GARY KASPAROV VS. SUPER COMPUTER DEEP BLUE
Posted on 03/10/2016 7:53:15 AM PST by SeekAndFind
2016 seems like a strange time to be arguing the merits of socialism in an American presidential campaign. But it’s also strange for the prospective leaders of the free world to be talking about the KKK and their appendages, so clearly this year is not like any other. While the latter topics are, thankfully, beyond my purview, I have a great deal of interest in socialism.
Last week I expressed some of these thoughts on Facebook after hearing a clip of “democratic socialist” candidate Senator Bernie Sanders on Super Tuesday. This was already a rarity, considering how little time the networks have left after their blanket coverage of Donald Trump’s latest outrages. My post on the nature of socialism was 113 words long, a quick response to critics of a cartoon I had posted of Bernie Sanders wearing a baseball cap reading “Make America Greece Again.”
My goal was to remind people that Americans talking about socialism in the 21st century was a luxury paid for by the successes of capitalism in the 20th. And that while inequality is a huge problem, the best way to increase everyone’s share of pie is to make the pie bigger, not to dismantle the bakery.
Much to my surprise, my little rant went viral, as the saying goes. Instead of the usual few hundred Facebook shares, this paragraph quickly reached tens of thousands. By the next morning it had reached several million people, more than any of the day’s political posts by the leading candidates. A week later and it has over 3000 comments, 57,000 shares, and a 9.3 million reach that is in the category usually reserved for photos of pop stars and kitten videos.
My conclusion that “the idea that the solution [to inequality] is more government, more regulation, more debt, and less risk is dangerously absurd” apparently had great resonance, and I think I know why. There is a growing consensus that America has deep troubles, and no one can agree on solutions.
Everyone agrees that Washington should change, and some want the government to do much more while others want it to do much less. Many of the traditional economic numbers say that America is doing fine, and yet polls say that Americans—especially Sanders supporters—are angry about the present and fearful about the future.
I often talk about the need to restore a vision of America as a positive force in the world, a force for liberty and peace. The essential complement to this is having big positive dreams at home as well, of restoring America’s belief in ambition and risk, of innovation and exploration, of free markets and free people.
America transformed the 20th century in its image with its unparalleled success. American technology created the modern world while American culture infused it and American values inspired it.
In recent decades that storyline has flipped. The tireless work ethic and spirit of risk-taking and sacrifice have slowly eroded. This complacency was accelerated by the end of the Cold War and it has proved very difficult to overcome in the absence of an existential enemy to compete with. The booming innovation engine of job creation has fallen behind the accelerating pace of technology that replaces workers. The result has been slower growth, stagnant wages, and the steady shift of wealth from labor to capital. In such situations many people turn to the government for help and the siren song of socialism grows louder.
I respect and even like Bernie Sanders. He’s a charismatic speaker and a passionate believer in his cause. He believes deeply in what he is saying, which is more than what can be said about nearly every other 2016 candidate, or about politicians in general. I say this while disagreeing vehemently with nearly everything he says about policy. The “revolution” rhetoric of Senator Sanders has struck a chord with many Americans, especially the young voters who are realizing that their own lives are unlikely to match the opportunities and wealth of their parents and grandparents. They are being left behind in a rapidly changing world. It is a helpless, hopeless feeling.
The problem is with the proposed solutions. A society that relies too heavily on redistributing wealth eventually runs out of wealth to redistribute. The historical record is clear. It’s capitalism that brought billions of people out of poverty in the 20th century. It’s socialism that enslaved them and impoverished them. Of course Senator Sanders does not want to turn America into a totalitarian state like the one I grew up in. But it’s a valuable example of the inevitable failure of a state-run economy and distribution system. (Check in on Venezuela for a more recent example.) Once you give power to the government it is nearly impossible to get it back, and it will be used in ways you cannot expect.
