Some Critical Thoughts on Socialism

I’ve got some material on socialism and am always looking for additional material to add to my opinionated gold. I’m also a Joe Rogan fan.  I was therefore delighted to find investor Naval Ravikat on the Joe Rogan show answering many pro-socialism arguments and arguments people who favor that political system. Here’s a synopsis of a few points he makes (video is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGMJ61Phs2s)

• 1.      On the idea of basic income, say, maybe $15,000 a year just to provide basic needs, that amount would never be enough. Socialists like Bernie Sanders would demand more until we slide into bankruptcy because of the weight of the payments needed to support such a system.
• 2.The free exchange in free markets is intrinsic to humanity.  Sometimes capitalism fails not because it’s a bad system but because businesses aren’t allowed to fail when they make bad decisions. They instead “socialize” their mistakes by forcing others to bail them out making everybody else poor in the process.
• 3.      Regarding the failures of capitalism, don’t confuse equal opportunity (which is essential for capitalism to operate) with equal outcomes which can appear because of a difference in effort, choices, or skills. People who demand equal outcomes can only do so via force. It’s interesting that there are no working examples of socialism that do not use some type of violence to equalize outcomes. 
• 4.      Wealth is not a zero-sum game where people who create wealth make it impossible for others to create it as well or take it from them.
• 5.      People who argue for socialism are arguing from their heart because it feels good to share, and socialism is about forced sharing. However, capitalism comes from the head and comes as a result of thinking properly about what economic system is best. Socialism functions well in a family but doesn’t work when your group becomes larger (a city, county, state, or nation, for instance). The larger the group the more the possibility for cheating or people taking without giving something back. Hence, we need a profit-and-loss system that makes one do work in order to reap monetary benefits.

I also found an article on the Washington Examiner web site that critiques Alexandria Ocasio Cortez’s idea of “public goods” – health care and public education supposedly two of them. I can understand why a socialist like her would want to argue this way. One conservative reply to confiscatory taxation often suggests that to take things from one person to give to another would be a form of theft if it is done for no other reason than to redistribute wealth or give some people free things. However, if things are common, then there can be no theft. How, then, could someone complain about giving somebody free education or health care if the items are “common”? The article is at https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/yes-alexandria-ocasio-cortezs-plans-are-about-giving-away-free-stuff

I had earlier picked up a copy of Thomas Dilorenzo’s The Problem with Socialism. It argues that socialism actually causes pollution, kills good medical care systems, and causes monopolies.  He also explains how Sweden’s socialism is not a successful example of that governmental system even though it is touted as such.

One of my favorite videos comes from the Four Horsemen who argue, that among other things, the money system is doctored to make investors become rich at the expense of poorer individuals. This would be an example of the crony capitalism to which Ravikat alludes to. It’s not capitalism that is a bad system so much as the way it’s manipulated to favor some people at the expense of others. The video is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fbvquHSPJU. I’d appreciate to hear someone’s comments on that video.

I also ran into an article on how David Brooks left his socialist ideas behind when he realized that the government officials he knew who claimed they could design and run an entire economy could not do so. In fact, nobody can, and efforts to do so only create injustices and inadequacies. The article is at https://hotair.com/archives/john-s-2/2019/12/06/david-brooks-socialist/ and here’s a quote from the article:

This is basically the argument that the invisible hand of the market is smarter than any planned system. Socialists don’t like that but it keeps proving to be true. But the best part of the piece is the next step. Brooks argues something that I’ve raised before: Socialism breeds corruption.

The argument that some people who think they can design something as complicated as an economy really can’t is an argument made also by Kevin Williamson in his book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Socialism.

Apparently, socialism is not a winning philosophy in Great Britain. The online news site Hot Air published an article on the overwhelming defeat of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party. Corbyn ran as a Democratic Socialist. Article is at https://hotair.com/archives/john-s-2/2019/12/13/corbyns-loss-bad-news-sanders-warren-aoc/

In short, I would like to see DiLorenzo, Ravikat, Williamson, and Brooks engage Sanders and Ocasio Cortez over the merits (or lack thereof) of socialism. But that’s a pipe dream on my part.