Regular readers may have noticed that I generally say that advocates of big government are “statists.”
I could call them “liberals,” but I don’t like that using that term since the early advocates of economic and personal liberty were “classical liberals” such as Adam Smith, John Locke, and Jean-Baptiste Say. And proponents of these ideas are still called “liberals” in Europe and Australia.
I could call them “socialists,” but I don’t think that’s technically accurate since the theory is based on government ownership of the means of production. This is why I’ve been in the strange position of defending Obama when some folks have used the S word to describe him.
I could call them “fascists,” which Thomas Sowell explains is the most accurate way of describing the modern left’s economic ideology, but that term also implies racism. But while leftists sometimes support policies that hurt minorities, they’re not motivated by racial animus.
I could call them “corporatists,” and I actually have used that term on occasion, but I think it’s too narrow. It’s not really an ideology, but rather a description of the sleazy alliance of the left and big business, such as we saw for TARP and Wall Street, or Obamacare and Big Pharma.
I’m motivated to write about my favorite way of expressing opprobrium because I just read a very interesting column in the U.K.-based Telegraph by Tim Stanley, an American historian.
He delves into the issue of whether it’s right to call Hitler a socialist.
…the Nazis did call themselves National Socialists. But…labels can be misleading. …Hitler wasn’t a socialist became apparent within weeks of becoming Chancellor of Germany when he started arresting socialists and communists. He did this, claim some, because they were competing brands of socialism. But that doesn’t explain why Hitler defined his politics so absolutely as a war on Bolshevism… Marxism is defined by class war, and socialism is accomplished with the total victory of the Proletariat over the ruling classes. By contrast, Hitler offered an alliance between labour and capital in the form of corporatism… It is true that the economy was socialised in the latter part of the 1930s, but not for the sake of building socialism. It was to prepare for war. Politics came before economics in the fascist state to the degree that it’s hard to conceive of Hitler as a coherent economic thinker at all. …Marxism defines history as a class struggle. Hitler saw it as a racial conflict… he was sometimes prepared to use socialist economics to pursue his agenda.
These all seem to be valid points, but I wonder whether it makes a difference.
Tarantulas, black widows, and brown recluses are all different species of arachnids, but it’s also correct to say that they are all poisonous spiders.
And I sure as heck wouldn’t want any of them to bite me.
Similarly, socialism, Marxism, and fascism may have specific motivations and characteristics, but they’re all forms of statism.
And I definitely don’t want to acquiesce to any of those coercive ideologies.
Which seems to be Tim Stanley’s conclusion as well.
The moral lesson is that power corrupts everyone: Left, Right, men, women, gay, straight, black, white, religious, atheist. The best countries have constitutions that limit the government, cherish the private sphere and largely leave the individual to make their own mistakes.
Now let’s look at a real-world example of a country that is suffering because of statism.
Allister Heath of City A.M. in London explains what is happening in Venezuela.
IF you want to see how to destroy an economy and a society, look no further than Venezuela. …the country is on the verge of total collapse… Food is running out, as are other essentials, even though the country claims the world’s largest oil reserves. There are shortages of toilet paper and soap, empty shelves and massive crowds queuing for hours in front of supermarkets. …The reason? A brain-dead rejection of basic economics, and a hardline, anti-market approach of the worst possible kind. There are maximum prices, other prices controls, profit controls, capital controls, nationalisations, expropriations and every other statist, atavistic policy you can think of. An extreme left wing government has waged war on capitalism and won; and as ever, ordinary people are paying the price. …The lesson from all of that is clear. Socialism doesn’t work. Price controls don’t work. Stealing people’s property doesn’t work. Chasing away foreigners doesn’t work. Destroying the supply-side of an economy doesn’t work. …It is a spectacularly horrible case of what FA Hayek called the Road to Serfdom.
For all intents and purposes, Venezuela is sort of like France, but without the rule of law. Which means bad policies become catastrophic policies.
And Allister is right. It is ordinary people who suffer. Venezuela’s long-term experiment with statism has resulted in stagnation and chaos. Once one of the richest nations in Latin America, it is now falling behind nations that have liberalized.
