Installment #3  The Socialists


The Socialists - Know Thy Enemy

Democratic Socialists of America This is the Socialist organization that  counts 53 members of Congress as members.DSA  in Congress

World Socialist MovementWhat Socialism Means

The DSA link above takes you to their Web-Site. Check out the "?" (about us) link on that page to see their view of what the world should be like.

The WSM link above takes you to a page on this site that outlines what the WSM sees as its objectives. On that page there is a link to their Web-Site that gives an in-depth analysis of how these people see the world.

Here I will give my views and opinions to refute what may "sound good" on paper but just doesn't cut it when you think about what it would be like in actual practice.

Common Ownership: All the productive wealth of the world will belong to all the people of the world. No more transnational corporations or small businesses and therefore nobody will own the world. It will be possessed by all of its inhabitants

This statement is foolish on the face of it. In a world where everyone owns everything, in fact no one owns anything. How can everything be "possessed by all inhabitants?" Possession infers property rights and a main tenet of Socialism is that there are no property rights.

Democratic Control By All: Who will run socialist society? We all will. There will be no more government and governed. People will make decisions freely in their communities, in regions and globally. With the existing means of information technology and mass communication this is all possible.

Now this is an interesting concept! No government and none governed. Just how will the people make a decision. I will concede that in very small communities, where you can gather all the inhabitants together at one time it might be possible to come to a consensus. But how would it work on a global scale? The means exist technologically to do this? Perhaps the embryo of the means exist but there is certainly no infrastructure to support it.

There is no way to physically implement this. Have you ever been to a third world country? I have. I have lived in a few of them and visited many more. How will the person living in the clapboard slums of Manila, for example, make his decision known? Forget the language barrier, they don't even have electricity! So how are they going to access this technology?

Production For Use: Instead of producing goods and services for sale and profit, the sole reason for production will be to satisfy needs and desires.

So the only reason to produce something is because I need or desire it. Who will determine what my needs and desires are? Well each individual will make that decision for himself! OK, I need a new SUV (mine is 10 years old) and Lin Chou in China needs a new bicycle. Who is going to produce these things? I can't make an SUV and Lin can't make a bicycle. That means someone else will have to "labor" to make these items. Now I'm a song writer by trade and Lin is a scholar and historian. Do I write a song for every person involved in making my SUV? And what about Lin does he educate all the people involved in making his bike? Suppose the SUV and bike manufactures don't "need or desire" a song or an education? Will they still be motivated to produce these items?

Free Access: A society in which everyone owns everything, decides everything and only produces anything because it is useful will be one in which all will have free access to what is produced. Money will cease to have any function. People will not work for wages or salaries, but to give what they can and take what they need.

The key phrase here is "...and only produces anything because it is useful." What happened to desires? And who determines what is useful? Why we all do! Socialism is a democracy remember so we will take a vote. But wait there are no leaders, no government no authority so who counts the votes? The guy in Palm Beach county with the magnifying glass? (Who will forever define, for me, the election of 2000)

Another little phrase that catches the eye here "...give what they can and take what they need." The word "take" is a bit troublesome to me in this context. It implies force and that is what is worrisome to me. If there is no controlling authority what is to stop those who would rather not work from taking what they feel they need or desire?

That is a brief rebuttal of this socialists utopia. Here are some more things to consider. What about housing? How do we fix this inequity? Does everyone live in a clapboard shack or does everyone get a 3-bedroom ranch house.

Healthcare, who will determine which doctors practice where? Which ones do research and which treat patients? In fact who decides who is to be a doctor and who is to be a garbage collector? The list is endless and none of this can be decided by calling the world together for a vote. It is physically impossible and if it were possible we would spend all of our time making decisions on every little thing. There would be no time to "produce" anything.

The answer is it is a pipe-dream.

Why do I think the Democratic Party in dragging the country in that direction? National healthcare, the seizing of land through out the country putting it under government control. The pursuit of the Antitrust laws to dismember companies like AT&T and Microsoft. Gun control to disarm the people so they have no means to defend themselves against a tyrannical government. Relinquishing control of our military to the UN as the worlds police force. Behavior modification schemes, through taxes on gasoline is one example. An elite cadre of people making decisions for the rest of us.

Installment #4  The Abortionists
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