Posted on 01/08/2014 2:43:48 AM PST by markomalley
It took capitalism half a century to come back from the Great Depression. It’s taken socialism half that time to come back from the collapse of the Soviet Union. In New York City, avowed socialist Mayor Bill de Blasio has declared that his goal is to take “dead aim at the Tale of Two Cities” — the gap between rich and poor. In Seattle, newly elected socialist city Councilmember Kshama Sawant addressed supporters, explaining, “I wear the badge of socialist with honor.” To great acclaim from the left, columnist Jesse Myerson of Rolling Stone put out a column telling millennials that they ought to fight for government-guaranteed employment, a universal basic income, collectivization of private property, nationalization of private assets and public banks.
The newly flowering buds of Marxism no longer reside on the fringes. Not when the president of the United States has declared fighting income inequality his chief task as commander in chief. Not when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has said that America faces “no greater challenge” than income disparity. Not when MSNBC, The New York Times and the amalgamated pro-Obama media outlets have all declared their mission for 2014 a campaign against rich people.
Less than 20 years ago, former President Bill Clinton, facing reelection, declared “the era of big government” over. By 2011, Clinton reversed himself, declaring that it was government’s role to “give people the tools and create the conditions to make the most of our lives.”
So what happened?
Capitalism failed to make a case for itself. Back in 1998, shortly after the world seemed to reach a consensus on the ineffectiveness of socialist schemes, economists Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw wrote that the free market required something beyond mere success: It required “legitimacy.” But, said Yergin and Stanislaw, “a system that takes the pursuit of self-interest and profit as its guiding light does not necessarily satisfy the yearning in the human soul for belief and some higher meaning beyond materialism.” In other words, they wrote, while Spanish communists would die with the word “Stalin” on their lips, “few people would die with the words ‘free markets’ on their lips.”
The failure to make a moral case for capitalism has doomed capitalism to the status of a perennial backup plan. When people are desperate or wealthy, they turn to socialism; only when they have no other alternative do they embrace the free market. After all, lies about guaranteed security are far more seductive than lectures about personal responsibility.
So what is the moral case for capitalism? It lies in recognition that socialism isn’t a great idea gone wrong — it’s an evil philosophy in action. It isn’t driven by altruism; it’s driven by greed and jealousy. Socialism states that you owe me something simply because I exist. Capitalism, by contrast, results in a sort of reality-forced altruism: I may not want to help you, I may dislike you, but if I don’t give you a product or service you want, I will starve. Voluntary exchange is more moral than forced redistribution. Socialism violates at least three of the Ten Commandments: It turns government into God, it legalizes thievery and it elevates covetousness. Discussions of income inequality, after all, aren’t about prosperity but about petty spite. Why should you care how much money I make, so long as you are happy?
Conservatives talk results when discussing the shortcomings of socialism. They’re right: Socialism is ineffective, destructive and stunting to the human spirit. But they’re wrong to abandon the field of morality when discussing the contrast between freedom and control. And it’s this abandonment — this perverse laziness — that has led to socialism’s comeback, even though within living memory, we have seen continental economies collapse and millions slaughtered in the name of this false god.
It’s because capitalism is the natural state of man - that is, something that he produces goes to benefit him, while at the same time benefitting the community around him, and he defends his territory or property and uses it in the production of his goods. As social organization moved away from its tribal form and, with the advent of currency and a money based system, became more individually controllable and also more flexible (making capital more easily transferable and resulting in the rise of a moneyed class rather than merely an hereditary property owning class), it did so naturally and with little pre-planning. Property rights are based on the fact that ownership is natural to man. But because it’s a natural and therefore somewhat amorphous, unstructured thing, it’s harder to enunciate.
Socialism, on the other hand, is an artificial system that must be developed by an originator (Marx, for example) and imposed by force, since it is unnatural. However, precisely because it’s artificial, it’s easier to enunciate and, while it has never worked in practice, it’s easier to defend because one can always claim that it’s not being implemented properly.
The only people who benefit from socialism are those in charge of enforcing it, that is, those in government. This is something pro-capitalist thinkers need to point out unceasingly. Socialism is repression and never benefits the poor, even when it’s “soft” socialism such as in England, where socialism has created a huge, festering, going -nowhere class of the native-born poor, who have enough to live on and miserable government health care, but absolutely no prospects. Still, the government and everybody who is associated with it thrives. And in a more harsh socialist system, everyone who is not in the government or favored by it is absolutely crushed into the ground and deprived of freedom and even life. That’s a pretty good argument against it.
Conservatives believe that that something is freedom and basic human respect, and nothing more.
