The United States now has a socialist candidate for congress. This is a good time to go over just what socialism is.
What Americans fail to acknowledge is that the United States is a socialist country now. Those who want to turn the United States into a socialist country, don’t need to. It already is. The definition from dictionary.com is “any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.” This one is good enough.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the new congress person in the democratic party probably doesn’t know what socialism is. She envisions the United States adopting an old style socialist system like the one which just destroyed Venezuela. What she doesn’t understand is that, who gets what in a socialist country is determined by who has the most political power. She doesn’t have to do a thing to usher in socialism here. She is not alone in rejecting free market principles. Her brethren from teenagers to old people breathing their last breath all have rejected free market principles. This is a mistake. There will be suffering either way. It is a error to think that socialism distributes goods and services equally throughout the population. The rewards go to whoever is most powerful politically.
The system we have in place could properly be called pro business socialism. This is because our corporations and their officers have lots and lots of political power. The type of socialism she prefers could be called bottom up socialism. That means the bottom end of the food chain gets most of the benefit. Despite the intention that it turn out that way. It is impossible for that to happen. It does sound good. A chain letter at first glance looks like the ideal business to buy into. The fallacy in each case is that there are aspects of human nature which prevent people from acting in the ways the proponents of these ideas insist they will. Systems of socialism rest on a belief in the imaginary human incentive to serve. When in reality self interest is the only universal incentive nature provides.
All enterprises are based on self interest even when they are declared not to. Enterprises in a socialist system are always for profit just as they are in a free market economy. Healthcare businesses under the Affordable Care Act are for profit. If the country goes for a single payer healthcare system, it will be for profit also even, if it is said not to be. The difference is in who gets the profit. In either case the profit will go to the group with the most political power.
The country is currently being destroyed by top down or pro business socialism. That is the system that destroys the most wealth in the shortest period of time because there is more wealth to start out with. With our current type of socialism, the economy will implode at some point and everyone will grow poor together. Donald Trump is a top down socialist. Hillary Clinton is a top down socialist also. Most members of the house and senate are top down socialists. Germany under Hitler was a top down socialist system. Of course that Germany was destroyed by 1945.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has aspirations of turning the United States towards ordinary socialism which of course is the kind that destroyed Venezuela. In the United States it may not matter which of these systems we use. Both are highly destructive so either one of them will destroy the country.
The truth is a hard sell. Fantasy Free Economics gains readers one at a time. Major search engines simply do not list blogs which disagree with their political agenda. As long as folks share the link to this blog and others speaking out against the grain, the truth will at least trickle into the public consciousness.
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