Problems the Leftists Refuses to Accept

 

Leftists have another name which they have finally proclaimed loudly and proudly, socialists. The far left in the Democrat Party have finally flat out stated that they desire to install as much socialist programs as possible once they return to power. Bernie Sanders was just the introduction to socialism with his free medical care, free college, and a guaranteed wage for everybody and raising the minimum wage to fifteen dollars per hour. Had he won the Democrat Party primaries, we very likely would not have President Trump and instead had President Bernie. But why is it that these leftist policies have been such a disaster wherever they have been attempted such as Venezuela has become currently after a decade of socialism. How can governance which guarantees so much to every individual end up with shortages in food, medicine, toilet paper and virtually everything else including jobs?

 

The problem with the views of these leftists is they have a basic misconception about human beings. If you ask the average leftist the simple question, “Do you think people are intrinsically good?” Their answer will be in the affirmative comfortably over the 90% level. In one sample we read about, a mere 4% answered that people were either neutral or not intrinsically good. If you ask a conservative the same question, they have great difficulty answering and will often claim that people are good if they are trusted with responsibility for their actions and have basic guidance, but otherwise; people are basically greedy and will act to get away with that which they are able. This is the basic difference and why conservatives believe that capitalism is a better system. They do not claim that capitalism is perfect, but they claim that as it depends on people’s greed to power their work ethic as being the central reason that it will work better. They point to the fact that if you desire more toys, then you need to get a better job or simply work harder. Advancement is on merit, not simply time put in as in unions, thus people have to perform in order to gain a higher salary and promotions. They point to the central problem for socialism is that you are given what you desire without any linking the goods to your productivity. They postulate that if you will receive raises or bonuses simply by belonging to the right group whether you produce or not, then one will join the union, belong to the prevailing party that grants the goodies or whatever while not bothering to work and produce.

 

The socialists and leftists will often claim that people will be assigned jobs because if you are being paid the guaranteed wage, then the government has to guarantee that you have a job to justify that wage. But such a job would more than likely be busy work and not anything which would add to the productivity of the society. China under Mao Zedong had a guaranteed wage and guaranteed job. One of these busy work jobs had some hundreds of people given small scissors and a ruler and had to measure each blade of grass and cut them at exactly five millimeters in height. These teams would be given a stretch of grass that they were responsible to perform this job and once they reached the far end of their assigned field, it was time to start again at the other end because it took almost half a month to cut all the blades starting at one end and working to the other end. The problem they soon found was after these teams had cut their length of field four or five times, they were slowing down and now taking three weeks and after a year, they were taking over a month to finish the field. The workers did not care because they were to receive the same pay no matter how slowly they worked. The way that this lowering of the worker efficiency was addressed was frightening. Mid-ranking Party officials were assigned to oversee the workers with instructions to simply shoot those who appeared not to be working fast enough. The result to this new system was simple, many workers fled into the countryside and never returned to their government provided job. This led to other problems for the Chinese and eventually they decided to permit some degree of capitalism to operate within their formerly socialist utopia.

 

Bernie Sanders Defines the Perfect Socialist Society

 

Candidate Bernie Sanders promised a perfect socialist society. He even defined how he would pay for all his free programs, simply tax the top wage earners. This is the one item we have always often discussed and found the main problem with this concept. When a politician claims they will tax the top 1% or there abouts, who are the people you think they refer to? We are willing to bet that most of you are getting their target totally wrong. They are not going to be taxing the billionaires and those who hold over three-quarters, if not more, of the wealth. To tax these billionaires one would be required to pass a wealth tax, not an income tax. All they are doing by taxing the top earners is making sure that people who work unbelievably hard will never enter the billionaires club because they will be taxed sufficiently to prevent them accruing such wealth. The billionaires do not make salaries, they invest and as long as they continue to reinvest their billions, then they will never pay any tax. When they do finally take some of their profits from their investments, they can often write paying capital gains tax off by taking a sum equal to a loss they took in an investment, thus these people rarely pay any tax. They are all but immune from income tax as if they have a paid position, they make sure to be paid in stock options and other perks which are not taxable.

