Capitalism vs the Welfare State: The Next Vote

Let's sort out some things.

As a political and economic system, socialism is government ownership and management of the means of production and distribution of goods, the control of money, and the abolition of profit and private property. These ideas also describe communism and progressivism.

Socialism originated at the end of the 18th century in several "social studies." The studies evaded the Enlightenment's giant strides in providing jobs and raising the standard of living of hundreds of thousands who had been far worse off before the advent of the Industrial Revolution.

In the 1840s, the term communism was coined to describe a militant form of socialism. Marx and Engels used the word in the title of their work, The Communist Manifesto, published in 1848. Later both Marx and Engels referred to themselves as socialists, and Marx's work remains the basis of socialist thought.

In 1878, a schism split communists from socialists. The socialists advocated "gradualism," the idea that capitalist society could be changed by reform from within. The communists advocated the violent overthrow of government. It was only a matter of methodology. They remained glued together by their fundamental ideas.

Progressivism started sometime after the Civil War as an attempt to help poor people through self-help programs operated by private charities. Progressives usurped the effort. They, too, evaded the advances achieved by the Industrial Revolution.

As early as the 1890s, progressives elected politicians who promised to take over utilities, improve city services and tenement housing codes. Other states joined in. By 1903 a wide range of progressive political and economic ideas were adopted to regulate railroads and utilities. They pressured government to raise corporate taxes. They advocated workmen's compensation---paid for by businesses---and child labor laws, which denied income to the very poor.

In 1906 progressives passed the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act. In 1913 progressives established the Federal Reserve. In 1914, they established the Federal Trade Commission and the Anti-Trust Act, extending government regulation of business. In 1916, they again raised corporate taxes, organized a railroad commission to set rates and established a conservation commission.

World War I interrupted the progressive's juggernaut lumbering toward total government control of the economy. However, it was resumed with the administration of Franklin Roosevelt, although now referred to as the welfare state. Another name, the same ideas.

The sameness of these doctrines, which many people believe represent different points of view, arises from a single source.

There are only two ways to regard man's relationship to society: either he has the right to live for his own sake, or he must live for others. Whichever principle you espouse places you in one or the other of opposing camps.

If you accept the principle that man has the right to live for his own sake, you are an individualist. If you believe that man must live for others, you are a collectivist.

If man has the right to live for his own sake, then that right must be protected and so, the initiation of physical force must be outlawed. In such a society no one's rights may be violated with impunity; so, government has only one job: to protect individual rights domestically by means of the courts and the police, and by means of the military in matters of foreign aggression. Individualism limits government.

In a society in which rights are protected and from which the initiation of physical force is banned, men are free to trade value for value as they choose, working at what they choose, disposing of their earnings and property as they see fit, enjoying their life as they like. This is capitalism, the economic system in which all property is privately owned.

Our constitution explicitly states the individual's right to life, property, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Enumerated, too, are freedoms that follow from individual rights---such as, for example, the freedom to peaceably assemble, the freedom to petition the government to redress wrongs, the freedom to keep and bear arms, and so forth.

If you believe that man must live for others, government becomes your ruler. There is no alternative. A large group seeking to plan and execute some plan requires by its nature a leader, or leadership. In a nation of people who believe man should live for others, the government becomes that leader simply by claiming that it represents everyone in the group.

But the government is a group of men. If you believe you must live for others, it is that group of men that will tell you what to do, how to do it and when to do it. It is that group of men that will regulate and control every aspect of your life, from hopscotch to hospital.

Progressivism, socialism, communism are all expressions of collectivism. But collectivism as repeatedly shown in countless examples throughout history cannot work. So, necessarily, the collectivist seeks an accommodation. He is willing to allow vestiges of capitalism, not too much but enough to keep the leaders in shoes and jets to fly to their vacation spots. All else is controlled and regulated by government, which is what we have today: A "mixed economy."

No matter how you describe him politically, Mr. Obama is a collectivist. It doesn't matter whether you say he's a socialist, a progressive or a communist. It all adds up to collectivism. It all adds up to---like it or not, accept it or not---everyone being forced to live for others.

The question is: why should men live for others when they can better live their own life? They "should," according to collectivists, because it gives collectivists power over men's actions, which is what all forms of collectivism are about.

So, if you wonder about those who seek power over other men, it's instructive to recognize that all collectivist doctrines depend on the values that the able create.

