The Answer to Socialism

Subject:	The Answer to Socialism
Date:	Mon, 8 Feb 2010 09:41:36 -0700

The Answer to Socialism
posted at 3:43 am on February 7, 2010 by Doctor Zero
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American socialism has long functioned under the principle that a strong
central government, lavishly funded by the middle and upper classes, should
influence the economy in the name of “social justice,” and provide benefits
to the lower class. The power and cost of the government have steadily
increased – surging under the previous two Presidents, and exploding under
the current one. Its financing has shifted to deficit spending and direct
control through mandates and regulation, since endless tax increases became
politically painful.

I believe this system is very close to total collapse. If nothing else
triggers it, the explosive bankruptcy of Social Security and Medicare will.
The half-life of American socialism may now be measured in years, rather
than decades. If we let it run its course and crash, its death throes will
be unspeakably painful.

I don’t think our fate is sealed. Several quarters of weak economic
performance have not erased the incredible potential of American industry.
Technological development will bring new markets. The populace may seem
lethargic now, but I think we’ll be surprised how fast the private sector
leaps to its feet, once the government boot has been taken off its neck.
What can we do, to begin turning things around?

Our challenge is not merely to win a few elections, or pass a bill here and
there. We have to change the direction of a culture that has trended
leftward, toward collectivism, through several generations. We have to move
the center back to the center. This will require leadership, which we should
seek out in the elections to come… but it also demands our involvement as
individuals. A recent poll showed 36% of Americans, and 53% of Democrats,
had a positive opinion of socialism. Our task is to understand why. This
moment demands more than a critique of socialism, which is nothing less than
a challenge to freedom, and requires an answer. Only by expressing the
philosophy of conservatism, in powerful and memorable terms, can we win the
popular support necessary to implement concrete proposals. This is a
foundation to be laid in countless conversations, both online and around
water coolers.

The appeal of socialism comes from more than just using money taken from the
wealthy to buy the votes of the poor. It is also an expression of rage, from
those who believe capitalism has treated them unfairly. Too many people seem
quite willing to put up with a reduction in their modest standard of living,
as long as they believe some faceless “fat cats” are getting soaked. Those
who follow the bitter politics of envy should understand that every system
of ordering human affairs produces both the rich and the poor. In our
current situation, what cats are fatter than the political elite? As of
2008, two-thirds of our Senators were millionaires, and all of them enjoy
lavish perks, incredible benefits, and gold-plated retirements, including
plush lobbying and consulting jobs… when they’re unlucky enough to fall
through the few holes in a 90% incumbent re-election safety net. Many of our
representatives, like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, live like royalty by
abusing their power. Every nickel of a politician’s fortune comes directly
from your pocket, without your willing consent to purchase products or
services.

The lens of socialist envy is rather selective about which targets to focus
upon. Its political allies are never presented to the public as object of
hatred. Neither are those with enough popularity to insulate them from
criticism, such as entertainers and professional athletes. Anyone who
supports the Left out of hatred for the evil rich would benefit from
considering a list of the fabulously wealthy people they have not been
instructed to hate.

If there will always be people who grow rich and powerful through their
ambitions, it’s much more sensible to embrace a free-market system, where
ambition produces value. Government pursues its ambitions at the expense of
its duties. Look at the miserable performance of the Obama Administration on
national defense. It has no energy to spare for thankless tasks which
promise no rewards of increased power and control. The more our President
and Congress pursue their desires, the worse they become at meeting the
simple obligations required of them by the Constitution.

Socialism is an object of romance from its devotees. It invites them to join
an epic tale of mighty statesmen solving the problems of society with noble
laws, and encourages them to turn their back on the small-minded pursuit of
filthy money. The Left loves to talk about the pursuit of dreams as the
highest human aspiration… and since everything it proposes is presented as a
dream, how can any high-minded person raise grubby practical objections? In
matters affecting the millions of lives, and the disposition of trillions of
dollars, we cannot afford romantic notions. Only hard, cold logic is
acceptable.

The truth is that money is not an evil toxic sludge, whose stain the Left
works to scour from our souls. Money is the mechanism that allows you to
spend your time doing what you’re best at – which produces wealth, the same
way a lever amplifies muscle to move great weights. You spend the money you
earn each day on a range of products you couldn’t possibly create for
yourself. You probably couldn’t create a decent pair of shoes in the hours
it takes you to earn enough money to purchase them. You definitely couldn’t
cobble a computer system together from nothing but raw materials, in the
time it takes you to earn a thousand dollars and buy one. This is the
genesis of wealth: the freedom enjoyed by people when the value of their
time can be measured and traded through currency.

