The Good & Bad of Socialism & Capitalism. III

After writing about what's good about both Socialism and Capitalism, now it's time for the bad side of them. Today it's Socialism's turn.

What's Bad about Socialism ?

The fundamental problem with Socialism is both practical and theoretical, and can be summed up with the simple question, "Where Do You Draw the Line ? "

Once a governmental system begins to re-allocate resources according to a principle of equality, does it go all the way to total equality ? If so, that goal conflicts with the observable facts that people are different and have different wants, needs, desires, abilities and motivations. The US Declaration of Independence proclaimed that "All men are created equal", not that "all men are and shall be equal at all times."

That conflict CAN drive Socialism to become a system of envy and jealousy as inherent differences in human beings conflict with the principle - and the principle of equality applies only to some situations; it is NOT a universal law for all times, places, events, and persons.

This conflicts leads to the big, bad, dirty part of Socialism, that it is very, very susceptible to attracting the ruthless and power seekers. The re-allocation of resources and wealth that Socialism must do to help the poor and unlucky can become a force used by ruthless cliques to drive human mobs and ruthless cliques to let them seize power. Masses of humans under stress are known to be susceptible to mass delusions. Ruthless cliques use this nature to drive the mobs. The inherent differences in people become icons of hate and envy for the mobs as they seek revenge for past slights. "Equality" becomes a slogan and means of getting even, not a means to move to a higher plane of happiness.

Examples of this in the 20th century are profound: Mussolini's fascism in Italy, Nazism, Bolshevism, and Mao's Red China. If you don't realize how the ruthless gain and seize power in times of stress using Socialism as a force to drive mobs, read a past Book of the Week, "My Life as a Rebel", by Angelica Balabanoff. She was personally involved in the Bolshevik revolution, personally knew both Mussolini and Lenin well, and was a leader in the true Socialist revolutions; she maintained her belief in its principles. The ruthless did not.

Modern examples are Chavez's Venezuela, Castro's Cuba, and North Korea. All proclaim forms of Socialism as their system, but all are just dictatorships of a clique or family. Socialist doctrines are just propaganda to drive the masses.

When the force that binds the community and creates workable Socialism is not sufficiently strong to prevent a clique from seizing power, then history seems to show that is exactly what will happen. In the old Russian empire, there was little common ground among the people of that huge empire. Bolshevism took over, and evolved itself into rule by a bureaucracy -nomenklatura - of selected high Party officials. Nazism operated similarly: a decentralized system of Gauleiters subject to the edicts of the Führer. Red China today operates similarly in the political sphere, but permits (for now) rough economic freedom.

I don't need to reiterate the monstrous evils of these natural mutations of Socialism: one example will suffice. Today there is a ceremony marking the massacre of thousands of Polish officers in the Katyn forest under Stalin's orders and conducted by his killers in the old NKVD, the direct predecessor of the KGB. Stalin wanted to incorporate Poland into his evil empire operated under the guise of Socialism. Getting rid of potential leaders of Poland furthered that goal. Humanity means nothing to the ruthless persons that unfettered Socialism attracts to its leadership. Rule of the ideology leads directly to Totalitarianism and its evils exemplified in the 20th century.

Friedrich Hayak wrote about this in his famous book, The Road to Serfdom, written around 1940. He was right, as events proved over time. Socialism without true community bonds is a very risky system.. The force of the community bonds that help Socialism work also can repel the ruthless when they seek to divide the masses and use envy and jealous to gain power over the mobs. The same forces that help Socialism work also help to maintain and stabilize it.

Can Socialism work in a multicultural nation ? That is neither proven nor obvious nor even theoretically likely. Examples of where socialism work are homogeneous nations: the individual Scandinavian nations, Germany, France, Italy, etc. But cracks and tension are evident in France as the Muslim minority does not assimilate into French culture. Germany dealt with its large Turkish minority of "guest workers" by expelling them. As nation cannot do that to its own citizens with stepping closer to, and risking, genocide.

For Europe, a federalist system might let Socialism rule in the individual nations, and a true federal government might provide a means for the cooperation and coordination of nations. Time will tell if it works. I hope it does.

PS: Tomorrow I'll write about what is bad about Capitalism.

Word of the Day

"Transmogrify" - verb, transitive [$10]
Transmogrify means to change or alter with grotesque or humorous effect.
Sentence: Without strong community bonds, Socialism seems to tend to transmogrify into a ruthless totalitarian system. That transmogrification can happen very quickly and even the earliest transition phase into Socialism can go beyond it directly into totalitarianism.