The Naked Socialist
Page 5
For example, suppose the regime in power is opposed to eating meat. They declare that cruelty to animals exists at all stages of the meat production process. They say every aspect of the meat industry contributes to greenhouse gases and global warming.55 They supply charts and statistics and a multitude of studies proving hundreds of negative impacts on personal health.
The coup de gras comes when a host of government experts provide an estimate of meat’s impact on people’s arteries, and likewise, on the country’s insurance and health-care system. The only viable solution, they say, is to reduce consumption of meat by imposing crippling higher taxes at every level—from the rancher’s grazing fields, to the butcher, and finally to the restaurant.
This fictitious scenario is not that far from reality. In 2013, Sweden’s Agricultural Board proposed a tax on meat because meat production uses a lot of resources.56 Australia imposed a carbon tax on meat producers in 2012, forcing businesses to pay $23 per ton of meat for their CO2 emissions. One plant alone was bracing for an additional $2 million a year in new costs.57 And, like all other movements to control people and force them to change, information control plays the key roll. In 2012, for example, a report in the U.K. declared that if everyone changed to a vegetarian or vegan diet, the U.K.’s greenhouse gas emissions could be cut in half.58 Excluded from these government mandates is any consideration for private innovation, free-market solutions, or freedom to deal with such issues outside of government intrusion.
Other examples of government force are taxes or fines to reduce alcohol and tobacco use, to force people to wear helmets and seat belts, taxes to reduce use of tanning salons, and an attempt in New York to restrict sizes of drinks to 16 liquid ounce servings.
Along the same lines of “government must fix all bad choices,” a few states have taken up the responsibility of controlling obesity among their numbers. As poorly crafted as those laws are, at least they are on the state level where the population has more direct control. But on the federal level, the original U.S. Constitution prohibited Congress from such activities, or from extracting taxes for such purposes (see Article 1.8). Yet, the federal government continually does things like this anyway, ignoring the Constitution.
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34 John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Chapter X, “Of our Knowledge of the Existence of a God,” see The Great Books, pp. 349-354.
35 Hillary Clinton, remarks at the Brookings Institution, FOX News, May 28, 2010.
36 October 14, 2008, said to Joe “the Plumber” Wurzelbacher at a rally in Holland, Ohio.
37 July 13, 2012, The White House, Office of the Press Secretary
38 Op. cit., Joe “the Plumber” rally.
39 Quoted in Stephen Chapman, The Chicago Tribune, May 30, 1993.
40 Franklin D. Roosevelt, fire side chat, 1938.
41 Howard Dean, religious conference in Washington D.C., June 27, 2006.
42 Michelle Obama, April 8, 2008, as quoted in the Charlotte Observer, April 9, 2008.
43 Maxine Waters, televised hearing on May 22, 2008.
44 Joe Biden interview on ABC News, May 18, 2010.
45 Congressman Jim Moran (D-VA), comments recorded November 10, 2008, and rebroadcast on The O’Reilly Factor, FOX News, November 14, 2008.
46 Bill Clinton, Interview on MTV’s “Enough is Enough,” April 19, 1994.
47 Bill Clinton, August 12, 1993.
48 Hillary Clinton, quoted in Associated Press: “San Francisco rolls out the red carpet for the Clintons,” by Beth Fouhy, June 29, 2004.
49 Congressman John Dingell (D-MI), comment on Chicago radio WJR, hosted by Paul W. Smith, aired March 23, 2010.
50 Barack Obama, comment on Wall Street reform, Quincy, Ill, April 29, 2010.
51 Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-IL); see transcript at http://www.wlsam.com.
52 Steven Chu, “New Flare-Up in Light-Bulb Wars,” Wall Street Journal, July 9, 2011.
53 “Times Tough for Energy Overhaul,” Wall Street Journal, December 12, 2008.
54 Cass Sunstein, Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions, Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 252.
55 The 2006 U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization says meat production contributes 14-22 percent of the world’s annual 36 billion tons of “CO2-equivalent” greenhouse gases.
56 Susan Jones, Sweden Mulls Carbon Tax on Meat to Reduce Emissions, CNSnews, January 22, 2013.
57 Jon Condon, Carbon Tax’s Insidious Impact Already Being Seen, Beef Central
58 Research Reveals the True Cost of a Burger, Science Daily, February 14, 2012.
Chapter 6: Using the “Eight Rights” As a Test
How may a person detect socialism without being an expert?
Every action by a government may be tested for principled behavior by asking this simple question: Does the new law violate an unalienable right? If it does, that law is bad for a nation, and will lead to difficulties as time passes. Such laws should be challenged immediately.
For example, the U.S. adopted national health care in 2010. Going down the list of eight rights and applying each to the new health-care law will help frame the act as being something wonderfully liberating, or something arduous and despotic—
Right #1—Independent individuals. Does national health care protect my right to be independent, and beholden to no one? No, it forces me into a class of dependency on the government.
