This is a damn good article and exactly the way my wife and I feel as well.

FYI listen to Neal Boortz, www.boortz.com. He's a libertarian talk show host, and last I heard was #2 in the country behind Rush.

He was also called a "vicious sob" by O'Reilly, so that has to count for something. :)

I agree completely. The only problem I have really is where does this leave issues like universal health care and health care reform?

Beware the one-party state, even if you think the party is absolutely right about everything.

The GOP, for all that it's immensely preferable to the Democratic Party at this time, is itself a political party: a power-seeking appliance, a vote-maximizing machine. It has no innate characteristics other than its pursuit of power through the electoral process. Therefore it should not be trusted, or left without competition.

The minor parties have proved incapable of providing that competition, for reasons beyond the scope of this tirade. It must come from some other source. For a hundred fifty years, that source has been the Democratic Party... but if Mr. Simon is correct, and I think he is, that condition won't last much longer.

Only competition keeps politicians honest. Without opponents to hold their feet to the fire, politicians start to drift -- from their espoused principles, from their consciences, from their electoral bases, and sometimes from reality itself. Consider the stories about Nixon's deterioration during the final days of his tenure in the White House.

Vastly over-simplified, as such things must be -- but not particularly wrong.

For instance, while communism sought (seeks) to prevent success, euro-socialism (and its American offshoots) seeks to prevent failure.

Also overlooked, for example, is the current strength of Gramsci's thinking in much of America -- that before socialism/communism can flower three things must happen: take over the press, take over the education system, and destroy christianity.

Or again, the key role of Alinsky tactics in the Clinton-thought now dominating the democrats. "Rub raw the sores of discontent."

I don't think it is such a slam-dunk as you suggest, but my disagreement is more one of degree than of character.

Just because something is an abject failure does not mean that it is dead. Look no farther than rent controls in New York.

That's an important observation you made about the Gramscian aspects of the thing, Bart. We should ponder whether the capture of the press and the educational system, and the destruction of Christianity, are sufficient for the triumph of socialism... or just necessary for it.

At various points in the past seventy years, it's felt as if America was hanging on by a thread. What kept us from sliding into the abyss? What little bit of influence, what extra measure of control or propaganda, did the Left narrowly fail to grasp, or simply overlook? Or was it just a matter of chance?

MS, I believe you're on the money. I have long been a fan of Strauss & Howe's "Generations" and find their generational categories perhaps the most effective description of what has gone on, is going on and will go on in America. The Democrats will indeed fade because their core constiuency is the Baby Boomer cohort. Boomers, for the most part, are idealists who never grew up. (Although GWB is a Boomer, he had a Road to Damascus experience when he gave up alcohol to save his marraige. So he grew up.) And they are now moving toward retirement. The Gen Xer's who follow are now moving into positions of leadership heavy lifting. Their key belief (or ideology, if you will) is that things must work. No fancy plans that must be adhered to but only successful outcomes. So all those dreams to make America an "equal outcome society" are so much mush to them. As they take over leadership positions look out for an economic boom. They are followed by "millenial civics" (they are now between the ages of 5 and 25, the baby in Raising Arizona) who are good followers. They do what the are told, few questions asked. When America has that combination of Gen X leaders and Civic followers amazing things happen. The last time this occurred was 1935-1965. Think of all that happened back then in terms of America's political and economic power. We may be headed into a period that will be a perfect fit for conservative-libertarians with little room for the Democratic Party, particularly if, as is their want, they refuse to give up their core beliefs.

You think that way, and I think that way, and blog readers think that way... but Joe and Josephine Voter don't give a slap whether Sweden is doing well. They just want to know what's in it for them, and if that means taking half their money so their vote can be bought by giving them a quarter of it back, then that's what the pols will do.

And it will be another 10-15 years before gen-Xers are actually in power, and until that time the boomers and older are still voting. Voters swing older than the rest of the country which is why we still have a vein of GI thinking in pols with an older demographic - such as Santorum in PA.

Germany is heading toward the Third World? That's a huge exagerration which doesn't help your case much. I have been to Europe and the Third World, and the distance between them is galactic.

You can count me as one of the Democrats who is disgruntled with their party. But connecting the 2002 election in any way to the implosion of Communism is also a huge exagerration which isn't helping your case much.

However, the death of the Democratic Party as currently constituted is a likely event, for some of the reasons you say. And if that does happen, the Republican Party as currently constituted also will have to die. 9/11 really was the kind of event to make that happen.

We Americans were never fond of socialism, though, even those of us on the left like me who plugged for Ralph Nader. I think you overstate its significance here, and thus overstate the consequences of its dying elsewhere.

I think it's a thoughtful piece despite my critique of it.

The Dem problem is more than economic.The problems facing all western countries today are:
Political
Economic
Social/Demographic

The Dems have yoked marxist redistribution to a tribal caste system of "identity groups",all whom have developed an unshakable sense of entitlement and privilage.But no one belives the fire is hot till they burn themselves.The system will continue till it collapse(likely) or reform(starting at state level)a kind of federal "Thatcherism"(possible,but not probable),but this reform will spawn great social and political upheavel along various fault lines.(inevitable what ever else happens)
There is ample reason to believe a libertarian/conservative alliance could succeed IF both control the extreme wings i.e. most Ameicans oppose "gay rights",not because they are religious homophobes,but because they see gays as yet another "idenity group" demanding a legally privaligaed postion,but are more than happy to live and let live if that is not an issue.Likewise libetarians need to understand that "suck it up losers" is not good economic policy to people to have seen their jobs exported or been reqired to train their H1-B replacements before being kicked to the curb.
"Actions have consequences",libertarians have no hope of abolishing disabilty hand outs to drug users,but could possibly get drugs legalized by appealing to ppl's sense of hedonistic gratifiction,which would no doubt lead to many doobie tokers signing up for free housing,health care and money.Are you truly prepared for this?
Social conservatives tend not to compromise on socail issues(gays as an example,the line between"love the sinner,hate the sin" can get blurred)and libertarians tend not to accepct that they too often throw fuel on the very fires they want to put out(the drug example above).

The "third party" dilemma in America ...

What Mr. Simon does not address is the tremendous problem faced by large-L Libertarians. The recent history of the Reform Party in the US is but the latest illustration of a great American political truth -- politics (and parties) are a bottom-up endeavor.

No party based on a presidential candidate will ever draw more than a few percent of the vote. When Libertarians have a substantial (and growing) presence in 30 or more state legislatures ... and occupy a governor's chair or two ... they'll have a chance at the national level to start electing House Members and the occasional Senator. At that point (and not before) they become credible in a presidential race.

In raising the "Generations" issue, Mr. Rostkowski leads into another serious challenge for all libertarians ... in their 1997 book "Fourth Turning" the same authors describe libertarian thinking as ill-suited to a crisis period. They call it 'post seasonal' -- more appropriate to the free and easy Unravelling, but decidedly unhelpful in the midst of an existential crisis for the nation.

I'm inclined to think that the crisis may ultimately hinge on the liberty issue to a significant degree. We are in a deepening struggle for survival with two powerful adversaries, both highly inimical to what America stands for -- islamo-fascism and secular-socialism (Gramsci and his ilk).

Of the two, the latter is far more of a domestic danger, and has already won most of Europe.

I am going to write something in response that might be a bit longer and host it on my site, but in the meantime...

We have a 380 billion dollar and growing military budget. I'm not sure how many billions are in our budget for agricultural subsidy, which floods the markets of countries who's markets are opened by our military.

I'm not sure what aspects of "Communism" are 'dead', because I'm not sure which aspects of it aren't used to the advantage of the US. Certainly not the use of violence for political gain. You mention pol pot or Castro, no doubt you understand the historical conditions which caused regimes like these to emerge in the first place...(Vietnam, our policy towards US friendly Latin American dictatorships?) which brings me to my next point... State subsidy and centralized planning ensuring economic success of industrial powers was an aspect of the Soviet system, and is certainly an aspect of the US system.

That got cut off.. sorry.

Besides the use of violence for political gain, which we can't use because the US is the largest financier of violence, and has a rich history of supporting the violence of its clients, such as Suharto's genocide in East Timor, or the various Latin American death squad regimes...

