The debate over socialism shouldn’t even exist. Everywhere big government has been tried, it has failed.
And we have reams of evidence that free-market economies dramatically out-perform statist economies.
Yet the siren song of socialism still appeals to a subsection of the population, either because of naiveté or an unseemly lust to exercise power over others.
So let’s once again wade into this debate that shouldn’t be happening.
Writing for the Dallas Morning News, former Texas A&M economics professor Svetozar Pejovich explains that adding “democratic” to “socialism” doesn’t change anything. What really matters is that Sanders and his supporters want bigger government. And that never ends well.
Sanders’ policies…are…incompatible with the American tradition of self-responsibility, self-determination and limited government under a rule of law. …putting those premises into practice requires the acceptance of two institutions: the redistribution of income initiated and monitored by federal government, and the attenuation of private property rights.
And these policies don’t lead to good results, something that Professor Pejovich understands very well given that he was born in the former Yugoslavia.
Of course, the lunch is not free. The short-run consequence of redistributive policies is erosion of the link between performance and reward, which, in turn, reduces economic efficiency and the pie available for redistribution. The long-run cost is the transformation of the American culture of self-responsibility and self-determination into the culture of dependence on the state. …Sanders’ democratic socialism bribes people to voluntarily accept the erosion of private property rights…via laws and regulations. Those law and regulations (such as reducing the right of employers to fire workers at will, giving tenants rights at the expense of apartment owners, granting special privileges to some rent seeking groups, etc.) transfer some decision-making rights from owners to public decision makers, or non-owners. …In the end, the attenuation of private property rights impedes the flow of resources to higher-valued uses and reduces economic efficiency of the economy.
Allow me to augment Professor Pejovich’s analysis by elaborating on how these policies hurt the economy. The redistributionism doesn’t lead to immediate disaster, but it inevitably lures a larger share of the population into dependency over time and the higher taxes required to finance the growing welfare burden gradually erode incentives for work, saving, investment, and entrepreneurship. The combination of those factors slowly but surely dampens the economy’s growth. And as I’ve repeatedly explained, even small difference in growth have enormous long-run implications for a nation’s prosperity.
And there comes a point, particularly given modern demographics, that the system breaks down.
The erosion of property rights has a similar effect, largely by causing a reduction in both the level of investment and the quality of investment. And since every economic theory agrees that capital formation is a key to long-run growth, the net effect of “democratic socialism” it to further weaken potential growth.
What’s especially frustrating is that leftists then point to reduced growth rates as an argument for even bigger government.
I’m not joking. Robert Kuttner of the American Prospect argues that young people are attracted to Sanders because their economic outlook is so grim.
Bernie Sanders has…broad and enthusiastic support, especially among the young…voters who say they are attracted rather than repelled by Sanders’s embrace of socialism. …this is the stunted generation—young adults venturing into a world of work, loaded with student debt, unable to find stable jobs or decent careers.
I basically agree that the economic situation for young people is tepid, but I’m baffled that this is an argument for bigger government since the statist policies of both Bush and Obama deserve much of the blame for today’s sub-par economy.
In other words, we’re seeing Mitchell’s Law in action. Politicians have adopted bad policies that have led to stagnation and now they’re using the resulting economic malaise as an argument for even bigger government. And young people, who are among the biggest victims, are getting seduced.
I’m tempted to simply say young people are too stupid to be allowed to vote, but instead let’s take a serious look at why so many of them are misguided.
Christine Emba of the Washington Post has a column pointing out young people openly embrace socialism.
…it seems that socialism is cool. …socialism does seem to have become the political orientation du jour among voters of a certain (read: young) age. …A January YouGov poll asked respondents whether they had a “favorable or unfavorable” view of socialism and capitalism. While capitalism rated significantly higher overall, those younger than 30 gave socialism higher marks: Forty-three percent viewed it very or somewhat favorably, compared with only 32 percent for capitalism.
The problem is that both Ms. Emba and a lot of young people apparently believe the nonsense spouted by people like Robert Kuttner. They actually blame capitalism for the economic weakness caused by government intervention.
…simple economics have pushed a younger generation of voters to embrace what used to be a dirty word. The past 10 years – for many millennials, the formative years of adulthood – have eroded the credibility of economic [classical] liberalism. The financial crisis and recession weakened youths’ faith in markets… Yet they were also told that the solution to the these problems was more [classical] liberal capitalism. But those solutions haven’t delivered… Underemployment, excessive debt, out-of-reach health care and delayed life goals are young peoples’ defining concerns, and the traditional assumption – that free markets and limited state intervention lead to good outcomes – just doesn’t ring true to them.