Right #2—Choice. Does national health care protect my right to choose? No, it forces me to accept the government’s decisions about providers, levels of care, facilities, options, etc.
Right #3—Property. Does national health care protect my property rights? No, it forces me to surrender private property (taxes) to support what the government orders me to support—not what I choose.
Right #4—Association. Does national health care protect my right to associate? No, it violates my right to associate with my choice of doctor or health-care facility.
Right #5—Equality. Does national health care protect everyone equally? No, not everyone is covered, and some people may opt out for various reasons. Others with political connections, such as Congress, are granted waivers and exemptions. It forces the “haves” to pay more so that the “have-nots” can have health-care coverage. This is classical socialism at work, and it always destroys its host.
Right #6—Defense. Does national health care protect my right to defend myself against this imposition? No.
Right #7—Compassion. Does national health care protect my right to practice compassion? Not for some. Higher taxes will undermine philanthropic donations, and prevent doctors and nurses from volunteering their services because of regulations, constraints, allocation of resources, and use of personal time, among other impositions.
Right #8—FAILURE. Does national health care protect my freedom to fail? No. Government health care installs a safety net. It creates the mind-set in people that “society owes me.” It ruins people’s motivation to change their lives, to work so they can afford private health-care services, or live so they don’t fall to illness, or to self-treat themselves before spending funds to see the doctor. Those are basic acts of personal responsibility that are destroyed by free or coerced national health care. In addition, medical practitioners lose motivation to be more efficient, to be more cost effective, and to be more innovative. The quality of care and the excitement to invent always suffer when a powerful profit motive is removed.
By asking the preceding eight questions, a person may gain a quick understanding about any government act, and learn which of the unalienable rights are being violated. This equips an individual to better consider, Is this good or bad? To the socialists, government control is always good. They never enterta
in freedom as a possible solution. They promise fairness, but national health care isn’t about equal rights or helping the needy or fairness. It is, and always has been, about control.
Chapter 7: The Appeal of Socialism
How could a great scientist or anyone with so much education fall for socialism?
The appeal of socialism is not just the many things that socialists are against (unfairness, inequality, etc.) but is also about those things for which they stand, the things they promise.
Throughout history there has been a class of certain educated individuals who believe that direct control over individuals and human nature is the sure path to peace and prosperity. Those who have not delved into the history of such control don’t realize it won’t work, it hasn’t worked, and by its very nature, it can never work. Nevertheless, socialism’s many promises are deliciously tempting—
Q.Can I stop worrying about my future?
A.Yes, socialism covers everything. “Under capitalism and the previous systems,” says the Socialist Party of Canada, “people have good reason to worry about tomorrow—they can lose their jobs, or be injured, or grow old, and need a cushion of wealth to fall back on. In a socialist society, everyone is entitled to have their needs met. They won’t be kicked out onto the street, or forced to give up the pleasures of life. There will be no poverty. The ‘cushion’ will be cooperatively provided by all.”59
Q.My bosses are rich, is that fair?
A.No, and socialism will make it fair. “The vast majority of workers are not paid according to the full value of what they produce,” The Marxist Encyclopedia declares. “If all workers in a workplace were paid this full value, then the boss would have nothing to survive on, since labour is the source of all value!”60
Q.What if I want a house but can’t afford one?
A.You get one anyway. “Houses and flats would be rent-free,” says The World Socialist Party, “with heating, lighting and water supplied free of charge. Transport, communications, health care, education, restaurants and laundries would be organized as free public services. There would be no admission charge to theatres, cinemas, museums, parks, libraries and other places of entertainment and recreation. The best term to describe this key social relationship of socialist society is free access, as it emphasizes the fact that in socialism it would be the individual who would decide what his or her individual needs were.”61
Q.I’m poor, I need food and a cell phone, can you help?
A.Don’t worry, it’s no longer about money. “In socialism,” the World Socialist Party says, “people would obtain the food, clothes and other articles they needed for their personal consumption by going into a distribution center and taking what they needed without having to hand over either money or consumption vouchers.”62
Q.May I still buy things?
A.Stop thinking in terms of “market”! The Socialist Party of Great Britain explains: “In a socialist society there will be no market, no buying and selling, and no money. Exchange can have no function where everything belongs to everyone. All people will have free access to the goods and services available.”63
Q.Can I just walk in and get a flat-screen TV and baby food?
A.Of course! It’s easy. “In a socialist society, there will be no money and no barter,” says WorldSocialism.org. “Goods will be voluntarily produced, and services voluntarily supplied to meet people’s needs. People will freely take the things they need.” 64
Q.Can I take all I want from the stores?
A.Well ... only according to your needs, or else we run out. The Socialist Party of Canada explains, “People are different and have different needs. Some needs will be more expensive (in terms of resources and labour needed to satisfy them) than others.”65
Q.What if people want too much?