Besides economic power ensuring its dominance through the state, either through the massive direct subsidy or policy which allows them to gain power non-competitively, such as the media using the FCC to further monopolize...

Besides the government serving as a welfare state...

what part of Communism has proven to be a failure and is not used by the US?

You don't know much about communism.

Here's a thought... all types of government use violence for political gain! No one ever said democracy was inherently pacifist.

If this centralized planning you claim the US has is true, then why aren't all industries owned by the government?

lindenen,

Since the #1 problem with health care if you ask those actually providing the service is the government micro management, then I think you can say government supplied health care is dead.

Before government got involved in heath care, health care inflation was running an astoundily unsupportable 5% a year. Once government got involved health care inflation is now running a reasonable 10% a year.

Bush with his tax cuts is trying to preempt the Democrats from using the money for health care.

Francis W. Porretto,

The one party state is a real danger. It would be better if the Ds. wised up. What I expect is that the Rs will split. It will be messy and there are many dangers on the road. However, knowing the dangeers well in advance is an advantage.

Bart Hall (Kansas),

As I point out the death is not obvious. There are hints. The recent Republican win in Minnesota is instructive. From the looks of him (before he has had a chance to govern) he appears to be in the libertarian mold. The Democrats today are weak but solid. By December 2004 they will not be solid or strong. The change is permanent. That is the key.

Francis W. Porretto,

The Gramscian problem is important but is not the sign of vibrancy. It is a sign of decay.

Lets look at the points.

1. Capture of the press - they have doe it. In the process the press has lost it's credibility in America. No help here.

2. The educational system - in spades. Yet again the system has lost it's credibility. In the colleges (exageration for effect) it is the teachers not the students leading the demos. Not much help here even with 85 to 90% penetration.

3. Destroy Christianity. Not even close. Which is why this will be an important part of the resistance until the libertarian center is better formed.

I was referring to the author's initial claim that Communism is dead, and doesn't work for the world, and definitely not for America. He then went on to imply that this was so because it kills, and destroys. You don't have to tell me that 'democracy', if that is what we have here in the US, is not pacifist.

The US has a larger military budget than the rest of the world combined, and aside from this being a way to socialize the costs of high tech R&D in order to dump off any marketable technology on the private sector, to be sold back to the public who paid for it, it is also used to socialize the costs of "kill and destroy" policies that have been used quite successfully for the architects of those policies many times in history, whether the use of force was direct or through proxy armies supported by us. Our invasion of Vietnam, imposing on them a government they clearly did not want, is a fine example. Our support of Suharto in Indonesia, in the violent coup that brought him to power or his invastion of East Timor is another. All of these are cases where the costs of private profit are socialized among the public, which, even without the violence, is very "Communist".

And I personally don't see any importance in making distinctions between "State" owned industries or "Privately" owned industries which are in extremely concentrated hands, made possible by the State, with its laws, subsidy, and protectionism. In both cases, economic power lies in the hands of unaccountable bureacracies. You don't exactly have control over the decisions made by General Electric or Exxon Mobil, though their right to make decisions which effect you and many others, who at the same time have no say in the matter, is protected by the State.

Michael J. Totten,

The slide of Germany is barely evident. So of course it looks quite solid. The USSR looked solid for a long time. Their problems are identical if of a somewhat different magnitude. It is a problem of demographics and productivity. They have been at around 10% unemployment for a decade. They know what they have to do but so far are unable to do it politically. Socialism is killing them. I want to repeat a point that is quite important here. They know what to do but can't do it. Of course France is worse and farther along in the slide. They knew what to do in 1995.

One of the core philosophies of the Democratic Party is economic redistribution. They did it as it has been done in most socialist countries with programs. Social Security will be privatized over time, government control of health care will end. Welfare has already been reformed at least philosophically so we have already started down the road of reform. Socialism (and anti-capitalism) has been a very important wing of the party for a very long time. In many ways they are the core of the party just as the religious conservatives are the core of the Republicans.

I am not predicting what will happen next week. I expect it will take 20 or 30 years for the changes to rumble through the system. The decline of the Democratic Party will take at least ten years. The restructuring of the Republicans a few years more.

What is so interesting to me about the US vs France/Germany etc. is that we are much more flexible in terms of government run social policies. I see America on top economically for another 50 to 100 years. This will allow us to have a military that is unbeatable (in any major way) for 2 to 3% of GDP. Peanuts.

M.,

Latest polling on the gay right thing says you are wrong. Look at the article on Minnesota for confirmation. Acceptance of gays is in the 60 to 80% range depending on the question. Even gay marraige gets something like 40% approval. Andrew Sullivan had something on this in the last few days. This is why I think the libertarian center is so important for the transition.

The gay thing has been decided. The next great question for the libertarian center will be drug prohibition. 70% or more Americans say prohibition is not working. 40% favor legalization of everything.

Your questions about drug users is very important. I have studied the question intensively. Drug users are in fact disabled. Chronic drug use is caused by chronic pain.

http://windsofchange.net/archives/003370.html

The question is what to do about it. Legalization will solve 1/3 to 2/3 of the problem. Lower the cost of drugs and it becomes possible for the "addict" to get the needed drugs at a reasonable price. Or take heroin users. The number of them working in a given cohort rises from 30% to 60% or better when they have a legal supply. The reason is cost. Theft by the treated cohort declines by 90%. So a lot of the drug problem will go away with legalization.

Estimates are that prohibition costs any where from $40 billion to $200 billion a year depending on what costs you include. If we have to (and I'm not necessisarily in favor of it) we can treat the hard core "addicts" and turn a profit with legalization.

What you must remember is that prohibition is not built on a scientific basis. It is built on a "moral" basis. Because of that it is not sustainable.

As to doobie smokers and free rent. We have a lot of alcoholics in this situation and we manage. In fact if we can move a significant number from alcohol to doobies we will lower health care costs. And reduce a significat cause of violence. (alcohol is the only drug proven to have a statistical connection to violence caused by the drug according to the DOJ)

The key here is science. Once that is well known the solutions will be better tailored to the problem.

Francis W. Porretto,

On the question of what the Gramscians missed I'd say there were two major points.

1. Religion is very strong in America.
2. Americans are better educated about the world than the world knows.

As to point one it is very important that the religion is Christianity. Jesus did not believe in an all powerful state.

The Jews have also learned this lesson in the diaspora.

The average American can see what happens when religion does not resist the state in Islam. 9/11 has been a wonderful education tool. In that sense I would say the Gramscians are just unlucky.

And that brings up point 2.

We can also see that the more socialist the state the poorer the economic performance. France and Germany are obvious. Britain is borderline.

The fact that 9/11 happened in the Internet Age means the people who care can get as informed as they like in a relatively unbiased manner.

In fact in a very small way I helped invent the Internet. I'll write about it one of these days.
I'm really happy with this baby. In fact in 1977 my wife to be and I made "Support the Revolution - Buy A Computer" T-shirts. In some small way we could see the future. And it has turned out way better than I would have predicted.

So I'd say is that the Gamscians failed because the American public has outside sources of information not controlled by the Gramscians.

The internet is the key.

No way I could be having this conversation on any other medium. Computers, modems, and telecom are the keys.

Bart Hall (Kansas),

Libertarians who want to have an effect on politics are joining the Republican party. Larry Elders did it the other day. Milton Friedman did it a very long time ago. Not to mention Ron Paul.

It is a move I have been considering for quite some time. This conversation may just push me over the edge. :-)

Once the Democrats fold the libertarians will separate from the Republicans. A lot of how all this turns out will be path dependent. i.e. it will depend on accidents of history. Just as the fall of the Gramscians was caused by an event that exposed their contradictions. 9/11. And tools to communicate the contradictions. The internet.

If the economy does not improve soon, average working families will look for a change and that change will be in the form of democratic socialism.

Jonathan,

What you fail to understand is that profits in a competitive system are the key to continually improving efficiency. Improving efficiency is the key to getting the masses tomorrow what only kings have today.

What you fail to understand is that most of themilitary R&D was amortized years ago. The flow is now in the other direction. The military buys commmercial equipment as much as possible for military use especially when it comes to computers. Your military is powered by Microsoft and Intel. And the military business is barely significant from a business pint of view. it is called the COTS movement. Standing for Commercial Off The Shelf.

