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Fatherland, Socialism and Death!

The fall of Venezuela is an atrocity.

The comic elements are clear enough — the further you remove yourself from the poverty, chaos, and collapse. We can wallow in a bit of Schadenfreude, taking glee as some American leftists squirm to explain why the socialist paradise they ballyhooed a mere three years ago now tail-​spins to the grave.

The collapse of this socialist experiment offers an enormous level of tragedy. It’s not pretty.

The country’s leader, President Nicolas Maduro, makes his predictable desperation play. Rather than confront his own errors, and the futility of making socialism work in anything like a rigorous form, he boasts. “Venezuela Leader Says US ‘Dreams’ Of Dividing Loyal Military,” reads yesterday’s Reuters report. While no doubt true, this is one of those cases where whatever we dream to the north, our dreams are better than their current reality.

Of course the Venezuelan military should turn on Maduro, Hugo Chavez’s inheritor, protecting the right of recall, which Maduro is denying. By painting the U. S. as the bad guy, Maduro hopes to unite his people — especially his armed forces — around him. That’s what a desperate demagogic dynast does. Citizens and subjects traditionally abandon skepticism about their leaders when they feel threatened from the outside.

Which is one reason it would be a mistake for the U. S. to intervene.

Reuters poetically reports that the military is still united behind the socialist government, and resists the recall referendum, singing “Fatherland, Socialism, or Death!”

Wrong conjunction. Not “or” but “and” … if you insist on socialism.

The government, military pressure or no, should allow the recall vote, and soon.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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free trade & free markets general freedom too much government

Prophet of Loss

What if Karl Marx was …  half right?

Marx’s theory of history elaborated that, with each bust of the boom-​and-​bust cycle, the rich would nab ever more property — capital — until impoverished workers united to take all that capital for “themselves” (as a collective) and run it for the common good.

That’s dialectical materialism. It didn’t predict what happened even in Communist countries. But something vaguely Marxian is going on now.

Today, when there’s a bust, government bails out the failed rich guys — even buying companies.

Further, governments keep hiring more people to “stimulate” the economy. Government workers increase as a percentage of the workforce, with higher-​than-​average wages and benefits.

This used to be called “creeping socialism.” Politicians move us closer to total government — measure by measure, tax by tax, law by law. No revolution necessary.

Except … well, as politicians put more of our eggs into the collectivist basket, each down-​swoop of the business cycle makes the whole system less stable — and (with increasing taxes and debt) more burdensome to sustain.

It could all lead to revolt — a taxpayer revolt.

Taxpayers, who’ve had to put up with a lot of nonsense over the years, aren’t even a tad bit interested in the foolishness of communism — or a corporate, fascist super-state.

That’s where Marx and his followers had it all wrong. Only the build-​up of instability seems Marxian. Americans’ response is to seek limits on government.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.