The Truth About Socialism

Irving Kristol once remarked that a neo-conservative is a "liberal who was mugged by reality". So based on that I define a Neo-Marxist as a Socialist who was mugged by reality. What I mean by that is they have been forced to take off their rose colored glasses due to the complete failure of every Marxist based redistributive system since the French Revolution. They are now willing to use some aspects of Capitalism in a futile attempt to fund the Large Government required to administer their unattainable Utopian dream state. This is Crony-Capitalism at its worst and it comes from the Neo-Marxist movement to tax and regulate businesses that they deem inappropriate while at the same time attempting to pick and promote the ones they deem best (like Solyndra GM GE etc. etc). The only thing green about all their pet companies is the tax dollars funneled into them. 

The Neo-Marxists know that there will be trouble in a few years as the tax rates are now being maxed out, the predictable inflation from printing money and when we can not borrow any more money. The only choice left will be to cut entitlements and this will cause rioting. Therefore the populous will have to be disarmed beforehand! Here is a nouvelle idea how about we drastically cut government spending now and avoid the inevitable future result of our current path that we are now on!

I welcome any input on these matters especially from the left. Just keep it civil, factual and truthful and I will post it (I know many of you Liberals struggle a civil, factual and truthful discussion).

What is Labor day really about?

I thought Labor day was a good day to contrast the unrealistic Marxist redistributive Socialist utopian dream against the simple well proven truth of American Conservatism.

The first Labor Day was founded by the Central Labor Union in New York city on September 5, 1882.

Leftists wanted May 1st but president Grover Cleveland and Congress opted to choose the date of the original Labor Day parade organized by the CLU, September 5, 1884, rather than May 1, as a national holiday. Thus, the first Monday of September became Labor Day and was officially written into law as a national holiday on June 28, 1894.
" But the last holiday of summer is more than a day off work: It's also one of the most controversial of American holidays, a celebration of the laborers -- and more specifically, the unionized laborers"
a quote from Bruce Watson

So it is obvious that the Left uses Labor Day as another day to promote their Marxist redistributive agenda. The rest of us need to counter this false unsustainable utopian dream that has been proven time and time again to be a complete failure that ends up making many suffer worse then before.

"What is being challenged is nothing less than the most basic premise of the politics of the centre ground: that you can have free market economics and a democratic socialist welfare system at the same time. The magic formula in which the wealth produced by the market economy is redistributed by the state – from those who produce it to those whom the government believes deserve it – has gone bust. The crash of 2008 exposed a devastating truth that went much deeper than the discovery of a generation of delinquent bankers, or a transitory property bubble. It has become apparent to anyone with a grip on economic reality that free markets simply cannot produce enough wealth to support the sort of universal entitlement programmes which the populations of democratic countries have been led to expect. The fantasy may be sustained for a while by the relentless production of phoney money to fund benefits and job-creation projects, until the economy is turned into a meaningless internal recycling mechanism in the style of the old Soviet Union."
a quote from Janet Daley

"We own this country politicians are employees of ours and when somebody does not do the job, we’ve got to let them go!" Clint Eastwood

On the Internet, there is a cry for replacing this year’s Labor Day – as in American workers’ day – with “Empty Chair Day” inspired by Clint Eastwood’s ‘empty chair’ symbolizing the current employment - or should it be said, unemployment - situation in the country.
I feel Labor Day should now be celebrated as Empty Chair Day! Please do join me in celebrating "National Empty Chair Day" on Labor Day!.

Below is another excellent article from
Real Clear Politics

Public Unions & the Socialist Utopia

By Robert Tracinski

The Democratic lawmakers who have gone on the lam in Wisconsin and Indiana-and who knows where else next-are exhibiting a literal fight-or-flight response, the reaction of an animal facing a threat to its very existence.
Why? Because it is a threat to their existence. The battle of Wisconsin is about the viability of the Democratic Party, and more: it is about the viability of the basic social ideal of the left.

