Right On: Socialism vs. individual freedom

January 16, 2019 Utah Channel 3

OPINION — A distressing number of today’s college students are being lured by socialism’s siren song. This trend demonstrates a triumph of misplaced social justice idealism over individual freedom.

We can lay blame at the feet of far too many of today’s college professors, ensconced in academia and lacking real world experience.

Socialism is government ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, all of them, lock, stock and barrel. Economic life is controlled by government central planners. If the phrase “central planner” has a familiar ring, the Soviet Union pre-1988 had lots of them.

The late American economist Robert Heilbroner authored “The Worldly Philosophers,” the second-best-selling economics text of all time. Heilbroner was, like Bernie Sanders today, an avowed socialist.

To his credit, Heilbroner acknowledged that individual freedom is “directly opposed to the basic socialist commitment to a deliberately embraced collective moral goal.” The word “collective” may ring a bell: Stalin killed millions establishing collectives in the 1930s as did Mao in the 1950s.

As any Marxist knows, an economy can’t be separated from its political and cultural dimensions. Heilbroner recognized that establishing the socialist economic ideal requires massive intervention in politics and culture.

“Indeed, that is what planning means. Command by planning need not, of course, be totalitarian. But an aspect of authoritarianism resides inextricably in all planning systems. A plan is meaningless if it is not carried out, or if it can be ignored or defied at will.”

Socialists are authoritarians by definition.

Hence socialism flies in the face of our democratic heritage, which “encourages and breeds the idea of the primary importance of the individual.” Translation: If you value individual freedom of choice, socialism is not for you.

Heilbroner admitted that socialism has always faced “two historic problems. The first is the necessity to intervene deeply, and probably ruthlessly, into the economy in order to establish the socialist order in the first place. The second is the need to continue a policy of painful intervention to accommodate the socialist economy, once set in place.” Sounds like Obamacare on steroids.

Socialism, then and now, is a massive social engineering experiment that wants to create new individuals devoid of their selfish tendencies. This inescapably leads to restricting individual freedom.

Heilbroner goes on to explain why socialists are outraged when their policies are questioned.

“Because socialist society aspires to be a good society, all its decisions and opinions are inescapably invested with moral import. Every disagreement with them, every argument for alternative policies, and every nay-saying voice therefore raises into question the moral validity of the existing government, not merely its competence.”

Translation: Anyone opposing a socialist government is by definition opposing the collective good and must be dealt with, in Heilbroner’s word, “ruthlessly.”

Surprising opposition to socialism arises from the liberal American Civil Liberties Union. Managing editor Matthew Harwood explains that “the collective, undergirded by the power of the state, will always triumph over the messiness of individuals’ liberty to think, speak, write, work, and associate as they wish.”

Today’s “democratic socialists,” seeing only moral good in their policies, sweep this inconvenient truth under the rug. Appending the word “democratic” to socialism doesn’t turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse.

Harwood continues, “Democratic socialism is not freedom, despite what [its proponents] argue. It is authority paternalistically dressed up in the language of liberation and wielded on behalf of that fuzzy abstraction, ‘the people,’ regardless of what flesh and blood individuals want.”

The Soviet Union’s treatment of dissidents and China’s pervasive spying on its citizens illustrate how socialist governments, fancying themselves as protectors of “the people,” act when their validity is questioned.

Harwood then asks, “Could democratic socialists abide a free press, one where the media criticize the party for its economic illiberalism? Could writers and artists critical of the regime work without fear of political repression and surveillance?

“Could citizens of the United States rest assured that democratic socialists would peacefully relinquish the reins of government to a party they deem ‘capitalistic’ if they lose the next election when their goal is to abolish capitalism?”

Has modern democratic socialism worked anywhere? The short answer is no. The Democratic Socialists of America’s website admits it: “No country has fully instituted democratic socialism.”

The website claims that “We can learn from the comprehensive welfare state maintained by the Swedes.” But in fact, Sweden has become far less socialist in recent decades, a subject this column will address next week along with other practical realities of modern socialist experience.

Democratic socialists would do well to consider lines from a poem by William Butler Yeats:

“We had fed the heart on fantasies, the heart’s grown brutal from the fare,
More substance in our enmities than in our love.”

Howard Sierer is an opinion columnist for St. George News. The opinions stated in this article are his own and may not be representative of St. George News.

Email: hsierer@stgeorgeutah.com

Twitter: @STGnews