The USSR collapsed because it couldn’t compete over time, despite its massive resources and devout ideology. The Soviets put a man in space before America but couldn’t keep up the pace against an innovating, free-market competitor. My Facebook post went around the world on technology created in America. The networks, the satellites, the software, nearly every ingredient in every mobile device and desktop computer, was invented in the USA. It is not a coincidence that the most capitalist country in the world created all these things. Innovation requires freedom of thought, freedom of capital, and people who believe in changing the world.
Yes, the free market can be cruel and it is by definition unequal. It has winners and losers. It also sparks the spirit of creativity that humanity desperately needs to flourish in our ever-increasing billions. Failure is an essential part of innovation and the free market. Of every 10 new companies, perhaps nine will fail in brutal Darwinian competition. A centrally-planned economy cannot imitate this engine of creative destruction because you cannot plan for failure. You cannot predestine which two college dropouts in a garage will produce the next Apple.
A popular rebuttal is to invoke the socialist leanings of several European countries with high living standards, especially in Scandinavia. Why can’t America be more like happy Denmark, with its high taxes and giant public sector, or at least more like France? Even the more pro-free-market United Kingdom has national health care, after all. First off, comparing relatively small, homogeneous populations to the churning, ocean-spanning American giant is rarely useful. And even the most socialist of the European countries only became wealthy enough to embrace redistribution after free market success made them rich. Still, why cannot America follow this path if that is what the people want? What is the problem if American voters are willing to accept higher taxes in exchange for greater security in the embrace of the government?
The answer takes us back to all those inventions America has produced decade after decade. As long as Europe had America taking risks, investing ambitiously, attracting the world’s dreamers and entrepreneurs, and yes, being unequal, it could benefit from the results without making the same sacrifices. Add to that the incalculable windfall of not having to spend on national defense thanks to America’s massive investment in a global security umbrella. America doesn’t have the same luxury of coasting on the ambition and sacrifice of another country.
Who will be America’s America? What other nation could attract the brightest students, the biggest investors, the most ambitious entrepreneurs in the same way? Germany? Russia? Japan? China? India? Each may take over leadership in some areas if America continues to falter, but none is equipped to lead the world in innovation the way the United States has since Thomas Edison’s day. None possesses the combination of political and economic freedoms and the human and natural resources required.
The government does have a role in addressing rising inequality. I turn not to Denmark or Venezuela or, god forbid, to the Soviet Union. Instead let us look to the last great battle between labor and capital in America, between public and private power. Just over 100 years ago, President Teddy Roosevelt spoke loudly and used his big stick against some of the world’s largest corporations when they were abusing their monopoly power. His successor, fellow Republican William Taft, continued the antitrust mission, at least initially.
Both men dealt with critics from industry and Wall Street who called their use of government power against them “socialism” and both answered eloquently. In his 1908 State of the Union address, Roosevelt spoke about “the huge wealth that has been accumulated by a few individuals of recent years” being possible “only by the improper use of the modern corporation,” and that these corporations “lend themselves to fraud and oppression than any device yet evolved in the human brain.” He also warned against the accrual of unaccountable political power in the hands of “men who work in secret, whose very names are unknown to the common people.” You can easily imagine Teddy in the bully pulpit today calling for the breakup of the big banks and ending their cozy relationship with Washington.
To give credit, Senator Sanders supports breaking up the giant banking institutions that dominate American finance and politics in a way that would evoke jealousy from John Pierpont Morgan himself. However, Sanders’s socialist policies would replace banks that are too big to fail with a government that is too big to succeed.
Taft warned about exactly this in his 1911 State of the Union. Busting the trusts was to free the market, not to insert the government into it. It was necessary to break up Standard Oil and American Tobacco in order to preserve capitalism, not to institute socialism. Taft said, “The anti-trust act is the expression of the effort of a freedom-loving people to preserve equality of opportunity. It is the result of the confident determination of such a people to maintain their future growth by preserving uncontrolled and unrestricted the enterprise of the individual, his industry, his ingenuity, his intelligence, and his independent courage.”