Consider, for instance, the slogans of both socialism and communism. Socialists declare, "From each according to his ability; to each according to work performed." Communists declare, "From each according to his ability; to each according to his need."

Notice "from each." Who are they? They are the men of ability. If you're one, you might want to think about whether you want to be an individualist or a collectivist when you cast your next vote.

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Suggested Reading:
Leonard Peikoff, The Ominous Parallels

Quo Vadis, America?

The Latin title of Henryk Sienkiewicz's famous novel means, "Whither goest thou?" On this July 4th it's a question we should be seriously asking ourselves.

At any time, for any peoples, there's only one of two ways to regard the individual in relation to society: either as an autonomous and sovereign intellect recognized as the primary unit of action, or as an undifferentiated glob within a group.

For millennium men lived as members of a group or a class---in clans, tribes, dynasties, city states, military oligarchies, dictatorships, theocracies and every other form of communal society in which the concept "individual" was---at that time--- undiscovered.

Then appeared our Founding Fathers who saw a new direction and formualated a startling new idea. They saw the importance of one man, one mind, one passion---the individual, the fountainhead of all that civilization knows and enjoys. They created a government based on the moral principle of man's right to live for his own sake. They shaped the world's first representative republic, a government to guard our freedom, making us the freest nation on earth. They gave us the Bill of Rights---the first explicit statement in history that named the individual's freedoms and his rights to life, property, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. At last, men were free to earn a living as they chose, dispose of their property as they saw fit and live free of government coercion.

Since then, every July 4 we celebrated our freedom and our gratitude to those who left us so precious a legacy. We celebrated our independence from a burdensome government. Today a burdensome government threatens us again, and our legacy is in jeopardy. We hear demands that doctors be enslaved and teachers be shackled in the name of "the common good." We are told that everyone should be subjected to mandatory "volunteerism" to serve the community. We see businessmen who have created the richest nation on earth being persecuted and ordered around by politicians and their appointees in the name of "the public interest," while government cronies declare that the media should shun dissent with government policies.

Whither goest thou, America?

This July 4, the Albuquerque Tea Party celebrated "the Spirit of '76"---a spirit that calls for "more freedom and less government." Focused on the fundamental principles of individual rights, limited government and capitalism, the Albuquerque Tea Party argues against government's encroachment into our lives and objects to government takeover of the economy. They are providing the opportunity to voice our concern about government actions.

However, some people resent the choices engendered by freedom. They want to hide the individual in one big group and forbid individual choices. They advocate the ancient practices of communal living, known as collectivism. Today, it's called socialism.

Socialism is the doctrine that believes society is superior to the individual and that society "as a whole" should be our primary concern. But there is no way to treat society "as a whole." Society is composed of individuals with individual needs and desires and abilities, with individual dreams and goals and ambitions. The concept "society" is an abstraction describing a group of people. That abstraction does not exist as a concrete entity.

Only the individual exists. When individuals come together to cooperate in some venture, they remain individuals. They do not dissolve into unidentifiable globs. The notion that society, or the group, is somehow more important than the individual is putting the cart before the horse.

The Albuquerque Tea Party seeks to put things in proper order. On July 4, they honored our Founding Fathers in the "Spirit of '76." And the grass roots turned out to cheer them on. They recognize that by restoring individual rights we will limit government and that a limited government will make possible genuine capitalism, which benefits us all.

Whither goest thou, America? Do we want freedom or fear? Do we want to be a nation of free individuals who think for themselves and earn their own way, or a straight-jacketed "society" marching goose-step to government edicts?

The answer is up to each of us. And each of us can give our answer loudly and clearly by supporting and advancing the Tea Party in his city.

Socialism In Action

In the Boston Globe on June 3, 2009, appeared an article by Jeff Jacoby entitled "China's 'socialist road' to misery." It is a harrowing report of the Chinese government's atrocities against her citizens--in particular the hideous persecution of Falun Gong. How can anyone commit such horrors on another human being?

One must remember that the perpetrators of such foul evilness are actions committed not by human beings but by the irrational, the mindless, the sub-human to whom obedience is the only criteria, the only value and the only goal of "the socialist road with Chinese characteristics."

Let us be warned that the United States is not immune from such horrors now that we have allowed socialism to take over this nation. It CAN happen here. But we can change it. We can stop socialism dead in its tracks by voting out of office all those who support to any degree such a vicious doctrine as socialism.