It is a matter of survival for Democrats in an immediate, practical sense. As Michael Barone explains, the government employees' unions are a mechanism for siphoning taxpayer dollars into the campaigns of Democratic politicians.
But there is something deeper here than just favor-selling and vote-buying. There is something that almost amounts to a twisted idealism in the Democrats' crusade. They are fighting, not just to preserve their special privileges, but to preserve a social ideal. Or rather, they are fighting to maintain the illusion that their ideal system is benevolent and sustainable.
Unionized public-sector employment is the distilled essence of the left's moral ideal. No one has to worry about making a profit. Generous health-care and retirement benefits are provided to everyone by the government. Comfortable pay is mandated by legislative fiat. The work rules are militantly egalitarian: pay, promotion, and job security are almost totally independent of actual job performance. And because everyone works for the government, they never have to worry that their employer will go out of business.
In short, public employment is an idealized socialist economy in miniature, including its political aspect: the grateful recipients of government largesse provide money and organizational support to re-elect the politicians who shower them with all of these benefits.
Put it all together, and you have the Democrats' version of utopia. In the larger American culture of Tea Parties, bond vigilantes, and rugged individualists, Democrats feel they are constantly on the defensive. But within the little subculture of unionized government employees, all is right with the world, and everything seems to work the way it is supposed to.
This cozy little world has been described as a system that grants special privileges to a few, which is particularly rankling in the current stagnant economy, when private sector workers acutely feel the difference. But I think this misses the point. The point is that this is how the left thinks everyone should live and work. It is their version of a model society.
Every political movement needs models. It needs a real-world example to demonstrate how its ideal works and that it works.
And there's the rub. The left is running low on utopias.
The failure of Communism-and the spectacular success of capitalism, particularly in bringing wealth to what used to be called the "Third World"-deprived the left of one utopia. So they fell back on the European welfare state, smugly assuring Americans that we would be so much better off if we were more like our cousins across the Atlantic. But the Great Recession has triggered a sovereign debt crisis across Europe. It turned out that the continent's welfare states were borrowing money to paper over the fact that they have committed themselves to benefits more generous than they can ever hope to pay for.
In America, the ideological crisis of the left is taking a slightly different form. Here, the left has set up its utopias by carving out, within a wider capitalist culture, little islands where its ideals hold sway. Old age is one of those islands, where everyone has been promised the socialist dreams of a guaranteed income and unlimited free health care. Public employment is another.
Now the left is panicking as these experiments in American socialism implode.
On the national level, it has become clear that the old-age welfare state of Social Security and Medicare is driving the federal government into permanent trillion-dollar deficits and a ruinous debt load. Even President Obama acknowledged, in his State of the Union address, that these programs are the real drivers of runaway debt-just before he refused to consider any changes to them. You see how hard it is for the Democrats to give up on their utopias.
On the state level, public employment promises the full socialist ideal to a small minority-paid for with tax money looted from a larger, productive private economy. But the socialist utopia of public employment has crossed the Thatcher Line: the point at which, as the Iron Lady used to warn, you run out of other people's money.
The current crisis exposes more than just the financial unsustainability of these programs. It exposes their moral unsustainability. It exposes the fact that the generosity of these welfare-state enclaves can only be sustained by forcing everyone else to perform forced labor to pay for the benefits of a privileged few.
This is why the left is treating any attempt to fundamentally reform the public workers' paradise as an existential crisis. This is why they are reacting with the most extreme measures short of outright insurrection. When Democratic lawmakers flee the state in order to deprive their legislatures of the quorum necessary to vote, they are declaring that they would rather have no legislature than allow voting on any bill that would break the power of the unions.
National Review's Jim Geraghty describes these legislative walk-outs as "small-scale, temporary secessions." The analogy is exact. One hundred and fifty years ago, Southern slaveholders realized that the political balance of the nation had tipped against them, that they could no longer hope to win the political argument for their system. Faced with a federal government in which they were out-voted, they decided that they would rather have no federal government at all. The Democrats' current cause may not be as repugnant-holding human beings as chattel is a unique evil-but it has something of the same character of irrational, belligerent denial. More than two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the left is still trying to pretend that socialism is plausible as an economic system.
The Democrats are fleeing from a lot more than their jobs as state legislators. They are fleeing from the cold, hard reality of the financial and moral unsustainability of their ideal.

Below is another excellent article from
The failure of unions and socialism
from Braincrave Second Life staff
Mar 02, 2011

Someone once made a comment that he was 100% supportive of a tyrannical, socialist government as long as he was the only citizen of his country (paraphrased). Throughout the world, and especially in America, many are still trying their best to pretend that socialism is a plausible economic system and ideology by attaching it to capitalism. No matter how often socialism has proved to be morally and economically destructive, there continues to be those who desperately want to believe that "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is a sustainable model.

Currently, there are multiple US states (e.g., Wisconsin, Ohio, Tennessee, Indiana, Nevada, New Jersey, Florida) that are attempting to "break" public unions. This struggle appears to be bringing those on the left together. Why are public unions such a particularly big deal for Democrats? Is unionized, public employment representative of the socialist utopia? Given what we are seeing with government's income statement - and specifically the cost of entitlement programs which is primary to liberal ideology - is it hubris to suggest that breaking the public unions would effectively destroy the fundamental premises of the Democratic party and, thus, the party itself? Given that Republicans are just as guilty for supporting collectivism, how destructive could this be to RINOs?

FTA: "The Democratic lawmakers who have gone on the lam in Wisconsin and Indiana-and who knows where else next-are exhibiting a literal fight-or-flight response, the reaction of an animal facing a threat to its very existence. Why? Because it is a threat to their existence. The battle of Wisconsin is about the viability of the Democratic Party, and more: it is about the viability of the basic social ideal of the left... They are fighting, not just to preserve their special privileges, but to preserve a social ideal. Or rather, they are fighting to maintain the illusion that their ideal system is benevolent and sustainable. Unionized public-sector employment is the distilled essence of the left's moral ideal. No one has to worry about making a profit. Generous health-care and retirement benefits are provided to everyone by the government. Comfortable pay is mandated by legislative fiat. The work rules are militantly egalitarian: pay, promotion, and job security are almost totally independent of actual job performance. And because everyone works for the government, they never have to worry that their employer will go out of business...

The point is that this is how the left thinks everyone should live and work. It is their version of a model society. Every political movement needs models. It needs a real-world example to demonstrate how its ideal works and that it works. And there's the rub. The left is running low on utopias. The failure of Communism-and the spectacular success of capitalism, particularly in bringing wealth to what used to be called the "Third World"-deprived the left of one utopia. So they fell back on the European welfare state, smugly assuring Americans that we would be so much better off if we were more like our cousins across the Atlantic. But the Great Recession has triggered a sovereign debt crisis across Europe. It turned out that the continent's welfare states were borrowing money to paper over the fact that they have committed themselves to benefits more generous than they can ever hope to pay for.

In America, the ideological crisis of the left is taking a slightly different form. Here, the left has set up its utopias by carving out, within a wider capitalist culture, little islands where its ideals hold sway. Old age is one of those islands, where everyone has been promised the socialist dreams of a guaranteed income and unlimited free health care. Public employment is another. Now the left is panicking as these experiments in American socialism implode... The current crisis exposes more than just the financial unsustainability of these programs. It exposes their moral unsustainability. It exposes the fact that the generosity of these welfare-state enclaves can only be sustained by forcing everyone else to perform forced labor to pay for the benefits of a privileged few."

OMG! Clint Eastwood breaks the leftist Hollywood lock step.

