Tag: socialism

Greenlighting Socialism

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New Green Deal, socialism

Can we blame U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D‑NY), really?

A decade of quantitative easing, along with trillion-dollar annual deficits run up recently by congressional Republicans, have paved a debt-ridden road upon which she hopes her massive Green New Deal (GND) might glide.

We can derisively point to the now-withdrawn FAQ, which the congresswoman’s staff “accidentally” posted on the Web and sent out to reporters. It was “unfinished,” and “erroneously” said the GND would be “guaranteeing … Economic security for all who are unable or unwilling to work.“

But of course, read the actual totalitarian-esque House Resolution — calling for “a new national, social, industrial, and economic mobilization on a scale not seen since World War II and the New Deal era” and labeling it “a historic opportunity” — and tell me the silly FAQ isn’t accurate.

The GND promises to “create millions of good, high-wage jobs … provide unprecedented levels of prosperity and economic security for all people … and … counteract systemic injustices.” It must, of course, after wiping out tens of millions of jobs in private health insurance (2.6 million) and fossil fuels (10 million).

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been so kind as to announce he will bring the GND to a vote in the Senate. Put Senators on record. And more than 100 Democrats in Congress, including four declared presidential candidates — Sens. Cory Booker (D‑N.J.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D‑N.Y.), Kamala Harris (D‑Calif.), and Elizabeth Warren (D‑Mass.) — have endorsed the Green New Deal resolution.

Give AOC her due. She has brought fresh young energy to old-fashioned socialism.

And leading Democrats out of the shadows.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New Green Deal, socialism

ideological culture political economy too much government

Socialism Doesn’t Work, But…

Post author By Redactor
Post date February 11, 2019
2 Comments on Socialism Doesn’t Work, But…

socialism, force, incentive, Occassio-Cortez

“Socialism” — we all want to be sociable, right?

Last week’s anti-socialist moment was not limited to the president’s promise that America would never go socialist, as I noted this weekend there was also Panera Bread’s abandonment of its quasi-charitable Panera Cares (“pay-what-you-want”) fast food chain.

Isn’t that a bit of a strange connection? Socialism is not charity. It’s bad because it is force through and through, not because it seeks to help people.

Well, note that while Panera’s notion was the same as many socialists’, to help the poor. Panera’s method was to cajole, or “nudge,” the better-off to pay enough more to cover the costs of paying less.

Kinda like ObamaCare, but without the force.

And without the force, it failed.

What Panera management discovered is that not only is it very hard to get the message across, it is almost impossible to set up coherent incentives to successfully alter consumer behavior.

Getting incentives right is something that plagues all sorts of socialistic experiments, voluntary or coercive, within a capitalist society.

Take Finland’s recent experiment with a Universal Basic Income (UBI).

The idea of that nation’s centrist party was to take care of the unemployed beneficiaries’ basic needs so they could get back to work.

Well, those who received the basic income were happy enough receiving the moolah. Sure. But “there was no evidence from the first year of the experiment,” a report in Huffington Post admits, “that the scheme incentivized work.” Despite that, socialists in England are pushing for the UBI.

Socialism doesn’t work, and socialists would rather not work — except to advance socialism.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture political economy Popular

Test of Humanity

Velfredo Pareto, economics,laws, socialism

It has been a big week for socialism — or, rather, anti-socialism.

The high point was probably President Trump’s State of the Union Address, in which he opposed not only the murderous, ruinous regime in Venezuela, but also the rising tide of socialism in the Democratic Congress — with Senator Sourface, er, Bernie Sanders, trying not to explode as he heard that taboo word “free” applied to America … not goodies.

Meanwhile, Panera Bread announced, The Blaze reports, that it is closing “its last pay-what-you-can restaurant, located in Boston, on Feb. 15.”

“Panera Cares” was, it appears, “initially created to serve food to low-income people nine years ago in 2010,” but sure seemed to be itching to prove a sort of post-capitalist point. The company’s founder, Ron Shaich, said that “the program’s aim was a ‘test of humanity.’”

More like a test of gullibility.

No branch of the “experiment” ever ran in the black. Like experiments in society-wide socialism, it relied upon subsidy to carry on — but unlike in socialism, Panera could not force people to cough up the dough needed to keep it going.

Once upon a time, the great economist Vilfredo Pareto, during a lecture, was repeatedly interrupted by one Gustav von Schmoller, who denied that economists had discovered any enduring principles, especially ones that would undermine his beloved socialism. So Pareto dressed down as a bum and approached Schmoller on the streets, inquiring about a restaurant that served meals for free. When Schmoller told him that there were only cheap, but no free meals, at restaurants, Pareto stood up with the ultimate gotcha:

“So there are laws in economics!”

