Why Won't You Die?

Socialism Keeps Hanging On

There's a scene in one of the Batman movies where Twoface (played by Tommy Lee Jones) cries out in despair "Why won't you die?!" Time after time The Batman escapes death to become the arch villan's worst nightmare - again and again. Well, it seems that the caped crusader has something in common with the ideology we know as socialism.

I am considered an ardent right-winger by the people who know me best, but what I actually am is an fanatical anti-socialist. I am as puzzled by the seemingly universal appeal of socialism as I am by those who think Meg Ryan is a fine actor. Maybe it's because the people who embrace socialism are so put off by the seeming immorality of the profit driven capitalist they see portrayed on TV and in the movies. Somehow they believe that a cradle-to-grave nanny-state is more righteous than selfish profiteering from one's own talent and hard work. In fact, it is the secular socialist that refuses to be judged in moral terms for virtually anything. We are just supposed to ignore the fact that socialism in practice is an abject failure because the socialists have nothing but the purest intentions in theory. That is, of course, the height and depth of socialist hypocrisy.

In a fascinating piece on TCS Daily Lee Harris asks "Why Isn't Socialism Dead?" Harris illustrates my previous point with apt definition of the socialist dreamer:

Utopian socialists love to dream up ideal schemes for organizing human life; they engage in wishful politics, and design all sorts of utterly impractical but theoretically perfect social systems, none of which has the slightest chance of ever being actualized in concrete reality.

The problem is that we live in the real world, not someone's fantasy of how social systems "should" be. The leftist believes that man is inherently good and will look out for the benefit of the "community" if it were not for the unfair and unjust society that capitalism has created. The rest of know that most people will look out for their own self interest when push comes to shove. It's called human nature. Europe is dying because of the self-hatred socialism produces. Follow anything commetator Mark Steyn writes on the demographic plight white Europeans find themselves in. It is the secular socialism of the me generation that will see Europea as we know disappear before the end of this century. Can American self hatred be far behind?

Bottom Line:
Markets as free from government interference as possible are the best hope for human dignity and success. Populism contains only empty promises because there is nothing to build a wealth foundation on for the average Joe. Ask yourself why the average Cuban is dirt poor and Fidel Castro has billions? For better or worse capitalism offers the most for the most.

Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr writes:
The market economy has created unfathomable prosperity and, decade by decade, century by century, miraculous feats of innovation, production, distribution, and social coordination. To the free market, we owe all material prosperity, all leisure time, our health and longevity, our huge and growing population, nearly everything we call life itself. Capitalism and capitalism alone has rescued the human race from degrading poverty, rampant sickness, and early death.

And Ludwig von Mises writes:
The capitalistic economic system, that is the social system based on private ownership of the means of production, is rejected unanimously today by all political parties and governments. No similar agreement may be found with respect to what economic system should replace it in the future. Many, although not all, look to socialism as the goal. They stubbornly reject the result of the scientific examination of the socialistic ideology, which has demonstrated the unworkability of socialism. They refuse to learn anything from the experiences of the Russian and other European experiments with socialism....

...an economic arrangement which is assumed to represent a compromise solution, the "middle-of-the-road" between socialism and capitalism. To be sure, there is no intent to abolish private ownership of the means of production. Private property will be permitted to continue, although directed, regulated and controlled by government and by other agents of society’s coercive apparatus. With respect to this system of interventionism, the science of economics points out, with incontrovertible logic, that it is contrary to reason, that the interventions, which go to make up the system, can never accomplish the goals their advocates hope to attain, and that every intervention will have consequences no one wanted.

Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr continues:
After Mises wrote this, fascism tightened its grip in Italy, and the Third Reich began its program of extreme interventionism, militarism, and protectionism in Germany. The New Deal came to the U.S., and the entire era ended in world war and holocaust. How much has changed, really, in 71 years? The hatred of markets must be countered by defenses of freedom in every generation. Our lives depend on it.

So I ask again - Socialism - Why won't you die?

CW