 

To pay for socialism one would be required to have a new form of tax, a wealth tax which would basically be put in place to take the cash the truly wealthy have which is beyond income taxes. There have been leaders of nations who actually used a warped version of a wealth tax, they simply took control of the country, stole the wealth from the most wealthy people and simply shot them as being evil capitalists who were criminals for hoarding their disproportional wealth. This was done by the Castro brothers in Cuba which was the position which Che Guevara claimed he enjoyed beyond description, lining people against the wall and shooting them. One quote from Che reads as follows, “To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary. These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution! And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate. We must create the pedagogy of the paredón [execution wall].” This man had a medical degree and was actually a physician but rather than save lives, he chose to take lives. Why were the murders necessary for the revolution in Cuba, because they required the wealth that the land owners held and also desired to take their land. This was similar in many of the communist and socialist revolutions where they promised the masses they would give them the farms, as that was often the wealth of the nation. One can guess what happens when you shoot the farmers and give your revolutionary soldiers the farms as a reward. Very soon, you find that soldiers do not make the greatest farmers and without the farmers, hunger is soon to follow and that was part of the collapse of the economy as well in many of the socialist revolutions.

 

Finally, we would like to disabuse people of a misconception we have heard a few too many times. This is that Robin Hood was a socialist. This is not true as the concept that he stole from the rich and gave to the poor, the rallying cry of far too many socialists, not in these exact words, it is usually stated as universal healthcare, guaranteed minimum wage, guaranteed employment, free college education and free computers, cell phones and anything else which is considered required to be part of the modern age. Robin Hood stole from the Sheriff of Nottingham and returned the funds from the governing body, the Sheriff of Nottingham, to the over taxed people. Robin Hood was giving the peasants and workers, mostly farmers and herdsmen, a tax refund, a sorely needed tax refund. When people came and took refuge with Robin Hood they were assigned tasks they were required to perform, a job to earn their keep. Robin Hood was attempting financial stimulus through a tax refund so the farmers and herdsmen could return to actually working with proper funds to sustain their farms and herds such that they could make a living and earn their way. Finally, believe it or not, Robin Hood was and still remains a fictional character. If only socialism had become a social construct which has been proven repeatedly to result in failure and misery and this relegated to the ash-bin of history, but there are those who still believe that this time it will work because they are the people who can perform a socialist society the right way. The Chinese figured out the right way to run a socialist society, by introducing a sizable capitalist segment within the society which is freed up enough to thrive and thus pay for the socialist projects of the governance. But as soon as you start a little capitalism, you will eventually end with a whole lot of capitalism as you will soon realize that greed is a great motivator and when you allow people to better their position in life, you can have an amount of socialism on the side paid for by your burgeoning capitalist economic engine.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Sometimes Things Just Make Your Head Hurt

 

Are people really going to bring back idolizing mass murdering leaders like Joseph Stalin, more affectionately called “Uncle Joe” back in 1940s America? Apparently, they are if we are to believe the story from a Socialists, May Day, International Workers’ Day rally in Trafalgar Square in London. From amongst the parade’s extravaganza of signs, flares and flags, that is the impression we draw and what else could one believe (see images below). There really is not any different conclusion one could reach when viewing the scenes from Trafalgar Square in London. Labour Party supporters left little doubt as to their new heroes, and the direction they hope to take Britain. The May Day, International Workers’ Day rally appeared to be something straight from the Moscow original May Day rallies where people were volunteered to attend and look happy about the state of things. One might say they felt a tinge of nostalgia if it were not for the sickening knot they felt in their gut. Seeing banners of Stalin, huge banners of Stalin on display in London are not a celebration but a foreboding, a warning to all Britain of what is coming if the far left should win an election. This May Day, International Workers’ Day rally should be a wakeup call for every true lover of Britain who desires to try and salvage at least some of the beating heart of a proud nation for them not to allow such leaders to take to the fore in their political arena. Unfortunately, this is likely a muted call which will be drowned out with chants for “Uncle Joe” and his promise of a slice of pie for everyone and free everything off the backs of forced laborers and the return of collectivist farms and famine. Those were the hallmarks of Stalinist Russia and Ukraine, but that is history and nobody cares to learn history any longer.

