Tuesday, 28 Feb 2006
By Chase Bradstreet
To enact a socialist program, a state necessarily needs to replace the profit motive. As it is human to follow self interest, a government must either rely from the onset purely on force or it must undertake regulation of every corner of society. Since most socialists are well meaning idealists, they balk at the use of force, and thus the latter - soceital regulation - almost always precedes the former by some time. A government that attempts to replace the profit motive or self interest must attempt to fundamentally alter human nature (an action which seems out of human hands). The thoughts of individuals about their own person and society and the conscious or instinctual evolutionary reactions to a society or environment by an individual must be changed fundamentally.
To change human nature, the government must be present and influential in every phase of life, for one learns in every phase of life. It must tailor the information an individual has access to, form and reform an individual’s reactions to that information, and mold or fabricate a social and legal environment that promotes in every way the desires and preferred behaviors of the government. A state must regulate the actions between individuals, ensuring that they do not exchange thought dangerous to the progressive aims of the state. A state thus cannot limit its purview to a single generation nor can it consider a particular generation to be of a separate sphere in regards to posterity. The government must, to prevent ideological regression, influence and exert control over the relations between the generations, assuming the role of the parent to ensure that the old human nature remains a relic.
A state of socialist tendencies must change human nature to survive and to propagate its preferred means to stated desired ends; to change that nature, a state must be omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, absolute and unrestrained, involved in any and ever aspect of society - it must be a totalitarian state. Well meaning idealist liberals need remember this truth.
March 1st, 2006 at 4:19 pm
It also requires citizens that drink the Kool-Aid.
Good post, pretty much says it all…
March 2nd, 2006 at 2:19 pm
One thing that I’d like to add to this (sorry if you had said it already, but I’ve got to leave for work soon and I can’t digest the post fully) post is the idea that socialism is an oppressor of the human spirit. Under such a system, people are paid the same and treated the same, etc. no matter what their skills or education. Since there is no promotion or recognition for special achievement, there is no incentive to excel, learn, or do the things that we do daily in a democratic society.
March 2nd, 2006 at 3:06 pm
That is very true, but one must remember that we are discussing economics (or, policy) and not government in its own right (or, structure). Whether our society is “democratic” or not - and that is indeed a subject of debate - has little to do with the postulate. The human spirit may be crushed and not allowed incentive in a democratic or in an autocratic society or state, as democracy can resemble Lord of the Flies and autocracies can be run by humble, good men (but conservatives know totalitarian tendencies are best avoided in a republic). Saying “capitalistic society” would be a better way of making your point.