Wow, it’s bad enough that people blame free markets for a government-caused financial crisis, but Ms. Emba (and perhaps others) think that we’ve tried capitalist “solutions” after the crisis.
What planet is she on? Can she identify one thing that Obama has done that would count as a free-market response to the financial crisis? The fake stimulus? Obamacare? Dodd-Frank?
By the way, she points out that young people presumably have no idea what socialism actually entails. They just want traditional welfare-state redistributionism.
…for many millennials, “socialism” is simply shorthand for “vaguely Scandinavian in the best way” – free health care, free education and subsidized child care, a state that supports its citizens rather than leaving them at the mercy of impersonal corporations bent on profit. …the socialism that most millennials want is simply a return to a more muscular form of traditional liberalism, one that would have felt right at home in the administration of FDR.
Given that President Roosevelt was either malicious or ignorant, and given that his policies lengthened and deepened the Great Depression, I’m not exactly encouraged that millennials merely want traditional liberal (as opposed to classical liberal) policies.
Though it’s worth noting (in a very depressing sense) that a lot of young people are embracing more totalitarian versions of socialism. Here are some brief excerpts from a longer article in Vox.
Jacobin has in the past five years become the leading intellectual voice of the American left, the most vibrant and relevant socialist publication in a very long time. …That’s an opportunity that Jacobin is seizing to great effect, even if Sanders isn’t far enough left for their taste. The Sanders campaign “could begin to legitimate the word ‘socialist,’ and spark a conversation around it, even if Sanders’s welfare-state socialism doesn’t go far enough,” Sunkara wrote earlier this year. …Jacobin…now boasts a print circulation of about 20,000 and has gained about 400 more subscribers a week since Bernie started his ascent in November. …even if Bernie fades, there’s still a constituency for socialist ideas — a fact that could turn out to be much more important than the Sanders campaign itself.
And they really, really mean socialism. With all its warts.
“It is unapologetic about its interests in political economy and Marxism…,” Brooklyn College professor Corey Robin, a longtime leftist writer who signed on early and is now a contributing editor at Jacobin, says. …any Jacobin editor would be the first to tell you, Sanders is a normal labor liberal, or at most a social democrat. He doesn’t go far enough. …What we really need, Sunkara insists, is democratic worker control of the means of production. …A number of Jacobin’s contributors are members of the International Socialist Organization (ISO), the largest Trotskyist group in North America. …Sunkara’s allegiances…lie with Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). …Frase recalls working with the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, a post-Maoist group, while in high school.
I’m not sure to be more amazed that some people really believe this evil nonsense or more worried that Jacobin may actually represent the future of the left in America.
Time for some good news.
My Cato colleague Emily Ekins writes that young people are not hopeless idiots, at least not all of them. Though she phrases her argument in a much nicer fashion in a column she wrote for the Washington Post.
She starts with grim polling data.
A national Reason-Rupe survey found that 53 percent of Americans under 30 have a favorable view of socialism compared with less than a third of those over 30. Moreover, Gallup has found that an astounding 69 percent of millennials say they’d be willing to vote for a “socialist” candidate for president — among their parents’ generation, only a third would do so.
But she notes that for the most part they don’t actually believe in real socialism.
…millennials tend to reject the actual definition of socialism — government ownership of the means of production, or government running businesses. Only 32 percent of millennials favor “an economy managed by the government,” while, similar to older generations, 64 percent prefer a free-market economy. …what does socialism actually mean to millennials? Scandinavia. …In contrast with the 1960s and ’70s, college students today are not debating whether we should adopt the Soviet or Maoist command-and-control regimes that devastated economies and killed millions.
In other words, the nutjobs at Jacobin are still a minority on the left.
Best of all, young people are capable of learning lessons from the real world.
…as millennials age and begin to earn more, their socialistic ideals seem to slip away. …millennials become averse to social welfare spending if they foot the bill. As they reach the threshold of earning $40,000 to $60,000 a year, the majority of millennials come to oppose income redistribution, including raising taxes to increase financial assistance to the poor. …When tax rates are not explicit, millennials say they’d prefer larger government offering more services (54 percent) to smaller government offering fewer services (43 percent). However when larger government offering more services is described as requiring high taxes, support flips and 57 percent of millennials opt for smaller government with fewer services and low taxes, while 41 percent prefer large government.
And she explains that previous generations also have shifted away from big government.
In the 1980s, the same share (52 percent) of baby boomers also supported bigger government, and so did Generation Xers (53 percent) in the 1990s. Yet, both baby boomers and Gen Xers grew more skeptical of government over time and by about the same magnitude. Today, only 25 percent of boomers and 37 percent of Gen Xers continue to favor larger government.
