Why Socialism Cannot Succeed

Does Socialism work? To find out the answer to this question, all we have to do is visit the nearest Native American reservation. While it is fashionable to blame high unemployMent rates, economic sTAGnation and ill-health on the effects of being a conquered peoples, I maintain that it is due to Native peoples adherence to the socialistic tribal structure, both culturally and economically.

Why Socialism Cannot Succeed

Why Socialism Cannot Succeed

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Why Socialism Cannot Succeed

Why Socialism Cannot Succeed

I am always amazed with people who advocate socialism as a solution to the problems facing us. I would venture to say that those individuals have never lived or worked in a socialistic society. If they had, they would see that socialism only can work on a very limited and small scale.

In Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand tells a story about a motor company in which the credo, "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need", was applied. In this story, it shows how the company deteriorates because people soon learn that the get what they want, they have to prove how needy they are. Each person has to show that "their" need is greater than another's, and those with ability end up working more and more to provide for the "needs" of others. In other words, they were slaves to the "collective".

Aguste Comte, in his Catechisme Positiviste, said that "[the] social point of view cannot tolerate the notion of rights, for such notion rests on individualism. We are born under a load of obligations of every kind, to our predecessors, to our successors, to our contemporaries. After our birth these obligations increase or accumulate, for it is some time before we can return any service.... This ["to live for others"], the definitive formula of human morality, gives a direct sanction exclusively to our instincts of benevolence, the common source of happiness and duty. [Man must serve] Humanity, who we are enTirely."

"The social point of view cannot tolerate the notion of rights." This sentence needs to be burned into our souls.

Altruism also has been defined as, "serving others through placing their interests above one's own."

When the state decides to put altruism into practice the method used is socialism.

I was raised in what Indian's call the "dominant" society of the 1950's and 1960's in a small logging town in Oregon. At one time I asked my father why we did not live by the old reservation around other Indian's and he replied, "I didn't want you kids raised with the belief that somebody owed you something". He also was adamant that we work for whatever luxuries we wanted. At the time, I thought he was just mean and cheap.

The last 16 years I have lived on our small reservation. I have also visited and studied many other reservations in America. Most of them have attempted to use socialism as their economic remedy. If you want to see how socialism works all you have to do is look at Native American reservation's. They still have the highest un-employMent. The poorest health, lowest standard of living and highest death rate pro rated.

What I have observed is people are grateful when some of their needs are being met via a socialistic entity; then people start expecting their needs too be met; and then they start demanding their needs be met. They not only expect what was already given, but demand even more benefits.

Intellectually, socialism sounds wonderful. In reality it creates slaves. Some individuals are slaves by providing the benefits to and for others, and some are slaves to their neediness.

Here is a quote by Frederic Bastiat...... (This was written in the 1840's, about 100 years before FDR. Since the 1940's, most of the problems Mr. Bastiat foresaw have occurred in the U.S.)

"[The socialists declare] that the state owes subsistence, well-being, and education to all its citizens; that it should be generous, charitable, involved in everything, devoted to everybody;...that it should intervene directly to relieve all suffering, satisfy and anticipate all wants, furnish capital to all enterprises, enlightenMent to all minds, balm for all wounds, asylums for all the unfortunate, and even aid to the point of shedding French blood, for all oppressed people on the face of the earth.

Who would not like to see all these benefits flow forth upon the world from the law, as from an inexhaustible source?...But is it possible?...Whence does [the state] draw those resources that it is urged to dispense by way of benefits to individuals? Is it not from the individuals themselves? How, then, can these resources be increased by passing through the hands of a parasitical and voracious intermediary?...

Finally...we shall see the enTire people transformed into petitioners. Landed property, agriculture, industry, commerce, shipping, industrial companies, all will bestir themselves to claim favors from the state. The public treasury will be literally pillaged.

Everyone will have good reasons to prove that legal fraternity should be interpreted in this sense: "Let me have the benefits, and let others pay the costs."

Everyone's effort will be directed toward snatching a scrap of fraternal privilege from the legislature. The suffering classes, although having the greatest claim, will not always have the greatest success." from Journal des Economistes

I have witnessed the harm done by socialism. I have seen it sap the integrity, motivation, honesty, and dreams of individuals. I have seen it create slaves. I have seen its seductive promises induce people to betray family members and friends.

