officers at public schools around the country for decades, especially in low-income communities, according to the Los Angeles Times, and over 500 full16

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time officers from the Los Angeles Police Department have patrolled more than 1,147 schools since the department’s creation in 1948. In comparison, New York City Department of Education, the largest school district in the country, only has 200 full-time officers patrolling campuses, according to the Los Angeles School Report. Police activity on high school campuses has been very controversial, according to the Los Angeles School Report. “Having police officers on campus can be problematic,” Leung said. “Traditionally, a dean or a counselor would give a kid detention if they act out. But, at schools with these police officers, they are arrested or cited or questioned by law enforcement officers and that just leads to the criminalization of so many students.” This heavy campus police presence has only increased following the 1999 mass shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado, Leung said. According to the Washington Post, 57 percent of schools have some kind of security presence, increasing from 42 percent the decade before.


Photo Illustrations by Kyra Hudson, Spencer Klink and Caitlin Chung

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As the numbers of school shooings continues to rise each year, with 36 this year alone, according to the Washington Post, the government has pushed for more law enforcement on campuses, Leung said. However, Leung said he questions the ability of these policies to end attacks. “Even with the officers on campus, many of the attacks have not been prevented,” Leung said. “Research has shown that it is a pretty ineffective way to deal with the problem. We found that the best way to deal with these issues is to have counselors who can talk with students about the issues they are having early on and then being able to support them. Counselors can help prevent guns from coming to campus in the first place.” Despite this, disciplinary policies have only become harsher in recent years, Leung said. The new policies range in severity and enforcement throughout the district, but all of them have called into question students’ constitutional rights, Leung said. One of these policies, widely known as the Metal Detector Policy, consists of pulling students out of class and searching them with a metal detector. On campus police officers then proceed to search their bags before letting them return to class. Director of the LAUSD Restorative Justice Department Deborah Brandy said she did not know why the Metal Detector Policy is in place. Yet, the negative effects of the policy “This is just one of the ex- are visible throughout amples of how the schools the district, said. are not valuing education Leung LAUSD readand actually crimalizing ing and math scores are their students.” below the nation’s average, according to -Victor Leung American Civil Liberties Union the Los An-

Deputy LItigation Director and Staff Attorney

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geles Times. Removing students from their class hinders students’ ability to effectively learn, Leung said. “In no other district have we heard of something like this happening to students,” Leung said. “This is just one of the examples of how the schools are not valuing education and actually criminalizing their students. They are treating them like they are suspects.” The traumatic experiences brought about from these policies have kept many students from coming back to school, Leung said. However, some of these new disciplinary policies have been praised by LAUSD members for bringing suspension and truancy rates down, according to the LAUSD Board Report. After eliminating “willful defiance” suspensions, the suspension rate in LAUSD dropped to only 1.3 percent, which is half of L.A. County’s 2.8 percent rate and more than three times lower than the state’s rate of 4.4 percent, according to the Chronicle of Social Change. Leung said he questions whether the lower suspension rates truly represent a change in discipline for the LAUSD district and pointed to the district’s use of ‘ghost suspensions’—in school suspensions that require students to remain in designated spaces on school property for the duration of the day—as the cause of these lowered rates. LAUSD assistant superintendent of school operations Earl Perkins denied these claims, however. “Informal suspensions are not in our makeup,” he said in an interview with the Chronicles of Social Change. “There might have been one case. We have referral rooms for students, but it’s not suspension. They may go out of class, but it’s not suspension. We don’t have ghost suspensions. It’s not supposed to

be happening. If it does, it’s dealt with very severely.” Youth Justice Coaliation organizer Kim McGill agreed with Leung in an interview with Chronicles of Social Change but expressed concern that some schools pressure families to transfer in order to keep numbers down. In order to push these students out, actions like talking back to a teacher or missing a class that might warrant a detention at Harvard-Westlake School could justify a suspension, expulsion or a criminal record in LAUSD schools, Leung said. “There is a list of specific behaviors in the Education Code that cause suspensions or expulsions,” Leung said. “The problem is some of these behaviors are so general like ‘disrupting school activity’ or ‘defiance’ that we see many students being pushed out of the education system because of these vague behaviors.” Leung pointed to a lack of resources as the underlying issue behind LAUSD’s disciplinary issues. The district is unable to properly train the faculty and staff, and it is also severely understaffed due to underfunding, he said. For example, the ratio of counselors to students in LAUSD can be anywhere from 1 to 600 to 1 to 800 students, whereas the recommended ratio is only 1 to 250, according to the LAUSD Board Approved Staffing Ration. “It is pretty much impossible to personally know 800 kids,” Leung said. “This makes it difficult to intervene when you don’t personally know the kids. I think if the schools had more support, in terms of resources, a lot of these problems would be fixed.” Racial biases also largely contribute to this issue, Leung said. According to the Los Angeles Times, almost 90 percent of students who are in LAUSD identify as students of color. These


