There is an ideology which dresses itself in different costumes and calls itself by different names. That ideology is socialism, and the reason it travels under cover is its history of failure and human destruction.
By John Bernardi
In its worst wardrobe, it is revealed as Communism. Consider the history of China and Russia where millions of people, citizens, have been sacrificed (murdered) for the cause. In its best outfit, it presents itself as “social justice,” one of those terms the noted Austrian economist F. A. Hayek referred to as “weasel words” –the opposite of saying what you mean.
An older version of the Webster dictionary (1976) defines socialism as “various economic or social theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production.” A more recent version (2002) substitutes the word “society” for the word “government”, thus giving the system a softer tone and more credibility. Both versions are antiquated. Both versions describe an economic system under which nothing works and where government has not yet learned how to benefit from the fruits of production of a free market economy. Modern day China and Russia are prime examples of the learning curve. Both Countries have restructured their economic models so as to allow for private incentive while still maintaining control over the direction of the economy and their citizens.
Socialism when used in different contexts means different things to different people, but in all cases its principal tenet is central control, which is to say government control. It matters not whether the government controls the means of production or sits patiently back and waits to confiscate its benefits. Government has proven itself to be much better at the taking than at the producing.
There is hardcore socialism in the form of Communism in places like China and Russia, German style socialism during the Hitler years, southern style socialism in places like Cuba, Argentina and other of our southern neighbors, and soft style socialism as practiced in Western Europe since World War II and now in the United States. This soft form of socialism calls itself “social democracy”—more weasel words.
There is nothing social about forcefully taking one person’s property and giving it to another .The Welfare State is a product of this soft socialism. Welfare is a pleasant sounding word to describe the process by which government snuffs out personal freedom for the benefit of the “collective.” It is the modern version of the Marxist philosophy: “From each according to his ability to each according to his needs.” In principle, welfare is supposed to be a safety net for the truly unfortunate, the truly disadvantaged, the truly in need. In practice, the net is full of bottom dwellers feeding the system.
Ignoring for the moment the individual rights of those whom the government dispossesses of their property, and focusing solely on the benefits accruing to the recipients of the government’s generosity, the result has been the destruction of the human spirit and an inter-generational existence on the government’s plantation.
The lessons of history are there for the learning, not just the learned academics. Government can exist without socialism (America in its beginning), but socialism cannot exist without government (America today).
Upton Sinclair (1878-1968) was a well-known author in his day of over 100 books, his most famous perhaps being the “Jungle.” He was also a self-proclaimed socialist who twice ran for Congress from California on the Socialist ticket and once for Governor of the same state as a Democrat, unsuccessfully on each occasion. Following his failed gubernatorial bid in 1951, Sinclair mused publicly: “[T]he American people will take Socialism, but they won’t take the label.”
President Obama has joked on numerous occasions that people call him a socialist, implying that the label is not to be desired. One has to believe our President is tuned in to the advice of Mr. Sinclair. As for Mr. Sinclair, I wonder what his reaction would have been if he were told, “you didn’t write that book, someone else made the paper, someone else made the pencil, and someone else bound the pages, someone else delivered the finished product to the bookstands.” Such thinking would have ignored the creative genius of the author, but it would have been social justice.
Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.