From the Series: Pitching Socialism

Today FB reminded me of this socialism promotion pitch to Americans from last year. What an insidious piece.

Here's the link to the video:

Quote:

"Socialism is actually just about helping each other out."

No, helping is by definition voluntary. And socialism is most definitely not about voluntarily helping each other out! Humans were doing that for millions of years before Karl and the Fabians. On the contrary, it's about robbing Peter to pay Paul, with a 95% service charge in the process.

The video is indeed accurate in its claim that the US economy is socialist in many ways. It's a mix of both socialist and capitalist principles, hence a "mixed" economy. But are the results and outcomes of these socialist policies actually desirable, as the video seems to imply? Are the trillions in corporate welfare good? Is the dependency of vast numbers of people on government handouts healthy, desirable, and above all, sustainable?

Let's look at a few more quotes from the video. How do they hold up to scrutiny?

"There are many different types of socialists, but the main idea is that the rich and the powerful don't get to call all the shots when it comes to the economy"

Maybe that's the idea, but it certainly isn't the reality. The reality is that socialism depends on the use of force to extract resources which are then redistributed according to the preferences of the folks controlling the government. Everyone is made "equal"... equally poor that is.... except for those doing the distributing. By the nature of the system, the powerful = the rich, and these are precisely the people calling the shots. In the Soviet Union these people were called the nomenklatura. In the US they are typically called the "elites," many of whom rotate between the government and the large corporations. In other words, the assertion made in the video is grossly inaccurate.....it is outright flagrantly wrong.

"Infrastructure! Infrastructure that's now crumbling, even with President Obama's 2009 economic stimulus package, which tried to pull us out of the most recent Wall Street-induced financial meltdown."

Crumbling infrastructure is a common theme for all socialist and communist economies. One might even say it is one of their main themes. When the Soviet Union finally collapsed in 1991, essentially a pile of rubble was left behind. This is because - as Mises pointed out - they tend to consume the capital stock accumulated by the capitalist economies which preceded them, while failing to replenish it. And while the video aptly points out that the socialist 2009 stimulus package failed to improve infrastructure, it pretends that this is some kind of accident. The reality is precisely the opposite. And what about mixed economies? Well, given the absurd mixing of apples and oranges which forms the basis of most government economic statistics, sometimes it can be hard to tell, but one big hint is the trade balance. Is more coming in or more going out? If a lot more is consistently going out, then it's likely the economy is actually producing a surplus. This may not necessarily be efficient, especially if those exports are only netting worthless IOUs in return, but they do nonetheless hint at a constructive as opposed to destructive economy. On this basis, the situation today in the US looks rather bleak.