The Venezuelan government can’t keep food on the shelves, and it is moving closer and closer to Cuban-style rationing of basic necessities.
And people familiar with the history of statist regimes won’t be surprised to learn that Venezuela also is disarming the citizenry.
P.S. One business leader got a lot of heat for observing that Obamanomics was more like fascism than socialism. And another caught a bunch of grief for using an analogy about tax hikes and the Nazi invasion of Poland.
If they used “statism” instead, they would have been more accurate and avoided criticism.
P.P.S. This image is a funny but accurate illustration of the difference between socialism and capitalism. And here’s a socialism-for-kids image, but it’s really a parody of Obama’s class-warfare mentality.
[…] to like weird things…so long as one of those weird things isn’t imposing wasteful and venal government on the rest of […]
[…] ideas have caused immense damage, such as socialismand fascism. And others such as corporatism and the welfare state, have undermined the benefits […]
[…] ideas have caused immense damage, such as socialism and fascism. And others such as corporatism and the welfare state, have undermined the benefits of free […]
[…] As I’ve repeatedly pointed out, capitalism (oops, I mean free enterprise) is far superior than the various forms of statism. […]
[…] both ideologies are against free markets and both put the state over the individual, so they are far away from […]
[…] both ideologies are against free markets and both put the state over the individual, so they are far away from […]
[…] battle is not right vs. left. It’s statism vs. […]
[…] I’ve written many times about socialism, which is sometimes a frustrating task because the definition is slippery. […]
[…] they doubtlessly would get very upset if anyone equated their ideology with the “national socialism” of Hitler’s […]
[…] battle is not right vs. left. It’s statism vs. […]
[…] stated, they want an economic system based on voluntary exchange compared to statist alternatives (socialism, fascism, communism, etc) that rely on government […]
[…] out that there are no real-world examples of good results produced by socialism. Or Marxism. Or fascism. Or by any form of […]
[…] I’ve written many times about socialism, which is sometimes a frustrating task because the definition is slippery. […]
[…] al debate en curso sobre lo que realmente significa el término, no está claro si el rendimiento económico de Francia puede ser atribuido al […]
[…] The battle is not right vs. left. It’s statism vs. individualism. […]
[…] battle is not right vs. left. It’s statism vs. […]
[…] stated, the goal of policy makers should be to reject all forms of collectivism (including communism and fascism) and instead strive to minimize the footprint of […]
[…] of the ongoing debate about what the term actually means, it’s unclear whether France’s tepid economic performance can be blamed on […]
[…] moral of the story is that socialism (however defined) has never worked in any form at any time in […]
[…] other words, partisans on both sides are tempted to use the coercive power of government to impose their […]
[…] I’ve written many times about socialism, which is sometimes a frustrating task because the definition is slippery. […]
[…] I’ve written many times about socialism, which is sometimes a frustrating task because the definition is slippery. […]
[…] is a good excuse for me to share excerpts from a couple of columns on the common thread between fascism and […]
Socialism is a morally bankrupt ideology.
the video is based on a Princeton study… the truth seems to be if you are in the bottom 90% of american wage earners… your views are statistically insignificant in the determination of policy… democrat or republican… it doesn’t matter…
Your extreme right wing government (fascists are far-right) has waged war on ordinary people are they are paying the price !!! GOP and Trump are corrupt, heartless, greedy monsters. They are assaulting the principles, norms, and purpose of democratic governance. Republicans are complicit in the corporate and billionaire takeover of America while increasing people’s suffering and misery. In return for their corporate money, GOP legislators now allow several multinational corporations to write the legislation passed by our corporate owned Congress, and it gets signed into law by our corporate owned president, in order to increase the corporate profits of the multinational corporations that own the Republicans. This corporate legislation then completely eliminates taxes through tax loopholes for corporations and wealthy individuals and by completely eliminating the costly environmental regulations that are required to protect the American people.
Edeyrn, you said that Marxism is not a set ideology. Can you prove that?
Marxism is not a set ideology as such, it is the belief of a stateless society…….so why did you wrongly claim it was statist?