students of color receive a significantly larger proportion of the citations, according to The Center for Public Integrity. According to the 2011 LAUSD police department data, African American students are heavily ticketed, despite only makiung up a small percentage of the LAUSD student body. In 2012, students throughout the district protested against the biases and the overuse of police presence on campus, according to The Center for Public Integrity. These protests and overall dissatisfaction from the school communities led to written agreement by the LAUSD school board in 2014 stating that citations would be given out less frequently. However, this statement has proved insignificant, as the problem has only grown in recent years. The increase of gun violence expanded the need for police presence on campuses, disrupting students’ ability to learn, Leung said.

In fact, as the disciplinary policies of LAUSD have become more heavily enforced and monitored by the police, the enrollment rate has dropped dramatically. In the last ten years alone, enrollment has dropped by almost 200,000 students per year, according to the Los Angles School Report. While some of these decreases are due to the rise of charter schools in Los Angeles County and the rest of the United States, some, like Leung, also speculate that it is due to student resentment of these policies and LAUSD schools. This rapid decline in enrollment creates financial problems for the district, according to the Los Angeles Times. Since LAUSD gets more funding when more students enroll, this loss costs them millions of dollars per year. Without this money, the LAUSD does not have the funds to continue to pay as many staff

members and will soon be forced to lay off many employees, LAUSD School Board Vice President Nick Melvoin said in an interview with the Los Angeles Daily News. Instead of perpetuating these problematic policies, Leung said that he and the ACLU hope to help students through restorative justice. In focusing on the students, Leung said they hope to mend their feelings towards their education as a whole, as well towards as their peers and teachers. For now, as students are still frisked by officers and fined for truancy, Leung said he hopes ACLU can continue to fight for the LAUSD students constitutional rights. “LAUSD policies are really difficult for everyone,” Leung said. “But, we are just trying to make the policies more beneficial for the students and stop criminalizing them.”

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By Lindsay Wu “STOP SUCKING!” appeared across the television screen in bold letters. Intrigued by the seemingly rude tweet that interrupted her typical news feed, Sonya Ribner ’19 reached for her laptop and googled the slogan. It was then that Ribner discovered the “Stop Sucking” campaign—an effort to reduce singleuse plastic straws. The movement was created by the Strawless Ocean Initiative of the Lonely Whale Foundation, an incubator that promotes the preservation of oceanic and environmental wellness. “All of a sudden, I became aware of these incredible, in a bad way, facts of how the marine life is being affected by plastic straws,” Ribner said. At the current rate of pollution, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish by 2050, according to the Lonely Whale’s website. “This fact kind of stunned me, and nobody wants to swim at the beach and find plastic in the water,” Ribner said. “Plastic is such a pollutant to our environment, that we need to do something about it.” Ribner has since joined the fight against plastic straws, which have drawn recent opposition across America due to the growing plastic

pollution problem. Straws are not only dangerous for marine wildlife but are also not compostable, Ribner said. According to the Lonely Whale Foundation, Americans use approximately 500 million plastic straws every day, contributing largely to the 300 million metric tons of plastic produced worldwide annually. Only nine percent of this plastic is recycled, and 79 percent is placed in landfills or scattered into the natural world and 12 percent is incinerated. Also, according to Business Insider, the production of plastic releases vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which is detrimental to the atmosphere and increases global warming. Advocates like Ribner push for removal of these straws as they see no necessity in their use, she said. Though they can be beneficial, she said she finds nothing wrong with drinking straight from the glass. “Eliminating straws seemed like such a tangible way to make a difference, just to stop using them,” Ribner said. “We don’t need them, and I thought that this was something that I could really do.” Milo Cress, 17, saw a similar need in his community and founded the BeStrawFree organization in 2011, which supports policies to decrease unnecessary