I have seen socialism create the entitlement mentality. I have Watched my sons accept the false premises that we are put on this earth to expend our lives, talents and ability to the "collective".

I have attempted to talk with them. I have tried to explain why they should not accept the fact that they will work over one half of their lives for the benefit of politicians and the government. However, as many of you know who have children, parents do not know much.

It saddens me. I told my oldest son that one of the reasons I sobered up 30 years ago, was because I was not going to be a bum on society or my family. I am not going to sit idly by and let our government institute programs and policies so my children will be slaves to me even "after" I am dead.

This issue is "not" just an interesting debate or intellectual exercise. Socialism kills, not just individuals but all the things that make an individuals life on this earth worthwhile.

Don't believe me?

As I suggested, just do a little research on the conditions on most reservations in this country.

Why Socialism Cannot Succeed

Capitalism, Socialism, or Social Protection?

Capitalism: Economic system where property is owned by individuals. An economic system in which property, businesses, and industry are owned by individual people and not by the governMent.

Capitalism, Socialism, or Social Protection?

Capitalism, Socialism, or Social Protection?

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Capitalism, Socialism, or Social Protection?

Capitalism, Socialism, or Social Protection?

Socialism: a political moveMent based on principles of socialism, typically advocating an end to private property and to the exploitation of workers.

Let's see: President Obama has been accused of socialistic tendencies, of advocating socialist measures, such as health care insurance for all Americans. According to the above definitions, the president has not proposed to abolish private property of insurance or of any other industry. He has simply tried to make it fAirer and more equitable, more affordable to all citizens. Social Security, for example, is a socialprogram designed to help those who paid into the system during their working years so as to make their reTireMent years less stressful income-wise. For any politician to call Social Security and Medicare to socialist plot to eliminate private property is simply absurd and a good reflection of their profound ignorance. Ask the common man and woman what they think about these social safety nets and they will respond vigorously in favor.

Public education is another target of those who advocate the end of social programs; they want the State to give every parent to voucher so as to choose any private school of their choice. That proposal smacks of socialistic tendencies; use tax Dollars from the rich and give that money to the less fortunate? Wasn't John McCain candidate deriding Obama'ssuggestion to tax rich people and give it to the poor? To spread the wealth as the Republican candidate called it? Isn't the school voucher, favored by many Republicans, precisely that, spreading the wealth?

It's a shame when fire breathing politicians hoping to appear knowledgeable confused social safety nets with socialist politics; or maybe they know the difference but simply act in bad faith. After all, they have hundreds of researchers who are most likely better informed. They even accuse Obama of "Europeanizing" America; would that be so bad? Don't they have a free market society on the Old Continent? Shouldn't we imitate what works for other countries?

Do we really want to return to savage capitalism, to robber barons, and to heartless factory owners who gleefullyexploited children, men, and women in the early 1900 's? Look at the faces of those victims in early photographs and you will thank your stars that you are not living during that period.

No sane American wants to end the free enterprise system; we all saw what happened in the Soviet Union and, nowadays, in Cuba. Even the Chinese communist junta recognized the need to introduce private ownership and a market driven economy. We all accept that savvy individuals can flourish when allowed to invent and invest; but we must also recognize that not all citizens are gifted, whether intellectually or economically. A free market society must establish a safety net for those less able to provide for themselves. It is a profound shame that the most powerful nation on earth allows people to get"kicked out of their homes and thrown, literally, into the streets with their meager possessions. It's a shame when uninsured American citizens lose their savings and their lives due to a severe illness. It's shame to let homeless people freeze to death or starve in the pitiless streets of our rich cities.

It is time to regain our original dream, to make America once again the country of the free, the country of the compassionate, the country of the just. How many politicians are willing to espouse such lofty ideals? Are you, personally, willing to write about it, to work in your community to make it a better place to live and work?

Let me know, my email is at your disposal.

Capitalism, Socialism, or Social Protection?