I will also point out that from a historical point of view the more whole heartedly a country joins the American economic system the more it prospers. So imposing our system from time to time is long run good for those imposed on. The people get control of their politics and they get better economics. A record to be proud of if often imperfectly done. No other system has done so well.

Doug,

The tax cuts being rammed through Congress show that the peolpe know that the problem is too much dead weight on business rather than insufficient theft followed by redistribution.

As I have said socialism is dead.

Look at Minnesota. Probably our #2 socialist state. It just elected a Republican Governor who has promised to hold the line on taxes and make up the budget shortfall by cuts.

It is way too easy to see where France went wrong. What are the odds of getting the USA to follow the French these days?

The issue will not be settled here. It will be settled in Nov 2004 when the center abandons the Democrats. The #1 clue is that it is not the Republicans who are going through a wrenching re-evaluation.

BTW so you will know where I'm coming from:
Democrat, anarcho-communist, Libertarian, libertarian, heading towards Republican. Over a 40+ year period. I know a lot about the opposing views because I have held a lot of them.

Jonathan,

You are correct about there being a lot of communism in the system. It won't be thrown out all at once. But welfare reform shows the direction.

Having worked for a number of mega corporations I'd have to say that the effort for most of them is to continually improve efficiency and serve their customers.

What keeps business honest is not government control (ask the USSR). What keeps business honest is competition. In other words Capitalism. Capitalism will not give you perfection. But it does self correct. Because voting with dollors happens more frequently than voting with ballots.

Some fascinating stuff here!

With regard to the Gramscian Long March theme, one of the things that didn't happen in America was the use of acquired power to foreclose the development of alternatives in the three areas cited. The Internet as a response to the Old Media is fairly obvious, as is homeschooling (and other rebellions) as a response to socialized education. It's a little harder to see the development of alternatives in the world of religion -- people have a tendency to think "New Age B.S." when you combine "alternative" with "religion" -- but if you squint just a bit, you can see the intramural fissures in the Christian sects, particularly in Catholicism and Baptism. Also, though the socialist elite did their level best to denigrate and defame traditional, nonpolitical religious faith, and succeeded in weakening it greatly in the coastal regions where their influence is greatest, they were unable to affect heartland America.

This is in stark contrast to Russia, where socialism established itself firmly. In that unhappy realm, alternatives to the State media and schools were suppressed by force. Religious practice, though never explicitly criminalized, was subjected to severe enough pressure to force it out of the national consciousness. (It's hard to run a service of any kind when all the priests, ministers and rabbis are in the Gulag for "cosmopolitanism.")

I think that, had the capture of the media, the schools, and the churches been supplemented with big NO EXIT signs and armed guards, we would probably have slid the rest of the way down the slope into a central-planning system, complete with nomenklatura, secret police, re-education camps, and all the other wonderful frills of socialist tyrannies.

The war isn't over yet, of course. There are pitched battles taking place everywhere, most notably over education, the Left's most staunchly maintained bastion. Socialism in the West is going part undercover, morphing back and forth between its traditional form and several new guises: multiculturalism, postmodernism, and transnationalism. But for the moment, the counterinsurgency for freedom appears to have the upper hand.

Here's another poser: To what extent has the drive for socialism been crippled by the bad behavior of its most prominent exponents? There's certainly been enough of that. How closely do people identify the virtues of an idea with the character of its champions?

I had figured to be done posting on this thread, but it's a rather (not Dan) good one, and I think it illustrates something quite important. It would be interesting to know the profession (and home location) of those posting on this thread -- I, for example, am a farmer, for Pete's sake ... which leads me to the point being illustrated here.

Gramscians do indeed control the education system in America and Canada; or more correctly the school system, particularly at the post-secondary level outside of hard sciences. The university is a rotten and dying institution, but one still considered the chief arbiter of thought and discourse in the modern world.

About 850 years ago, that role was occupied by the Catholic Church. Equally rotten. Small groups of independent scholars and guild workers would gather together and using Latin as a common language freely discuss ideas long-since shouldered out of church scholastics.

Those independent groups on the intellectual margin grew into the entire university movement now in its decadence. What we have here is a group of independent thinkers using English as a common language gathering on the internet. The similarity is to strong for me to ignore, especially in light of the potent libertarian flavor innate to much of the early university movement eight centuries ago.

Bart,

My idea for the "internet" 25 years ago was to have an "800" number that top scientists and researchers could call to communicate with each other.

Now we have something much better where difficult questions can be discussed in quasi-real time by any one who wants to pitch in.

BTW I'm an aerospace engineer. Hardware, software, real time controls.

Simon,

It isn't that I fail to understand that improving efficiency is supposed to bring "the masses" tomorrow what "the kings" have today. It is that I disagree completely, from a historical and economic perspective that it does, and from a environmental perspective that we ought to pursue that in the first place. To get the environmental part out of the way, if the masses today were as dependent on commodities and the consumption of natural resources as "the kings", we'd need about four more planet's natural resources and waste absorbing capabilities to support it. And since we don't have those extra Earths, we need to find another imperative than increasing the 'efficiency' by which we pillage the Earth's natural resources and produce ungodly amounts of waste in the process, for private profit.

Up to this point, benevolent promises like yours aside, increased technological efficiency and the push towards Neo-liberal policies such as privatization, less state subsidy (on things for "the masses"), fewer restrictions on labor and environmental standards and less restrictions on capital flows has only served to polarize wealth, not spread it. Yes wealth has increased for the few, meanwhile so has poverty, war, pollution, disease, and the economic burden socialized among future generations of “the masses”.

These policies have been imposed on the masses by the kings, who never have to follow them themselves. Not one developed country today has developed because it has adopted free market policies, but because it was able to protect their industries and use the state to subsidize various economic interests, all in the name of decreasing competition. Personally I don't see this going away, while I do see arguments like yours seeking to erode the more benevolent aspects of that system to the benefit of corporations - "the kings" - who will decry "Socialism's inefficiency" so long as it isn't being used to guarantee their profits, but used as a way to ensure the trickle down of resources to "the masses". So to sum it up, based on your admission that there is still a lot of "communism" in the system, I'd argue that it isn't "communism" that is dead, it is the free market. Indeed, it has been for quite some time. What I truly fail to understand is why businesses would seek to bring the free market back, when socializing the costs of private businesses as well as state protectionism is the only guarantee of their power.

As for your comment about military R&D, you are essentially adding to the point I was making. The military buys commercial equipment as much as possible... that is one way you can say it. Another way you can say it is the military, with their decision making completely sheltered from public participation based on the fact that the public doesn't want to have a say so in whether or not we build this bomb or that bomb, transfers public money into private profit -- an economic stimulus. Whether the US is paying private corporations to do R&D, or doing it themselves and then giving the results to a private corporation when a product becomes marketable, they’re just different means to the same ends. I don't know what you mean that it is "barely significant" to businesses either, being that the United State's role as protector of global capital flows is dependent on having a strong military, its cost socialized among the public.

Finally, I’d have to ask that you back up your claim that countries that join the US system end up prospering. I’d have to ask that you be specific about who in each country prospers -- the investor classes, the foreign owned corporations, the middle classes, the poor masses, or all? We can easily see from looking at Latin America, that while it may be the case for foreign owned corporations or the local investor classes, it is not the case for either the poor masses or the shrinking middle classes.

Compare Cuba and Guatemala for example. Both had revolutions at around the same time. In 1954, a Liberal Democratic regime in Guatemala with enormous popular support started enacting agrarian reforms threatening US financial interests. In Cuba, a guerrilla movement was combating a US backed dictatorship threatening longstanding US financial interests, also with enormous popular support, both within Cuba and throughout Latin America. Guatemala didn’t succeed. Their government was overthrown in a CIA organized coup and its supporters, mostly poor Mayan peasants, were killed at genocidal levels with the support of the US. Cuba on the other hand did succeed. So you have two countries, neither are models for civil liberties, a dictatorship of wealth controls in another and a communist dictatorship with a commitment to raising living conditions of the poor in another. One is outside the US system. The other is not.

