Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has electrified the 2016 presidential race with his no-nonsense energy, authenticity, and class-politics platform. Some of his proposals have already made right-wing heads spin, like his support of a top marginal tax rate of 90 percent (as it was under Eisenhower), and legislation to break up the biggest banks in America, about which he declared: “No single financial institution should have holdings so extensive that its failure could send the world economy into crisis. If an institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist.” Additionally, Sanders has advocated raising the minimum wage, guaranteeing sick leave and vacation for all employees, making public college free, and eliminating money from politics.

“We need to develop new economic models to increase job creation and productivity. Instead of giving huge tax breaks to corporations which ship our jobs to China and other low-wage countries, we need to provide assistance to workers who want to purchase their own businesses by establishing worker-owned cooperatives. Study after study shows that when workers have an ownership stake in the businesses they work for, productivity goes up, absenteeism goes down and employees are much more satisfied with their jobs.”

Out of all of Sanders’ plans, this is the most “socialistic,” which in its original definition, before it became a meaningless word that Bill O’Reilly likes to shout, meant communal or worker ownership of the means of production. Contrary to what many people think today, socialism and social welfare states are very different — socialism was and is about the workers of the world uniting to grab control of industries and state from the capitalist class, while social welfare states are capitalistic, with the state providing basic necessities to mediate class tensions.

During the 20th century, capitalist nations, like the Unite States, became increasingly egalitarian; much more so than Karl Marx could have ever imagined. There are many reasons for this progressive shift, one being that the ideological threat of communism made it necessary for capitalist governments to limit inequalities, or face the threat of revolution. The rise of unions that fought hard for fair pay and worker rights also helped create what many progressives today call “the golden age of capitalism.” The main point here is that this “golden age” of worker rights and increasing equality was a movement within the capitalist system. Worker unions did not attempt to overthrow the entire “bourgeois state apparatus,” but worked within it.

And for many decades this seemed to work. As is well documented, and regularly brought up by liberals, the post-war period was a time when wealth spread and the middle class as we know it formed. It was a time when progressive taxation was at its highest, and when the strength of unions peaked. Unfortunately, it was only temporary. Union power has been falling for 40 years, while capitalist power has become stronger (and bigger) than ever. For anyone who understands the motions of capitalism, this shouldn’t have come as a great surprise.

First of all, the American (and European) middle class was greatly assisted by WWII, which destroyed massive amounts of capital, requiring tremendous amounts of reinvestment, and subsequently created an economic boom in the post-war period. With this destructive event, along with the rise of communism in the east and unions in the west, capitalists were forced to negotiate with workers, or face more drastic movements. One of the basic tenets of capitalism, however, is the exploitation of labor, which is achieved either by increased productivity, or the movement of capital when labor becomes too expensive. Technology has not only increased productivity rapidly, but has made capital more mobile, making it cheaper and more convenient to produce overseas. This has been magnificent for those who own the capital, and all of the new wealth has gone to those few individuals. For the labor (which does not own capital), it has been catastrophic. It was naive to think that capitalists would simply accept a new form of capitalism, where workers are given their fair share, especially as capitalism has become a global system.

Since the ’80s, when todays worldwide capitalism really took off, technology and automation have increased rapidly. In a 2013 MIT report, it was found that innovation over the past few decades, specifically in computer technology, has destroyed jobs faster than it has created them. Since the new century began, productivity has steadily grown, while employment has stagnated. This points to what we all know by now — all of the economic gains that have been realized over the past few decades have gone to the capitalist class. At the same time, many citizens have continued consuming at staggering rates (our economy is, after all, based on consumption) through cheap credit, rather than real income and wealth. Like drug dealers out on the streets, corporations rely on the addiction of consumers, while exploiting their labor — and this is capitalism at its finest.