straw use both in restaurants and in daily life. “I have always advocated an offer-first policy and have always encouraged people to order their drinks without straws whenever they don’t need to use one,” Cress said. Though Cress began to take action against plastic straws almost eight years ago, the movement gained momentum in 2015 when a video of a sea turtle with a plastic straw lodged in its nose went viral. In the eight-minute video, one researcher attempted to remove the unidentified object from the turtle’s nostril with a pair of pliers, while the turtle whimpered and bleed. At the end of the video, the researchers succeeded in removing the object, which was revealed to be straw. Since then, plastic bans have been issued across the United States. California became the first state to ban straws from restaurants after Governor Jerry Brown signed the bill in September. Starting in 2019, customers must ask for a straw before they are given one. In July, Seattle was the first major city to straws and other single-use plastic from restaurants. Smaller cities, including Malibu, already have existing bans in place. After persuading Malibu to elimi-

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nate plastic bags around five years ago, Malibu resident and environmentalist Deborah Collodel turned her attention to eliminating straws. She said the plastic problem has become very apparent in her city. “There is so much pollution, you can’t imagine,” Collodel said. “People are selfish and short-sighted. They pollute the area, especially in our northern beaches. These beaches are private, so we don’t even see all of it, but if I walk the beach on a low-tide, I can easily pick up a bag full of trash. Probably the worst things that we see in great volume are straws, plastic caps, plastic water bottles and cigarette butts, all of which we don’t need.” For Collodel, the most important ways to address the issue are educating others and spreading awareness within her community. “Somebody told me about the big plastic trash masses in the middle of the ocean a while back, and I just didn’t know,” Collodel said. “I used plastic bags all the time because they’re sanitary and I wasn’t killing trees. I always thought plastic was better, but when I heard this, everything shifted and I am now doing everything in my power to diminish plastic pollution. Once I saw the

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problem, I couldn’t unsee it. And that’s why we have to raise awareness, because once you know, you can’t go back. Once you know how much of a problem this is, our convenience is so much less important than the health of our ocean and the environment.” Cress, who has spoken internationally about the plastic problem, said he believes that communication and clarity are instrumental in helping others understand his fight against the issues at hand. “I believe in keeping the message positive and focusing on what we can do differently rather than putting a huge emphasis on what others are doing wrong,” Cress said. “When I see something I think is wrong, I like to try to find an alternative way of doing things and highlighting the solution and find a way of making the solution as easy to achieve as possible. It is also important to make the message easy to understand, easy to digest and the solution as easy as possible to implement.” In addition, Ribner said that there are many different alternatives to single-use plastic straws, including reusable plastic, bamboo, glass and metal straws. However, some argue that substitute straws are

inferior to their plastic counterparts. “I really do want to save the environment, that’s a great thing,” Nathan Lee ’20 said. “But have you tried to use a paper straw? They disintegrate really fast, and then they don’t work. I haven’t tried the other alternatives, though, so they might be better alternatives for us and the environment.” In addition, the main opposers of the plastic straw movement argue that single-use plastic straws are necessary for some demographics, such as older individuals, young children and the disabled. “Other types of straws simply do not offer the combination of strength, flexibility, and safety that plastic straws do,” Disability Rights Washington, a non-profit organization, said in a letter to the Seattle city government following the implementation of the ban. Environmentalists, however, said that the bans on single-use plastic contain necessary exceptions. “I have never tried to make straws obsolete or difficult to get for those who need them,” Cress said. “I plan to stay on this track.” Collodel has also considered these members of the community, and shared a similar opinion to Cress.


“Still, there are so many arenas where people need plastic,” Collodel said. “Like when you go into a hospital, you have to have all of that be single-use. In those situations, then, of course, people should use plastic. I would never want to take that away from anyone who needs it. But most people don’t and that’s really more to the point.” Collodel also said she believes that every individual can contribute to the plastic problem. “I know I’m one person, but I really feel like I can see a tiny ripple effect from what I advocate for,” Collodel said. “If everyone did their part, big or small, we would have a huge ripple effect. You don’t have to be a huge zealot out there like me per se, but even if everyone did their own thing in their own way, we could turn this thing around.” Large corporations including Aramark, Starbucks and Delta have also vowed to reduce plastic, according to Business Insider. Starbucks will phase out straws by 2020 in order to uphold a global commitment to the world, according to its press release. The company has designed a