Cuba, by far, has better living conditions for the masses than Guatemala, who is one of the poorest countries in the world. The situation generalizes across Latin America, almost every country in it having been a victim of US intervention at one point or another.

And it deserves mentioning that Cuba has had to contend with decades of international terrorism and an embargo from the world's leading superpower who, only 90 miles away, would otherwise serve as a valuable trade partner.

Jonathan,

If you want input into the way military equipment is done become an engineer.

I have worked on LANTIRN, Avenger, F16, and numerous other projects.

There is no reason to give unqualified people like yourself decisionmaking power over something you don't understand.

If being an engineer is not close enough for you you could get elected to Congress.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Cuba is a Communist basket case. If you believe anything coming out of Castro's Cuba you probably bought everthing Stalin said.

But any way thanks for the input. You are proof positive that Communism is not going to rise again.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The reason Cuba is failing is that everyone but the US of A will trade with it but without the US of A they can't make a living. Surely you are joking. If Cuba is so dependent on the US of A why don't they give up socialism so they can be prosperous? You know a bunch of signs went up in Cuba a few years ago. "Socialism or Death?" The grafitti artists painted "What's the difference" on the signs. So the Cuban people do get to express themselves despite Castro's crackdown on telling the truth about the People's Paradise of Cuba.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Taiwan was a dictatorship until per capita income hit about $300 per month. So you really have to look at the economics to see where the politics is headed. Guatemala is advancing Cuba is declining.

If you really want to get me on your side you might mention the drug war which is criminal. Plan Colombia is a recipe for trouble.

Simon,

Apparently another aspect of the Soviet system which is alive and well today is the tendency to want to silence critics...

Moving along, I agree completely with you that the ability to impact the military industrial process shouldn't be open to unqualified people like me, or like the rest of the public. That was my whole point. Bush's proposed budget has the US spending about 380 billion dollars, or about half of the US federal budget, on something that is completely closed to democratic control, but instead chiefly handled by only a handful of unaccountable bureacracies. Spending more than the rest of the world combined, and already having a vastly superior military, much of this can hardly be attributed to actual military needs, but instead to economic stimulus. It has been a long time since, but you might want to check my earlier questions asking you to elaborate on which parts of the Soviet System were failures and not employed healthily by the US. Extremely centralized control of vast economic power through bureacracies by way of the state government, as opposed to a competitve free market or a democratic socialist system, sounds pretty USRR to me.

As for Cuba, how is it more of a failure than countries in the US system like Haiti or Guatemala? I never called it Paradise, but as far as things like hunger, child poverty, infant mortality, homelessness, health care, or other measures of human progess that often have inverse relationships with profit margins, they are better off than comparable countries in Latin America, who are not showing signs of improving. All this while having to contend with an embargo from the USA, not to mention covert attempts to destabilize the government. Personally, I do not support Castro. I think economic justice and civil liberties should go hand in hand, but I understand, along with most Latin Americans, even if most North Americans don't, that non-violent and openly democratic movements do not survive the CIA and US intervention as well as closed military hierarchy. Just ask Juan Bosch, Jacob Arbenz or Salvador Allende.

As for Plan Colombia, I agree, and it is important to look at it and the drug war, which has only made drug lords richer, as part of a larger picture, not isolated events.

Jonathan seems to be fussing over the number of capitalist sins he can fit on the head of a pin so may I inject another of my favorite authors here? Hernando de Soto who, in The Mystery of Capital, declares that the key to Third World development is the establishment of clear property rights. No easy feat (it took us over a century to do it, but now we're very good at it) but a very necessary one. MacArthur did this in Japan and in just seven years of occupation created an economy that eventually became one of the world's best (although it has been a little shakey lately). He simply created a process for determining clear property title. DeSoto is now consulting with the Bush Administration on Iraq which is why I'm optimistic about its future. Imagine what would happen if someone who lives in the slums of Sao Palo had clear title to the equity in the little shack he lives in. The process of wealth creation would be unlimited. If DeSoto ever gets traction with those third world leaders who are serious about developing their countries, look out. Millions of dollars of dead capital will suddenly come to life and peasants will have what only kings had recently. I know, slap me, I'm an optimist.
BTW, I've been the director of a homeless shelter for past 18 years and am about to retire and start a real estate investment business. I studied to be a history prof once but quit to become a taxi driver.

Apparently another aspect of the Soviet system which is alive and well today is the tendency to want to silence critics...

Ha! Find me a system where people don't want to silence their critics. The difference is that the FBI will not show up on my doorstep to take me to a work camp if I say "Bush sucks". Anyway, I guess this makes Rush Limbaugh a communist.

IIRC, the US defense budget is 4 or 5% of US GDP. The USSR spent a much much higher percentage of its GDP on its military. If someone knows the exact numbers, I'd be much obliged.

Find me a system where people don't want to silence their critics....

Please take the quote in actual context. I was referring to Simon's response, several of which were bordering on trying to insult me.

Military spending estimates are difficult because the Soviet system was not a real economy per se... 12-20% is the general range, which computes when you look at the relative economy sizes and amount each side was buying.

Thanks, Joe. Also, iirc your Soviet numbers are about what the US spends on health care.

Jonathan:

CUBA:

" I never called it Paradise, but as far as things like hunger, child poverty, infant mortality, homelessness, health care,... they are better off than comparable countries in Latin America "

You might be right, But why the people of Cuba do not have the right to choose ? Maybe in a free election they will still vote for Fidel and Raul (I doubt it.. When the people of Nicaragua got the right to vote they never voted the Sandinistas back into power). However, Some of the former USSR republics did vote the Communists back to into power and that's cool (as long as they can change their mind 4 years later)

Lizzel,

I'd be asking why the Cuban people haven't been able to choose for themselves since at least the Spanish American war, when they had a war of independence from Spanish Colonialism that ushered in a century worth of Colonial intervention from the US. The Platt Amendment, signed into Cuba's constitution, gave the US the right to intervene at will. FDR repealed the Platt Amendment with his Good Neighbor Policy, but before the Cuban Revolution nearly all Cuban industries were foreign owned and their government was simply another dictatorship, the difference being he was our dictatorship. For the most part the Cuban people did get to choose when they supported the Cuban revolution against this dictatorship, but have been singled out since then. Since then Castro has remained in power because of this enormous support, but admittedly the revolution has been stagnate, and as is the case when any bureacracy becomes firmly entrenched, it works primarily for its own survival as the highest goal. But who is threatening it's survival? I'd ask them why Cuba can't choose. I can't imagine a majority of them would choose life in El Salvador or Nicaragua either, but perhaps some of the landlords might.

As for the Sandinistas... could you blame them? Somozas old police forces, the Contras, were not very friendly guys. Hopefully Fox News will allow Oliver North to do a hour long special on his memories of smuggling them weapons. Or maybe Pointdexter could do so when he isn't too busy trying to run Total Information Awareness.

O_o

Since then Castro has remained in power because of this enormous support, but admittedly the revolution has been stagnate, and as is the case when any bureacracy becomes firmly entrenched, it works primarily for its own survival as the highest goal.

And here I thought Castro stays in power by jailing dissidents and shooting people in the head. Incidentally, the revolution has been stagnant because it was a communist revolution. And I somehow doubt that the only result for Cuban democracy is to be like El Salvador or Nicaragua, who still do better than North Korea, Iraq and Iran.

For decades I have evaluated the worth of peoples' statements (or writings) on the following basis --if they make significant errors in a discipline I know, I do not trust or value their comments their comments about topics I don't know. Jonathan fails this "Aw c'mon" test on several levels.

I speak both Spanish and French with near-native fluency, and spent a day (in the mid-'70s) translating for Raul Castro (Cuban agriculture minister). I have worked extensively as an agronomist in Central and South America, Jamaica, and Haiti.

Across that entire region land 'reform' has been at best ineffective, and usually much worse at achieving anything remotely like its stated goals. One of the few places it worked well was Lambayeque, Peru where following the 1968 seizures of haciendas by the government, the peasants of two of them banded together and asked their duen~os to continue running things. All other former haciendas in the region are deforested (by the peasants) and two broken up for anyone to make a living. Bolivia is generally worse. Many peasants in Chiapas, Mexico detest the Zapatistas who sought to destroy their coffee business in order to disrupt the economy.