There is no state in an actual communist society – Cuba is socialist, USSR used a dictatorship and state capitalism with the underpinnings of socialism – and Venezuala is a corrupted form of socialism….none are communism as they are all states/
[…] system. That being said, I much prefer the coercion found in western democracies compared to the totalitarian versions of coercion found in many other parts of the world. At least we have the rule of law, which limits (however […]
[…] being said, I much prefer the coercion found in western democracies compared to the totalitarian versions of coercion found in many other parts of the […]
[…] being said, I much prefer the coercion found in western democracies compared to the totalitarian versions of coercion found in many other parts of the […]
[…] all, in a genuine market economy (as opposed to socialism, cronyism, or some other form of statism), the poor aren’t poor because some people are […]
[…] tempted to say that statism is sort of like a cult. Proponents of socialism and other big-government ideologies have a dogmatic zeal that blinds them to […]
[…] https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2014/03/11/whether-you-call-it-socialism-statism-fascism-or-co… […]
[…] tempted to say that statism is sort of like a cult. Proponents of socialism and other big-government ideologies have a dogmatic zeal that blinds them to […]
[…] tempted to say that statism is sort of like a cult. Proponents of socialism and other big-government ideologies have a dogmatic zeal that blinds them to […]
[…] Over the years, I’ve repeatedly tied to explain why socialism is a terrible system while also explaining that we should be careful not to label people as socialists if it’s more accurate to refer to them as statists, redistributionists, cronyists, or fascists. […]
Try to explain this to liberals.
[…] Socialism is a very bad concept. It deserves mockery rather than respect. But that’s true of all statist ideologies. […]
[…] But that’s true of all statist ideologies. […]
[…] Klein that we shouldn’t let leftists get away with using that term to describe themselves. I prefer to describe them as […]
[…] government ownership of the means of production (government factories, state farms, etc), whereas the “democratic socialism” in Europe is actually best viewed as extreme versions of redistributionism (while the pervasive […]
[…] government ownership of the means of production (government factories, state farms, etc), whereas the “democratic socialism” in Europe is actually best viewed as extreme versions of redistributionism (while the pervasive […]
[…] Now ask yourself whether you think the party bosses are suffering like other citizens because of a lack of food and health care (or toilet paper!). […]
[…] it doesn’t matter what they say or what they call themselves, the bottom line is that their policies are destructive, both economically and […]
WHATS MORE DESTRUCTIVE? BIG GOVERNMENT ,OR BIG …
The French are happy with their government and their healthcare…
Dan, regarding Tim Stanley on Hitler and Socialism, you might find this rebuttal by Jonah Goldberg interesting: http://goo.gl/Pexjbf
Reblogged this on Public Secrets and commented:
In one sense, it’s just arguing over terms, but I do think proper nomenclature is important to understanding. But Mitchell has a point that “Socialism” and “Fascism” are too emotionally charged and may instead impede understanding. “Statism” is a good, neutral noun to use in their place.
A reader at NRO nailed it a few years back:
“The problem with big government is not one of management, but that it is incompatible with liberty.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/287424/obama-skirts-democratic-process-andrew-c-mccarthy
Reblogged this on Daily Browse.
I can’t remember where I read this interesting observation – but they said that “the Soviet Union was an economic disaster, but a political success.” The same thing can be said of Venezuela and the Obama administration. Meaning, the people are disadvantaged (in the case of Venezuela, severely do) but the rulers are insulated from it and thrive.
Socialism, statism, fascism, and corporatism are all evil and destructive. However, big government is only destructive.
The four evil political activities describe the collective actions of individuals who control government for the benefit of an elite group. They must be considered evil, because they use the coercive power of government to benefit that elite. They are destructive because their bias in favor of a particular group retards economic growth and liberty.
While big government is the breeding ground for evil activities, it is not in itself evil. It is destructive in that it necessarily constricts free market activities in the private sector.
If current government spending stayed the same, while we eliminated bureaucrats, regulations, and political manipulation of the system, we would have a system that was less evil and less destructive.
While reduced government is the eventual goal, immediate cuts are less politically viable. Let’s first reduce the immediate beneficiaries of large government, and grow our way into smaller government.