My two cents, for what it’s worth, is that the infatuation with socialism (however defined) among the young underscores why it is so important to “win the narrative” about the causes of the financial crisis and the resulting weak economy.
To the extent that voters actually think capitalism caused the mess in 2008, they will be susceptible to statist ideologies.
In some sense, this is history repeating itself. The Great Depression largely was caused by misguided policies from Hoover and Roosevelt. Yet the left very cleverly peddled the story that capitalism had failed. As a result, generations of voters were more sympathetic to big government.
Thank goodness there are places such as the Cato Institute that are working to correct the narrative, not only about the Great Depression, but also with regards to the financial crisis.
Let’s close with a clever description of the difference between various strains of statism.
I put forth a similar analysis back in 2014, but I confess it wasn’t as clever as the above image. Or as clever as the sign I recently shared.
And let’s not forget the famous two-cow explanation of various ideologies.
Why do many young people gravitate toward this ideology?
[…] What about the United States? Will we vote ourselves into socialism? […]
In many ways what we’re seeing is two different ways at looking at how best we minimize bad/unjust outcomes (inequality-creating negatives such as cronyism and corruption). There are two diametrically opposed sides of the coin, but likely with the same concerns as an impetus for their reasoning: Libertarians think that we can stomp out everything wrong with the world with completely deregulated markets and virtually unlimited personal freedom. On the flip side of the coin, Marxists/socialists especially in academia (i.e. Prof. Angela Davis), truly believe that their radical leftism will deliver a Utopia. I tend to view far-wing ideology, however, as the “throw the baby out with the bathwater” response to government incompetence and corruption (of which bad policy is a part).
A majority of voters likely occupy a gray(er) space — on the rim of the coin, so to speak — meaning less “pure” than libertarians and socialists. (The pragmatist might observe that we can no more live in Karl Marx’s cosmopolitan world, than Ayn Rand’s vision of Utopia.) Socialists and libertarians have in common an unshakable belief in an idealized worldview, uncluttered by juxtaposition and the human tendency to corrupt everything we touch.
It’s when we try to take Utopia out of our imagination and force it into the real world that daydreams transform into authoritarian nightmares. For this reason, I think it’s extraordinarily important, regardless of whether we identify as Right- or Left-leaning in our politics, to teach kids — in middle school, high school and college — to play devil’s advocate (exercise critical thinking skills) in response to “good ideas”. Yes we should always work within whatever system of government we happen to live under to improve accountability and transparency (which, in turn, is highly dependent upon having a free and honest media). What students and voting-age adults, alike, need to appreciate is that there is a bizarrely thin line between Utopia and dictatorship.
The maxim is true: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”. We must be political pragmatists first and foremost because the alternative is to overplay our hand, Right or Left, in pursuit of ideological purity. At present, we’re living in a social/media dominated time that plays up Right vs. Left extremism — which tends to make people cynical about reforming what’s wrong with modern-day Democracy/Capitalism.
The more we appreciate that our common concern is abuse — and that it is the abuse of power that creates human suffering — the more we can agree on what’s wrong. And what’s wrong — that is, non-transparent and corrupt — under any political system is that much harder to rectify when it is BIG (overly complex). Why is that important? Because finding common ground is essential to improving the political and economic systems we have. If we do not find that common ground, than the opposing sides of that coin I just mentioned will be driven to pitch the American Experiment overboard in pursuit of “the grass is greener on the other side of the fence” fallacy. Another way to describe this phenomena of taking the freedom and opportunity one has for granted — as many young people in the United States do even as their counterparts in Hong Kong and elsewhere in the world risk their lives in pursuit of those same liberties! — is what one might term “dangerous idealism”. When we imagine that if only we had such-and-such party in power or such-and-such economic system, it obscures an underlying truth: No matter what kind of government one lives under, the choices are the same: Be good or be evil as individuals. And as nations, be transparent/accountable or be secretive/abusive.
A problem unique to Marxism is that it gives government such a BIG role to play in our lives that it inevitably strays into the minutia if not the weeds of “lifestyle rights”— flinging open the door to either deny or compel how we live be it the practice of religion to gender roles and everything “personal” that lies in between. Ask a young socialist: Do you want your parents to call you every day of your life and ask what you ate, how much carbon you consumed, if you paid your credit card bill, where you should shop, if/when you should go to church? When you put it in that context, even a naive socialist should be given pause to understand that inviting the government to become your lifelong “helicopter parent” is far from ideal. After all, all they hear in their institutions of higher learning is the upsides of a socialist government that protects one from risk from cradle to grave — but what about the downside of having a government that increasingly micromanages our lives? If ANY government this big and BIGGER by the day, it also means a proportional amount of harm can be done. Marxists are banking on naive students to embrace the “greater good” argument. They need to weigh that potential against the equal and opposite “greater evil” reality. And if that’s not an acceptable risk, it paints a valuable life lesson: political purity — aka idealism — isn’t the harmless BFF it’s cracked up to be.