The world is a cruel and unfair place. Socialism is what happens when you think you can fix it. All you actually do is become the instrument of the cruelty and unfairness.
The left uses every economic downturn, every crisis to convince the people that private enterprise is the problem, and to put more and more restrictions on it, with the ultimate goal of totally controlling it as under communism.
Every successive month, I find myself thankful I am old enough that I likely won’t have to suffer the inevitable final consequences of all this stupidity.
The interim results are bad enough.
As various products become scarce and as quality declines even further in the remaining products, the State will simply employ its flacks to deride the need for whatever can no longer be produced and the inculcated will make going without or utilization of poor substitutes desirable. Eventually, there will be a population that never knew anything different.
an honest answer to our question?
Libertarians are too wrapped up in themselves to have time or energy to care about anything else around them.
Republicans are in it with the Democrats as power grabbing regulators to keep their positions of power. There are a few exceptions, but far too few.
That is the reality we live in right now and only a total reset will solve the problem. Neither one is an answer, get over it.
So what are all the Occupy Wall Street types going to do about the elite socialist class. Every socialist society has an elite class, the ruling class. So they have no problem with elites, they just don’t want to be free and have their own opportunity.
Maybe it’s easier to deal with the fact that your a loser and can’t make it on your own if 99 percent are in the same boat with you.
...it’s easier to deal with the fact that your a loser and can’t make it on your own if 99 percent are in the same boat with you.
_________________________
Exactly.
I think the main issue is that the mechanisms that motivate and animate capitalism are not immediately evident to people. The "Invisible Hand" of supply and demand, of capitalist water finding its own level is so foreign to liberals because it cannot be seen unless you understand it, then it becomes nearly obvious.
Liberals, however, can see the workings of man in a socialist-leaning environment, which is God to them.
They see people being elected, setting up meetings at 9:00 AM in government buildings with oddly named conference rooms where there are agendas and minutes and serious things to be discussed. To liberals, it is solid, just, and wise, the effort at making decisions. What liberals don't get, though, is...the decisions are more often wrong than they are right. But because they are made by tangible men, they are de facto superior to any kind of invisible mechanism (such as supply and demand)
Individual men making decisions about how to allocate scarce resources with alternative uses are not match for the combined intellect and experience of millions of men and women whose "demand" with money drives the "supply".
To liberals, depending on that is like worshiping God, putting your eggs in a basket you cannot see!
And to the people who depend on other men to tell them what to do because they can't think for themselves, this is an easy proposition for liberals. Capitalism is easy to demonize for them, to sabotage it. And the sheeple take their cues.
bump
Exactly, and well said.
This would be true if ALL the people were in the same boat. However, this will never be. There will always be the politico elite, those in charge of the government. And, the peasants will only take so much of admiring excess from afar. It invariably leads to revolt, or an utter breakdown of the system (e.g., Tsarist Russia first, Soviet Union following 70 years later).
We see some signs of how the 'peons' of today, the entitlement crowd, are accepting of Obama's opulent excess in vacations, trips, parties, et al partly because of the racial 'he getting up on whitey' thing, and largely because the combined discretionary income they have access to is comfortable (i.e., not believing what the MSM and Obama say about our 'poor'.)
This will change when they (entitled) become the overwhelming majority and they slowly exhaust the wealth of this country. Then they all be come really poor - the kind that Obama likes to say they are now. The entitled of today WILL NOT succumb and exist like the Dustbowl Okies, or the poor populace of the depression who really would work if there was work. They will riot and revolt, and they cycle will begin anew, as always.
The Rolling Stone should make their magazine available for FREE to everyone for the good of mankind.
Right, capitalism came about spontaneously through the natural flow of things whereas socialism was posited by intellectuals. Because socialism is a creation, all of its details can be known by its creators. On the other hand, we may never fully understand all of the organic subtleties of capitalism. The difference in socialsm and capitalism is sort of like the difference in a cartoon character and an actual person.
Good analogy!
Wait until the Fall of New York—wait til its bankrupt, crime ridden, corrupt and a blight upon the nation. Time is their enemy and the truth will show Socialism for what it is.
You got it. Can you David Dinkins?
Interesting discussion.
Well, I for one am glad that whatever the outcome in my lifetime, that I have been one of the hardworking ones, the one to not need to take from others for my living. I am proud of my life and the fact that I “produce.”
The “takers” lead miserable lives — nothing can convince me of anything to the contrary. I’m glad I’m not one of them.
It’s interesting that the children, including my own, who were taught the values of self reliance embrace capitalism and its principles. They are our future, despite govt schools.
They or perhaps some, say Chicago is next.
By the time New York needs to be bailed out, there will be no America to do the bailing. All the others will have drained the till dry.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.