Socialism is a polite word for Communism. Karl Marx decried the capitalism of his time as exploitation of the workers. Marx's solution was to have the government, Communist government, take ownership of all the "means of production", basically the entire economy, and to divvy up the proceeds of enterprises among all the workers. Trouble was, after government take over, the enterprises stopped making money, and there was little or nothing to divvy up. The revolutionary government of Russia in 1917 called themselves Communists and blackened the name of Communism so badly that future Communists decided to call themselves and their regimes Socialist rather than Communist.
Today's Democrats and/or Democratic Socialists are more interested in more free stuff than they are about government ownership of the means of production. Or at least that's the way they talk. We should remember that Communist or Socialist regimes inflict serious national poverty upon the nations stupid enough to embrace Communism or Socialism. Examples are Venezuela, Cuba, and Russia. So there will be little free stuff to hand out.
Capitalism produces vast amounts of wealth and lifts countless people out of poverty. Under capitalism all the means of production are owned and controlled by private individuals who operate them effectively. The owners take a slice of the proceeds, in many cases a whacking big slice, but they produce rivers of stuff, enough to fill our store shelves, and flood us with motor vehicles, aircraft, computers, gasoline, air conditioners, electronics, furnace oil, interstate highways, internet, and God only knows what else. Better to have plenty of everything even if the owners get away with a great big slice.
You gotta wonder about those polls claiming that yuge numbers of people want "socialism". What have our schools been teaching?
No comments:
Post a Comment