Jonathan, the middle class in Latin America and Haiti is generally growing not disappearing. Those Haitians who leave that country for a better life don't head for nearby Cuba, but instead brave hundreds of miles of open ocean to get to the US. Apart from academics and their befuddled hangers-on you don't see anybody trying to get to Cuba.

The primary reason for a growing middle class in Latin America is the success of evangelical Christianity in the region. On any given 'Sunday' there are more evangelical protestants in church than there are roman catholics. Sunday in quotes because the 7th-day adventists (saturday service) are quite numerous.

Evangelical christians are persuading the men to be responsible husbands and fathers -- they tend to drink less, work harder, keep their jobs, and begin saving. Most saving is in the form of tangible wealth, not financial instruments, so it shows up only in quality of life, not in some academic's scan of the numbers. IOW, the old-fashioned 'protestant work ethic' continues to be the best path to building better lives, much to the chagrin of secular-socialists.

Last comments about military budgets. The world is governed through the aggressive use of force --or the credible threat of its use. Always has been. Always will be. Current US military budget (in wartime) is 3.7% of GDP. In 1938 (when we were so hollow and pacifist that the Japanese felt we could be beaten) military expenditures were 3.1% of GDP. In the late '90s they actually dropped below 3% for awhile.

If you further work military numbers to compare them to the total wealth of the US they drop well below 1%. Any time you can get insurance (and that is what our military is) for under 1% of what you insure, it is a bargain indeed. We are insuring something that people wish to come here for. I have spent more than 20 years outside the US and believe me, we have something worth insuring. Something people all over the world seek for themselves.

Including the freedom for people like Jonathan to emigrate to any so-called workers' paradise he desires. Jonathan, I will buy you a one-way ticket to Cuba, North Korea, Senegal, Chaostan, Outer Slobovia, or any other such country, provided you renounce your US citizenship and attain permanent residency in the country of your choice.

M.Simon -- personal note. My older son spent four years in the LANTIRN shop at Eglin ... Eagles mostly.

If socialism caused the so called failures of Germany's, France's and Sweden's economies, what is the cause of Japan's decade long recession? And can you seriously point to so called "leftist" politics as the cause of the dot.com collapses? And, if I follow M. Simons argument, then the depression of the 1930's proved that capitalism and democracy was a failure. Also, how does this rant against communism and socialism explain Japan’s decade long recession?
If "it's not guns that kill, it's the people holding the gun that kill," then, it's not the "style" of government that kills, it's the people that are in the government that kill. When governments are filled with ruthless, blood thirsty killers, then the government is bad. When it is filled with ethical, fair-minded people, then the government is good.
Also, the economic health of a country is interdependent with the rest of the world and also has as much to do with the perceptions of it’s people then with any philosophical belief about government.
Sorry, no points from me about any positive merits of M. Simon’s post. Hate is hate, and it’s never good.
“It’s not the governments, it’s the people.”

Good discussion guys. I'll be back around.

The failure of the USSR meant a couple things:

One, and end to a major pretext for US intervention in the third world. Two, the end of the reign of people in power in the USSR.

Nothing more. There is nothing inherent in the USSR system that 'failed' or is 'dead' and is no longer employed succcessfully, least of all governments which "kill and destroy". (There are far more governments that do so than the official enemies listed by Simon, and guess who funds most of them?)

All Industrial countries are 'Socialist' in that the state serves as a source of protection and subsidy for economic power. Whether that economic power is 'privately' owned or 'state' owned is a matter of semantics -- whatever the coordinator class wants to call itself.

Ciao,
Jonathan

"What I truly fail to understand is why businesses would seek to bring the free market back, when socializing the costs of private businesses as well as state protectionism is the only guarantee of their power. "

whaaa??

(BTW you guys are being remarkably patient with our friend from Outer Marxlandia.)

"an end to a major pretext for US intervention in the third world. "

Not to mention Soviet intervention in the third world, which led to famine and repression in a number of countries and a skewed UN . . . .

The situation in Japan is the result of a different form of socialism.

The nature of socialism requires funding failures instead of liquidating them because of JOBs.

You do enough of this and an economy gets hardening of the arteries. Japan.

To all the socialists posting here: socialism will not die in a cataclysm tomorrow. The decay will be slow at first accelerating as time goes on. What I am pinting out is that it is slightly past it's peak. Because you cannot tax your way into prosperity.

The biggest clue here is that Germany is trying to reign in job protection laws in order to get some vigor in their economy. France tried to adjust it's pension system as far back as 1995.

BTW you do not help your cause by saying socialist economics was not a big factor in the USSR collapse. Even the Chinese know better than that.

When I was a socialist it was a lot of fun. Kind of like being a minister in a church. We always knew what was best and there for had no compunction in imagining forcing "the best" on others - for their own good. So enjoy your religion while it still has some repute. It is headed for the ash heap of history.

Jonathan,

How exactly do you propose getting in on deciding which microprocessor to use for which weapons system? You want to vote on every decision? How do you propose handling 100,000 votes a day?

For good or ill we have a representative government. You influence the system by your votes and your opinion. How you spend your money. Where you work. Who you associate with.

I do understand your distress. You in your wisdom know exactly what to do and the people in the country are not giving you the influence that is your due and they are not voting for what you want which is noble and good.

There is always Cuba, or North Korea. Or if you are really hard up France.

Jonathan,

I would never try to insult you (I have been in flame wars since 1979 or so so I do it pretty good). But I have no problem ripping your ideas. Held them all once upon a time. On further reflection and some years of experience I can tell you those ideas are a crock and the odds are good you will be personally sorry because of the injury those ideas have caused so many.

The best antidote is Hayek "The Road to Serfdom". You might also wish to study the economics of the dope market which is one of the purest expressions of capitalism available today. The key is - supply always meets demand at a profitable price. It is such a deep part of human nature that no government can stop it. If your economics are not market based they are not founded on human nature and will fail.

From the NYT.

Still, the loyalty of many older intellectuals has not waned, even as evidence of the injustices and economic failure of the Castro regime has grown.

"Ultimately, you may have to resort to a psychological explanation," suggests Paul Hollander, the author of "Political Pilgrims," a book about the fascination of Western intellectuals with Communist regimes. "It becomes very difficult for people to let go of these beliefs and commitments, especially when they were made at a young age. Their sense of identity derives from the political stance they have taken."

A young man is one who is still capable of changing his opinion. And old man is one who cannot. I have known 70 year old young men and 18 year old fossils. -- Simon

Jonathan,

If capitalism allied with science has not raised the living standards of the masses what has? The USSR? Cuba? Mao's China? North Korea? The correlation between material wealth and these regimes is a negative one.

I know you are incensed at what appears to be the obvious defects of capitalism. The only problem is that all other systems are worse in practice if better in theory.

Never confuse theory with practice. That is the job of the French intellectual. They are quite good at it too.

Ok, first off, let me address all of the "love it or leave it" comments in one big bundle neverminding the fact that nobody actually knows where I live, or where I have lived...

For one, this conception of the government is diametrically opposite of any true concept of democracy. In fact, it is a fascist conception of government. It isn't the government that is granting me liberty, or the right to disagree with it, it is the people. You can appreciate these liberties, be critical of the government, and not be hypocritical. That is the whole point of having free speech and a democratic government in the first place. Someone suggesting that I leave for being ungrateful, seems to me, to have something similar to the abused wives syndrome. The government is not your master, you do not owe it a thing, not even your loyalty. It owes that to you.

To anyone that makes that suggestion, I suggest that you go live under the guns of some thugs that are supported by your tax dollars, who commit violence and political repression with impunity because they serve the political interests of US business. Go live in Turkey, Colombia, Indonesia, or Saudi Arabia... all rampant violators of human rights and at the same time leading recipients of US Aid and arms. Then come back to the US, and see if you're still comfortable being apologists for these policies.

I for one, do not even attempt to argue life is better in North Korea, or Cuba. Notice the names people bring up... always official enemies of the US. But not once have I heard anyone be critical of a country who is obedient to the US, where the situation is far worse, both politically and economically. What was that wonderful quote from Orwell? The nationalist not only doesn't mind the crimes of his side, but often doesn't even know about them?

