Posted on 09/16/2023 5:57:47 AM PDT by Uncle Miltie
Who says there isn’t life after death?
The death of socialism in the United States (except on college campuses) had been solemnly pronounced many times during the 1980s and 1990s.
But for the past several years, we have seen multiple sightings of the beast.
Back in 2018, for example, the actor Jim Carrey told Bill Maher: “We have to say yes to socialism—to the word and everything. We have to stop apologizing.”
I'm pretty sure that no one told this poor fellow that, were socialism to be instituted in the United States, one of the first things that would happen is that people like Mr. Carrey would be instantly pauperized.
Did I say “poor” fellow?
As of 2023, Mr. Carrey had an estimated net worth of $180 million.
But what are the two fundamental pillars of socialism?
One: The abolition of private property.
Two: The equalization of wealth.
I can't forbear to point out that Mr. Carrey actually starred in a movie called "Dumb and Dumber," which is about “two unintelligent but well-meaning friends from Providence, Rhode Island.”
Talk about art imitating life.
Mr. Carrey’s self-congratulatory naïveté is repeated everywhere these days.
It's an attitude that's especially prevalent among historically innocent beneficiaries of the free market whose lives have been blissfully untouched by the blunt and unforgiving imperatives of socialist domination.
Given the prevalence among the tender-hearted of socialist fantasy, on the one hand, and animus toward the free market, on the other, I thought it might be useful to say a few words in defense of the latter.
In "The Wealth of Nations," Adam Smith noted the paradox, or seeming paradox, of capitalism: that the more individuals were left free to follow their own ends, the more their activities were “led by an invisible hand to promote” ends that aided the common good.
Private pursuits conduced to public goods—that is the beneficent alchemy of capitalism.
In "The Road to Serfdom" and other works, Friedrich Hayek expanded on Smith’s fundamental insight, pointing out that the spontaneous order created and maintained by competitive market forces leads to greater prosperity than a planned economy.
The sentimentalist can't wrap his mind, or his heart, around that datum.
He (or she) can't understand why “society” shouldn’t favor “cooperation” (a pleasing-sounding arrangement) over “competition” (much harsher), since in any competition there are losers, which is bad, and winners, which may be even worse.
Socialism is a version of sentimentality.
Even so hard-headed an observer as George Orwell was susceptible.
In "The Road to Wigan Pier," Orwell argued that since the world “potentially at least, is immensely rich,” if we developed it “as it might be developed ... we could all live like princes, supposing that we wanted to.”
Never mind that part of what it means to be a prince is that others, most others, aren't royalty. (Or, as that admirable logician W. S. Gilbert put it: “When everyone is somebody, then no one’s anybody!”)
As Hayek observed, the socialist, the sentimentalist, can't understand why, if people have been able to “generate some system of rules coordinating their efforts,” they can't also consciously “design an even better and more gratifying system.”
Central to Hayek’s teaching is the unyielding fact that human ingenuity is limited, that the elasticity of freedom requires the agency of forces beyond our supervision, and that, finally, the ambitions of socialism are an expression of rationalistic hubris.
A spontaneous order generated by market forces may be as beneficial to humanity as you like; it may have greatly extended life and produced wealth so staggering that, only a few generations ago, it was unimaginable.
Still, it isn't perfect.
The poor are still with us.
Not every social problem has been solved.
In the end, though, the really galling thing about the spontaneous order that free markets produce isn't its imperfection but its spontaneity: the fact that it's a creation not our own.
It transcends the conscious direction of human will and is therefore an affront to human pride.
The urgency with which Hayek condemns socialism is a function of the importance of the stakes involved.
As he put it in his last book, "The Fatal Conceit," the “dispute between the market order and socialism is no less than a matter of survival” because “to follow socialist morality would destroy much of present humankind and impoverish much of the rest.”
We get a foretaste of what Hayek meant whenever the forces of socialism triumph.
There follows, as the night the day, an increase in poverty and a diminution of individual freedom.
The curious thing is that this fact has had so little effect on the attitudes of intellectuals and the politicians who appeal to them.
No merely empirical development, it seems—let it be repeated innumerable times—can spoil the pleasures of socialist sentimentality.
This unworldliness is tied to another common trait of intellectuals: their contempt for money and the world of commerce.
The socialist intellectual, especially the well-heeled one, eschews the “profit motive” and recommends increased government control of the economy.
He feels, Hayek notes, that “to employ a hundred people is ... exploitation but to command the same number [is] honorable.”
Not that intellectuals, as a class, don't like possessing money as much as the rest of us.
But they look upon the whole machinery of commerce as something separate from, something indescribably less worthy than, their innermost hearts’ desires.
Of course, there's a sense in which this is true.
However, many intellectuals fail to appreciate two things.
First, the extent to which money, as Hayek put it, is “one of the greatest instruments of freedom ever invented,” opening “an astounding range of choice to the poor man—a range greater than that which not many generations ago was open to the wealthy.”