 

Joseph Stalin Celebrated During May Day, International Workers’ Day Rally

 

Marchers at May Day, International Workers’ Day Rally Waving the Red Flag Banners

 

Few More Shots of Marchers at May Day, International Workers’ Day Rally

 

One would think that such a march with Stalin brought to the fore would not shock us, after all youth have been wearing “Che” T-shirts thinking they were one of the kewl-people simply for wearing a t-shirt with a mass murderer emblazoned across the front and likely some feely-touchy slogan on the back all about equality, fairness and sharing (see examples below). For those who either do not remember or were never taught the reality behind Che Guevara, he was the executioner for Fidel and Raul Castro who took great pleasure in his assigned position. Che Guevara had received a medical degree in 1953 but after he became radicalized, he found that he preferred taking lives to saving them. He was the hatchet man for more than just Cuba as after he was no longer required in Cuba, Che Guevara assisted with communist uprisings in Congo-Kinshasa and later in Bolivia. It was in Bolivia where CIA backed anti-communists, also known as our butchers by the American government rather than the Soviet’s butchers, where Che was captured and found himself poetically on the other side of a firing squad. Che was born on June 14, 1928, and summarily executed on October 9, 1967, at the age of thirty-nine. Yes, we know he authored books on revolution and social equality and held positions other than official executioner and commander of the firing squads. One description of Che Guevara given by Ronald Radosh, a Hudson Institute adjunct fellow, as stated in “‘Che’ spurs debate, Del Toro walkout” in The Washington Times from January 27, 2009, “He took joy in killing counterrevolutionaries and was one of the most hard-edged, most Stalinist, pro-Soviet communists of the whole leadership.” This was the man seen on campuses across the developed world, image made larger than life and who holds a place of the grandest of illusions that Che was the best of the best and they ignore that this physician preferred killing to healing, that was the real Che Guevara.

 

Various Che T-shirts

 

Still, communism continues to hold sway and the far leftists always have the same reasoning for their desire to impose extreme socialist governance upon societies which are producing wealth and improving the standard of living over the widest range of the citizenry. But the socialist leftist revolution does not see this, they only see that some have great wealth and for them this is a crime, not an example to emulate. Their reasoning is that they know it has failed every time it has been attempted, but this time it will work as it is supposed to work because this time they are the right people who will make it work. They fail to see the basic problem with the entire formula which has two main problems. The initial problem is once the power structure is in place and they no longer serve any purpose, they will be discarded and if not careful, simply shot as someone who is no longer necessary but insists on continuing the revolution. They do not realize that the revolution is always about changing the people who have great wealth from those who produced items people desired to the leadership of the revolution, usually the top three percent of the revolutionary figures, the rest are executed or escape and live silent and wretched lives on the fringe of the new order. The other mistake is the formula of “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,” the formulation by Karl Marx in his 1875 Critique of the Gotha Program. In such a system, the intelligent choice is to have a great list of what you need and a short to nonexistent list of your abilities. Communism, or any form of extreme socialism, is based on limiting needs while forcing people to work as given the choice people will always have great hopes for realizing their needs but far less enthusiasm for working hard to realize them. Once a small percentage refuses to work but is still permitted to live at an equal level to those who work diligently and with great zeal and effort, soon the zeal wanes, the diligence become slack and effort goes out the window. This formula is doomed to fail as it works against the basic nature of people in a society. This can only function in a small group where everyone knows everyone else and thus slacking is immediately addressed by the whole group. Once the population gets large, there is no mechanism for shaming slackers, thus they begin to increase in numbers.