Someone mentioned people leaving Haiti and coming to the US, not Cuba. Do we let those refugees in? No. Do we let the Cuban ones in? Yes. Why? Because Haiti's suffering happens with OUR support. Anybody ever ask themselves why a country like Haiti, where a majority are starving, is EXPORTING food? Who pushes that policy on Haiti?

What I realize, and what you all need to realize, is that our high standard of living is dependent upon the suffering of poor people in other countries. It is and has been dependent on subverting genuine democracy in the third world, who must serve their role as cheap labor sources and markets for excess production. But hey, out of sight out of mind. If the corporate media doesn't report on it it must not be happening.

Someone mentioned the military budget "insuring" the freedoms we have here. It is also insuring that no country, no matter how small, can choose an independent path that is hostile to business, lest the serve an example to anybody else, those more or less being the exact words of US policy makers describing Grenada, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Chile, Cuba, Guatemala, the list goes on.

Many attempts at alternatives have failed, but not inside a vaccum and not solely of their own accord. Would they have failed if US intellectuals weren't making apologies and justification for the US supproted repression used to stop these "rotten apples"?

Soviet Style Socialism is not the solution. It came to power by murdering democratic socialist movements. But, the world is not limited to two choices. Neoliberalism is also not the solution. These have all been failures for the world's poor. It is time to start thinking outside of a system that seeks to increase dependence on commodities, and the requisite pollution, whether from the state or from any other unaccountable, totalitarian structures. It is time to start thinking of a system that is both participatory, democratic, and sustainable. The system you guys obediently cheerlead is not it.

"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism, because it is a merger of State and corporate power." -- Mussolini

Joe, M. Simon and faithfull readers,

After stumbling upon "The Death of Socialism" and subsequent comments (having never seen or read anything from this blog before) one thing is clear: comments by "Jonathan" have put you all to shame! He seriously challenged your thesis (e.g. Socialism is Dead) and I have yet to read a convincing response. Many of his points were totally ignored and his main argument remains unscathed: Socialism can't be "Dead" because almost ALL nations of the world are socialist (including the US) - the difference is merely in the degree of socialism. I remember learning this in high school, for Godsakes.

Thanks for maintaing the blog. It was very interesting, though I'm still not sure what was more entertaining: Reading Jonathan's logical, clearly defined arguments illustrated and supported with numerous examples, or reading your backpeddaling and outburts as you faced glaring weaknesses in the logic of your own worldviews. As Jonathan points out: The "success of capitalism" you hail is even more of an illusion because 1) the wealth and prosperity enjoyed by the US population is at the expense of the rest of the world, and 2) current rates of consumption of natural resorces required to maintain this prosperity are not sustainable.

The freedoms we enjoy are also more limited than you might think...Noone espousing such views as Jonathan will ever be given a voice on a major media outlet, and if so, you better believe the FBI would be showing up at his door...

"As Jonathan points out: The "success of capitalism" you hail is even more of an illusion because 1) the wealth and prosperity enjoyed by the US population is at the expense of the rest of the world, and 2) current rates of consumption of natural resorces required to maintain this prosperity are not sustainable. "


Both claims have long been debunked as complete myths.

RR,

"Both claims have long been debunked as complete myths".

Where was the shirt on your back made? How much were the workers who made it paid? How old was the worker? What are the environmental regulations in that country? What role did/does US influence play in establishing/maintaining the power structure of that country. What is the profit margin of the retailer and marketer of that brand of shirt? In other words, the US clothing industry is a prime example of how US companies turn much larger profit margins by "taking advantage" of lower wages, poorer working conditions, lax enviromental laws, etc. found in other countries. By having clothing "assembled" in other countries, companies like Nike turn a bigger profit. Some of the benefits are passed on to US consumers in the form of cheaper clothing prices. Meanwhile, other countries bear the environmental burden, rampant child labor, dangerous working conditions, slave labor (in some cases), etc. Are you suggesting that this does not happen?

Second, are you suggesting that there is an infinite supply of oil on this planet? Even the most optimistic reports suggest extractable global oil reserves will run out in this century. Please don't focus on minor details of these questions. Why not just give some credible references (i.e. which employ science, not idealogical rhetoric) that "debunked" either of these claims as "complete myths".

Also, I noticed that you have chosen to respond to my secondary comment. Will anyone acknowledge/respond to Jonathan's main challege to Mr. Simon's central thesis?

The idea that there is even a free market that countries compete on internationally barely holds up to the most basic scrutiny.

Several large bureacracies, multinational by name but more or less dominated by Washington, New York, Europe and Japan, have control of nearly all international trade. An overwhelming majority of the economy is speculative, as in more or less imaginary, and a majority of the world's wealth is in the hands of -- I'd guess -- 5% of its population. Internally in the US the picture isn't that much different. I'd like to have a debate with Simon or somebody else about just how much powerful US interests respect the free market, instead of using "free trade" agreements signed by governments which guarantee trade will work in favor of the wealthy, marginalizing entire sovereign goverments... or using other bureacracies which further the monopolization of wealth, and unaccountable, uncontested control over various sectors of life.

Perhaps a debate about concentrated media ownership and the FCC's role in furthering it, which is major considering what the media controls in this digital age -- they virtually elect our government. Or we can debate about one of the free trade agreements or international institutions like the World Bank of IMF bureacracies, centrally controlled, and democratically unaccountable, just like the USRR.

Of course, the illusion that there is competition helps, but it helps more when intellectuals encourage it with religious devotion. The only real significant competition there is is between, for example... Haiti and El Salvador. Haitians are willing to dip their hands in corrosive chemicals to make baseballs for a quarter an hour. El Salvadorean children are willing to do it for fifteen cents, a more competitive offer. I have to take it, in order to increase my share prices by cutting labor costs, or my competitor will take it and I'll be out of business... but of course that is the market acting as an invisible hand to raise living conditions.

But other than that, no real free competitive market... So, a note to end on: if that is Simon's central idea -- that the free market and "democracy" has triumphed over "Socialism", then it was a good effort but I'm not quite convinced.

M Simon said: If capitalism allied with science has not raised the living standards of the masses what has?

This is sort of like saying "If socialism allied with a free market has not raised the living standard of the masses, what has?" It's slightly misleading inasmuch as it seems to be assuming that the science portion naturally comes from capitalism.

That is, I am sorry to say, false. Look at practically any large research advance in the past hundred years - almost invariably, they are funded in large part by public money. As it stands, AIDS research is almost 96% government funds in the US. Look to things like the interstate system, the NIH, the NSF, the CDC, and on and on. This sort of public-good oriented facility is exactly the type of thing a socialist government tends to propegate in large measure.

Moreover, many times people have acted as if the incentive for profit fails to exist within redistributive societies. Essentially, huh? The only argument which has actually been put forth is the following: The USSR, a totalitarian communist state, did not have as much money as the US during the Cold war. Volumes have been written on the subject, but realize that even if that's true, the logical consequent isn't that any form of redistribution within a society is bad, just that doing it stupidly is. Imagine if every employee in a company had a given number of shares of stock based on position. That's socialism implimented in a modern market society. Why would this remove profit incentive?

Thus far all I've really gotten from M. Simon is that he agrees in large measure with the use of taxed funds towards socialist type programs which improve the standard of living, which he readily accepts as beneficial, yet he somehow wants a mystical "capitalist" economy.

M Simon said: If capitalism allied with science has not raised the living standards of the masses what has?

This is sort of like saying "If socialism allied with a free market has not raised the living standard of the masses, what has?" It's slightly misleading inasmuch as it seems to be assuming that the science portion naturally comes from capitalism.

That is, I am sorry to say, false. Look at practically any large research advance in the past hundred years - almost invariably, they are funded in large part by public money. As it stands, AIDS research is almost 96% government funds in the US. Look to things like the interstate system, the NIH, the NSF, the CDC, and on and on. This sort of public-good oriented facility is exactly the type of thing a socialist government tends to propegate in large measure.

