Dear Friends,
It seems to me, while people will die to institute a Marxist regime, people are only lukewarm about one that protects the right to do business. The socialist creates a feeling of team and esprit de corps, while the capitalist shouts, every man for himself. The one stirs the heart while the other clenches the rectum. We are an emotional people who’s reason only rides our emotional elephant. No matter how vividly we see, that the results of socialism always fall far short of it’s expectations, we hope it will work, just this once. While at the same time knowing, that the result this time, will be just as dismal as it has always been. This is a tough meme to break. But understanding that it is a meme, and that we have the ability to break it, is the first step to actually ridding ourselves of this pernicious belief… That socialism is a viable economic or political system.
Emotion is why, despite the history of the market system in front of us, we fail to see the truth. Every advancement that the human race has seen, in the last five centuries, has been due to market forces at work. Adam Smith’s guiding hand. The logical argument was won, conclusively, by the nineteen forties. Yet there are more socialist regimes in the World today than then.
Apartheid in South Africa was overturned almost two decades ago, and the people of South Africa are more destitute today, than under the despotic government of P. W. Botha. The people united, under the ANC, against apartheid. It created a sense of esprit de corps and unified the people against apartheid. The Afrikaner people were granted freedom under F W De Klerk and immediately voted in the ANC. The ANC was, of course, a socialist organization. It instituted socialist regulation of the economy. Today we see the results of the ANC’s radical mishandling of the South African Economy. Yet, in the upcoming elections, the ANC is expected to win handily.
No pro market political party would ever get so much forgiveness of such an economic mess. Pro market political parties are attacked before they even come into power. Their legitimacy is attacked and the people who make up a pro capitalist political party are vilified. History and logic are eschewed as propaganda, while emotionally based sophistry, is regarded as supreme truth. Even when a pro capitalist is driven from power they are hounded by the socialist… Given a good fair trial and executed.
In all of South America, Chile stands out, as a country that moved from socialist policies to pro capitalist policies. The pro capitalist policies, like moving the Chilean social security system to a market based one, changed the dynamic of the entire Chilean economy. GDP started growing again. The young mavericks, that emerged from the tutelage of Milton Freidman, changed the Chilean economic paradigm. The dictator during that time, General Pinochet, has been tried and convicted in abstentia. Were he not already dead they would kill him. Yet how many former anti capitalist dictators and their henchmen have been even tried let alone found guilty… Other than Nuremburg?
When we compare the treatment of the two political ideas, we see a huge discrepancy, in how they are regarded and talked about. The media puts forth the notion, that socialism is actually a viable economic system, despite mountains of historical evidence, because they feel it must be. Their emotions trump their reason. If a well educated person in the unbiased media, who has the benefit of a liberal college education, is so powerfully controlled by his or her emotions, to our mutual detriment, then how much less in control is the average citizen, who does not the benefit of a thorough knowledge of the actual history, of the market system verses the socialist system?
In this, the State run school monopoly, has let us down. Not only in the US but the World over. No matter the proficiency of graduates in math, science, reading, and social justice, the complete whitewashing of economic history, is unforgivable. If not for that, more people would be aware of history, especially economic history, the percentage of our society that falls victim to the pernicious notion, that socialism is a viable system, would go down. Some of us are less driven by emotion, but we need knowledge, for reason to drive our emotion. Else, lacking another driver, emotion will rule the day… and so will the socialism meme.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
