Socialism is the highest order of
civilizational evolution; an economic and social system in which everyone gives
according to his/her ability and receives according to his/her need; where
fairness and justice reign and human needs are given their due priority over
profits, and parasitic capitalist exploiters are stomped out along with racism,
sexism, homophobia, distinctions of class and environmental destruction.
Right?
Astute readers many note a tone of
sarcasm. But if that definition of socialism is obviously absurd, then aren’t
we getting into a straw man argument? After all, no one in America
believes that stuff anymore, right?
Few politicians in America call themselves socialists, but it’s
hard to find a point of fundamental philosophical disagreement between the
socialist parties of Europe (who at least
aren’t squeemish about proclaiming their name) and the Democrat party of 2013.
Moreover, the tactics and actions of the Democrat party in general and the
Obama-Reid-Pelosi administration in particular can leave little doubt as to
their philosphical foundations.
But why are they wrong? And why are we
right-wing nut jobs so adamant about Capitalism, the scourge of the Earth?
The
Flavors
There are, of course, other alternative
social models to Capitalism, such as absolute monarchy, theocracy, anarchy, or
feudalism, such as the landowner-serf/slave relationships practiced in the
middle ages in Europe and through the 19th century in Russia and the southern United States.
But none of those models pose a serious ideological challenge to Capitalism in
our day. The debate which remains is
between Capitalism and one or another form of socialism.
Under the general umbrella, there have
been many variations of socialism proposed and/or attempted. Here are a just few terms which are commonly
used as synonyms or which describe variants of socialism:
·
Collectivism: emphasizes the aggregate social group
over the individual, the sharing of goods, the general rather than personal
ownership of the means of production.
·
Statism: emphasizes the direction of human
affairs by the state; typically the federal or national government.
·
Planned Economy: This is a term intended to
promote socialism as a rational and therefore superior system in contrast to
the unplanned ‘anarchy of capitalist production’. An important question that arises is, whose
plans? Yours or the state’s? Are individuals, families, churches and other
voluntary associations to be permitted to make and carry out their own plans
for their lives and activities, without coercion and in voluntary cooperation
with their peers, or is it only the Master Plan of the nation, the central
committee, the Federal Planning Administration or the Supreme Beloved All Wise
Leader (may he reign for one thousand years!) that counts? Who plans and who
obeys? What is the penalty for
disobedience? Moreover, is this a superior
social system? Can it actually work?
·
Interventionism: Indicates that Capitalism and
liberty are permitted to a point, but the political party in power attempts,
through taxes, regulations, privileges and prohibitions, to engineer the
economy so as to achieve the outcomes it favors. Protective tariffs for favored
domestic industries and currency and credit manipulation fall under this
category. So do subsidies for ethanol, wind and solar power technologies
combined with taxes on petroleum-based products.
·
Keynesianism: John Maynard Keynes is perhaps the
most influential economist of the 20th (and now the 21st)
century. His General Theory of
Employment, Interest and Money (1936) provided the academic endorsement for
the New Deal policies of president Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the Great
Depression. While not advocating socialism outright (he was no fan of Marx),
his theory calls for an active management role for government in allocating
resources and deficit spending, presumably to better cope with recessions and
unemployment.
·
Mafiaism: A more vicious form of
Interventionism, characterized by privileges, prejudices and swift, violent
justice for those who get out of line. Very little pretense of virtue or appeal
to transcendent principles are made. Markets and private property are tolerated
as long as they don’t threaten the powerful and well-connected, but the threat
of nationalization of the enterprise or imprisonment, enslavement or murder of
private business owners is ever-present. This form of socialism describes Russia, China
and Venezuela
as it is practiced today, among others.
·
Fascism and/or National Socialism: A
variation of dictatorial socialism in which business firms retain a façade of
private ownership while taking all their orders and directives from the
government, frequently the supreme leader.
The most notable examples of this form were the National Socialist
Worker’s Party, or Nazis, in Germany
under Hitler from 1933-1945, and Benito Mussolini’s Partito Nazionale Fascista
in Italy
of 1922-1943. The Nazi movement was characterized by expansionist aggression
against neighboring countries, fueling World War II, and the mass genocide of Poles,
gypsies, and Jews.
·
Theocratic Fascism: Think Iran under the
mullahs since 1979. Economic activity is severely controlled by the state,
which derives its legitimacy from religious doctrine.
·
Communism: a political movement or party that
pursues its absolute socialist objectives ruthlessly and dictatorially, without
regard to democratic principles, human rights or concepts of checks and
balances of political power such as those embodied in the US Constitution. The
Soviet Union of 1918 – 1989, The People’s Republic of China under Mao Zedong
from 1949 to 1976, North Korea (the ‘Democratic People's Republic of Korea’)
from 1948 to the present, Cambodia under Pol Pot and the Kmer Rouge (1975-79)
and Cuba under Fidel Castro from 1959 to the present, are prominent examples of
communist regimes. These regimes have been characterized by mass genocide
against their own citizens; millions upon millions of people found to be
enemies of the regime, ideologically not sufficiently committed, or simply
inconveniently in the way of the regime’s objectives.
·
Democratic Socialism: Modern-day Western
Europe, characterized by parliamentary democratic institutions,
powerful trade and public-sector unions and governments which directly command
50% or more of the national product. Double-digit unemployment rates and
out-of-control public debt threaten the integrity of this society.
·
Progressivism: Most liberal socialists in the United States
deny that they are socialists and prefer the term ‘Progressive’. After all, who
could be against ‘progress’ and for stodgy, reactionary and/or racist conservatism? But the political term ‘progressive’ has a
specific, historical meaning which most people who call themselves by the term
don’t understand, which they would be shocked to learn, which is completely at
odds with American constitutional principles and traditions and destructive to capitalist
economics.
Karl Marx didn’t invent Socialism, but
he was its most significant champion in the 19th century. He is credited with
inventing the term ‘capitalism’, which he meant as an insult, but which is
perfectly acceptable to those of us who defend it.
Marx believed that advanced capitalist
societies like Great Britain
and the United States
suffered from fundamental contradictions that would result in them evolving
naturally to their historical destiny of the socialist worker’s paradise. However,
all of the countries that went hardcore communist in the 20th
century were backward, feudal nations like Russia,
China, North Korea, Cuba,
Cambodia and Vietnam. Not one of these nations had an advanced,
capitalist industrial base before convulsing into communism. That’s just one
way in which Marx was wrong. But the
worst error turns out to be his judgment of the nature of the communist society
itself. Instead of being the worker’s paradise that he envisioned, all of these
countries became hellholes of violence, mass murder/genocide, ideological
oppression, physical deprivation and starvation. Hundreds of millions of people
died in atrocious conditions in the purges, prison camps, firing squads and deteriorating
housing, nutrition and medicine of the communist ‘paradise’.
In spite of all this, the appeal of the
‘fair and just’ society where the wise and benevolent government ensures that
no one goes hungry or is without medicine, lives on. Socialists attempting to
distance themselves from the genocides of the communist regimes may claim that
those don’t represent true socialism;
that true socialism is something else, democratic, compassionate, humanitarian.
But the historical record is brutal and unforgiving: those nations that took
socialism the farthest suffered the worst oppressions known in human history.
No wonder so many present-day socialists prefer to call themselves
‘progressives’ while pursuing essentially the same goals by essentially the
same methods.