[…] What about the United States? Will we vote ourselves into socialism? […]
This ideology is a failure.
[…] when Sanders attracted a lot of youth support in 2016, I gave the issue even more attention, and I’ve since continued to investigate why so […]
[…] many young people don’t understand socialism. They think it’s just a proxy for caring. Or even for being sociable. It’s incumbent on advocates of freedom to help them understand […]
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[…] Well, maybe we really should increase the voting age. It seems 2016 was not an anomaly. Millennials are dangerously ignorant. […]
Why do you have some people bitching about how wealthy other people are? Get a life and grow up.
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I am impressed, I must say. This is so helpful! great job on this article! You think about this from far more than one view point. I bet you sweat glitter.
How people can be so easily duped into believing the lies of Socialism is disturbing.
Do you have any video of that? great insight. Crazy strange… this site was already loaded when I opened my computer.
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Anon, Linda Smythe and Bob Smith, Socialism and Socialist policies do not work. What has each country experienced when such policies have been enacted? Economic decline.
It won’t be until America is completely broke because of communism that everyone figures out it was a bad idea. I’m not saying capitalism is the best economic system, but it is the only one that works with the selfish nature of humans. People fail to see that if you decrease the incentive for rich businessman to make jobs, there will be less jobs and and the jobs will pay less, and everyone will be poorer.
No matter where it gets implemented, every country that tries to implement Socialist policies go to hell in a hand basket economically. Why? Because people are not able to keep the money they bust their asses for.
Regarding winning the outlook of government-caused financial crisis and why young people confuse statist activity in trying to “save the economy” as capitalism – isn’t it likely that they’re confusing all of the actions with the “end-game” that in 2007-2009 was bail-outs? In other words, they’re confusing capitalism with crony-capitalism.
It’s a shame that it’s even called crony capitalism, as it sulks down capitalism. It’s more like a wider idea of nepotism
perhaps Ms. Smythe and her family should spend some quality time in North Korea… get to know socialism up-close and personal… not the sissified stuff in Europe… but the real deal… get to know the merciful loving touch of one of socialism’s dear leaders…… it might change her perspective…
The Cost of Utopian Delusions… Collectivism’s 20th Century Murder Toll:
http://www.savageleft.com/poli/mbc.html
You honestly think that bad examples from a few would be the result of a method? That low level of intelligence is lower than of an ant.
Secondly, people discussing socialism doesn’t just care about economy, but parameters like trust cooperation and so forth.
Any data as to what the growth rate trendlines of these socialist Scandinavian countries is compared to the world average? So that we can perhaps see what their prosperity trajectory is? Do they match even half the rate at which the total world economy trendline is growing? When did these countries rise to the top of prosperity rankings? Before or after their turn into coercive collectivism? Will they stay there?
China is growing fast because until recently it was at a dismal point, and is still low, with per capita income close to world average. Exactly because China went from zero capitalism (freedom) to middle capitalism (freedom) so it is fast moving towards its new equilibrium point: middle freedom, middle prosperity country. As it reaches that equilibrium, it’s growth rate and prosperity trendline is slowing.
You are right though. I don’t really worry. I will likely emigrate once the people force me to spend half my vitality serving distant others. Then, once the “future I can believe in” materializes in America, I’ll come back.
Many of the countries on the list score very high in economic freedom (which correlates strongly with capitalism). This is because many of the Scandinavian countries (as well as New Zealand) have very very free market policies in areas other than fiscal policy, which raises their score. With Obama’s America having dropped from the list of ten most free countries in the world, what would the US ranking be with Bernie, his subsidies, import tariffs, labor regulation and other coercively collectivist policies?
Countries that have America’s current economic freedom ranking cannot stay at the top of the world’s prosperity scale for long. That should be already obvious from America’s current growth trendline.
But the temptation to other people’s wallets is to strong to be countered by rational arguments. Socialism will play its siren song with the predictable result.
Don’t be scared…..you’ll just be joining the rest of the world (these are only the top 10, remember…)
The TEN top socialist countries in the world:
China
Denmark
Finland
Netherlands
CANADA
Sweden
Norway
Ireland
New Zealand
Belgium
Despite popular myths, there is very little connection between economic performance and welfare expenditure. Many of the countries on this list are proof of that, such as Denmark and Finland. Even though both countries are more socialistic than America, the workforce remains stronger.