Socialism, Politics and Toilet Paper

There seems to be an ineluctable connection between socialist politics and toilet paper. When I worked in China, one of the most important items to take with you each morning into the Purple Mountain Observatory in Nanjing was a roll of toilet paper. Without this you were in trouble - you could not ask to 'borrow' the toilet paper of another. For one thing it was expensive. For another, communication was not always easy and sign language in this case might have been misunderstood.

In Rostock, in the socialist Deutche Demokratische Republik days, in an institute where my father visited and I with him, the toilet was locked for fear that the toilet paper be stolen. The key had to be obtained from the political commissar or similar; you had definitely to think ahead. In Cuba today, you purchase toilet paper sheet by sheet before you enter a public lavatory. In the old Czechoslovakia they had a positive fixation about toilet paper. One of my fellow scientists, a Slovak, has told me how, at Christmas, his uncle would each year arrive with a whole big box of toilet paper. No-one ever found out where he got it, for no-one got a straight answer if the subject was raised. But it was considered a terrific present to come with and greatly treasured. There were moreover attempts to take used toilet paper to the dry cleaners according to reliable sources.

Indeed in Czechoslovakia under the Soviets they had a special sort of apparatchik toilet paper. This was revealed when a Czech friend of mine many years ago overheard the following conversation in Wenceslaus Square in Prague: 'Do you know why here in Czechoslavkia we have double-sided toilet paper?' 'No, I don't.' 'Ah! Because a copy of everything must be sent to Moscow,' came the reply. Be that as it may, why is it that (nominally) socialist countries have or had such an undeniable and remarkable fixation about toilet paper? Can we learn something about socialism, or at least its misguided impleMentation, from this? Could there be the basis for a theory that this fixation led to the downfall of, at least, Soviet style socialism?

Such a theory would be along the lines of those theories which attribute the decline and fall of the Roman Empire to the use by the Romans of lead pipes for drinking water or associate the defeat of Napoleon in Russia with the disintegration of the soldiers' tin trouser buttons at freezing temperatures and the accompanying demoralization of his troops. It is of course tempting to associate a fixation with toilet paper with an anal fixation. This is itself associated with a compulsive desire that everything be meticulously organised. Very often the organisation may be defined by a set of arbitrary rules. If these rules are infringed, then the anally fixated subject becomes uneasy, upset and prone to anxiety and ultimately neurosis. This analysis of the significance of toilet paper under socialism goes some way to explaining the rigours of life under the repressive political regime for example in Czechoslovakia.

The reduction of complex political questions to physiology, Mental or physical, may be appealing in its simplicity but it is ultimately unsatisfactory. For example, it is true that the Pope may have had haemorrhoids when approached on the subject of the divorce of Catherine of Aragon from Henry VIIIth. However while this may have influenced the manner of his judgement on the issue at the time, it probably had little effect on the substance. Put another way, an anal fixation can barely be considered a more reasonable analysis for a basis for government than the ability to draw a sword from a stone, the mooted foundation of King Arthur's power and ultimately the British Empire. An alternative and equally simple argument is that some little squit of an apparatchik was given the task of calculating, within a five year plan, the quantity of toilet paper that would be used by the Czech population.

The story goes, according to Czech folklore, that this particular cog in the wheel of the administration suffered from chronic constipation and therefore had a quite misconceived idea of the consumption of toilet paper that was appropriate. This lead to an equally chronic shorTAGe in the command economy. However this explanation suffers from a lack of generality. It is, after all, difficult to conceive of why the decision to calculate the consumption of toilet paper was given in Czechoslovakia, Cuba and the DDR only to constipated apparatchiks in all three countries. Thus the issue remains something of a mystery, the solution of which may cast new light on the rise and fall of socialism - or it may not.

Certainly within the European context the problem of toilet paper, or what to use when paper was a scarce commodity, is an old one. Rabelais writing nearly 500 years ago devoted a considerable passage in PanTAGruel and Gargantua to just this topic, opting, I seem to remember, for a goose's neck. He would surely have been the political commentator of choice to discuss the issues raised here but for the time being you, the reader, will have to do with myself and this somewhat febrile contribution to what remains a fascinating problem.

Socialism, Politics and Toilet Paper

Socialism, Politics and Toilet Paper

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Socialism, Politics and Toilet Paper