Category Archives: Socialism

Schooling Sanders On ‘Inequality Of Condition’ As Essential To Progress & Liberty

Constitution, Democracy, Federalism, Founding Fathers, Liberty, Socialism, Taxation

In his spectacular “Disquisition on Government,” John C. Calhoun, one of America’s greatest political thinkers, outlines why it is so dangerous to depict liberty as meaningless without equality, when the opposite is the truth. From A Disquisition on Government:

… There is another error, not less great and dangerous, usually associated with the one which has just been considered. I refer to the opinion, that liberty and equality are so intimately united, that liberty cannot be perfect without perfect equality.

That they are united to a certain extent — and that equality of citizens, in the eyes of the law, is essential to liberty in a popular government, is conceded. But to go further, and make equality of condition essential to liberty, would be to destroy both liberty and progress. The reason is, that inequality of condition, while it is a necessary consequence of liberty, is, at the same time, indispensable to progress. In order to understand why this is so, it is necessary to bear in mind, that the main spring to progress is, the desire of individuals to better their condition; and that the strongest impulse which can be given to it is, to leave individuals free to exert themselves in the manner they may deem best for that purpose, as far at least as it can be done consistently with the ends for which government is ordained — and to secure to all the fruits of their exertions.

Now, as individuals differ greatly from each other, in intelligence, sagacity, energy, perseverance, skill, habit of industry and economy, physical power, position and opportunity — the necessary effect of leaving all free to exert themselves to better their condition, must be a corresponding inequality between those who may possess these qualities and advantages in a high degree, and those who may be deficient in them. The only means by which this result can be prevented are, either to impose such restrictions on the exertions of those who may possess them in a high degree, as will place them on a level with those who do not; or to deprive them of the fruits of their exertions.

But to impose such restrictions on them would be destructive of liberty — while, to deprive them of the fruits of their exertions, could be to destroy the desire of bettering their condition. It is, indeed, his inequality of condition between the front and rear ranks, in the march of progress, which gives so strong an impulse to the former to maintain their position, and to the latter to press forward into their files. This gives to progress its greatest impulse. To force the front rank back to the rear, or attempt to push forward the rear into line with the front, by the interposition of the government, would put an end to the impulse, and effectually arrest the march of progress.

These great and dangerous errors have their origin in the prevalent opinion that all men are born free and equal — than which nothing can be more unfounded and false. It rests upon the assumption of a fact, which is contrary to universal observation, in whatever light it may be regarded. It is, indeed, difficult to explain how an opinion so destitute of all sound season, ever could have been so extensively entertained, unless we regard it as being confounded with another, which has some semblance of truth — but which, when properly understood, is not less false and dangerous. …

MORE Disquisition on Government.

Left-Liberal LA Times Calls Trump Supporters Fascists

Capitalism, Communism, Constitution, Fascism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Political Philosophy, Socialism

“Bernie Sanders’ socialist inclinations do not bother his fans,” blared a Los Angeles Times headline. Just kidding. That’ll be the day a left-liberal ignoramus hypocrite at the LA Times lobs insults at the beloved Bernie’s supporters.

The real title to this fatuous piece is, naturally, “Donald Trump’s fascist inclinations do not bother his fans.” Because the author is ignorant about everything, not least political philosophy and history, he sees nothing comparably vile, detestable and totalitarian about other candidates’ socialist prescriptions and proclivities. You’ll never hear a word from moron media members (David Horsey) to the effect that professing anything remotely socialist ought to be stigmatized as totalitarian.

Of course, no fascism is involved. As at least one legal scholar writing at the New York Times offered, “Trump’s Anti-Muslim Plan Is Awful. And Constitutional.” In other words, a president’s plenary power to prevent a possibly dangerous cohort from obtaining immigration status is not fascistic, it’s just not “nice.” In line with the writer’s liberal asininity, the rest of this bloke’s article (David Horsey) consists in appeals to authority, not argument: “Megyn Kelly said, Max Boot said, Paul Ryan said.”

George Reisman, PhD, explains “Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism Is Totalitarian”:

… apart from [the great economist] Ludwig von Mises and his readers, practically no one thinks of Nazi Germany as a socialist state. It is far more common to believe that it represented a form of capitalism, which is what the Communists and all other Marxists have claimed.

The basis of the claim that Nazi Germany was capitalist was the fact that most industries in Nazi Germany appeared to be left in private hands.

What Mises identified was that private ownership of the means of production existed in name only under the Nazis and that the actual substance of ownership of the means of production resided in the German government. For it was the German government and not the nominal private owners that exercised all of the substantive powers of ownership: it, not the nominal private owners, decided what was to be produced, in what quantity, by what methods, and to whom it was to be distributed, as well as what prices would be charged and what wages would be paid, and what dividends or other income the nominal private owners would be permitted to receive. The position of the alleged private owners, Mises showed, was reduced essentially to that of government pensioners.

