Socialism has a great appeal to many. That’s why democracy often leads to it.
It’s pretty easy to convince people to vote for politicians
promising free stuff. When enough people vote only for their own self-interest,
you get socialism.
Which is weird in itself, since socialism purports to help
everyone. But most often it gets in
because enough voters only want to help themselves. They may rationalize they are supporting
socialism for the common good of all, yet it’s really all about themselves.
They don’t want to pay back their own student loans or the loans their kids still owe.
They don’t want
to pay for their healthcare. They want a higher minimum wage for themselves for what's really a low-skill entry-level job. They want government to subsidize the cost of food, housing, broadband, college tuition, or
whatever, because they simply don’t want to pay as much.
They want government to support them and give them things
they want, not because they couldn’t have these things on their own if they
tried, but because they don’t even have to bother trying. They don’t have to
work harder to get a better paying job. They don’t have to push themselves to
learn new skills. They don’t have to pay to feed their own children. Or worry about
losing their job because of poor performance or a bad attitude. Or even getting a job.
Why not just let your elected leaders handle everything for
you?
It’s very appealing. Not to everyone, but certainly to
many.
The new popular term is Democratic Socialism. It means – according to people like Sanders,
Warren and AOC – that the ordinary voter will still have a say in how socialism works and its scope. Maybe even
to decide how private companies are managed, and how they compensate not just
their executives, but ordinary workers, among other things.
If that sounds suspiciously like “dictatorship of the
proletariat,” that’s because it’s the same thing. Only without using those words.
And it simply doesn’t work.
Socialism – which is what Sanders, Warren, AOC, and lately Kamala Harris
are actually promoting – always fails.
There are two key reasons.
Sooner or later, you run out of other people’s money to pay
for all the free stuff.
That happens first.
Government grows bigger to administer the proliferating
range of free services, subsidies, and giveaways promised by politicians. Spending rises but there’s
actually less revenue coming in because fewer people are required to pay taxes
and more are net recipients of government money. So it starts raising taxes even higher on an
increasingly smaller pool of taxpayers.
Professionals and business owners who can afford to leave do
so, or at least transfer their assets and businesses elsewhere to avoid the
crushing tax burden. That depresses tax revenue further and increases
unemployment, which means more people are on government assistance.
Power and water utilities are often bankrupted because
politicians essentially give away their services. Then these utilities are effectively expropriated to keep services going. When that happens, reliable power and water service
falters and outages become common because the people who knew how to operate
these utilities are gone, replaced by patronage hacks and clueless bureaucrats.
Government borrows heavily to cover the shortfalls between revenue and spending. It sells assets to cover interest payments, destroying collateral used to back its borrowing. When that fails, if it can it prints more money, which devalues the currency and spikes inflation.
Finally, when the socialist government runs out of the ability to
borrow more, as it certainly will, and its currency and IOUs are worthless, it can’t afford to provide free stuff
anymore. When the free or subsidized stuff stops, the population grown reliant
on these suffers.
The promise of
socialism faces cold, hard reality.
In short, subsidized food isn’t a great benefit when there
isn’t enough to feed your family. Free
healthcare isn’t either if there’s little medicine or enough good doctors. Subsidized power and water don’t help when
the lights go out and the taps run dry for hours every day.
Socialist leaders then have two choices. Roll-back the
free stuff while raising taxes even higher – which will outrage significant
parts of the population and risk a revolution. Or move to the next step for many leaders when socialism completely
unravels – double down on government control of everything. And terrify the population with the alternative to that.
That’s why when socialism in the extreme fails it often leads
to authoritarianism. Once the majority of the population is
almost entirely reliant on government, voters are afraid to change the status
quo. They willingly cede absolute power so the free stuff and subsidies stay in
place, even when those start to dry up; they are told things will get much
worse if they don’t.
That’s a very powerful message. It’s how de facto dictators
get elected.
And once some leaders get absolute power, they never want to
give it up. They’ll do practically anything to keep power. Including the use of martial law and military force, if necessary. Even when their
countries are collapsing around them and their people are starving.
That leads to totalitarianism. Elections are rigged. Opposition is suppressed, sometimes
violently. Already scant resources are
redirected to the military and police to maintain control.
Yet, sooner or later, all totalitarian regimes fall.
What takes their place? Why, calls for more democratic
government.
And the cycle begins again. It may take years, but it almost
always happens.
Look at Cuba. Look at Venezuela. Look at failed socialist states around the world. Closer to home, look at Puerto Rico, the basket-case on our doorstep.
Don’t forget to look at the United States, too, if things
continue as they are.
Democracy leads to socialism. Socialism leads to
authoritarianism. Authoritarianism leads
to totalitarianism. Which usually leads back to democracy in some form.
Unfortunately, that often happens after millions
have suffered.
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