Socialism for the Rich (Thomas Sowell)

Townhall.com ^ | October 3, 2006 | Thomas Sowell

[hosepipe]

Socialism = Slavery by Givernment..

[MonicaG]

"thank goodness for Thomas Sowell. He always explains things "so well.""

I second that. I am grateful Mr. Sowell writes columns & books; it's good stuff I wish I'd learned back in school.

[NCSteve]

Dr. Sowell stretching the definition of socialism ping.

[subterfuge]

I second that. I am grateful Mr. Sowell writes columns & books; it's good stuff I wish I'd learned back in school.

Have they ever taught this stuff "back in school"? I don't think so. Environmentalism and sex ed for all!

[Tax-chick]

OH, be that way! I already let you have the last word, didn't I :-).

[jazusamo]

Thanks, another excellent piece by Dr. Sowell.

[goldstategop]

A lot of rich people are liberals because their weath is NOT taxed. They pay little on the investment and stock funds off which they live. Its not as heavily taxed as wages are. So they don't feel guilty about grabbing money from people who work and spending it on their pet causes. Behind the idealistic rhetoric lies a more selfish and exclusive interest in making sure their club remains private and rarerified. Of course some rich people are conservative. But for a lot of them, having all that money just gives them idle time to exploit and oppress others in the name of improving society.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[GVnana]

"eminent domain is socialism for the rich"

We would do well to remember this.

[NutCrackerBoy]

Eminent Domain and open space laws are socialism for the rich. Illuminating.

Covert socialism, like overt socialism, elevates an elite governing class. The people who govern will always be elite, and will attend to their own interests to some extent, but any kind of socialism raises the ante by making the government so all-powerful. When the situation is absurd like this, broken, I ask myself:
1. Have principles of the U.S. Constitution been compromised?
2. Can consent of the governed fix the problem by un-electing bums?

[NCSteve]

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Ironically enough, I think he's actually bent the definition beyond what I would have. When he talks of collectivization, he is really straying into pure Marxist Communism.

I have come to the realization lately that the very wealthiest people in this country have strongly tended toward Marxism over the last couple of decades. When you add into the mix that business is tending away from capitalism and toward corporatism, which is just another form of the collective, Dr. Sowell's point is well taken, regardless of what he calls it.

[Tax-chick]

I have come to the realization lately that the very wealthiest people in this country have strongly tended toward Marxism over the last couple of decades.

Longer than that, I'd say. Look at the Roosevelts. Not Marxists in any consistent sense, but "tending toward" in many ways.

I think a certain sort of people just want to be the boss of others, in every way.

[Mamzelle]

The Fla folks who are dealing with eminent domain taking their homes in order to turn them over to the rich--ought to pay attn to the Greenville, SC case where the owner of some riverfront successfully sued (on contingency) for the value of his property. Only these Fla folks have some strength in numbers...the Greenville guy was alone.

[Billthedrill]

One of the basic tenets of socialism in practice is the necessity of redistribution of material wealth from a privileged class to an oppressed one. It is at this point that any other class may hijack the procedure by substituting itself for the ostensibly oppressed class and effecting the redistribution of wealth in its own direction. This has happened in socialist nations without exception at least to my knowledge, and is why they turn into kleptocracies with a corrupt and wealthy elite (sometimes it's even the same folks as before the glorious revolution) and an increasingly impoverished non-elite.

This is, of course, entirely contrary to socialism in theory. There redistribution works entirely in the favor of the oppressed. This theory bears roughly the same relation to the real world as do the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny.

The techniques of promoting socialism are, underneath, simply the encouragement of envy and a moral suasion justifying open theft, the proposition of an ideal public justice as a masquerade for private enrichment. Of course they may be employed by a privileged class - they always are.

[Mamzelle]

re: I have come to the realization lately that the very wealthiest people in this country have strongly tended toward Marxism))0

I think this is particularly true of the "got rich quick" crowd, particularly any association with entertainment--those who haven't accumulated wealth over time lose the appreciation for its value. Also, when you're very rich there comes with it diminishing returns...what do you buy when you've already bought it all? You've got your mansion, your plane, your squad of flunkies...

It comes down to the will to dominate. I've been around a few of these "got rich quick" types, and they start wanting to tell people what to think, what to do, how to live their lives. In many ways, they are the "theocrats" they claim to have such fear of...only these "theocrats" worship the power of money.

[mjolnir]

Right--- in fact, he's defending the "rich" from the "super rich" left--- socialists who would raise taxes on them while using every resource available to get out of it themselves.

Remember the sanctimonious pose Warren Buffett, Bill Gates Sr. and those other clowns adopted when they came out for the estate tax? That's the kind of thing Sowell is talking about. He's not attacking the rich, he's attacking the false notion that by robbing Peter to pay Paul, you're achieving a net good.

[cinives]

Businesses have been after government subsidies ever since there were corporations and governments. How do you think the railroad barons, for one example, became so rich ? They were given the land for free by the government. The catch ? They put up with regulations by their "masters" the government in exchange for the loot.

Ayn Rand had it nailed.

[shaggy eel]

,,, are his articles subject to copyright?

[timm22]

They own what they paid for -- their own individual property. But they get the government to collectivize the often vastly larger surrounding property, in order to keep the unwashed masses from settling near them and spoiling their views.

Thanks, Gordongekko909, for this excellent Sowell article.

As much as I loved this article, I wish Dr. Sowell had brought up public funding of the arts. To me, this has always been a particularly irksome form of socialism for the rich. I think it's safe to say that in most communities, it is overwhelmingly the rich who visit the museums and opera houses. Yet in many of these same communities, everyone must subsidize these places through taxes, under the justification that it is somehow enhancing the "prestige" of the city.

[timm22]

I agree with the ED part of the article but I don't like the thinly veiled attacks on the rich or the "greedy" corporations.

I don't think Dr. Sowell is trying to demonize the rich as a whole, just those who would abuse government power to serve their own interests. That IS evil.