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Bastiat, Socialism, and the Blank Slate
by Jim Peron - The truth about socalism.
"It is evident," the French economist parliamentarian Frederic Bastiat wrote a century and a half ago, "that the socialists set out in quest of an artificial social order only because they deemed the natural order to be either bad or inadequate; and they deemed it bad or inadequate only because they felt that men's interests are fundamentally antagonistic, for otherwise they would not have recourse to coercion. It is not necessary to force into harmony things that are inherently harmonious."
Bastiat spoke of a "natural harmony" between men, a "natural and wise order that operates without our knowledge." Bastiat argued that his views were based on reality and not on some ideological view of how man ought to be. The major difference between economists-by which he meant liberal market economists-and socialists was: "The economists observe man, the laws of his nature and the social relations that derive from these laws. The socialists conjure up a society out of the imagination and then conceive of a human heart to fit this society. "
This is the crux of difference between advocates of the freedom philosophy and advocates of socialism. The ability to imagine a perfect world inspires the socialist and their sympathizers. During Robert F. Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign, a poster quoted him: "Some people see things as they are and ask 'why? I dream of things that never were and ask 'why not?'" The quote, commonly attributed to Kennedy, was borrowed from the British playwright George Bernard Shaw, a leading Fabian socialist.
Dream making helps explain a striking feature on the left-while advocating love and peace it promotes hatred and war. Bastiat said that while collectivists "have a kind of sentimental love for humanity in their hearts, hate flows from their lips. Each of them reserves all his love for the society that he has dreamed up; but the natural society in which it is our lot to live cannot be destroyed soon enough to suit them, so that from its ruins may rise the New Jerusalem." Aldous Huxley made the same point when he noted that "faith in the bigger and better future is one of the most potent enemies of present liberty: for rulers feel themselves justified in imposing the most monstrous tyranny on their subjects for the sake of the wholly imaginary fruits which these tyrannies are expected to bear some time in the distant future."
This conflict between Bastiat and the socialists couldn't be starker. For him, man was born with specific needs. Nature endowed him with certain faculties, and only by the application of such faculties is man able to sustain himself. For the socialist, man is merely blank slate, which can be written on as the planners wish in order to achieve the New Jerusalem.
Mao Zedong wrote: "A blank sheet of paper has no blotches, and so the newest and most beautiful words can be written on it, the newest and most beautiful pictures can be painted on it." Soviet writer Maxim Gorky said that to Lenin the working classes are "what minerals are to the metallurgist."
Bastiat, in his last work, The Law, understood this early on: "Socialist look upon people as raw material to be formed into social combinations." The variant of socialism is unimportant. As Steven Pinker points out, "Nazism and Marxism share a desire to reshape humanity. 'The alteration of men on a mass scale is necessary,' wrote Marx; 'the will to create mankind anew' is the core of National Socialism, wrote Hitler." The gradualist democratic socialist Shaw saw things the same way: "There is nothing that can be changed more completely than human nature when the job is taken in hand early enough."
This desire to recreate the world according to one's own wishes and dreams has been at the root of collectivist thinking from the start. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, seen by many as the founding father of the left, admitted this tendency in himself. But it is one thing to dream of a new world and another to actually try to create that world. Bastiat was correct in noting that such a tendency reveals a hatred of man as he is. Of course, this tendency is not confined to the left.
Robert Owen, the man many credit with coining the term "socialism," was clearly an advocate of remaking humanity to create utopia. "Any general character, from the best to the worst, from the most ignorant to the most enlightened, may be given to any community, even to the world at large, by the application of the proper means; which means are, to a great extent, at the command and under the control of those who have influence in the affairs of men." This utopia, Owen said, "could be attained only [through] the scientific arrangement of the people."
Owen believed in the blank slate. For him no human being "is responsible for his will and his own actions." Instead "his whole character-physical, mental and moral, --is formed independently of himself." This led Owen to conclude that "it is futile to call individuals to account for their behavior. Instead, society should recognize its power to shape each of its members into a person of high character." If Owen were allowed to "scientifically" arrange people, "There will be no cruelty in man's nature; the animal creation will also become different in character." The result would be a "terrestrial paradise….in which harmony will pervade all that will exist upon earth. "
Like many utopian dreamers, Owen spent hours planning how he could manipulate humans into becoming a super race. He used his vast fortune to build a community along socialist lines and promised that the result of his social engineering would be "men and women of a new race, physically, intellectually and morally; beings far superior to any yet known to have lived upon the earth."
Owen's experiment failed dismally. Men and women of ability avoided his community, but those seeking a handout flocked to it. New Harmony revealed little harmony and a great deal of conflict. It collapsed after Owen could no longer subsidize it with his own wealth.
Collectivists in Our Mist
by Wes Alexander with excerpts from a Bill Bonner article published on the Daily Reckoning July 9, 2003.