Socialism fails reality’s test.

Humanity has not failed socialism’s.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags economics, laws, socialism, Velfredo Pareto

term limits too much government

Beautiful Canary

term limits, Venezuela, socialism, canary

New hope for Venezuela: A direct constitutional challenge against the horrific reign of socialist strongman Nicolás Maduro enjoys massive popular support and has quickly gained international recognition.

If 35-year-old National Assembly President Juan Guaidó, who launched the campaign, succeeds in restoring a democratic government, he should also restore term limits on the president, the National Assembly and other offices.

Those limits were repealed through a 2009 constitutional referendum that paved the way for then-President Hugo Chavez to continue in power. With government domination of the media and a slanted ballot question, it was less than a fair election. Still, 54 percent voted to end the limits.

Today, I’m certain the majority would vote differently.

Venezuela makes me think of Nicaragua, likewise being looted and brutalized by a socialist thug. Hundreds have been killed in protests demanding that Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega step down. I have friends with relatives in harm’s way.

Nicaragua is similar to Venezuela in another respect: The care and maintenance of dangerous concentrations of power ran smack into an established constitutional restraint known as term limits.

In a widely condemned 2011 decision, the country’s supreme court “declared the constitution unconstitutional,” as the leader of the Nicaraguan Center for Defense of Human Rights put it. This permitted Ortega to run again. Three years later, the National Assembly jettisoned the limits from the constitution — without any vote of the people.

Term limits are needed everywhere, every city, state and nation across the globe. Even when a powerful despot breaks the limit, the violation at least serves as the coal miners’ dead canary, demonstrating that the political air has become too dirty for liberty to breathe.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture too much government

Worse Than Her Faux Pas

“If we work our butts off to make sure that we take back all three chambers of Congress,” stumbled U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D.-N.Y.), “uh, rather, all three chambers of government: the presidency, the Senate, and the House.…”

The Daily Wire, where I encountered this particular snippet of inanity, could be caught gloating between her lines. And it is funny (amidst the fear) when politicians prove themselves ignorant, clueless, unprepared. Politicians rarely come across as masters of their subject.

But we who are subjected to their lack of mastery should worry about their substantive flubs more than their trivial technical errors.

As the newly elected solon herself had the wit to notice.

“Maybe instead of Republicans drooling over every minute of footage of me in slow-mo, waiting to chop up word slips that I correct in real-tomd [sic],” she went on, “they actually step up enough to make the argument they want to make: that they don’t believe people deserve a right to healthcare.”

I am not a Republican, but I’m here to help. The only rights we “deserve” are those we can have without enslaving and exploiting others. My right to freedom requires only your duty to leave me alone, not systematically taking from others or running their lives. But a right to “healthcare”? The corresponding duties are vague and ominous, potentially limitless.

And thus oppressive.

A government big enough to give Ocasio-Cortez everything she wants is too big to leave any freedom for the rest of us.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Congress, Democrat, socialism

free trade & free markets ideological culture Popular

Creeping Bernie-ism

Bernie Sanders, Walmart, Tucker Carlson, socialism

If you have been watching Tucker Carlson, recently, on Fox or in his bizarre interview with Ben Shapiro, you might have noticed something peculiar: the conservative newsman-commentator sometimes sounds awfully similar to Bernie Sanders.

Both think that if some of Amazon’s and Walmart’s employees are not paid “enough” to live without government assistance, that means the companies are being subsidized by taxpayers.

Ryan Bourne finds this odd, too, judging it “peculiar” to suggest that, “when setting wages, a company employing low-skilled workers should ignore the value of the tasks the employee actually undertakes for them.”

It’s almost as if these guys haven’t thought it through.

“If Sanders is right that programs such as food stamps modestly subsidize employers who pay low wages,” Bourne argues, “then his hugely expensive Medicare-for-all and free-college-tuition proposals would constitute a massive subsidy to low-wage employers.”

Similarly, when Donald Trump and his allied Republicans push for what we used to call “workfare” requirements, that would mean that the jobs the recipients get also constitute subsidies.

Both Carlson and Sanders apparently assume that companies pay workers according to the needs of the workers determined by subsistence levels — presumably by the old Marxian Iron Law of Wages — and not according to their competitive productivity. That is, what they are worth.

As is common with demagogues, Sanders and Carlson both blame the only companies that are at least paying low-skilled workers something, rather than all those other companies and potential benefactors who aren’t paying them at all.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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