 

We may as well talk of why capitalism works so much better than socialism. The problem is people are, for the most part, greedy. We do not mean greedy as in avarice, but people want often more than they can reasonably afford. In socialist governance, they simply get on the waiting list and eventually they receive their desired items. Working for these items is not required because there is no connection between desires and work produced. Work is required according to one’s ability, and when one denies having any ability, in a large collective they get to skate. Further, if they are active in the ruling party and go to every party meeting, appear at every rally and show great enthusiasm, despite producing nothing of value, they will be rewarded simply due to their apparent enthusiasm, nothing more. Capitalism works completely differently. Capitalism realizes that people desire goods and services, often beyond their economic standing. Capitalism simply states that you will be rewarded for effort you make in providing something of service to the society. The more valuable your service or goods provided, the higher your reward. Higher reward means more goods and the one with the most toys wins. Greed drives production in capitalism, and that is the secret. Greed, desire for more drives one to produce more in order to be rewarded with more. The desire to acquire more items and live a richer life drives the individual to work harder and smarter. The desires are satisfied directly according to effort, not independent of effort as in socialism where as much as possible is made free for everyone.

 

But people still want something for nothing such as universal healthcare, free college educations, even free jobs created by the government simply to provide everyone with employment, not necessarily productive employment, just employment. When one adds in the fifteen dollar an hour minimum wage for these government jobs, many people making less will be quitting their productive work to apply and receive, automatically, these high paying government busy work jobs. They tried this in Mao Zedong’s China. One of the government jobs was mowing the grass in the capital city of Beijing. Each person was provided a pair of nail scissors and a six-centimeter ruler and was instructed to start at one end of a large multi-acre field of grass and to measure each blade and cut them individually all to two centimeters in height. When they finally weeks later reached the other end, they were returned to the beginning and instructed to perform the same job once more. This job employed one thousand people taking two to three weeks to finish the job once only to repeat their job endlessly.. The same job in a capitalist system would be performed by three or four people within a few hours with lawnmowers, powered clippers and an edging machine. Yes, the capitalist job would also require repeated performance of the tasks every three weeks or once a month as described in the contract. The complaint the socialists have is that capitalism makes for uneven wealth with themselves, the leadership of the political movement in the socialist camp not being the ones with the wealth. It is no accident that after the socialist revolt, the leadership suddenly becomes very wealthy and live lives of excess while those who had produced much to gain wealth are removed from the equation.

 

Joseph Stalin was a case in point. Stalin was a very powerful force for the Communist Revolution which placed Vladimir Lenin in the top position. Lenin was supposed to have asked Leon Trotsky to make sure upon Lenin’s death that Stalin never takes power. Leon Trotsky was a thinker and not a man of action and definitely not a man of violence. Stalin was all those things and Trotsky had to flee but was eventually settled with Stalin as he was murdered in Mexico by a Stalinist agent. Stalin was brutal and when the farmers refused to allow collectivization, Stalin sent the military and secret police to take all their produce for the cities leaving them nothing and starving them into submission. Many farmers continued to resist and were murdered. Soldiers who had fought particularly well in the revolution were rewarded with farms and told to grow crops for the revolution. These soldiers were city dwellers and knew nothing of farming and their lack of yields proved their incompetence. This lack of food production caused famine and in order to feed the cities and prevent another revolution overthrowing Stalin, he used the military and literally stole the produce of the now conquered Ukraine. Children who , out of starvation and depravation, would try to steal into the fields seeking dregs of the harvest were simply shot. The census takers were executed such that it was never to be revealed how many died in the Ukraine. What did Stalin care, these were not real Russians and his real Russians in the cities had to be fed and kept from turning against his governing. Stalin also began to place Russians into the Ukraine so as to keep the area under his control. These Russians were agents of the government and were rewarded with, what else, farmlands for their use. Needless to point out, this led to another famine. Stalin was estimated to have caused the deaths of anywhere from twenty million to sixty million people all included. Stalin was not the worst of the communist killers as that title falls to Mao Zedong whose numbers reach into the hundreds of millions. One telling of the story through essays is the “The Black Book of Communism,” a book contested by those defending Communism. One item many forget is that the Communists are only one side of the far leftist socialism, the International Socialist. There are also the Nationalist Socialists who some insist are right wing. The most deadly examples of these nationalist socialists were the Nazis, which stands for the National Socialist German Workers’ Party.