I am enjoying the predictable and completely transparent reaction of the mainstream media along with many  of the leftists in the entertainment industry. Their bias is so obvious it can not be denied by any impartial observer. After two years of complete control of this country starting in 2008 they rammed their Marxist redistributive agenda down our throats. Then in 2010 they lost the house along with their super-majority in the senate. Now they have been slowed moving us all Forward over the cliff.

The issue Leftists have with Clint Eastwood is that he is a successful, critically acclaimed and popular actor/director that is an open and unabashed Conservative. The Hollywood elitist limousine Liberals can not accept one of their own speaking against their Marxist redistributive agenda. When this happens it must in the Lefts eyes be squashed by any means necessary. When Leftist can not support their message with simple facts and truth they resort to redefining the debate. After that fails they then attempt to discredit the messenger and name calling. They are now actively in the discrediting and name calling phase.

The following is a transcript of actor Clint Eastwood's speech at the Republican National Convention on Aug. 30, 2012. Pulled from a FOX news post

EASTWOOD: Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Save a little for Mitt.
(APPLAUSE)
I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, what's a movie tradesman doing out here? You know they are all left wingers out there, left of Lenin. At least that is what people
think. That is not really the case. There are a lot of conservative people, a lot of moderate people, Republicans, Democrats, in Hollywood. It is just that the conservative
people by the nature of the word itself play closer to the vest. They do not go around hot dogging it.
(APPLAUSE)
So -- but they are there, believe me, they are there. I just think, in fact, some of them around town, I saw John Voigt, a lot of people around.
(APPLAUSE)
John's here, an academy award winner. A terrific guy. These people are all like-minded, like all of us.
So I -- so I've got Mr. Obama sitting here. And he's -- I was going to ask him a couple of questions. But -- you know about -- I remember three and a half years ago, when Mr. Obama won the election. And though I was not a big supporter, I was watching that night when he was having that thing and they were talking about hope and change and they were talking about, yes we can, and it was dark outdoors, and it was nice, and people were lighting candles. They were saying, I just thought, this was great. Everybody is trying, Oprah was crying. I was even crying. And then finally -- and I haven't cried that hard since I found out that there is 23 million unemployed people in this country.
(APPLAUSE)
Now that is something to cry for because that is a disgrace, a national disgrace, and we haven't done enough, obviously -- this administration hasn't done enough to cure that. Whenever interest they have is not strong enough, and I think possibly now it may be time for somebody else to come along and solve the problem.
(APPLAUSE)
So, Mr. President, how do you handle promises that you have made when you were running for election, and how do you handle them? I mean, what do you say to people? Do you just -- you know -- I know -- people were wondering -- you don't -- handle that OK. Well, I know even people in your own party were very disappointed when you didn't close Gitmo. And I thought, well closing Gitmo -- why
close that, we spent so much money on it. But, I thought maybe as an excuse -- what do you mean shut up?
(LAUGHTER)
OK, I thought maybe it was just because somebody had the stupid idea of trying terrorists in downtown New York City. 

(APPLAUSE)
I've got to to hand it to you. I have to give credit where
credit is due. You did finally overrule that finally. And
that's --
now we are moving onward. I know you were against the war in
Iraq,
and that's okay. But you thought the war in Afghanistan was OK.
You
know, I mean -- you thought that was something worth doing. We
didn't
check with the Russians to see how did it -- they did there for
10
years.
(APPLAUSE)
But we did it, and it is something to be thought about, and
I
think that, when we get to maybe -- I think you've mentioned
something about having a target date for bringing everybody
home. You
gave that target date, and I think Mr. Romney asked the only
sensible
question, you know, he says, ``Why are you giving the date out
now?
Why don't you just bring them home tomorrow morning?''
(APPLAUSE)
And I thought -- I thought, yeah -- I am not going to shut
up, it
is my turn.
(LAUGHTER)
So anyway, we're going to have -- we're going to have to
have a
little chat about that. And then, I just wondered, all these
promises
-- I wondered about when the -- what do you want me to tell
Romney? I
can't tell him to do that. I can't tell him to do that to
himself.
(APPLAUSE)
You're crazy, you're absolutely crazy. You're getting as
bad as
Biden.
(APPLAUSE)
Of course we all now Biden is the intellect of the
Democratic
party.
(LAUGHTER)
Kind of a grin with a body behind it.
(LAUGHTER)
But I just think that there is so much to be done, and I
think
that Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan are two guys that can come along.
See, I
never thought it was a good idea for attorneys to the president,
anyway.
(APPLAUSE)
I think attorneys are so busy -- you know they're always
taught
to argue everything, and always weight everything -- weigh both
sides...
MORE
(INSERT ZACH)
XXX I think attorneys are so busy -- you know they're
always taught to argue everything, always weigh everything,
weigh both sides.
EASTWOOD: They are always devil's advocating this and
bifurcating this and bifurcating that. You know all that stuff.
But, I think it is maybe time -- what do you think -- for maybe
a businessman. How about that?
(APPLAUSE)
A stellar businessman. Quote, unquote, ``a stellar
businessman.''
And I think it's that time. And I think if you just step
aside and Mr. Romney can kind of take over. You can maybe still
use a plane.
(APPLAUSE)
Though maybe a smaller one. Not that big gas guzzler you
are going around to colleges and talking about student loans and
stuff like that.
(APPLAUSE)
You are an -- an ecological man. Why would you want to
drive that around?
OK, well anyway. All right, I'm sorry. I can't do that to
myself either.
(APPLAUSE)
I would just like to say something, ladies and gentlemen.
Something that I think is very important. It is that, you, we
-- we own this country.
(APPLAUSE)
We -- we own it. It is not you owning it, and not
politicians owning it. Politicians are employees of ours.
(APPLAUSE)
And -- so -- they are just going to come around and beg
for votes every few years. It is the same old deal. But I just
think it is important that you realize , that you're the best in
the world. Whether you are a Democrat or Republican or whether
you're libertarian or whatever, you are the best. And we should
not ever forget that. And when somebody does not do the job, we
got to let them go.
(APPLAUSE)
Okay, just remember that. And I'm speaking out for
everybody out there. It doesn't hurt, we don't have to be
(AUDIENCE MEMBER): (inaudible)
(LAUGHTER)
I do not say that word anymore. Well, maybe one last time.
(LAUGHTER)
We don't have to be -- what I'm saying, we do not have to
be metal (ph) masochists and vote for somebody that we don't
really even want in office just because they seem to be nice
guys or maybe not so nice guys, if you look at some of the
recent ads going out there, I don't know.
(APPLAUSE)
But OK. You want to make my day?
(APPLAUSE)
All right. I started, you finish it. Go ahead.

