More Socialism equals more misery. It’s really that simple. But, despite socialism’s long and disturbing record of destruction, death, and oppression, it continues to rear its ugly head again and again. The latest political iteration of this broken ideology is being peddled by snake-oil salesman and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. Sanders wants his acolytes to believe that he has both magically softened the hard and deadly edges of traditional socialism, and has discovered a new path inspired by Scandinavian models of “democratic socialism.”
But, “democratic socialism” is a contradiction in terms. What Sanders’s many supporters fail to understand is that socialism is the antithesis of democracy on an ideological sliding scale.
The degree to which you introduce the principles of socialism into your governance structure is the same degree of individual liberty lost. Specific economic, healthcare, and education decisions cannot be made by you, and for you, at the same time. Either you choose, or someone else does. Do Sanders’s supporters get this? I’m not sure they do. I don’t fully understand why younger Americans, in a stage of their lives where the rebellious spirit of individualism is thought to peak, are so eager to follow a candidate running on a platform of big-government, nanny-state paternalism.
As committed believers in and activists for individual liberty, it’s up to us to do a better job of explaining the dangers of socialism and, as Matt Kibbe stated in his recent Conservative Review piece,
it’s time to talk to our kids about socialism. First, we should explain what socialism actually is.
Socialism is commonly described by its blinded followers as the democratic control of the means of production. However, in practice, it really means the control of the means of production by the government, and taken by force when necessary. What is “democratic” about that? If you own a farm, and the socialists living among you choose to “share” your farm, despite the fact that they have never lifted a finger to help you tend to your farm, then most sane people would call that theft, not democracy.
Second, we should call attention to the many young, budding socialists who resolutely refuse to practice the socialism they preach or follow. Free markets and capitalism are defined by the ability to own private property, the ability to trade your labor for a market wage, and the allocation of scarce resources by market prices; not by government rationing.
I ask the socialists among us, “Which one of these tenets of free markets do you want to scrap, and will YOU lead the way?” Do the many Sanders supporters out there pledging allegiance to socialism or “democratic socialism” want to take a vote on how we should “share” their property? Let’s see Bernie Sanders’s supporters lead from the front, instead of piously lecturing the rest of us. Let’s have all the Sanders volunteers take a vote on who should receive their iPhones, computers, cars, and video game systems. Let’s also see the Sanders team set up a board which allocates everything from food to medicine and movie tickets based on socialism’s principle of rationing. Surely these geniuses, claiming to have a better system for operating the entire United States economy, can demonstrate the technique for us all within the relatively small Sanders volunteer base.
Third, we must better explain why government decision-making is both less efficient, and costlier, than personal decision-making. As Milton Friedman frequently demonstrated, there are four ways to spend money - ranging from the most efficient, and cost-effective, to the least:
- The first, and most efficient, is you, spending your money, on yourself. In this case both cost (because it’s your money), and quality (because you’re buying something for yourself) matter.
- The second, and less efficient way, is you, spending your money, on someone else. In this case cost matters, because it’s your money, but quality, not so much because the product or service is for someone else.
- The third, and even less efficient way, is other people, spending other people’s money, on themselves. In this case cost doesn’t matter because it’s not their money but, quality matters, because they are buying a product or service for themselves.
- The fourth, and MOST inefficient way to spend money, is other people, spending other people’s money, on other people. In this case NEITHER cost, nor quality, matter. Cost doesn’t matter because it’s not your money. And quality doesn’t matter either because you’re buying the product or service for someone else.
Number four, of course, is government spending described perfectly. It’s the “democratic” socialism the supporters of Bernie Sanders want you to be subjected to.
Don’t get suckered.