 

Europe has been drifting further and deeper into socialist governance with obvious results on the horizon. It is all spelled out in the Tytler Cycle of Power in Governance (see image below). There are those in the United States who also support socialist governance. An example of such a politician would be Bernie Sanders whose platform included national healthcare, fifteen dollar an hour minimum wage, free college education, and so much more as listed here. There are those who theorize that Communism could work provided it was applied to a nation which has a universal work ethic. This theory is most often used to claim that socialism would work in the United States simply because of the work ethic. It is believed that these efforts would continue unabated into the future. Where such a supposition might well hold its validity for those working at the time of the imposition of socialist governance, there is no promise it would continue into the following generations. The United States is already witnessing the youth expectations for a ready job waiting for them as soon as they receive their degree. Many have bought the idea that raising the minimum wage by almost doubling it would reduce poverty. In actuality it would increase poverty, cutting the numbers of minimum wage jobs by at least half if not much greater. Other results of such an increase would include many small businesses closing, automation wherever possible, a rush to produce AI humanoid robotic units, many workers who had pushed their performance simply to get a raise and a promotion now finding themselves back at minimum wage would be disheartened, the entire system would become broken, and lastly and the most oppressive result would be a general doubling of all prices as massive inflation would adjust everything to be in the same proportionality to the minimum wage, just adjusted for this level. Raising the minimum wage to fifteen dollars an hour would not produce any advantages, as within a year all prices would have reestablished their relative position to the minimum wage. For an example, let us assume that a fast food meal cost three times the hourly minimum wage, which with the minimum wage at $7.85 setting the meal price of $23.55. Now we increase the minimum wage to $15.00, what would you assume would happen to that cost for the meal? Initially it would remain the same but would very soon start to work its way up and up to $33.00 and then $40.00 and finally coming to rest at $45.00 if not slightly higher. So, within a year the average minimum wage paycheck would be worth exactly the same amount of money, but the people who own the businesses or have stocks in the large companies and especially those who own land and properties, these people would see a huge increase in their wealth and the end result would be an even larger abyss, a real chasm, separating the have’s from the have-not’s.

 

Tytler Cycle of Power in Governance

 