Bravo! Beautiful words and an even more beautiful sentiment that is deserving of its own Facebook meme! Unfortunately, today’s progressive solution would instead be to raise Standard Oil’s taxes and those of its wealthiest shareholders in order to pay for more services, like free college and health care. It would have been an acceptable choice for many, but the American 20th century would never have happened.
I lived in France and Belgium in the 1990s. So I guess I lived under socialism also.
Well written article.
This guy would make a great speaker at this year’s GOP convention.
When the reaction from anti-Sanders people (and I am one) does on to declare that socialism is the USSR it loses the audience Sanders is targeting. To the American youth socialism is not the USSR (regardless of the fact the USSR called itself socialist. The East Germans call themselves Democratic and they were not that either).
This kind of argument by tone deaf Kasparov and his ilk is like shooting blanks. It has no impact on Sanders supporters.
The other socialist that many youths will gravitate to is the new leader of Canada.
If we lose the youth we lose the future - so that is why we need to explain to the youth why Sanders is wrong but in a way that resonates with them.
To address the youth, use humor. See my previous post.
To people falling for Sanders’ message socialism = Sweden. When Sanders is attacked for being a commie it actually deflects from him because his backers don’t connect his message with socialism. He sounds more like a Kibbutz Socialist from Israel. I see Clinton struggling to attack Sanders on that front as well.
My goal was to remind people that Americans talking about socialism in the 21st century was a luxury paid for by the successes of capitalism in the 20th.
He is so correct.
In California the majority of the taxes the state collects depend on less then 10% of the people. If the stock market goes down then the state goes deeper in debt. Meanwhile the socialists spend even more while more and more people are leaving the state then coming in.
Too much thinking for young people. Mockery will work, and it entertains them without requiring a lot of thinking. The message is contained in the humor.
Today’s youth haven’t a clue about the USSR...They were toddlers or not even born when the USSR existed...
They look at the USSR as “ancient” history and as boring to study as the Persian Empire.
They wont know what it is about till it bites them on their azz.....
Well said Mr. Kasparov! Too bad it won’t get the same kind of distribution that his short facebook post did, because it requires more than 15 seconds to read.
Excellent Kasparov!!
How many college graduates have his grasp of American history?
(not to totally their fault since what they teach is Marxist propaganda - amazing, it’s like after the fall of the ussr we imported their schools.)
How bout citing the 100 million people killed by socialism/communism in the 20th century. How bout informing them of the German Worker’s Socialist Party and what that brought to the world?
The flaw in your analysis of Kasparov's article is faultier than anything Kasparaov wrote (nothing personal here)
You have the illusion that something Sanders' supporters read, or some logical appeal, will somehow change their minds, and nothing could be further from the truth. There is nothing, and I mean NOTHING that they could read or be "told" that will change their minds.
That is because their adherence to a fundamentally flawed premise (socialism) is emotionally based. They would be impervious to the flaws of socialism or the advantages of capitalism, because they have made up in their minds in advance what they are going to believe.
Kasparov is right, he knows of what he speaks, he grew up and lived through it, and not a single one of the snotty-nosed uber-liberals supporting him has ever done that, except for the ones who HAVE, and they feel that they will be one of the upper party people who will not feel the pain. They will be the ones in charge. Because if they don't view it in that light, and they did live through it, they are brainless cretins. No two ways about it.
There is no reaching those people, except for the grim experience of waiting in line for hours to buy second-rate toilet paper or a fundamental foodstuff, only to find out there isn't enough to go around, that will swing them around. That is the only way they will ever be swayed, and by then, we will be in the throes of it.
Again, nothing personal here so I hope you don't take it personally, but I don't think you understand the mindset of the supporters of Bernie Sanders.
Classic. Id like to see Bernies face if he said this to him face to face. The damned idiot went to the USSR for his honeymoon.
Nothing personal taken. Sanders’ socialism must be debunked because it is now seen as very attractive is my point. So we are same wave length - I just thing Ksaparov’s editorial is ineffectual - like preaching to the choir.
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.