Socialist and economic manipulation rule everything in Washington. This is true for both political parties. What is truly amazing is that both political parties and those receiving the loot have no shame about their criminal behavior. They actually believe it is okay to steal and coerce so long as the dirty deeds are preformed under democratic auspices. You name the topic and there's a regulation, restriction, prohibition, or subsidy lurking in the background.
Baltimore had the first living-wage law in 1994. Now over 97 cities have living-wage laws with about a third of these being in bankrupt California.
The Democrats and Republicans are falling all over each other to socialize healthcare and medicine.
Why do South Koreans pay a 60th of what we do for infinitely greater access to the Internet?
Why do we subsidize sugar producers at the expense of businesses that use sugar as a raw material?
Why do we subsidize people riding Amtrak when we could pay them to fly first class and save money?
Why do we need the National Park Service, Fish & Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, and Forest Service to preform the same functions?
Why do we pay farmers to not plant crops?
Why do we subsidize natural disasters instead of expecting people to purchase insurance?
Why do we police and jail those who do stupid things to themselves (drugs) instead of protecting citizens from thugs and thieves?
Why to we mandate public education for youngsters, but not retirees?
Why do we mandate free prescriptions for retirees, but not youngsters?
I could go on and on. Each side is trying to out spend and out patronize the other with stolen money and bald face lies. Both sets of political kleptomaniacs make promises they cannot keep without the slightest regard to what will happen when the musical merry-go-round stops.
Here's Bill Bonner's view. "Russian communists were undone by the very materialism they adored. Everywhere they looked, outside their own country, people were getting rich from market-based economies. Their socialist system could not keep up. So, they abandoned the race altogether."
"Now, it is our turn. The True Believers seem not to notice, but socialism took root in America as well as Russia. Retirements were socialized by the Social Security program. Unemployment compensation, EEOC, OSHA, and welfare programs socialize the job market. Wealth itself is socialized by means of a progressive income tax and various redistribution programs. There is little left in American life that isn't socialized, regulated, controlled, bullied, or menaced in some way by government."
"Why would Americans put up with it? Why would they give up their freedom without a fight...and now support The System more than ever before...in the name of liberty?"
"We came across this passage in a book by Gerard Maudrux: 'Bismarck created the first general welfare system in 1889. Why? Out of a sense of charity, philanthropy or civic spirit? No. This brilliant and ambitious politician had found a good way to make the subjects of his empire docile. His reasoning was simple: when the citizens all depend on the state, they won't try to overthrow it or destabilize it, and they will easily give up their fundamental liberties. The State will then become stable and eternal...as long as the system doesn't fail, which is why you have to maintain it at all costs.'"
"But now, global markets are making it hard for socialized America to compete. The system struggles forward, but cannot seem to make much headway. Hundreds of billions of new dollars are printed, but the U.S. economy barely grows. Interest rates are cut 13 times, and jobs at home are still lost. Meanwhile, the Chinese; without the shackles of tort lawyers, Medicare, nor the ball and chain of debt or neo-cons, can produce almost anything we can faster and cheaper."
Every association, industry, guild, and special interest group is organized to seek and maximize political leverage. Every politician is groveling at the feet of a thousand politically correct idols, telling any lie to anybody, and prostituting their very souls for cheap earthly power over jackasses and thieves. And the pathetic bleating sheep keep on repeating:
"Government knows what it is doing!"
"Government has the power, money, and knowledge."
"We are doomed without government."
We have chosen subservience over freedom. All function and responsibility are being absorbed by political oversight and favoritism. We are clearly moving down the path to social chaos and bankruptcy. It happened in the USSR and it happened to Mr. Robert Owen. It is democratically happening in America. I doubt we can stop the collectivization of America and I know there aren't many political backbones willing to make the attempt.
Rules to Govern By
by Wes Alexander - published in the Gwinnett Daily Post on July 5, 2003.
As you enjoy the July 4th holiday weekend, I encourage you to once again read The Declaration of Independence. As you read it, pay particular attention to the first two paragraphs. These words and several sentences are the ideals, the foundation on which our country stands. I encourage you to read them slowly and thoughtfully, but be careful. These are very powerful words. Here's what you will read in the first two paragraphs of The Declaration of Independence.
Everybody is created equal;
Everybody has the same set of natural rights;
Natural rights come from God--not--government;
Natural rights preceded government;
Government is created by people;
The most important rights are the right to exist in a free environment and the right to seek happiness in that environment;
Government must be limited to protecting these natural rights;
Government that goes beyond this limitation must be altered or abolished; and
It is our right and duty to throw off such a government.
The fearless gentlemen who signed this document dared to be free by pledging their lives, fortunes, and scared honor to uphold these common sense truths. I often wonder why so many American citizens and politicians are afraid to live by these ideals.
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