Second, intellectuals tend to ignore the extent to which the organization of commerce affects the organization of our aspirations.
(Clipped ... More at source)
Dead and replaced by totalitarian globalism… and it happened under a republican prez.
The republican state legislators, governors and leaders have rubber stamped digital currency.
Trumps Mcarthy funds the whole thing in perpetuity. There were plenty of fiscally responsible nominees, but trump would never deny the Marxists money.
Socialism, communism, collectivism. All should probably be most clearly termed as “neo-feudalism”.
To me that best gets across the message that when the peasants “own nothing and are happy”: They are serfs to those who by contrast own everything and are actually happy.
As well, it makes it obvious, to me anyway, that all such movements have been started and encouraged as clever overlord propaganda.
It’s like cancer, the best you can do is put it into remission.
I’m leaning towards the perspective that discards labels like liberal, progressive, leftist or socialist. They’re communists, which is a term we’re hearing more and more often.
Philosophically, he is both short and poor while being hypocritically rich.
He’s oligarchy material
Yep. And a tool, besides.
Greed motivates any economic system. Capitalists admit it while communists lie about it. Capitalists acquire wealth by fulfilling human needs, while communists acquire wealth by stealing it with political power. Marx was right about one thing; capitalism sows the seeds of its own destruction by creating wealth. Without prosperity, communists would have nothing to steal.
Socialism is the preferred economic system of the most ignorant among societies. Therefore, it’s going to be around forever.
Socialism lives.
Only in the brains of those struggling to reach two digit IQs.
Jim Carey, Dumb and Dumber. Casting genius apparently.
We are way past socialism…
Socialism is, at its roots, Christianity without God or Jesus. That is, even in the early 19th Century, early proponents of proto-socialism were trying to imagine The Bible purged of God and His Words.
As such, socialism bitterly rejects the faith in favor of atheism, the rule of man. Likewise, the virtues of faith are rejected, and the “seven deadly sins” are embraced as sacraments.
The Democrat party is ruled over by overlapping factions that embrace these sins. Pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony and sloth. These are the features of the Democrats and everything they rule over.
The vast majority of people reject such perversity, and the socialists are very unhappy about it, insisting such sins are instead “good”, and nobody has the right to disagree.
It is a corruption of the spirit that leads to destruction, which seems plainly obvious. If someone sacrifices their children to Moloch in hopes of prosperity, they deserve no consolation for having neither children nor prosperity.
Th4 “progressive” movement (used to cleverly disguise the reality that it’s really the socialist/communist movement) is so very appropriately named: as in cancer is a “progressive disease” that can metasticize into healthy tissue (healthy states) unless it is contained and destroyed. Left untreated or ineffectively excised, the “progressive movement/progressive disease” will kill the otherwise healthy areas.
If you want to see a socialist in action, look at Hillary Clinton.
Nice little girl.
Something happens.
Becomes militant socialist.
Believes Republicans/Conservatives are enemies.
Does everything she can to destroy Republicans/Conservatives.
Realizes socialism doesn’t work.
Becomes bitter and disillusioned.
Decides that the only thing to do is to enrich herself.
Becomes criminal who lies, cheats, steals and murders.
Life becomes empty and meaningless except for rage she still feels.
Works to make the world suffer for her rage.
“Socialism” - basically government command and control economics - remains on the failed ash heap of history.
Why then does government command and control economics constantly reappear? Because man’s lust for short-term government power and prestige overrides long-term truth, facts, and common sense
Socialism the utopians dream that always fails no matter how many times the change the installation of it.
Not so in the Market Economy free from government interference in the voluntary exchange between buyers and sellers motivated by God-given SELF INTEREST in an openly competitive economic environment. Greed loses here because the economic law of supply and demand, not greed, sets prices.
I don't know what Marxist "capitalism" is but I know the delusional lying Left has managed to confuse people into replacing sound Free Market Economics and valid self interest with Marxist "capitalism" and "greed".
“ I’m leaning towards the perspective that discards labels like liberal, progressive, leftist or socialist. They’re communists, which is a term we’re hearing more and more often.”
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Whether one is discussing Socialism, Communism, Fascism, Nazism or any ideology related to them, one is discussing Collectivism. This group of ideologies, whatever flag they fly, whatever words they use, have one core belief and practice - that the individual has no rights whatsoever. Punishment for any individuals opposing the collective can range from shunning and deplatforming on the lower end of the scale, through the loss of a job or housing, up through being tossed into a gulag, concentration camp or being murdered. Opposing Collectivism is the ideology of individual liberty, embodied by the ideals of the American Revolution and our original Constitution and Bill of Rights. Anyone opposing individual liberty is a Collectivist, and must be identified and treated as such (all within the confines of the law, of course). Such people should NEVER be allowed near the positions of power, whether political l, economic or educational.
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