Socialism Doesn't Work (And You Shouldn't Support It)

Many earnest but ill-informed Americans legitimately wonder how the economy could have done so well under former President Donald Trump yet go spectacularly south in such a short time under President Joe Biden. The answer to that question is straightforward. Trump doesn't believe that the government should run the economy. Biden and his puppet masters think the government should run the economy, and that they should run the government.

They're wrong. There are at least two good reasons why no individual or small cadre of people should "run" the economy: First, people are frequently wrong, even in subjects they know a great deal about. (And no one in Biden's administration knows much about business.)

Second, once people have the power to "run" the economy, what you have access to is limited to what they have decided you will have.

Put those two things together -- ignorance and untempered power -- and you get a recipe for the kinds of economic failures command-and-control economies are infamous for.

I attended an academic conference some years ago at which both attitudes were on display. During one panel discussion, a female speaker complained that both major hospitals in her city were building MRI facilities and adding wings to their buildings. "We don't need that many MRIs," she insisted, "and we don't need that many hospital beds."

Second, once people have the power to "run" the economy, what you have access to is limited to what they have decided you will have.

Put those two things together -- ignorance and untempered power -- and you get a recipe for the kinds of economic failures command-and-control economies are infamous for.

In a free market system, private companies have an incentive to cater to you, the customer. In a planned economy, private companies (assuming they are allowed to exist) do not answer to customers; they answer to the government. "Doesn't the government answer to the people?" Get real. Even in a political system that permits public participation (such as voting), changing anything is difficult, inefficient, cumbersome and infrequent at best.

In other words, if you go to the grocery store today to buy a box of cereal and find that it's half empty and filled with dead bugs, you'll switch brands tomorrow -- and you can because you have other options immediately.

But if changing your economic options means changing the government every two or four or six years? Good luck with that.

In addition to incompetence, government control of economics also breeds corruption. When government power, not consumer preference, decides which companies will and will not operate, bribery and graft follow. And in economies where private enterprise isn't allowed, governments penalize -- and even criminalize -- the natural human entrepreneurial impulse to solve problems for other people because it makes the government look bad.

Ignorance of what makes the American free market system so successful is dangerous. The same people who cannot figure out why the Biden policies are taking the economy into the toilet are likely to vote for more of it. And we'll all pay the price.

Biden and his puppet masters think the government should run the economy, and that they should run the government.

Socialism, and the problems of socialism stretch back many generations at this point. Many people don't get it.

But in more everyday terms: we have a couple generations now who understand Star Wars pretty well. They've seen Emperor Palpatine corrupt young Anakin Skywalker with empty promises of "UNLIMITED POWER!!!" And the viewers shake their heads and say, "That Palpatine is a bad dude. I can't believe Anakin fell for that one. He really should have known better than to be pulled to the Dark Side."

And then they go vote for a Democrat.

Sigh.

Socialist thinking is the true opiate of the masses for it offers a doctrine and zeal in place of Christian scruples without any of that messy repentance guff, allowing the socialist to be a scummy as they want to be.

It is inevitable that what floats to the top of a cesspool like socialist thought and action are will NOT be cream.

From the article:

“Trump doesn’t believe that the government should run the economy. “

And yet the federal deficit increased to $1 trillion under his watch even before the pandemic. He must have approved a lot of big spending bills for that to happen, though most of the blame lies with our spendthrift Congress.

The same people who cannot figure out why the Biden policies are taking the economy into the toilet are likely to vote for more of it. And we'll all pay the price.

The ignorant are fed “free stuff”. They like it and vote accordingly.

But, But, you conservatives keep comparing to Venezuela and Cuba, but we mean Sweden and Norway!

No, you don’t, in socialist European countries common blue collar folks pay as much as 60% of their wages in taxes; i fact everybody pays. Our left wants this all supplied freebie by the government which is communism and closer to the Cuba-Venezuela models.

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.