Moreover, many times people have acted as if the incentive for profit fails to exist within redistributive societies. Essentially, huh? The only argument which has actually been put forth is the following: The USSR, a totalitarian communist state, did not have as much money as the US during the Cold war. Volumes have been written on the subject, but realize that even if that's true, the logical consequent isn't that any form of redistribution within a society is bad, just that doing it stupidly is. Imagine if every employee in a company had a given number of shares of stock based on position. That's socialism implimented in a modern market society. Why would this remove profit incentive?

Thus far all I've really gotten from M. Simon is that he agrees in large measure with the use of taxed funds towards socialist type programs which improve the standard of living, which he readily accepts as beneficial, yet he somehow wants a mystical "capitalist" economy.

Gregory,

The truth that we have learned from experience is this: the more capitalist the economy the more productive the economy.

As you so correctly point out there is no "perfect" capitalist economy on the planet today. More is the pity. Milton Friedman says if we had a perfectly capitalist economy in America (government limited to it's constitutional functions) then the American economy would be growing at 10% a year. At that rate had we started down this road in 1953 the economy today would be 26 times larger than it is now. If the lowest segment of the population only captured 10% of that gain poor people today would be more than 2 1/2 times better off than they are now. Those scraping by on $12K per year would be gliding at $30K. Those getting by on $20K a year would be living large at $50K. If the middle class got 40% of the gain a person now earning $35K a year would be getting $350K.

So I do agree that there are no perfectly capitalist economies on the planet today. What we do see is that the more capitalist the economy the greater the gain in welfare over time for the people living under a particular system.

You can see the future if you look to Germany and France. Germany is trying to loosen it's labor laws to get some growth in it's economy. France is trying to reduce it's social security system which is slowly strangling it's economy. France has been trying to do this since 1995. They are currently giving it another try without much luck. Basically the public sector unions are strangling the economy.

The simple rule is this: socialism (however implimented) strangles economies. Hayek in "The Road to Serfdom" has said it much better than I can and he said it almost 60 years ago when the issue was still in doubt. In this respect I am just a street sweeper cleaning up long after the parade has passed.

BTW I am going to go back and look at what taxed funds to improve the economy I favored. I don't think I have favored any other than the minimal government functions of roads, sewers, and rights of way, add in police and courts to settle disputes and minimize fraud and violence and that is the end of it. In addition I do not firmly hold the belief that all those functions mentioned must be public. In Minnesota they are starting a private road program. What I have said is that they will not all be eliminated over night. This is not the same as favoring them.

taylor,

Just because socialism is dead does not mean all vestiges of it have disappeared.

My claim is that socialist solutions to economic/social problems are no longer the desired solutions. I give France and Germany as examples. I have yet to see the examples be refuted.

When the horse pulling the cart dies, it's carcass is not buried instantly. Not only that but the wagon it pulled might stay in tthe barn for years after it is replaced by a horseless carraige, "just in case". With human institutions it often takes a very long time for institutions to die. There are still segments of our legal code that are influenced by the divine rights of kings despite the fact that there has been no king ruling America for over 200 years.

To expect all vestiges of socialism to disappear with it's death is silly. It is a straw man argument when it comes to how humans do politics. There is inertia. Tremendous inertia. Usually the best you can expect is that the bad solutions will no longer be applied to new problems. Any retroactive clearing of bad solutions from old problems is gravy. So let me recap a little history and then predict something. History: welfare reform. The future: school vouchers.

I do think this points out one very important problem in American politics these days. Rampant utopianism. The belief in the perfect whatever. As I pointed out previously I have had these utopian dreams. Now what I hope for is not perfection but movement in the right direction.

I think another instructive example is Israel. They are seriously discussing the reduction of government interference in the economy for the first time in 50 years. The fact that the discussion is serious and at the highest levels indicates a shift. The fact that there is no immediate significant progress shows what kinds of inertia we have in human societies.

Or we can look at a couple of examples in America of government helping some while hurting others.

Take my town. We are steel consumers. The new steel tariffs are destroying our industry. Our unemployment rate is second highest in the nation. The problem here is that there is more supply than demand for steel in the world and Americans are the high cost producers. So we raise tariffs on American consumers to give American steel producers more income. This drives the business that would ordinarily go to American steel consumers overseas. Ultimately reducing the market for American steel because since we are the high cost producers in the world, American steel producers must rely mostly on American steel consumers and only for the amount of the transportation differential above market price.

Or take another American example. Government in it's never ending quest for more money decided to tax luxury goods like large boats by an extra 10%. Boat building in America died. A lot of people lost their jobs. The boat buyers went to Europe to buy their boats and used the 10% differential to pay for transportation.

Stealing from the rich (through taxation) to help the poor is a sure way to destroy an economy. The examples I have given are of course concentrated so it is possible to see clearly the problem. What has gotten us in our current mess is that the rise in taxes hasn't been 10% in a jump on a few industries or a 40% tariff increase. It has been in nibbles of .25%, .75%, 1.1%, so we barely notice. And instead of being concentrated in one industry it is diffused across all industries so we can't compare to see what might be the results in other circumstances.

What is possible to see because of the internet is what other countries are doing. Germany is a prime example. Government protects the jobs of the German workers. In the last ten years we have experienced on of the greatest world wide economic booms of all time. During that whole time German unemployment has been stuck at around 10%. American unemployment during that period went below 4% and seems to have peaked now at around 6%. Did I mention that the French are in a boat similar to the Germans and that they have been trying to reform their system since 1995 without success?

The time we are living in is an inflection point. What you will be seeing is countries competing by lowering their tax rates and decreasing the levels of government funded social programs and government regulations. Let us look at the past to see if we can see the future. The past: welfare reform. The future: school vouchers.

Or take the Bush tax cuts. That will attract more rich people to make their homes in America. A good thing, no? Or how about lowering the cost of doing business in America to attract more businesses to America? A good thing, no? Now the defict is bad but that can be cured by holding the line on government spending for a few years. Which is not a bad idea.

Socialism is dead. Because it is non-competative.

The kind of economy we are living in requires us to constantly increase the skill levels of our population. The command and control systems currently in place do not fit our real needs. They are expensive but that is not the worst part. They do not work well.

We have a voucher system of sorts that seems to work reasonably well and that is our college system. The envy of the world. The key to college is that the consumer pays at least some of the cost and gets to chose the institution. So the move to vouchers is pretty obvious in the school system.
So where are we with vouchers? Under .1% penetration of the market. Who wants it the most? The parents of those most poorly served by the market.

What is becoming clear is that we are in a competition not only with other businesses in the world but other governments. If we want to stay competative we will need to cut costs and improve services.

Warning: this will be a long comment.

I am in the field of those that see the benefits of the higher efficiency of an as real as possible market competition.

The issue IMO is not "socialism vs capitalism" but simply that people want things done. Which is the best way to do each? Most often than not each way has great flaws.

Take for example the matter that makes you american economical liberals (I am a european) fume most: The welfare state.

As an aside, I personally find it intriguing that you people show so much visceral, relentless bile and hatred for it, given that you don't have to endure it much and you are in your way to endure it even less. If I were in your shoes I would deal with it as with other inefficient lifestyles I don't have much in common with as with the amish. The amish are inefficient wussies, and I love them for that. Why so much rage against the inefficient wussies in this side of the atlantic?

But I digress. To take an example of the welfare state: Having something to live of when we are old is something we all want. It can be achieved in four ways: Have children to care of you, have a state pension, have a company pension or have a private pension with a bank (or any other kind of long term investment).

All ways involve putting your money (or the money of us all) somewhere, and all have severe flaws. The Economist had recently a good article on that that covers most aspects of the choices.

Private initiatives will be more efficient (not safe, though) and definitely more respectful for the individual. But what if a sizeable percentage of all the people were irresponsible or stupid? Classic economy tells us we are all perfect utility calculators, but I do know quite a few people who deserve to be called stupid.

What if, for example, a great part of the population were to choose not to be responsible (care for your old age, pay for a private medical insurance) in a perfect capitalist state? We would end up with 20% of the elderly population living as street homeless (many more, if pension funds go as they have been going lately). And people dying darwinistically of curable illnesses would become common.

In short, a wholly capitalistic society would be very unstable at least if it weren't introduced gradually and together with an education effort.