strawless lid and will eliminate approximately one billion plastic straws each year. According to its website, Delta Airlines has also eliminated plastic stirrers on its flights, which will reduce plastic by 300,000 pounds per year. Schools around Los Angeles have also begun to eliminate plastic straws from their campuses and aid the environment. After receiving positive feedback from her peers regarding an opinion article she wrote in the Chronicle opposing use of plastic straws, Ribner presented the administration with a report on how best to reduce the school’s plastic pollution and how the changes would positively impact the community. The school has now banned plastic straws and replaced them with compostable straws that are biodegradable. Ribner said she and the Environmental Club will next attempt to remove plastic water bottles from the cafeterias. In addition, Campbell Hall Episcopal School has implemented a composting system and Marlborough School for Girls no longer has plastic bottles or straws, Ribner said. However, not all schools

have taken action. “So far, my school has done nothing about plastic straws,” Oak Park High School senior Lexi Garfinkel said. “I really wish we could just get rid of them here since it is such an easy fix and so detrimental to the environment. We need to take initiative.” Like Garfinkel, Cress said that individuals must take charge. Cress has fought to eliminate plastic straws for almost eight years now and said he does not intend to stop anytime soon. “Where we go regarding the environment depends very much on how much action is taken now,” Cress said. “I think about it this way: it does not matter if we can cure cancer if the planet is not inhabitable. Nothing is more important than the environment. We must have a place to live, or it won’t matter what diseases we can cure or how much money we can accrue or anything else we achieve if we don’t have a planet that’s livable. We cannot wait for others to change our communities and the world for us. We can effect change now, at any age, and we need to.”

Photo Illustration by Lindsay Wu

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Photo Illustration by Joanna Im and Kaitlin Musante

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Breaking the Bank: How Companies Fake Ethicality

By Joanna Im As Philip Moon ’20 drove down Ventura Blvd, he saw the same fast-fashion boutiques, sushi restaurants and care-free Californians carrying shopping bags and scrolling through their phones. The only thing that occasionally changed on his daily drive to school was the lofty billboards, which alternated between advertisements of television shows, movies, restaurants and new technology. Recently, Moon said that he noticed a shift within marketing across all industries. Mass advertisement is rapidly on the rise– American companies are projected to spend around $628 billion in 2018 on advertisements, according to a study done by eMarketer. “Advertisements that I see now are different from the ones that I remember from my childhood,” Moon said. “Most of it now is about how fast a car or iPhone is, the new trend in XYZ category or something along those lines.” In order to meet demands for environmentally-friendly activism and a focus on moral consumerism, some companies emphasize the alleged ethicality of their products, Organization for Climate Change and Sustainable Development member Rucha Dande said. This can manifest in a number of ways: including “buy one,

give one” programs, or advertisements based on environmental consciousness, Dande said. Unfortunately, the promises of a company’s ethicality to the general public can fall flat, Washington University investigative journalist, who reports on corporate crime, Lucia Hulsether said. Corporations often don’t push products because they work towards a greater good – they often do the opposite as a means of profit, Hulsether said. One example that Hulsether referred to is charity-based marketing that certain businesses endorse, such as TOMs’ one-for-one program. “The company [TOMs] emphasizes that the fruits of faith, economic success, abound for those who embody the ideals of authenticity, good intentions and service,” Hulsether said. “A higher purpose is profitable. TOMs is successful because it creates opportunities for people to live into their own ‘purpose’ through a simple transaction: buying a pair of shoes.” One-for-one concepts like TOMs or Thinkx programs have made the problem of poverty worse by destroying local businesses. According to a study done by Penn State University, businesses

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“[Neoliberalism is] like a cancerous cell that will not rest until it spreads and kills the organism it calls home.” Faramarz Farbod Professor of Political Science at Moravian College

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based on donating clothing to developing countries reduced local textile industries by 50 to 88 percent. Some students like Sophia Nuñez ’20 also pointed out that these companies misidentify the structural problem in international poverty and are thus not effective in addressing them. “The concept [of aid-based marketing] is well-intentioned; however, it misses the mark as it assumes that the [biggest] problems that people are facing are directly related to not having shoes or pads, when, in reality, these people are dealing with bigger problems,” Nuñez said. “Companies who use this model intend for the buyer to feel superhuman, as if the buyer has made some huge impact when in reality they have not really done anything. Honestly, if you’re going to buy a product like TOMs or Thinxx, buy it for yourself because you want it, not because you think you are bettering the world because, in reality, you’re really not.” Critics like Moon also claim that much like aid-based marketing, technology advertisements focusing on environmental consciousness may also be misleading. “Electric Car commercials promote that efficient energy usage could help the environment,” Moon said. “But, obviously, while that can be technically true, it produces more waste because you have to throw away an entire car, and extract the materials to produce a new one. At that point, a car that is marginally more efficient won’t actually help save the environment at all.” According to a study done by World Economic Forum, electric car battery production has exponentially increased within the past decade, and this hurts the environment over twice as badly as traditional combustion engine cars.