AUDIENCE: Make my day!
EASTWOOD: Thank you. Thank you very much.

Why Socialism Failed

This is a great article written by Mark J. Perry posted on the Freeman Blog on June 1995. It is so timeless that it still rings true today.

Why Socialism Failed

by Mark J. Perry • June 1995 • Vol. 45/Issue 6

Socialism is the Big Lie of the twentieth century. While it promised prosperity, equality, and security, it delivered poverty, misery, and tyranny. Equality was achieved only in the sense that everyone was equal in his or her misery.
In the same way that a Ponzi scheme or chain letter initially succeeds but eventually collapses, socialism may show early signs of success. But any accomplishments quickly fade as the fundamental deficiencies of central planning emerge. It is the initial illusion of success that gives government intervention its pernicious, seductive appeal. In the long run, socialism has always proven to be a formula for tyranny and misery.
A pyramid scheme is ultimately unsustainable because it is based on faulty principles. Likewise, collectivism is unsustainable in the long run because it is a flawed theory. Socialism does not work because it is not consistent with fundamental principles of human behavior. The failure of socialism in countries around the world can be traced to one critical defect: it is a system that ignores incentives.
In a capitalist economy, incentives are of the utmost importance. Market prices, the profit-and-loss system of accounting, and private property rights provide an efficient, interrelated system of incentives to guide and direct economic behavior. Capitalism is based on the theory that incentives matter!
Under socialism, incentives either play a minimal role or are ignored totally. A centrally planned economy without market prices or profits, where property is owned by the state, is a system without an effective incentive mechanism to direct economic activity. By failing to emphasize incentives, socialism is a theory inconsistent with human nature and is therefore doomed to fail. Socialism is based on the theory that incentives don’t matter!
In a radio debate several months ago with a Marxist professor from the University of Minnesota, I pointed out the obvious failures of socialism around the world in Cuba, Eastern Europe, and China. At the time of our debate, Haitian refugees were risking their lives trying to get to Florida in homemade boats. Why was it, I asked him, that people were fleeing Haiti and traveling almost 500 miles by ocean to get to the “evil capitalist empire” when they were only 50 miles from the “workers’ paradise” of Cuba?
The Marxist admitted that many “socialist” countries around the world were failing. However, according to him, the reason for failure is not that socialism is deficient, but that the socialist economies are not practicing “pure” socialism. The perfect version of socialism would work; it is just the imperfect socialism that doesn’t work. Marxists like to compare a theoretically perfect version of socialism with practical, imperfect capitalism which allows them to claim that socialism is superior to capitalism.
If perfection really were an available option, the choice of economic and political systems would be irrelevant. In a world with perfect beings and infinite abundance, any economic or political system–socialism, capitalism, fascism, or communism–would work perfectly.
However, the choice of economic and political institutions is crucial in an imperfect universe with imperfect beings and limited resources. In a world of scarcity it is essential for an economic system to be based on a clear incentive structure to promote economic efficiency. The real choice we face is between imperfect capitalism and imperfect socialism. Given that choice, the evidence of history overwhelmingly favors capitalism as the greatest wealth-producing economic system available.
The strength of capitalism can be attributed to an incentive structure based upon the three Ps: (1) prices determined by market forces, (2) a profit-and-loss system of accounting and (3) private property rights. The failure of socialism can be traced to its neglect of these three incentive-enhancing components.
Prices
The price system in a market economy guides economic activity so flawlessly that most people don’t appreciate its importance. Market prices transmit information about relative scarcity and then efficiently coordinate economic activity. The economic content of prices provides incentives that promote economic efficiency.
For example, when the OPEC cartel restricted the supply of oil in the 1970s, oil prices rose dramatically. The higher prices for oil and gasoline transmitted valuable information to both buyers and sellers. Consumers received a strong, clear message about the scarcity of oil by the higher prices at the pump and were forced to change their behavior dramatically. People reacted to the scarcity by driving less, carpooling more, taking public transportation, and buying smaller cars. Producers reacted to the higher price by increasing their efforts at exploration for more oil. In addition, higher oil prices gave producers an incentive to explore and develop alternative fuel and energy sources.
The information transmitted by higher oil prices provided the appropriate incentive structure to both buyers and sellers. Buyers increased their effort to conserve a now more precious resource and sellers increased their effort to find more of this now scarcer resource.
The only alternative to a market price is a controlled or fixed price which always transmits misleading information about relative scarcity. Inappropriate behavior results from a controlled price because false information has been transmitted by an artificial, non-market price.
Look at what happened during the 1970s when U.S. gas prices were controlled. Long lines developed at service stations all over the country because the price for gasoline was kept artificially low by government fiat. The full impact of scarcity was not accurately conveyed. As Milton Friedman pointed out at the time, we could have eliminated the lines at the pump in one day by allowing the price to rise to clear the market.
From our experience with price controls on gasoline and the long lines at the pump and general inconvenience, we get an insight into what happens under socialism where every price in the economy is controlled. The collapse of socialism is due in part to the chaos and inefficiency that result from artificial prices. The information content of a controlled price is always distorted. This in turn distorts the incentives mechanism of prices under socialism. Administered prices are always either too high or too low, which then creates constant shortages and surpluses. Market prices are the only way to transmit information that will create the incentives to ensure economic efficiency.
Profits and Losses
Socialism also collapsed because of its failure to operate under a competitive, profit-and-loss system of accounting. A profit system is an effective monitoring mechanism which continually evaluates the economic performance of every business enterprise. The firms that are the most efficient and most successful at serving the public interest are rewarded with profits. Firms that operate inefficiently and fail to serve the public interest are penalized with losses.