Through the combination of progressive taxation and payroll withholding,
socialism established the principle that government has the right to set the
value of your time, along with first claim on it, taking your income before
you even see it… and refunding the excess without interest, when it takes
too much. Of course this reduces wealth and prosperity. Capitalism is the
right to design your own dreams, and you’re much better at it than a gang of
politicians scribbling incomprehensible legislation in a distant capitol.
The behavioral freedoms socialists like to tout as indulgences are matters
of the fleeting moment. The freedom to control your labor and property allow
you to build your future. True prosperity is measured in things to come.
Nothing is growing in a still photograph of a flower.

The orgy of deficit spending we’ve witnessed over the past year is an
explicit judgment that America doesn’t have a future. Its unborn children
will be handed the bill for the needs of today, plus a back-breaking load of
interest. Allowing the national debt to equal our annual gross domestic
product, as in President Obama’s staggering 2010 budget, means accepting the
insult that America is too weak to stand without support from its
grandchildren.

Follow the premise of socialism to its conclusion, and ask yourself why the
government shouldn’t achieve 100% employment by conscripting every single
citizen, and eliminate “social injustice” by providing for all of their
needs. Why shouldn’t your income be paid in coupons, earmarked by the wise
and benevolent State for food, medicine, housing, and leisure? The answer is
that a command economy can’t produce value, allocate resources, or nourish
the ambitions of its people with a fraction of capitalism’s vigor or
efficiency. The value of government scrip could never equal the value of a
dollar. Instead of helping its people realize their potential, a socialist
government must invest an increasing amount of its energy into compelling
their obedience. What capitalism hails as innovation, socialism punishes as
impertinence.

To put this philosophy into action, we must return what government has taken
to the private sector. We can begin by cracking down on outright fraud and
waste. Citizens Against Government Waste has sniffed out over $19 billion in
pure pork – money seized from some citizens to buy the votes of others.
Medicare oozes $60 billion in fraud and waste. The Cato Institute recently
created a web site dedicated to downsizing the government, which lists many
more examples of redundant government programs and expensive incompetence.
We should also insist, in a unified voice that shakes every seat in the
House and Senate, that not one more dime of American taxpayer money will be
sacrificed to the “climate change” fraud, and demand its domestic
accomplices be prosecuted. The money recovered from cracking down on
government waste should be immediately returned to the taxpayers, since it
was seized under false pretenses.

We have to do more than just whip Big Government into fighting shape. We
must begin devolving the functions of the federal government to the states.
We don’t need rivers of tax money pouring into Washington, then trickling
back to the states, polluted with frozen chunks of mandate. Let the states
handle the financing for these functions… and let state politicians directly
face those whose taxes pay for them. The national Congress places too much
money in the hands of representatives most taxpayers will never have a
chance to vote against.

Government-controlled industries should be privatized, beginning with
education, which wastes a staggering amount of money on tragically poor
performance… empowering a massive, politically-active union with interests
hostile to most of the Americans who involuntarily supply its funding.
Industries the government has painfully failed at running, such as Amtrak,
should be handed off to private-sector businessmen who can make them work –
or put them out of their misery. Ridiculous extravagances like the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting, whose services were already privatized
years ago, should be eliminated at once. Sorry, liberals, but if we need to
rack up a $14 trillion national debt, we certainly can’t afford to fund NPR
and PBS any more. A government characterized by uncontrolled deficit
spending has lost all moral and reasoned claims to run any business that
could be tackled by the private sector. It shouldn’t be allowed to pour tax
dollars into statist live-action role playing games like Americorps, either.
Privatization is the only way to prevent the collapse of the unsustainable
Social Security and Medicare entitlements.

Expensive corporate welfare programs should be eliminated, especially after
the odious concept of tax-nourished companies becoming “too big to fail” has
deformed our economy. An example of such a program is the $90 billion
Advanced Technology Program, a sad attempt to emulate the Japanese model of
government-sponsored corporate development, which already crashed and burned
a decade ago. There’s no point in talking about privatizing industries when
so many companies are stumbling around on the end of umbilical cords that
lead back to the federal treasury.

In the longer term, we should scrap the bloated tax code shackling our
productivity with thousands of incentives and penalties, and move to a flat
tax – collected openly with regular tax statements, instead of allowing the
IRS to pick workers’ pockets with payroll deductions. Taxing people at
different rates based on their income level is immoral, as Constitutional
rights should not dissipate with wealth. It also puts far too much money in
the hands of politicians, and allows them to collect it with a club.

Are these radical ideas? They’re far more consistent with Hope and Change
than anything proposed by the man who has no ideas beyond giving us more of
the same, at triple the price. It’s long past time to try something truly
different from the wheezy old machine we’ve been fueling with tax money for
the past hundred years. Liberty is a radical concept… but it’s also a very
old and traditional one for Americans. It has also defeated collectivism
every single time they have been matched against each other. The answer to
socialism is that government cannot solve any of the problems our society
faces. Only free people have the strength and creativity to find those
solutions.

Cross-posted at www.doczero.org.