A.Then it won’t work. WorldSocialism.org explains that “In a socialist society ‘too much’ can only mean ‘more than is sustainably produced.’ If people decide that they (individually and as a society) need to over-consume then socialism cannot possibly work.”66
Q.Am I forced to participate?
A.It’s voluntary. The World Socialist Party says, “Work in socialist society could only be voluntary since there would be no group or organization in a position to force people to work against their will.”67
Q. What if I don’t want to go to work?
A.You must work, but you don’t have to. “People will have to work, but it will be voluntary,” says WorldSocialism.org. “If people didn’t work society would obviously fall apart. To establish socialism the vast majority must consciously decide that they want socialism and that they are prepared to work in socialist society.”68
Q.Yes, but really, am I forced or not?
A.Well, on second thought... Super-socialist George Bernard Shaw takes exception to the World Socialist Party: “You would be forcibly fed, clothed, lodged, taught, and employed whether you liked it or not,” Shaw wrote in 1928. “If it were discovered that you had not character and industry enough to be worth all this trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly manner; but whilst you were permitted to live you would have to live well.”69 [Was Shaw joking? In the decades after his statement was made, the USSR and China killed an estimated 130 million people to force socialism and communism on all their citizens, especially on all those who resisted it.]
Q.Is it wrong to want things under socialism?
A.Only if it somehow hurts others. The World Socialist Movement says, “Socialism will be a society in which satisfying an individual’s self interest is the result of satisfying everyone’s needs. It is enlightened self-interest.”70
Q.What if I don’t want my neighbor’s cows?
A.They’re yours anyway. Paul Hubert Casselman says in the Labor Dictionary that “[Socialism is] an economic theory which holds that ownership of property should be in the group and not in the individuals who make up the group. Collectivism may be partial or complete.”71
Q.May I stake a claim and be on my own?
A.No, we’re in this together. “[Socialism] therefore aims at the reorganization of Society,” says Anne Fremantle, “by the emancipation of Land and Industrial Capital from individual ownership, and the vesting in them in the community for the general benefit ... for the transfer to the community ... of all such industries as can be conducted socially.”72
Q.Can I still save a little to get ahead?
A.No, it’s no longer about you. Norman Thomas said, “[Socialism is] control of economic processes for human use rather than for individual profit.”73
Q.Does socialism free me from religion?
A.Yes, a glorious freedom. “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature,” Karl Marx said, “the sentiment of a heartless world, as it is the spirit of spiritless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”74
Q.Doesn’t religion ensure a peaceful, calm society?
A.No, that is an illusion said Karl Marx: “The democratic concept of man is false, because it is Christian. The democratic concept holds that ... each man is a sovereign being. This is the illusion, dream, and postulate of Christianity.”75
Q. Will the government still persecute me?
A.No, there will be no government. “The state, then, is ... simply a product of society at a certain stage of evolution,” Friedrich Engels said. “It is the confession that this society has become hopelessly divided against itself, has entangled itself in irreconcilable contradictions which it is powerless to banish.”76
Q.Does socialism free me from the Bible?
A.Yes, it will free you at last. “With him (the communist) the end justifies the means,” said William Z. Foster, an avowed communist. “Whether his tactics be ‘legal’ or ‘moral’ or not, does not concern him, so long as they are effective. He knows that the laws as well as the current code of morals are made by his mortal
enemies . . . Consequently, he ignores them insofar as he is able, and it suits his purposes. He proposed to develop, regardless of capitalist conceptions of ‘legality,’ ‘fairness,’ ‘right,’ etc., a greater power than his capitalist enemies have . . .”77
Vladimir Lenin summarized it: “We say that our morality is wholly subordinated to the interest of the class-struggle of the proletariat.”78
Friedrich Engels concluded that, “We therefore reject every attempt to impose on us any moral dogma whatever . . .”79
Q.What does Einstein think about socialism?
A.He likes it. “A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community,” Albert Einstein explained, “would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child.”80
Q.Could I be arrested for stealing?
A.There’s no such thing as ‘stealing.’ Engels wrote that the Ten Commandments, in particular, #8 “Thou Shalt Not Steal” and #10 “Thou Shalt Not Covet,” were examples of the exploiters forcing respect for private property onto the masses. “Thou shalt not steal,” Engels said. “Does this law thereby become an eternal moral law? By no means.”81
Q.Are unions part of socialism?
A.Yes, a union is democracy in the workplace—one worker, one vote, regardless of who owns the business. The Marxist Encyclopedia answers: “The vast majority of workers in the world are over-worked: required to put in more hours than is socially necessary in order to create profits. ... Unions can force the boss to hire more workers, instead of constantly increasing the burdens on existing employees. The union can also ensure that in emergency cases where someone must work over time, they are fairly compensated for (contrary to popular understanding—overtime compensation is compulsory only for unskilled workers in a handful of countries).”82