Like the Netherlands, Canada also has mostly a free market economy, but has a very extensive welfare system that includes free health and medical care. Canadians remain more open-minded and liberal than Americans, and Canada is ranked as one of the best top five countries to live in by the United Nations and the Human Development Index (HDI) rankings.
the basis of all comedy is physical or emotional pain… there is a trend among some comedy programs {and fox news} to interview young Americans who support Bernie Sanders… and expose them as feeble minded idiots… yeah it’s funny… for the moment… but many of these folks are college students… America’s best and brightest… and they are clueless about socialism and other issues relevant to being a functioning citizen of our republic… they do… however… understand that the kindly old Bern is going to give them free stuff… and he will make the evil rich to pay for it… all they have to do is vote for the Bern… love socialism… and cash the checks… it’s even difficult for established political figures to integrate “democratic socialism” into any discussion of traditional democrat and/or republican politics… they haven’t quite figured it out yet… but they will…
the Bern is breaking new ground… future politicians will be less reserved about advocating programs as “socialist”… as though “socialism” were a system to be admired… it is also possible that the Bern is laying the ground work for “the new thang”… “the Socialist party of America”…
it shouldn’t shock anyone that:
“International data sets show U.S. Millennials hit global bottoms for skills in literacy, numeracy and technology problem-solving.”
http://www.eschoolnews.com/2016/03/21/shocking-data-reveals-millennials-lacking-skills-across-board/
in chalk… write “Trump’s life matters!” on a college sidewalk… anywhere in America… and send thousands of college students into traumatic spasms… put the little darlings in their safe spaces… and engage the services of hundreds of psychological councilors…
our socialist future… if it weren’t so ridiculous… dangerous… and stupid…….. it might be funny…
Amidst the slogans of HopNChange for a better future, the voter-lemmings of this country are actually living the twilight years of America’s prosperity leadership in the world. It is a fate of their own making.
They live in an America where socialism is upheld as a serious contender, and the forces of freedom are represented by, well, – Trump!
To those who remark that opinion polls do not seem to have gotten that much worse, I remind the democratic difference between 49% and 51% support. The tipping point.
Yes, in theory, the core mentality of statism has not reached majoritarian status in America; not yet. But, in practice, virtually all countries that have gotten to this point have slipped into slow growth welfare states. And yes, that includes all of Scandinavia, Germany and the rest of Western Europe. Counties whose growth rate do not even match half the world’s average trendline have NO future; by arithmetic determinism. When your growth rate does not match the world’s average, nothing is sustainable. Nothing! No matter how great you think your culture, heritage, and community are.
Facing this decline, on a personal basis, you need to adapt to this reality if you want to make the best out of a bad situation. The best option is to be on the lookout for emigration alternatives when they emerge. The next best thing is to observe who survived in countries that once descended the path that America is now traversing. Good advice can be drawn by observing who is still surviving in declining Europe. Engage the subsidies, the cronyism, the very government that voter-lemmings are electing to save them. That is how you will make the best out of a bad situation. A bad situation primarily reserved for the very voter-lemmings who will predictably elect government as a savior. They are the ones who will be left with no options. Don’t join them in the same fate.
Bernie Sanders will likely not get elected. At least not this time around. But no matter who gets elected, the lower growth trendline is now entrenched in the now flatter American effort-reward curves. Under this structurally slower growth, four years from now the prosperity of the American electorate will have slipped another notch, and socialism will have gained another few points of support. In desperation, voter-lemmings will demand more government help, not less, thus triggering the vicious cycle of self-enslavement and, most importantly, slow growth. European like growth to nowhere.
My longer term prediction is that America will disintegrate; sooner than most people anticipate. Decline brings discord and an eventual rebellion against the declining central power. The question is how low will a country decline before that happens? The soviets showed how low socialist authoritarianism has to fall before the chance of liberation matures. Europe will disintegrate sooner than the US and may thus provide a better estimate for America’s disintegration timing.
North or South Korea, where would you rather be poor?
It’s too late folks. Prepare and adapt to an American future where voters choose a structural permanent one to two percent growth trendline to decline. Better yet, keep your eyes open for emerging alternatives.
Like a once brilliant star America is entering its long stage of decline. A red giant.
Once social capital drops below a certain tipping point, the vicious cycle of decline sets in. An electorate stressed by the economic malaise of slow growth will ask for more government help and intervention. Not less. Things fold.
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