By rewarding success and penalizing failure, the profit system provides a strong disciplinary mechanism which continually redirects resources away from weak, failing, and inefficient firms toward those firms which are the most efficient and successful at serving the public. A competitive profit system ensures a constant reoptimization of resources and moves the economy toward greater levels of efficiency. Unsuccessful firms cannot escape the strong discipline of the marketplace under a profit/loss system. Competition forces companies to serve the public interest or suffer the consequences.
Under central planning, there is no profit-and-loss system of accounting to accurately measure the success or failure of various programs. Without profits, there is no way to discipline firms that fail to serve the public interest and no way to reward firms that do. There is no efficient way to determine which programs should be expanded and which ones should be contracted or terminated.
Without competition, centrally planned economies do not have an effective incentive structure to coordinate economic activity. Without incentives the results are a spiraling cycle of poverty and misery. Instead of continually reallocating resources towards greater efficiency, socialism falls into a vortex of inefficiency and failure.
Private Property Rights
A third fatal defect of socialism is its blatant disregard for the role of private property rights in creating incentives that foster economic growth and development. The failure of socialism around the world is a “tragedy of commons” on a global scale.
The “tragedy of the commons” refers to the British experience of the sixteenth century when certain grazing lands were communally owned by villages and were made available for public use. The land was quickly overgrazed and eventually became worthless as villagers exploited the communally owned resource.
When assets are publicly owned, there are no incentives in place to encourage wise stewardship. While private property creates incentives for conservation and the responsible use of property, public property encourages irresponsibility and waste. If everyone owns an asset, people act as if no one owns it. And when no one owns it, no one really takes care of it. Public ownership encourages neglect and mismanagement.
Since socialism, by definition, is a system marked by the “common ownership of the means of production,” the failure of socialism is a “tragedy of the commons” on a national scale. Much of the economic stagnation of socialism can be traced to the failure to establish and promote private property rights.
As Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto remarked, you can travel in rural communities around the world and you will hear dogs barking, because even dogs understand property rights. It is only statist governments that have failed to understand property rights. Socialist countries are just now starting to recognize the importance of private property as they privatize assets and property in Eastern Europe.
Incentives Matter
Without the incentives of market prices, profit-and-loss accounting, and well-defined property rights, socialist economies stagnate and wither. The economic atrophy that occurs under socialism is a direct consequence of its neglect of economic incentives.
No bounty of natural resources can ever compensate a country for its lack of an efficient system of incentives. Russia, for example, is one of the world’s wealthiest countries in terms of natural resources; it has some of the world’s largest reserves of oil, natural gas, diamonds, and gold. Its valuable farm land, lakes, rivers, and streams stretch across a land area that encompasses 11 time zones. Yet Russia remains poor. Natural resources are helpful, but the ultimate resources of any country are the unlimited resources of its people–human resources.
By their failure to foster, promote, and nurture the potential of their people through incentive-enhancing institutions, centrally planned economies deprive the human spirit of full development. Socialism fails because it kills and destroys the human spirit–just ask the people leaving Cuba in homemade rafts and boats.
As the former centrally planned economies move toward free markets, capitalism, and democracy, they look to the United States for guidance and support during the transition. With an unparalleled 250-year tradition of open markets and limited government, the United States is uniquely qualified to be the guiding light in the worldwide transition to freedom and liberty.
We have an obligation to continue to provide a framework of free markets and democracy for the global transition to freedom. Our responsibility to the rest of the world is to continue to fight the seductiveness of statism around the world and here at home. The seductive nature of statism continues to tempt and lure us into the Barmecidal illusion that the government can create wealth.
The temptress of socialism is constantly luring us with the offer: “give up a little of your freedom and I will give you a little more security.” As the experience of this century has demonstrated, the bargain is tempting but never pays off. We end up losing both our freedom and our security.
Programs like socialized medicine, welfare, Social Security, and minimum wage laws will continue to entice us because on the surface they appear to be expedient and beneficial. Those programs, like all socialist programs, will fail in the long run regardless of initial appearances. These programs are part of the Big Lie of socialism because they ignore the important role of incentives.
Socialism will remain a constant temptation. We must be vigilant in our fight against socialism not only around the globe but also here in the United States.
The failure of socialism inspired a worldwide renaissance of freedom and liberty. For the first time in the history of the world, the day is coming very soon when a majority of the people in the world will live in free societies or societies rapidly moving toward freedom.
Capitalism will play a major role in the global revival of liberty and prosperity because it nurtures the human spirit, inspires human creativity, and promotes the spirit of enterprise. By providing a powerful system of incentives that promote thrift, hard work, and efficiency, capitalism creates wealth.
The main difference between capitalism and socialism is this: Capitalism works.

---

Article printed from The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty: http://www.thefreemanonline.org
URL to article: http://www.thefreemanonline.org/features/why-socialism-failed/

We are turning a sustainable safety net into a Ponzi scheme hammock!

I am sick and tired of the obvious bias and twisting of the truth by the mainstream media and many professors at our tax funded Universities. What is fair about punishing hard work thru excessive taxation then perpetuating poverty by regulating poor entrepreneurs out of business? We need to allow free mobility of the poor to move up the social-economic ladder instead of locking them into the ghetto with the permanent underclass. I am not advocating the wholesale elimination of our social programs but instead a minimal amount as required to help the unfortunate poorest among us survive while having some programs available providing the needed tools for those willing to work hard thus move up the social economic ladder.