De facto government ownership of the means of production, as Mises termed it, was logically implied by such fundamental collectivist principles embraced by the Nazis as that the common good comes before the private good and the individual exists as a means to the ends of the State. If the individual is a means to the ends of the State, so too, of course, is his property. Just as he is owned by the State, his property is also owned by the State.

But what specifically established de facto socialism in Nazi Germany was the introduction of price and wage controls in 1936. These were imposed in response to the inflation of the money supply carried out by the regime from the time of its coming to power in early 1933. The Nazi regime inflated the money supply as the means of financing the vast increase in government spending required by its programs of public works, subsidies, and rearmament. The price and wage controls were imposed in response to the rise in prices that began to result from the inflation.

The effect of the combination of inflation and price and wage controls is shortages, that is, a situation in which the quantities of goods people attempt to buy exceed the quantities available for sale. …

…

… Read “Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism Is Totalitarian.”

UPDATE II (6/23): Among Other ‘Benefits,’ Muslim Immigration Imports Democrats

Democrats, Government, IMMIGRATION, Islam, Socialism

Pew Research reports that “a majority of U.S. Muslims (63%) are immigrants,” and that “When it comes to political and social views, Muslims are far more likely to identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party (70%) than the Republican Party (11%) and to say they prefer a bigger government providing more services (68%) over a smaller government providing fewer services (21%).”

Christian Today cites the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) which “found that over 2.6 million immigrants from nations whose populations are dominated by individuals who follow the Islamic faith moved to America in 2014. This number indicates a significant increase from the 2.2 million immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries in 2010.”

UPDATE I (12/27): FACEBOOK THREAD:

David B Taggart: immigrants of all stripes manage their extended family living situations to maximize benefits rational behavior
Like · Reply · 9 hrs · Edited

Ilana Mercer: David B Taggart: Really? Not this family, my own. Don’t know one highly educated South African family on food stamps … very few of us educated whities are allowed passage into the US, but when we are, value is added to the economy. In the case of my spouse, more tens of millions (probably hundreds, as I am talking a globally shipped, high-profile product) than I can count in terms, for example, of asset acquisition for American interests.

UPDATE II ((6/23): “America’s demographics are changing” noodle media members. Adapt or die. Lies. The demographics are BEING CHANGED top-down by central gov.

UPDATED: Burn-The-Wealth Bernie & His Partial Enslavement System

Democracy, Hillary Clinton, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Socialism

“Burn-The-Wealth Bernie & His Partial Enslavement System” is the current column, now on The Unz Review, America’s smartest webzine. An excerpt:

“The top one-tenth of 1 percent in this country own almost 90 percent … as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent,” roared the independent senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, at the first Democratic primary debate of 2015, in Las Vegas.

Standing for president, Sanders implies, somehow, that there exists in nature a delimited income pie from which a disproportionate amount of wealth is handed over to, or seized, by a class of evil doers: “the rich.”

Clueless Sanders omits the process by which that wealth magically materializes.

Wealth doesn’t exist pristine in nature, until individuals—deserving as much, if not more, of the pope’s love as the poor—apply their smarts, labor and savings to transform raw materials into marketable things that satisfy human desire and need.

But not if one listens to the socialist from Vermont as, sadly, too many Americans did.

You ask, why was it not just as discouraging when even more Americans tuned in to watch the first and second Republican Primary Debates, 24 and 23 million respectively?

For this reason: While Republicans are never to be equated with freedom, smaller government, or anything remotely libertarian; the voting public equates a vote for a Republican with a vote for less government and more freedom from the state.

Therefore, an interest in and a support for a Democrat is often a reliable proxy for the measure of statism in the land.

Over fifteen million viewers tuned in to watch two washed-out, walking clichés of the hard left (Hillary Clinton and Mr. Sanders) join two other political phantoms no one had heard of before (Martin O’Malley and Lincoln Chafee), to malign and bring down their betters: the “highly productive and provident one percent that provides the standard of living of a largely ignorant and ungrateful ninety-nine percent,” in the words of professor George Reisman, author of the seminal “Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics.”

Countering Sanders’ pie-in-the-sky economics, Reisman notes that, “The wealth of the 1 percent is the overwhelming source of the supply of goods that people buy and of the demand for labor that people sell.” The wealth of the rich is not to be found in a huge pile of goods from which only capitalists benefit, but in the means of production that benefit us all. …

Read the rest.“Burn-The-Wealth Bernie & His Partial Enslavement System” is the current column, now on The Unz Review.

UPDATED (1/5/2016): Bernie Sanders ‘thinks’ that at heart, ISIS terrorists are really farmers who’ve been frustrated by climate change.

UPDATE II (2/7): https://twitter.com/IlanaMercer/status/693978051172958209