Should communism come to the United States through elections and the slow creeping socialism eventually overtake everything else, the same people will be in charge and giving the orders to the same people doing the work. The problem is with a higher minimum wage and free healthcare, college and all the other government giveaways, taxes would be raised on the working Americans resulting in even more being forced from the workforce as businesses tightened their belts and steeled up against the coming storms. In the end you would have approximately half the population not being productive yet receiving full benefits and the half that are working, many will not be putting their best foot forward after witnessing others getting their toes cut off for their efforts. Once the people feel the full effect of government removing the rewards for hard work and simply giving the exact same result to those putting forth no effort, that is when the workforce walks away from their jobs and the system once again will fail. This is what we can expect should the far leftists get their dream candidates into the White House. Should we assume that President Trump will be reelected and his Vice President wins a term, then it will take at least two and probably three Presidential terms for the leftists to turn everything around. The problem is after elected the same candidate twice to the Office of the Presidency, they would very likely declare themselves to be the Leader of the Revolution and President for Life. The highest officers in the military would already have been weeded with the conservative core removed and preening pretenders promoted in their place. These leftists already have pretty much a chokehold on the major cities which they regard as their own voting machines to wield as they see fit. They have taken over almost every school board and have control over the curriculums of their schools which currently produce Democrats sold on the idea of the socialist collective mentality where everything is produced by a committee where two or three people out of twenty perform all the work but everyone shares the glory. Perhaps the brakes will be applied in time, but eventually this will be the future. As we stated above and depicted, it is simply the way the wheel turns in the Tytler Cycle of Power in Governance, and there is no getting around this cycle by going the other way, that has been the proof of history. It is all very sad but true and so unfortunate. It is a result of urbanization as people residing in rural areas learn to do for themselves while those in the urban jungle learn to call a specialist. The differences are stark and spell the difference between dependence and liberty, serfdom and freedom, fear and courage, and finally living in a society best defined by some deformed and maladjusted confluence of George Orwell’s “1984” and Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” described musically by Steppenwolf’s song “Monster” as compared against the Bible and Plato’s Republic with the spirit of Charlie Daniels’ song “In America” describing an alternative. Socialism becomes slavery while capitalism encourages innovations. Innovations are the necessity of a healthy economic base and without innovation, a society faces stagnation, an evil which impairs progress and curtails all hopes for a better tomorrow.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

What Should be Included as the New Western Ethic?

 

There is an obvious pushback against President Trump throughout the Western World. Many areas of Europe, Canada, Australia and especially the United States in complete authentic meltdown over the prospect that Trump might succeed. This criticism of anything outside of the new ethic being modeled for the past seventy years or so has reached the point where accepting a speaking engagement could cost you your health if not your life should anyone start a rumor that your beliefs are unacceptably conservative or old fashioned. Take the reception Charles Murray received as he was almost lynched at the liberal college of Middlebury College in the state whose motto is “Live Free or Die,” Vermont. What was his crime? Well, he wrote the controversial book “The Bell Curve” which made claims that some people were more gifted than others and that there was a distribution of intelligence with a large median area and a slope downward from there in both directions. How absolutely horrid and insulting not recognizing that we are all equally gifted, just each of us differently. Nobody is smarter or faster or better at anything and we all deserve a trophy because we were there whether we engaged or just sat in the corner dreaming, we get a trophy. Our new age does not believe in competition, keeping score, recognizing winners or shaming losers to try harder, we just accept everybody and whatever efforts they feel they need to contribute today.

 

That is the one set of ideas which must be thoroughly erased from society, the work ethic, the idea that there are winners and losers, competition as a way of improving, striving to better oneself, making money, capitalism, actually defining words and having accepted correct spelling, standards, and the belief that some ideas and societies are superior to others and that freedom is something which is not only worth defending but requires defending because there are those who would subjugate the world forcing it to be ruled under their autocratic thumb. Wait, one of those groups are the elitists who are so against the ideals and ideas of Western culture and believe that Western ethics and culture is oppressive and evil. They find it based on violence because it has defended its freedoms and ideals from those who would have subjugated and destroyed their world. They claim that Western culture and society was responsible for World War II and the Cold War and that had they simply not fought to keep their culture everything would have been so much better. Sure the Nazis were not exactly friendly but did the world really need be turned into a shooting gallery just to defeat the Nazis and the equally disturbing Imperial Japan? Of course not as the Western nations should have negotiated with them. Those claiming such forget that there was this little thing called the Munich Agreement which Neville Chamberlin signed with Adolph Hitler as well as Georges Bonnet of France and Joachim von Ribbentrop for Germany, Benito Mussolini for Italy and declared as “Peace in our time.” The main detractor was Winston Churchill who was called the crazy old man and was ostracized by the leftist pacifists of that day who just like the modern leftists saw nothing to be gained by war and saw little need to defend against the Nazi threat because a treaty had put an end to the menace and Hitler was appeased. Well, not quite as Hitler next demanded Poland and divided it with the Soviets under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. That act finally was more than the French or British were willing to permit and they went to war. Unfortunately, with the time given to the Nazis they had built a formidable war machine with which they came within a razors edge of winning World War II before the United States entered the war. Had they defeated the British and then turned against Russia successfully, the world would likely be speaking German today and there would be no Western culture to speak of and the modern leftists would have their dream, a socialist fantasyland where under the heel of dictators all would be perfect. Venezuela is one of the modern examples of where such thinking eventually leads.