Below is a great article I read published on Canada free Press.

Democrats most often divide Americans along cultural lines then employs class envy

Cultural deconstruction: turning a safety net into a hammock

- David Coughlin  Wednesday, September 7, 2011

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The Democrat political strategy is to segment the American people into constituency classes that can be served separately.  Al Gore made a Freudian slip when he admitted while campaigning that “We can build a collective civic space large enough for all our separate identities, that we can be E Pluribus Unum—out of one, many.”

Democrats most often divide Americans along cultural lines (region, race, ethnicity, religion, and personal values), rather than along economic lines. The party then employs class envy as an explicit strategy for righting perceived wrongs and offering a goal of future class equity. This strategy tends to be very divisive, pitting one class vs. another in a zero sum game, never completely satisfying any constituent class.

Political power is ensured by retaining this underclass as a permanent voting bloc that can be exploited for ongoing political support. Unfortunately nurturing a permanent underclass for political purposes has had unintended cultural consequences, which may eventually

The purpose of welfare is to assist individuals in need and ultimately to help welfare recipients out of poverty and make them self-sufficient.  Medicare was originally designed in 1965 as a Great Society health insurance program for all Americans age 65 and older and for the permanent physically disabled, funded by payroll taxes.  Medicaid is the means tested health program created in 1965 as part of the War on Poverty for people with low incomes and resources, jointly funded by the state and federal governments, and managed by the states.  These social insurance programs have expanded well beyond their original intents, and the unintended consequences has been to grow dependence on government support, instead of a return to self sufficiency. After the Great Society legislation of the 1960s, for the first time a person who was not elderly or disabled could receive a living from the American government.  President Franklin D. Roosevelt said in 1935, “Continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit.”  Social Security and Medicare are rapidly approaching bankruptcy, spending more money each year than is collected.  The destructiveness of welfare goes beyond financial affordability and political dependency. 
The more welfare that families receive from government, the less fathers are necessary for their support, undermining the basic building block of society, the family unit.  Lacking the role model of a responsible father, children grow up to believe that dependency is a natural condition of life.  The children of welfare moms are nurtured in a mentality that perpetuates dependency from generation to generation.  The impact of food stamps, Section 8 housing subsidies, Medicaid, and other support programs has been to create a permanent welfare class who, in terms of skills and attitudes, are poorly equipped to return to work.  The U.S. has spent $16 trillion since LBJ launched his “War on Poverty” in 1964, but the percentage of people in “poverty” remains essentially the same.  Despite the fact that illegal aliens do not contribute to the program funding, many states cover them despite explicitly being excluded.  Our culture has eroded so much now that dependence on the government has become an acceptable lifestyle for the permanent underclass, which has transformed our temporary economic “safety net” into a comfortable “hammock” for long term living.
By design Democrats have deconstructed our American culture into a loose confederation of disparate class cultures on the verge of open class warfare.  Democrats have nurtured an underclass politically dependent with a well developed sense of entitlement, which has taught generations that society owes them a living; that government is responsible for raising their children; working is not necessary; and everyone is entitled to the fruits of other people’s labor.  This policy shows a reckless disregard for the consequences of dependency, which will be terrible. 
Welfare-state paternalism has bred and nurtured immoral, undesirable people because government entitlements create one of two attitudes towards society: either ingratitude or resentment.  If they receive what they’re entitled to, there is nothing to be grateful for because you’re entitled to it.  If they haven’t received an entitlement, then they’re resentful because you haven’t received what you feel you are entitled to.  Evidence of this resentment can be seen in the black “flash mobs” attacking randomly in a number of U.S. cities and the U.K. hoodlum riots attacking random businesses.  We should expect to see more of this violence at the Day of Rage starting on September 17th, since it was originally planned for non-violent protests in three cities, but has already expanded to a week of civil disobedience in at least ten cities.
Nothing less than a culture re-construction is needed to recover from the degradation of our western society.  We must resurrect the culture of personal responsibility.  We must re-teach the cause and effect relationship between hard work and achievement.  Relearning the art of parental discipline, and re-establishing the primacy of the moral code upon which western civilization was built are monumental but necessary tasks.  I hope we are not too late because it will take generations to undo the harm done to our culture.  Ultimately the concept of entitlement must be dismantled from the welfare state.
The Democrats have embraced class warfare as their primary political tactic.  The unintended (or perhaps intended) consequence has been the creation of a permanent underclass totally dependent on the government for their well-being.  Political power is maintained by retaining this dependence in exchange for political support.  Unless you are an unrepentant Marxist praying for a class uprising, this permanent underclass is condemned to a government subsistence existence and an inability to participate in the American Dream.

Communists Sue Democratic Party For Stealing Platform

This a great post I found on thepeoplescube.com I had to repost it on my blog it is just to damn funny please do enjoy.
Red Square

