Socialism Sounds Great
The definition of socialism is, government ownership of the means of production. Many countries we call socialist today, don’t actually own the means of production, they just encumber the private owners of the means of production with rules, regulations, and taxes to the point that the businesses have limited freedom to make decisions concerning their business. Government is the silent partner with businesses today. Silent from the stand point of what the public sees, but boisterous from the businesses point of view. “Socialism” today is nothing more than a modern day version of fascism, corporatism, mercantilism, or simply interventionism.
SOCIALISM FOR THE UNINFORMED
In this article, Socialism For The Uninformed (read here), Thomas Sowell gives his insight into, not only what modern-day socialism is, but where it leads. Here are some excerpts from the article.
“Socialism sounds great. It has always sounded great. And it will probably always continue to sound great. It is only when you go beyond rhetoric, and start looking at hard facts, that socialism turns out to be a big disappointment, if not a disaster.”“While throngs of young people are cheering loudly for avowed socialist Bernie Sanders, socialism has turned oil-rich Venezuela into a place where there are shortages of everything from toilet paper to beer, where electricity keeps shutting down, and where there are long lines of people hoping to get food, people complaining that they cannot feed their families.”
“With national income going down, and prices going up under triple-digit inflation in Venezuela, these complaints are by no means frivolous. But it is doubtful if the young people cheering for Bernie Sanders have even heard of such things, whether in Venezuela or in other countries around the world that have turned their economies over to politicians and bureaucrats to run.”
“The anti-capitalist policies in Venezuela have worked so well that the number of companies in Venezuela is now a fraction of what it once was. That should certainly reduce capitalist “exploitation,” shouldn’t it?”
“But people who attribute income inequality to capitalists exploiting workers, as Karl Marx claimed, never seem to get around to testing that belief against facts — such as the fact that none of the Marxist regimes around the world has ever had as high a standard of living for working people as there is in many capitalist countries.”
“Facts are seldom allowed to contaminate the beautiful vision of the left. What matters to the true believers are the ringing slogans, endlessly repeated.”
“Here again, just a little check of the facts would reveal that higher tax rates on upper-income earners do not automatically translate into more tax revenue coming in to the government. Often high tax rates have led to less revenue than lower tax rates.”
“In a globalized economy, high tax rates may just lead investors to invest in other countries with lower tax rates. That means that jobs created by those investments will be overseas.”
“None of this is rocket science. But you do have to stop and think — and that is what too many of our schools and colleges are failing to teach their students to do.”
Related Article – Milton Friedman – Socialism Is Force, at austrianaddict.com.
Tags: Dan Mitchell, Economic Liberty, Income Inequality, Socialism For The Uninformed, Socialism Sounds Good, Thomas Sowell, Venezuela vs. Chili
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