 

 

Let’s imagine the United States after it has adopted the most easily recognized ideas which are favorites of the college educated elitists, not the professors, even though they are the purveyors of these concepts. We’ll use what the protesting students do, the ones who decide who is permitted to speak and what any speaker may present on their campuses. They proclaim that government must provide free education to all at all levels for as long as or at any point in time or point in their lives which people may desire, not require, simply desire. Further, all people, regardless of quality of their health, preexisting conditions, level of exercise, diet, weight or other physical, mental and psychological conditions should be granted equal coverage. The government must provide all citizens with a livable wage. Further, anybody within the borders should be granted citizenship. Everyone who desires to come to the United States should be granted entrance and citizenship because all people are equal and must be respected and given equal rights and treatment despite place of birth. The wealthy must be made to provide to pay sufficient taxes even if it means taking part of their wealth to provide government services which the people are entitled to as citizens. The people should be educated to understand and accept these concepts and the rest of the ideals of proper governance which includes freedom of gender identification, equal treatment of all sexual preferences, equal treatment of all people regardless of gender, identity, race, sexual preferences, nation of origin and a lengthy list of other identifiers as identifiers are evil and must be erased. When asked exactly how the society, actually the government, is supposed to afford these benefits and their reply will always be the same mantra, tax the rich, the wealthy will pay for it. What they refuse to understand is that in such a society there would be no wealthy as they would either leave for someplace where sanity ruled instead of feel good leftists or would have lost their wealth and joined the poor. Such a social arrangement for building a nation would result in a failed state where the average norm would be people taking courses, even if they had to take basket weaving, or simply party or enjoy long walks on the beach or through the park and collect their living wage as anything else would be punished with an unaffordable tax.

 

In order to collect sufficient funds to provide these benefits, the government would have to tax any income over the livable wage at near, if not above, 99%. Simply defined, if the living wage was set at thirty-thousand dollars a year, then with the above mention 99% tax on any income earned above that rate would have somebody earning thirty-five-thousand dollars a year would end up having a mere fifty dollars additional over those who settled for the livable wage. That begs the question, why bother working for a nominal wage when you would only receive a penny per dollar above the livable wage earned. Well, perhaps if you earned enough it would be different. What if you earned $250,000.oo? Well you would end up with $2,200.oo more than the livable wage. Now realize how much you would need to work as most people making a quarter of a million dollars put in over sixty hours a week at the office and another thirty at home and spend much of their free time thinking work. Then ask if a life of near constant working is really worth just over two thousand dollars or would the idea of taking courses or simply chilling with friends and take the livable wage be better. How bad could the livable wage life be compared to working your guts out for an additional two thousand dollars? The pull to avoid a punishing taxation and simply go with the majority would eventually result in the end of wealth as we know it. Additionally, if the livable wage proved not to provide sufficient life enjoyment and with likely the majority of the society collecting the livable wage, then it is likely that within a relatively short period of time they would vote to increase the livable wage. Politicians would place their jobs on that promise as they would not care as their salaries would either be tax exempt or sufficiently high such that their lives would be very comfortable, after all, they simply need to vote to increase the livable wage and also to raise their own salary.

