Fifth-Grade Socialism

A candy conspiracy

Socialism, democratic socialism, and social democracy have been tossed around the last few days on the platforms I read regularly. On the 250^th anniversary of the U.S.’s democratic government, we are re-examining our freedom of democratic choice determining the relationship between government and the distribution and acquisition of wealth and power. Socialism has been a loaded term for a long time. It may seem fantastic, but this discussion has been heavily influenced by candy wars in the early 20^th century.

At North Bellingham Elementary School in 1960, Mr. MacDonald, my fifth grade teacher, stood in front of our class with a wooden pointer next to an easel loaded with slick graphics that looked like PowerPoint slides 25 years before PowerPoint was invented. The packaged presentation, which circulated among classrooms in the Ferndale School District, gave us fifth-graders the low-down on the evils of Communism and the virtues of Capitalism with a side order promoting the domino theory that threw the U.S. into tragic exploits in Southeast Asia later when we fifth-graders registered for the draft. Separating socialist economics and authoritarian Soviet-style communism was far beyond Mr. MacDonald’s presentation.

Mr. MacDonald and the Ferndale School District board, which must have sanctioned the presentation, were well-intentioned, probably not well-informed, and likely the victims of a movement upholding the grotesque anti-communist McCarthy hearings a few years earlier. I won’t say explicitly that the John Birch Society’s hand was in the presentation, but I believe it was there.

The John Birch Society’s founder was a candy magnate, Robert Welch, the mastermind behind Junior Mints and Sugar Daddies, and veteran of cut-throat and conspiratorial candy wars.

Candy brands and packaging art can be legally protected, but ingredients, recipes, and processes, which are the real treasures of the industry, are free to steal without legal penalties. Candy factories, like Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, are secretive fortresses against industrial espionage. The struggles of these intrigue-wrapped bastions mirrored Welch’s vision of the cold war against world communism and inspired the thought behind Mr. MacDonald’s presentation.

North Bellingham Elementary School is in a remote corner of the nation and national communications did not penetrate as deeply sixty years ago as they do today. In my fifth-grade days, only the loudest ALL CAPs, candy war-inspired voices made it all the way to the Nooksack River plain.

Amazing that we’ve made it this far.