4/12/2010, 5:27 pm

In a surprise move, the CPUSA (Communist Party USA) has announced a lawsuit against the Democratic Party and its leadership for the alleged theft of intellectual property. The plaintiffs claim that the entire so-called "new" Democratic agenda is, in fact, the product of a decades-long, painstaking campaign by CPUSA theorists, agitators, and underground subversive cells - which makes it the intellectual property of the Communist Party USA, protected by American copyright laws. "They stole our entire platform, rebranded it 'progressive', and claimed it as their own," declared a CPUSA spokesperson at a press conference in San Francisco. "And we communists say, not so fast! Not in this country anyway, where we still have property rights and the rule of law, thank God! Actually, let me rephrase that..."
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The Communist Party representative explained that government ownership of the auto and financial industries, redistribution of wealth, and free rationed healthcare have always been among the glorious CPUSA objectives: "We held on to these goals through all the difficult years of factional infighting, purges, denunciations, and heroic espionage on behalf of the Soviet intelligence services."This may seem like a foreign idea to you, but we sacrificed everything for it - our friends, our neighbors, and our nation. We suffered from all kinds of ulcers and split personality disorders by blindly following Stalin's directives. We risked our chances of promotion within US government agencies by dutifully advancing Soviet foreign policy. And for what? So that some spoiled Democrats could ride on our backs to power while throwing us crumbs in the form of minor cabinet appointments?
"It's just like taking someone else's hard-earned income and redistributing it! ... Never mind, bad example... It's like infiltrating a respectable organization and taking over its management while engaging in subversive propaganda and the rewriting of history... Whoops, bad example again... It's like being devoid of moral standards and rejecting all the norms and values of Judeo-Christian civilization... No, that was totally inappropriate. Scratch that...
"It's time we got our fair share of credit from the current administration. As a gesture of good will, we would be pleased to accept the credit in the form of stimulus checks, subsidies, and loan guarantees for our members. If not now, when?"
CPUSA lawyers presented documents to the press showing that the Democratic platform of 2010, almost-line-for-line, reiterates the CPUSA platform of 1963. As the lead attorney for the plaintiffs pointed out, even a casual reading shows that while the rhetoric occasionally varies, the underlying policies are nearly identical.
"If the public knew that all the Democrat ideas are ours, we'd have more high-paying jobs in the Obama administration," remarked the CPUSA spokesperson. "While all our members can't be czars, we should at least get royalties. We can't survive on government handouts alone, not yet anyway."
This announcement seems to overturn past communist policy favoring the liquidation of czars and royalty.
The Democratic National Committee has declined to issue an official comment on the lawsuit, but a high-ranking White House official stated privately that this development is the result of an historically inevitable "convergence of opposites" - a philosophical concept outlined by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels - whereby the American public catches up with the glorious promise of communism, while the CPUSA becomes so American that it becomes embroiled in litigation. "Don't quote me on this," he added, "but Barack and I believe we can easily reconcile whatever minor differences we have with the CPUSA, and work together to prepare Americans for the final march, in well-organized and neat columns, towards our radiant progressive future."

Special thanks to Will Beria for contributing to this story

Conservative Change and Hope for 2012

 Conservative Change and Hope for 2012

It’s hard to think of a president that has been more of a failure than President Obama. I suspect that Carter is glad this guy came along, so at least he knows he is no longer the worst president ever. My Hope is that we will have a Change of President in 2012!

The one good thing about Obama is that he may very well be the cause of a Conservative resurgence the likes of which we have not seen in a long long time.

The two years the Obama Pelosi and Reid controlled all was used to ram thru many unpopular Big Government bills. The way Obamacare was born, it was quite a show of smoke and mirrors. The Progressives put out such a radical health plan that they never compromised on, which is so pro union, anti business, too expensive and full of big government that there is no hope of that any Conservative could possibly endorse. They have the audacity and arrogance to call this a bipartisan solution when it is actually social economic suicide. Government is inherently incompetent and corrupt so therefore should do less. Common sense screams use small government. One size does not fit all so let the individual States each decide what is best for themselves.


Now that the results of this exclusively Democratic piece of legislation that was rammed down the average Americans throat is starting to be felt by all it will be swaying elections for years to come.

Top 10 Failures of ObamaCare After One Year

by Emily Miller

03/23/2011

President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law on March 23, 2010.  In just the year since, the law known as ObamaCare has already severely crippled the nation’s economy and health care system.

Despite Obama’s continued pride in his signature health care legislation, a new CNN poll shows that 58% of Americans disapprove of the way Obama is handling health care.

The Republican House passed a repeal of ObamaCare in January, but the bill was blocked by the Democrat-controlled Senate.  Four House committees are now drafting a replacement bill for ObamaCare.  The House also passed legislation defunding ObamaCare in March, which was likewise blocked by the Senate Democrats.  Republican leaders are committed, however, and say that they will be defunding the health care law through the appropriations process this year.

These are the top 10 failures of ObamaCare, starting with those that have had the most serious effect already on the economy, jobs, and the American people.

1.  Explodes the Budget Deficit

One year ago, Obama said, “This legislation will also lower costs for ...  the federal government, reducing our deficit by over $1 trillion in the next two decades.  It is paid for.  It is fiscally responsible. “

Today:  ObamaCare is projected to cost at least $2.4 trillion when it is fully implemented.  Instead of Obama’s promise to reduce the deficit, the Congressional Budget Office​ (CBO) estimates that ObamaCare will increase the federal deficit by $260 billion through 2019.  The United States has more than $14 trillion in debt already, and will hit the current statutory debt ceiling ($14.3 trillion) in the next couple of months.

2.  Kills Jobs

One year ago: Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) said that the health care bill “will create 4 million jobs — 400,000 jobs almost immediately."

Today: The only jobs that have been created from ObamaCare are the tens of thousands of new government bureaucrats who have been hired to deal with all the new regulations and taxes from ObamaCare.

Contrary to Pelosi’s prediction, the director of the CBO testified that 800,000 jobs will be lost over the next decade as a result of  the law.  Even the liberal Urban Institute released a report this week that said that the health care law will have "no noticeable effect on net levels of employment."  Employers are forced to either cut jobs or move workers into part-time slots that are not mandated to receive health insurance in order to meet the regulations, according to the CBO.

3.  Lose Your Own Doctor and Health Plan

One year ago:  Obama said, “If you like your current insurance, you will keep your current insurance.  No government takeover.  Nobody is changing what you’ve got if you’re happy with it.  If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor.  If you like your plan, you can keep it.”

Today: New regulations could force as many as 87 million Americans to lose their current health care plans and their own doctors.