Then again you have another quirk: Perhaps a part of the population would not be able to access the most expensive medical pensions (which enable you to afford the really expensive treatments) or the more reliable pension funds even by being very hard working and very responsible.

Of course in the perfect capitalist world where beggars live like kings this will not happen (and I don't doubt living standards will rise tremendously, mind you). But there may well be rather long transitional "phases" when this is the case. This is the conundrum that made bismarck (a guy more protestant and more conservative you will ever be btw ;-)) invent the welfare state in the first place.

Then there are other fields of "things we want done" that can be adressed by the state in some ways and by the public sector in other ways.

A perfect capitalistic world would not have state armies, as they are a huge source of inefficiencies (the nonchalant way american conservatives see the "pentagon pork" is puzzling). Privately run armies would be (literally!) much more bang for the buck, which is what all is about. So there would have to be several non-monopolistic "condottieri" companies that would compete for the assignment of defence contracts from the state (or the public sector!) much in the same way weapons manufactuers vie for contracts today. Anything else would be socialism waiting to be shedded. And socialism is a bad thing.

Some muddled people say one should leave the state enough money to fund worthy causes that are surely not going to be adressed by the private sector. Or at least leave the state room to incentivate or disincentivate investments. Cure for aids and environmental protection come to mind. But this is not true, as any need people perceive will be a demand, and where there is a demand, there's a supply. Any fumbling with the market is anathema. Anything else would be socialism waiting to be shedded. And socialism is a bad thing.

Which brings us to another point. What to do with the cancer of the market, which is monopoly and oligopoly. These are clearly inefficiencies and should be fought. But not by the inefficient public sector!! No, we should have monopoly-preventing companies which compete fairly in the task of punishing other companies for unfair competition. Oh, in a private sector legal system, too. And on and on.

Ok, I have seen the opportunity to be tongue in cheek and I couldn't resist myself. But my case really is:

You can't stop statism (that which you erroneously call socialism, but existed long before socialism and will live longer than socialism too) completely. At some point you will have to stop and draw the line. "No, we can't leave this to the public sector, even if it is much more efficient".

And, funnily, many people want that line drawn at the issues they care most about. Neocons too.

By the way, I hope for our own good welfare state reforms succeed around here. But there are more reasons for the european bad economic record: Even with the Schengen treaty we have no job mobility because of the language barriers and above all the price of housing (you marry your mortgage for life here). Which is one of the reasons for low natality too...

Why aren't Americans distressed with the inefficient Amish way of life?

The Amish don't put a gun to people's heads (in the form of government) to support their way of life.

It is not ineficiency that Americans object to. It is theft.

Another cause of Germany's financial malaise during the 1990s might be its decision to redeem East German marks at par, in effect printing reams of Deutschmarks. Germany also had a very bad experience with hyperinflation during the Weimar Republic, so the Bundesbank raised interest rates to stave off the inflationary effect caused by printing money.

It did not help matters that continental investors could get double-digit returns by investing in dollar-denominated US Treasury bonds while the euro made its way from US$1.15 to US$0.85. (At that time, the euro was in stealth mode, with other currencies pegged to it but still in European pockets.) Thus investment flowed west across the Atlantic, as did jobs.

Yamaneko

Warren,

The EUros are now complaining because the dollar is too low. So which is it?

On the subject of the Gramascians.

The Marxist brand claimed to be universal. In the Gramascian brand you have first off whites separated from blacks. Of course as time goes on in these groups once the separations start there will be sub-catagories. Depending on the amount of victimhood.

Rather than being a uniting force the Gramascian branch of communism has built in a very large contradiction. Who is the greatest victim? Who decides?

I'm not sure the market for flagellation in America is as large as the Gramascians hope.

Larry Elder, No "s", please. Go Sage!

I used to have this same hypothesis, and it may very well be correct in the long-run, but what is distressing is that the Democrats aren't even "market socialists" but "class-warfare" socialists.

I would define a market socialist as one who understands that markets are the way to organize economic activity, but feel sorry for those born stupid or for whatever reason will be at the very bottom of the distribution. These market socialists see nothing wrong with markets, just want to help out those at the bottom.

Sweden used to be an example of a market socialism country. The government didn't try to micro-manage business with all types of assisine regulations, they simply taxed and redistributed. Sweden was still able to prosper. Now the government micro-manages everything and Sweden has tanked.

The Democrat Party is not controlled by market socialist. The Democratic Party is a bunch of hard-core "class-warfare" socialists. The rhetoric coming from the Democratic candidate during a presidential election is horrifying -- nothing but claiming that poor people are poor because they have been exploited by rich people -- the "decade of greed" crap. Stirring up this sort of resentment is the kind of crap you see in the Arab world.

Socialism is a long way from dead...I'll be happy if we can finally get rid of the class-warfare wing of it.

I'm really sick and tired of the pro-socialist "help the poor, unfortunate, lazy, and incompetent" bleaters here and elsewhere who want to feed their sense of moral superiority by practicing their charity with other people's money.

If you want to help the poor, unfortunate, lazy, and stupid, then nothing is preventing YOU from using YOUR OWN resources from helping them. Nothing is preventing you from trying to convince others to join you in contributing THEIR OWN resources to help the poor, unfortunate, lazy, and stupid.

But oh no. YOU'RE TOO DAMN LAZY TO DO THAT! You'd much rather support a system where thugs TAKE THE MONEY from the productive and hard working WHO CREATED IT, launder it through their socialist government system, and hand it out to those YOU deem as "worthy" of blood money. That way, none of the beneficiaries will see who's really being bled to support them. Instead, YOU want them to see and give the credit to virtuous, glorious YOU, who voted for, set up, and supported such a "generous" "compassionate" system.

Don't bat your puppy dog eyes at me and bleat, "But I'm not going to take MUCH! And it'll do so much GOOD!" It't not the "not much" I object to, as much as the "I'm going to take" part that pisses me off so much. You're not much better than crooks who try to salve their conscience by giving away to whomever they choose what they TAKE AWAY from people who demonstrate, by their hard work and efforts, their superiority in providing for themselves and refusing to be a burden on other people's backs. (YOU steal moral virtue, by the way, by stealing from the productive the opportunity to give that money away voluntarily, by taking that money away and forcing them to subsist on what YOU CHOOSE to leave them. Charitable giving SKYROCKETED during the Reagan years when people got more money back from the tax cuts, and were able to AFFORD being charitable. What's that? You don't think they'd do that voluntarily? That choice is called FREEDOM, you damn bastard!)

"Morally superior?" HAH! Crook! Thief! FAKE! I give away more than 10% of my PRE TAX income to various charities and organizations, but even if I only gave away one dollar, THAT ONE dollar, given of my own free will, has more moral backing than $1,000,000 YOU BLEED from the productive with the threat (and application) of force, and direct about with your imperial finger.

I'm just amazed that this post continues to generate posts and debate. I think this is some kind of record here at Winds of Change.NET, as as always the debate has been mostly thoughtful on all sides.

On the whole, I think both Armed Liberal's quadrants and M. Simon's article have a similar flaw: they attempt to argue a political opponent out of existence. Socialism is not dead, nor is collapsing 2 radically different kinds of equality sufficient to end one of the primary philosophical debates in Western politics.

Simon does put his finger on a growing trend toward the "libertarian centre", and since he laid it out in this article I've been noticing evidence for it in a lot of places. I think the general divisions he outlines will manifest. That said, there is a substantial religious conservative base who will continue to play a role in future conservative coalitions (as uncomfortable as that may make some of us in that coalition). Likewise, the socialist Left has too many power bases in academia, the media, its direct economic clients et. al. to simply vanish during my lifetime. Both the Democrats and Republicans will likely be grappling with these internal contradictions for quite some time, and several major events would have to take place before Simon's prediction of "the withering away of the Democratic Party" became plausible.

The long term trends toward the "libertarian centre" look good at the moment, but events may yet intercede in unpredictable ways - and one should never underestimate the inertia and staying power of large human systems.

Hey, just wanted to say what a great site this is. If you've got visitors needing first time home buyer help, I own the free directory for grant money. Hope your site continues to entertain!

I just can't shut my pie hole.