For those interested, the article may be accessed at
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_ opinion/oped/articles/2009/06/03/chinas_socialist_ road_to_misery/

America At A Crossroads

Today's political mix includes liberal and conservative Republicans, and liberal and conservative Democrats. The Republican and Democrat tags no longer accurately identify political doctrine. The designations liberal and conservative have also changed from their original meaning.

Today's liberalism is a perversion of Classical Liberalism, which stressed the essential goodness and rationality of man and his ability to recognize and solve problems, all of which led to systematic improvement in man's life, exemplified by the Enlightenment.

The corruption began in 1848. Karl Marx and Friedich Engels, ignoring the vast improvements the Enlightenment made possible, argued that the state should advance the welfare of individuals. Since the state has no income except by taxing those who produce, those who produce were sentenced to provide for those who did not, violating the rights of producers.

The corruption spread in the 1930s when Roosevelt signed into law the minimum wage, progressive taxation, Social Security and established Fannie Mae to provide low-interest mortgages. Classical Liberalism was dead. Liberalism and the welfare state became one: socialism.

Conservatism originally supported limited government and free enterprise. But it also held that political, social and religious institutions represented ageless wisdom and that the source of individual rights were "gifts from God," not man's nature. Rights, therefore, were considered privileges meted out in obedience to God.

The communist victory in Russia disarmed conservatives. They recognized that their own views did not contradict communism. Politically "You are your brother's keeper" was collectivism. Seeking to disassociate themselves from communism, conservative patriotism devolved into "my country right or wrong." By 2008, John McCain solidified this view explicitly with the campaign slogan "Country First," stressing duty and placing the group above the individual: nationalism.

In the decades following World War II, liberal and conservative doctrine continued to draw closer. Both attempted to defend the nation against communism using questionable methods. During the 1950s, conservatives used abrasive, sometimes intrusive investigative methods. In the 1960s liberals attempted to assassinate a communist head of state.

During his inauguration speech John F. Kennedy, sounded the conservatives nationalist theme scolding Americans to "Ask what you can do for your country," then in his liberal role doubled the number of government regulatory agencies. Two decades later, conservative Ronald Reagan continued Kennedy's big government policies and signed Affirmative Action into law, violating the rights of businessmen by telling them whom to hire.

In 1965, liberal Lyndon Johnson established Medicare and Medicaid, violating the rights of doctors, the medical profession and those requiring its services. In 2003 conservative George W. Bush violated another large segment of the medical profession with the Prescription Drug Act.

By such actions as these and many, many more, conservatism and liberalism merged to become nationalist-socialism, hardly distinguishable from each other in their violations of individual rights.

Nationalist-socialism is fascism, a form of collectivism that shuns individual rights and the division of political power, leading to dictatorship. Fascism is government ownership of the means of production, with private enterprise ordered to do the work and take responsibility for it.

In 1970, Lyndon Johnson re-structured Fannie Mae, then added Freddie Mac, exempting both from taxation and oversight. Currently, Freddie and Fannie Mae---i.e. the government---control 90 percent of the nation's secondary mortgage market. Today, a government-created financial crisis is blamed on "greedy" businessmen and "capitalism," while the government orders CEOs to resign and to conceal vital information from shareholders.

Liberals claim they are not socialist. They merely want to force rich people to feed poor people. But individual rights determined by other people's wishes are not rights.

Conservatives claim they are not theocratic nationalists. They merely want to force people to do their duty to church and state. But rights dictated according to a group's desires are not rights.

Liberals claim they do not seek to violate individual rights---except when the violation is for a cause they deem "good," such as forcing men to practice socialized medicine. But rights restricted by some people's needs are not rights.

Conservatives claim they do not seek to violate individual rights---except when the violation is for a cause they consider morally sound, such as forcing women to have children they do not want. But rights predicated on the assumption of women's inferior status to force them into unchosen actions are not rights.

"A right is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man's freedom of action in a social context." [Ayn Rand, "Man's Rights"] To claim that a moral principle is at the mercy of another's wish is blasphemous. Rights do not include the "right" to violate another's rights---no matter what the need, wish, demand, or assumption.

America has been pushed toward a cross roads where she must choose between force and freedom, between government edict and individual rights. If we choose freedom and rights then we must dismantle the welfare state and abjure fascism. In place of the welfare state we must establish genuine free enterprise for once---Laissez-faire capitalism---which means protection of individual rights and limited government. Nothing short of this will free us. Nothing more than this is worth fighting for.
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Suggested Reading:
Ayn Rand, Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal
Ayn Rand, Philosophy: Who Needs It
Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged