Website owner: James Miller
What is wrong with socialism?
For many, many years now (probably at least forty or fifty years) America’s colleges and universities have been hotbeds of liberalism. Liberal professors have been teaching students that socialism and Marxism/Leninism is superior to capitalism. And now, guess what? A large portion of our younger generation is favorably inclined toward socialism. Young people are easily influenced. Is it any surprise that this has happened? I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the future of America could be a Communist state. Yes, even with all of Communism’s failures in different countries of the world, with all the evidence that Communism doesn’t work, with all the evidence against it, I think it could happen. False ideas spread like a disease. False religions and ideologies propagate like wildfire. Fools are a dime a dozen. I personally have no confidence in people or their good sense or good judgment. The vast majority of people are not creatures of reason. They are creatures of fickle impulse. A person is unhappy with his government. So, in retaliation, he votes for a Communist. Why not give Communism a whirl? All it takes is a majority vote of the populace to turn the country in a new direction. The idea is disturbing to me.
What is wrong with socialism?
1. It doesn’t work well. Socialism calls for public ownership of land, factories, and other basic means of production and government management of resources in the form of central planning. Government management of resources is inherently highly inefficient in comparison to the free market system involving private enterprise. It leads to poor allocations, great waste; things like shortages of items like toothbrushes, toilet paper, milk, and bandages. Critical items become in short supply just because the central planners somehow got things wrong. Central planning simply can’t compete with the free enterprise system in regard to the efficient allocation of resources. The free enterprise system just does the job much more effectively and efficiently. It can be depended upon to reliably deliver to a populace the things they want in the approximate amounts they want. If allowed to work without government interference, it works very efficiently and well (if the government interferes with it as in price fixing, problems occur). The free enterprise system involves competition. Competition produces efficiencies.
There is another very important reason socialism doesn’t work well. It is this: Government itself, by its very nature, is inherently inefficient. It is not a good vehicle for accomplishing things. Why? There is no incentive for a government worker to try to save money or be efficient. Indeed he is more likely to squander resources than to save them. And he is not likely to work any harder than he really needs to. On the other hand, in the case of private ownership, the owner has every reason to make his operation as efficient as possible, to continually look for ways of reducing cost, improving his operation, making it as streamlined as possible. He will stay awake at night trying to think of ways to better compete with competitors and to increase the bottom line. This incentive just doesn’t exist with a government worker.
2. Socialism leads to totalitarianism. With a free enterprise system there can be a minimum of government interference in the affairs of the people. It involves the basic concepts of private ownership and property rights along with a set of ground rules and laws that all must abide by. From this starting point, the market mechanisms of the free market system take care of the problem of supplying the populace with what they want. It is an age-old system, about as old as man himself, and a far more just and fair system than some communist dictatorship that has the presumption and arrogance to reject the concept of personal ownership and property rights and take its citizens’ property away from them and place the property owners themselves into work camps (i.e. work communes). Socialism has developed for itself a very different concept of justice than the one held by Christianity (and essentially all religions of the earth). Individuals have no rights. Only the state has rights. It does whatever it pleases. It is godless and its adherents reject ordinary ideas of justice. They reject the existence of a higher law that they must abide by and proceed to make whatever law they wish and do whatever they wish. The state becomes an ugly prison secured by secret police where everyone is poor; people are not allowed to leave nor to express their mind or to dissent; and children spy on their parents. A depressing state where there is no hope and no dreams.
Communism was experimented with even back in ancient times. Ancient Sparta had a communist type system. In his work “The Republic”, Plato presented a communist type state as the ideal state. This is what Aristotle had to say about this type of system:
“Such [communistic] legislation may have a specious appearance of benevolence; men readily listen to it, and are easily induced to believe that in some wonderful manner everybody will become everybody's friend, especially when someone is heard denouncing the evils now existing in states, suits about contracts, convictions for perjury, flatteries of rich men and the like, which are said to arise out of the possession of private property. These evils, however, are due to a very different cause - the wickedness of human nature. Indeed, we see that there is much more quarreling among those who have all things in common, though there are not many of them when compared with the vast numbers who have private property.”
“the greater the number of owners, the less the respect for common property. People are much more careful of their personal possessions than of those owned communally; they exercise care over common property only in so far as they are personally affected.”
I note the phrase above, “though there are not many of them when compared with the vast numbers who have private property”. Why is it, do you suppose, that private enterprise and the free market system has been the norm in countries around the world for thousands of years and communist type systems have never been popular and never lasted for long? Think about that. Most people with good sense don’t need to try communism in order to know that it is a system they wouldn’t like.
Modern western man thinks he is a little superior to all who have gone before him, that he is highly advanced and on the leading edge of intellect. He greatly deceives himself. He shows great evidence of high intellectual foolishness.
See the following:
Liberalism, socialism and the modern welfare state
July 2016
Jesus Christ and His Teachings
Way of enlightenment, wisdom, and understanding
America, a corrupt, depraved, shameless country
On integrity and the lack of it
The test of a person's Christianity is what he is
Ninety five percent of the problems that most people have come from personal foolishness
Liberalism, socialism and the modern welfare state
The desire to harm, a motivation for conduct
On Self-sufficient Country Living, Homesteading
Topically Arranged Proverbs, Precepts, Quotations. Common Sayings. Poor Richard's Almanac.
Theory on the Formation of Character
People are like radio tuners --- they pick out and listen to one wavelength and ignore the rest
Cause of Character Traits --- According to Aristotle
We are what we eat --- living under the discipline of a diet
Avoiding problems and trouble in life
Role of habit in formation of character
Personal attributes of the true Christian
What determines a person's character?
Love of God and love of virtue are closely united
Intellectual disparities among people and the power in good habits
Tools of Satan. Tactics and Tricks used by the Devil.
The Natural Way -- The Unnatural Way
Wisdom, Reason and Virtue are closely related
Knowledge is one thing, wisdom is another
My views on Christianity in America
The most important thing in life is understanding
We are all examples --- for good or for bad
Television --- spiritual poison
The Prime Mover that decides "What We Are"
Where do our outlooks, attitudes and values come from?
Sin is serious business. The punishment for it is real. Hell is real.
Self-imposed discipline and regimentation
Achieving happiness in life --- a matter of the right strategies
Self-control, self-restraint, self-discipline basic to so much in life