As soon as the new ObamaCare regulations were announced, companies told their employees that they may not be able to keep their current health care plans because of the increased expense.  So Obama’s secretary of Health and Human Services started issuing one-year waivers that exempt companies and unions from complying with the law if it causes a significant increase in premium costs or decrease in access to coverage.

ObamaCare is so broken that the Obama administration has spent the last six months exempting its union friends and large companies from the law.  In this one year, the Obama administration has already issued 1,040 waivers to unions and employers, which thereby exempt 2.6 million people from ObamaCare regulations.

But small businesses and non-union workers who do not have the resources or access to the administration’s waivers will be forced to drop their employees’ current health care plans.

4.  States’ Budget Deficits Grow to Possible Bankruptcy

One year ago: Obama said, “It will take four years to implement fully many of these reforms, because we need to implement them responsibly.  We need to get this right.”

Today: The states, which already have a collective $175 billion budget shortfall this year, are faced with such huge new mandatory costs from ObamaCare that some are on the verge of bankruptcy.

The main cost of the law’s plan to states is from expanding Medicare to add 20 million more people to the program.  Medicare accounts for an average of 22% of state budgets.  The Medicare expansion will cost the states $118 billion through 2023.  States are cutting other programs such as education and law enforcement in order to make up for the shortfall in the new federal mandates.

Already, 28 of 50 states have challenged the constitutionality of the health care law’s individual mandate in court.  Judges in Virginia and Florida have ruled that ObamaCare is unconstitutional.  These and other cases are expected to be resolved in the U.S. Supreme Court.

5.  Higher Insurance Premiums:

One year ago: Obama said that the law will “lower the cost of health care for our families.”

Today: Some Americans have already had a spike in the cost of their insurance premiums of an astounding 20% to 60%.  Insurance companies have raised premiums in double-digit increases.  For example, Blue Shield of California​ recently increased some of its individual plans by 59%, saying that 4% of the increase is a direct result of the new health care law.

Now, the CBO projects that the average American family will pay $2,100 more on health care premiums when the law is fully implemented (an increase of 10% to 13%).

6.  Crushes Businesses

One year ago: Obama said that the law will “lower the cost of health care” for businesses.

Today: While the economy is barely growing at all, companies are facing a government mandate to provide health care for their employees.  The law will cost at least $50 billion to employers because of these new mandates.

Even the CEO of Starbucks said this week that his company is struggling to meet the ObamaCare regulations.  His company spent $250 million last year on health care benefits, and the costs are expected to rise by double-digit percentages.  He said that if his big company is struggling, then he believes that “under the current guidelines, the pressure on small businesses, because of the mandate, is too great.”

7.  Fewer Americans Have Access to Health Insurance

One year ago: Obama said, “And we have now just enshrined, as soon as I sign this bill, the core principle that everybody should have some basic security when it comes to their health care.”

Today: Employers are facing huge increased costs or fines, and so will be forced to find ways to make fewer employees eligible for health benefits.  Experts estimate that as many as 35 million American workers will lose health care benefits because of the higher cost put on companies from ObamaCare.

Also, an estimated half-million children will lose health care because of the new law.  Big health insurance companies such as Anthem Blue Cross and Aetna have already dropped offering child-only policies in 19 states because they are too costly under the ObamaCare regulations.

8.  Senior Citizens Lose Medicare Coverage:

One year ago: Obama said, “We’re not going to mess with Medicare”.

Today: The health care law cuts nearly $530 billion in Medicare over the next decade, with $200 billion coming from the Medicare Advantage.  As one in four seniors is currently enrolled in the Medicare Advantage program, approximately 7 million of them will lose access to the popular program.  Many seniors have already been cut off their plans.

There are 46 million seniors in the Medicare program, but the ObamaCare provisions could drive the program into bankruptcy and prevent doctors from accepting it.  Physicians will have a nearly 30% cut in reimbursements next year from ObamaCare.

Even the Obama administration’s chief Medicare actuary reported, “Providers for whom Medicare constitutes a substantive portion of their business could find it difficult to remain profitable and, absent legislative intervention, might end their participation in the program (possibly jeopardizing access to care for beneficiaries).”

9.  Overburdens Small Business

One year ago: Obama said, “This year, we’ll start offering tax credits to about 4 million small businessmen and women to help them cover the cost of insurance for their employees.”

Today: Obama has already conceded that a provision in his law is so onerous to small-business owners that he asked Congress to fix it.  The provision mandates that small-business owners file a 1099 tax form for any business transaction over $600.

Congress is working to pass the 1099 fix now, but the effect on small businesses has already hurt the economy.  Small businesses are the primary source of job creation in the U.S., so their burden this year with the 1099 provision and other mandates from health care has helped keep unemployment at almost 10%.

More than 40 million small businesses are subject to this new regulation.  So the Internal Revenue Service requested to hire 1,270 new bureaucrats to help handle the paperwork for the flood of 1099 forms and other provisions in implementing the new taxes from ObamaCare.

10.  Tax Hikes

One year ago: Obama said, “Millions of people will get tax breaks to help them afford coverage, which represents the largest middle-class tax cut for health care in history.”

Today: The ObamaCare law includes more than $813 billion in total tax hikes over the next decade, which include the penalty for not having health insurance, and taxes on health plans ($60 billion), medical devices ($20 billion), and prescription drugs ($27 billion).   

After President Obama signed the health care law last March 23, he said this:  “And now that this legislation is passed, you don’t have to take my word for it.  You’ll be able to see it in your own lives.  I heard one of the Republican leaders say this was going to be Armageddon.  Well, two months from now, six months from now, you can check it out.  We’ll look around and we’ll see.  You don’t have to take my word for it.”

Mr. President, as you instructed, the American people have looked around the country and they have checked out ObamaCare.  And, frankly, they still think it looks a lot like Armageddon.