The study points to the required extraction of cobalt and lithium as additional proof that electric car production increases environmental destruction. Others show concern about these advertisements also being used to cover up other ethical issues, such poor working conditions or regional monopolization. “It has recently become popular to become green, which is good, and many corporations have declared their commitment to combating climate change, including car companies,” Nuñez said. “However, many of them are doing this for publicity and not because they genuinely care.” According to a Forbes study, companies are molding their advertisements to profit more from the consumers: in the past 5 years, 66 percent of millennial consumers said that they would spend more on a product if it is more environmentally conscious. This has resulted in a major boost of environmentally conscious marketing. Students also believe that overproduction can be seen in other sectors of the technological innovation industry. “I think that the bad side of consumerism can definitely be seen when looking at the devices we use, like iPhones,” Moon said. “There was that whole scandal pretty recently that addressed the fact that Apple was trying to actively slow down older iPhones without telling consumers so that they keep updating their phones. That is not only extremely unfair to people buying the products but also creates lots of unnecessary waste.” According to a 2015 Reuters study, the U.S. creates around 1 million tons more electronic waste than China, despite the country itself only being a quarter of China’s size. Instructor of Political Science at


Moravian College Faramarz Farbod said he believes that neoliberalism is the problem. “Neoliberalism is both the dominant ideology of our time and a set of policy prescriptions,” Farbod said. “As the ruling ideology, its primary function is to mask the destructive nature of the global capitalist accumulation process since the 1970s. It does this by cloaking the latter in the trappings of the various discourses of ‘economic freedom,’ such as ‘free trade,’ ‘free markets’ unhindered competition.” Farbod also said that neoliberalism only benefits a few corporations through deregulation and privation. “As a policy prescription, neoliberalism’s primary aim is the continued enrichment of the few, namely the multinational corporations, and the large financial interests and investors,” Farbod said. “It is commonly associated with a sacred policy triad of privatization, deregulation, and liberalization.” Specifically, in the context of technological innovation, Farbod said that neoliberalism decreases safety regulations and is the root cause of economic struggle. “Neoliberal policy-makers equate deregulation with greater marketization, a presumed good thing in itself,” Farbod said. “In reality, what they have sought, and attained, is a re-regulatory regime designed to support the narrow interests of finance and transnational capital. The warm feelings the word itself may impart to unsuspecting people, we shall see that it does not mean a greater economic freedom of action for all concerned.” However, others believe that market incentive is necessary for a functioning society, including Upper School Mathematics Teacher and Department

Head Kent Nealis. “Because the preferences of individual consumers are not communicated, the goods and services produced do not align with those of the consumer,” Nealis said. “The result is chronic shortages and surpluses of goods and services. Because there is no profit motive, there is also little incentive for costs to be controlled or for quality standards to be met.” Some also believe that neoliberalism not only affects the economic sphere but also social ideology. “An issue with our current world is that there is way more value that is put onto wealth and success, rather than morals or principle,” Moon said. Nealis points to current forms of socialism to prove that movements don’t achieve as much as they claim to. “The failures of command economies, such as USSR, Cuba, North Korea and Venezuela are a matter of record,” Nealis said. “Socialist counties have failed to meet even the most basic needs of their citizenry. Hunger, housing shortages, lack of medical care and concentration of wealth and power are all hallmarks of socialist economies.” The solution could possibly be the middle ground: a free market with consciousness around a wealth gap and labor exploitation, Nealis said. “Pure capitalism and pure socialism do not exist; there is no such thing as unfettered capitalism and there never has been,” Nealis said. “All markets are regulated to some extent by the government. The middle ground you speak of is a matter of degree. Where a country is on the continuum between free markets and socialism is a byproduct of the democratic political process, as the needs of individuals and the needs of society are considered.”

“Market failures pale in comparison to the failures of socialism.” Kent Nealis Upper School Mathematics Teacher and Department Head

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