 

Once again, look to Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela and the Soviet Union and the same thing becomes obvious to any discerning observer, they all have failed miserably. What makes this even more distressing is that Venezuela was a profitable nation with a capitalist economy until they elected a feel good socialist who decided that elections needed adjusting. He basically became President for life and he kept enacting more and more social safety net programs until Venezuela became a socialist utopia until the oil revenue could no longer support the social spending when the price of oil dropped as the United States discovered the means of retrieving shale oil through fracking. This led to Saudi Arabia to open up their spigots forcing the price of oil to the point where fracking was no longer profitable. This also placed pressure on Iran whose oil is of a lesser degree as it is very thick and needs more processing thus requiring more expense to process thus making their profit margin require a higher price than the result from the Saudi Arabian price pressure to a low level. Russia also has run into problems with the lowered price of oil which has proven that heavy social spending or other considerations can make a lower price for crude oil economically ruinous which has been the weapon used by the Saudis for years. The problem for Venezuela was more spending than lowered oil price; the oil price simple exacerbated their situation.

 

There is a reason why socialism will always fail while capitalism will usually work provided government spending is kept in check. The founding fathers chose an entrepreneurial based society for a reason, human instincts. There is one disposition in human behavior which can be counted upon in near all situations regardless of the governance, greed. Yes, being greedy is considered a negative personality trait but if we are honest, we will almost all admit that given no punishment for acting greedy, we will be greedy. Given a choice between a regular hamburger or a double hamburger for the same price, face it; we will most likely take the double burger. Make that three scoops of ice cream versus four scoops of ice cream for the same price? Four scoops, right? Let’s make it even easier, you are offered two jobs, both requiring you to clean up a football field which are across the street from one another with the one on the north side paying twenty dollars an hour and the one on the south side paying fifteen dollars an hour and both allowing you five hours of payment no matter how long you take, which job would you take and you can only do one or the other. Obvious, you take the north for the extra twenty-five dollars. Why these seemingly stupid questions, you ask? Well, capitalism counts on people being greedy, well, not exactly greedy but willing to work harder to gain additional wealth. Sure there are those who like me prefer a job which was interesting but when I worked on commission I worked far more diligently and faster than when I was paid simply by the hour. Perhaps that is why when department stores paid their salespeople by commission the service was so good and when they switched to hourly rate the service disappeared and, if you were fortunate, you could find a cashier to take your money. When my team of roofers were paid by the hour it took half a day to roof one townhouse but when our job paid by the length of roof we completed we managed to finish three townhomes by lunchtime, remarkable, right? That is called the capitalism effect.

 

Now let’s look at a socialist utopia where you are guaranteed a livable wage which would be relatively generous. Additionally, healthcare is free so you do not need a job to be covered. Housing is fixed at an affordable rate and there are price controls on food, vehicles, and other niceties. Entertainment is inexpensive or free. Education is free for all levels and you can remain in school taking courses all your life and even the dorm room is free as is the cafeteria. Most jobs are likely to be employing people from foreign countries as they would be willing to work for a wage as other costs in such a society make doing so easier to send money home to their families but these people work for a few years, make what their needs were back home and leave. Most of the citizens simply take the livable wage, stay in school and live a carefree life. Now let’s add one last item to the mix; anybody is permitted to enter the country and become a citizen simply by requesting such. Now how long will such a nation survive? Decades, years, months, weeks, until the first million people arrive? Face it, such a nation is doomed from the onset and there is no way around it even if there are oil wells as far as the eye can see. Even the oil sheikdoms limit their wealth and generosity to the indigenous peoples and guard citizenship for the precious fortune it is for their people who never need toil if they choose not to and foreign workers are brought in to do everything. Imagine if they allowed for open citizenship for just a week. Their ability to afford to continue their generosity would vanish and the goose that was laying the golden oil eggs would no longer be capable of supporting the expanded population as everyone who could get there, would get there and take the free income for life or for as long as it lasted. There can be no open border socialist utopia and even with a closed border it eventually will collapse, even Kuwait which has the luxury of an oil well for every ten people or something ridiculously close. Without near endless supply of wealth, the sole means of running a nation successfully is to take as much advantage of the one constant, greed. Using greed to power the country is far more successful than using the country to satisfy greed.

 

Beyond the Cusp