The end of socialism

Socialism in its present form began as an intellectual fad in the nineteenth century, was tried in various countries in the twentieth and faces its final collapse in the twenty-first. Its end result is never a thriving economy or a good life for the people. In the last century it led to many millions of deaths.

Currently the news is filled with the precarious health of Europe's 'socialism lite' schemes, which have led to unsupportable debts. In the U.S., Obama and his Democrat allies are pushing us down the same precipitous path. This cannot end well. At best, the West is facing a period of financial correction that will put an end to public confidence in socialists of all stripes. At worst...well, let us hope it does not come to that.

Socialism is never sustainable because when you say 'to each according to his needs' everyone has needs, and when you say 'from each according to his abilities,' people's abilities flag. When you say 'to each according to his abilities' everyone tries hard to discover his abilities. But that is the one thing the socialist never says.

The French Mistake

The French people have spoken. They did not say what they intended, but said something that came out as an embarrassment. They are now living in that entertaining moment of having misspoken but not yet realized it. Everyone is snickering at them and they don't know why.

What they have said, of course, is that they reject government austerity drives and approve of the burden imposed on the economy by public spending. They have elected a president who thinks government spending is a good thing and France needs to do more of it. The new president doesn't like bankers and wants to raise taxes on corporations and the rich.

The new French president is borrowing a page from Obama's playbook in promising to soak the rich. The trouble with that plan, there or here, is that there are never enough rich people. You could beggar them all and not have enough money to run the country.

At the same time, money taken from those who have it is money that will not be invested in productive enterprises that offer some hope of returning a profit. Profit is where riches and growth and prosperity and a resilient economy come from, and confiscating profit produces all the opposite results.

Of course, the socialist hope is that they can draw blood from the prosperous without weakening the economy too much. They will take from the rich, but not so much as to collapse trade and enterprise. How much is too much? They offer no precise answer to that. It is clear, though, that they always come back for a little bit more money than last time, because that is always how much the government needs to support its projects of ever expanding largess.

Because the scheme cannot be balanced entirely on the backs of the rich, the tax burden is pressed downward upon those who are merely prosperous, rather as Mr. Obama's despised "millionaires and billionaires," once the fine print is examined, include individuals making $200,000 a year. Rather than using their money to continue and expand whatever enterprise it was that made them well to do, they shall pay over more and more for their less enterprising neighbors. Heaven knows what the ceiling will be for the next generation, the threshold at which one is deemed to have "made enough money." A hundred thousand? Fifty?

We come back again to socialism's built in error. To the socialist, it is always time for the government to expand. In good times, it is time to grow the government. In bad times, it is time to grow the government. It is always time. When the bad times become chronic, the socialist is at a loss to say why. He thinks it must be time for more spending. Stimulus, not austerity! That is his answer because it is unthinkable that more government is not a good thing, that perhaps government is something we could have too much of. The idea that government spending could have a parasitic effect on the health of the general economy is simply not in his lexicon of ideas. If it were, he would not be a socialist.

The French have voted for their short term good at the expense of the long term. They will have the government spend money on them, and will not inquire too closely into where the money comes from. When they realize the joke is on them, will they have the grace to laugh?

Update: Democrats here in the U.S. are encouraged that the French vote went the way it did. They too think it is time to spend more not less and austerity is the wrong idea. This may be one of those questions we must leave for history to sort out, but I know which way I'm betting. The principle here is that of the goose and the gold eggs.

The crisis of the West

Beginning in Greece, and spreading across Europe, we see clear evidence that the socialistic way of doing things is a failure. I do not see how the USA can avoid similar painful lessons, since we won't or can't stop government growth, intrusion, waste and expense.

There are two visions at work, two views of man and society. One says that the government is or should be the most important, biggest and most definitive factor in society. The other sees government as a necessary evil and wants to keep it to a minimum. The first view has the upper hand at the moment, but the second is having its point proven for it by the futility of legislating nirvana.

You run out of other people's money. You find that you cannot borrow prosperity. What you subsidize you get more of, what you tax you get less of. So when we subsidize failure and bad lifestyle choices and, to pay for that, we tax success and thrift, the trend down the drain pretty well establishes itself.

Greece is where Western civilization began. Is it now showing us how it ends?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2012/mar/15/greece-breadline-hiv-malaria
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2012/mar/14/greece-breadline-leftovers-dinner?intcmp=239

Pigeons coming home, roosting everywhere

Municipalities are feeling the pinch from spending too much money. It is like the federal trend and the trend at the state level. Everyone figured out ways to grow the government. No one thought the matter through. Now we need to shrink our governments at all levels--and we don't know how.

Harrisburg, PA
Stockton, CA

These are just the tip of the iceberg.

The financial situation in Europe continues to deteriorate. The news from Greece and Spain is discouraging and there are new rumblings in Portugal. As I have said before, the USA cannot escape a similar fate so long as we are pursuing a similar course. Last month the US government ran up the highest monthly debt in history. The numbers aren't in for this month. We lack the political will even to look squarely at the problem: You cannot borrow prosperity.

The Return of The Copybook Gods

This poem, written in 1919, is prescient of our own era. Back then, socialist ideas were making inroads against civilized society (the Russian Revolution was in 1917) and various utopian and progressive ideas were in vogue in various countries. The Western world was weary of war (Word War One had ended in 1918) and looked for a better tomorrow, usually in the wrong places.

What, you may ask, was a copybook? It was an exercise for small schoolboys. At the top of the page, in perfect penmanship, was some wise saying or old maxim. The pupil was to copy the heading repeatedly down the page, imitating the penmanship. In the process he learned to be legible. At the same time he acquired a store of conventional wisdom and learned a bit about spelling and good phrasing as well. 

A number of things in Kipling's poem are recognizable today because modern progressive ideas are not actually modern, but old tired ideas. The supposedly modern themes of arms control, sexual liberation and socialism may be found in the poem, and they were not new in 1919.

The Market Place referred to is, in my judgement, the marketplace of ideas, not a reference to any particular economic theory or trading floor; I think so because the poem makes more sense that way. Then as now, it is a market where buyers must always beware of what people are trying to sell them.

The Gods of the Copybook Headings 
By Rudyard Kipling




As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.


We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.


We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.


With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.


When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know." 


On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death." 


In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all, 
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul; 
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy, 
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die." 


Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.


As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began. 
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire, 
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;


And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins, 
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn, 
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return! 

China sees what's going on

China has voiced concern over Europe's debts. Well they should. As I have previously noted, the West's debt crisis touches Chinese interests.

China's Premier Wen Jiabao says China wants to help resolve the crisis. 

Top stories update

As I noted previously, there are three particularly important news stories in the present day: the Western debt crisis, rising Islamism in the Mideast and discontent and uncertainty in China.

In this morning's news, we have riots in Greece as the government makes some gestures toward cost control, and a report that Iran is prepared to carry out suicide boat attacks in the Persian gulf. The Tibet situation continues to ferment, of course, and has spilled over into parts of Sichuan, and a young nun has burned herself to death.

On the other side of China, the village of Wukan is in the process of electing its own officials. You may remember that late last year, Wukan rebelled against what residents perceived as a dishonest land grab by officials.

No news reports of discontent, at this time, from points between eastern and western China. That must mean nothing is happening. . . or being reported.