Introduction
This page has information about Democrats who don't like capitalism. Some of them prefer socialism, and some of them will admit to their closest friends that Communism is the best economic system. |
 |
On August 13, 2018, a Gallup poll was released. It showed that a majority of the entire Democrat Party prefers Socialism to Capitalism. Details of this poll and ninks to news stories about this poll are now on this page.
A Nobel-winning Economist defines capitalism
In 1976, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics to Milton Friedman. The announcement on the Nobel Prize website. The photo on the left was found with an image search.This is the first paragraph of a September 13, 1970 article he wrote in the New York Times Magazine. I broke it up into three shorter paragraphs to make it easier to read.
When I hear businessmen speak eloquently about the "social responsibilities of business in a free-enterprise system," I am reminded of the wonderful line about the Frenchman who discovered at the age of 70 that he had been speaking prose all his life.The title of his speech is "The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits". He says that these profits will then be shared with the shareholders and reinvested in the business.
The businessmen believe that they are defending free enterprise when they declaim that business is not concerned "merely" with profit but also with promoting desirable "social" ends; that business has a "social conscience" and takes seriously its responsibilities for providing employment, eliminating discrimination, avoiding pollution and whatever else may be the catchwords of the contemporary crop of reformers.
In fact they are–or would be if they or anyone else took them seriously–preaching pure and unadulterated socialism. Businessmen who talk this way are unwitting puppets of the intellectual forces that have been undermining the basis of a free society these past decades.
The practical effects of capitalism
If the business manufactures a product, the owners will reinvest any profits they have by buying more of the raw materials that are the ingredients of their product. If the business offers a service to the public, a successful service-oriented business can hire more people to provide this service. Both outcomes help to enrich non-employees. In addition, the employees of any business often spend their money in the communities where they live. The more employees that a business has, the more money is spent in that area.Members of many communities who wish to improve their financial status, and that of their families have the freedom, of course, to invest their money in growing businesses by buying stock in these companies.
These are the first four paragraphs of an article on a website called The Motley Fool. The article was published on
Since Warren Buffett took the helm of a struggling textile company called Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK-A) (NYSE:BRK-B) in 1964, the company's stock price has grown at an annualized rate of 20.9%. That's more than double the S&P 500's average total return of 9.9% during the same time period, but you might be surprised at just how much compounding power a 20.9% rate of return can have over more than half a century."... a $10, 000 investment [in the stock of Berkshire Hathaway in 1964] would have bought 808 shares of the company, which would be worth more than $240 million as of the end of 2017. That's the power of high investment returns when they're sustained over long time periods."
Let's say that you (or your parents or grandparents) had the foresight to invest $10,000 in Berkshire Hathaway when Warren Buffett first took over. Here's how much you'd have now, and what to expect from Berkshire over the next 54 years.
Berkshire Hathaway stock: Then and now
At the end of 2017, Berkshire Hathaway's Class A shares, the ones that have existed since 1964, traded for approximately $297,600 per share. According to Berkshire's 2017 annual report, the stock has produced an overall gain of 2,404,748% in the 1964-2017 time period.
This implies that Berkshire Hathaway's stock price was just $12.37 at the time Buffett took over the company. And it also means that a $10,000 investment would have bought 808 shares of the company, which would be worth more than $240 million as of the end of 2017. That's the power of high investment returns when they're sustained over long time periods.
| That's also a good reason to extend an opportunity to younger employees in the United States to invest their Social Security tax money into accounts that they can manage personally, as described in Part two of my two-part essay about Social Security, which includes the video on the left. It's in their self-interest to increase their retirement income. |
This is a practical effect of capitalism, as eloquently explained by Milton Friedman in the 1970 article that I quoted and linked earlier in this page.
| Mr Friedman was the only recipient of the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1976. The subject of this 6½-minute video is a comparison between capitalism and socialism. He makes a clear distinction between the necessary morality of individual people and the mythical morality of a corporation that isn't truly human, one whose existence is only proven by documents. |
What we're concerned with in discussing moral values here,are those that have to do with the relations between people. It's important to distinguish between two sets of moral considerations, the morality that is relevant to each of us in our private lives, how we each, individually, conduct ourselves, behave, and then, what's relevant to systems of government and organizations are the relations between people.
People and organizations who don't like Capitalism
These people and organizations cannot live without some economic system that allows them to buy and sell the things that they cannot produce themselves.
People who live on a farm can grow much of their own food, but they must still buy the seeds, fertilizer, pesticides, farm equipment, and other things that allow the farmers to produce the food crops.The maintenance of the farm equipment is often done by someone else. Veterinarians keep livestock healthy. All these necessary goods and services must be produced by someone else and then sold to the farmers.
U S. Represebtative Maxine Waters
These are the first paragraphs of a February 1, 2023 Red State article. The links in these paragraphs were in their articleDemocratic Socialists
These are the first two paragraphs of the "What is Democratic Socialism" Page on the website of the Democratic Socialists of America.Democratic socialists believe that both the economy and society should be run democratically—to meet public needs, not to make profits for a few. To achieve a more just society, many structures of our government and economy must be radically transformed through greater economic and social democracy so that ordinary Americans can participate in the many decisions that affect our lives.This is the first sentence.
Democracy and socialism go hand in hand. All over the world, wherever the idea of democracy has taken root, the vision of socialism has taken root as well—everywhere but in the United States. Because of this, many false ideas about socialism have developed in the US.
"Democratic socialists believe that both the economy and society should be run democratically—to meet public needs, not to make profits for a few."Every definition of the word "democracy" I've seen in a dictionary, including online dictionaries, shows that the political power is in the people. This is one example, from the Merriam-Webster website. All of these links were on their page.
- a political unit that has a democratic government
- capitalized
: the principles and policies of the Democratic party in the U.S.
- from emancipation Republicanism to New Deal Democracy
- —C. M. Roberts
- the common people especially when constituting the source of political authority
- the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges
The United Nations
This is the link to the United Nations website.A U.N.-sponsored regional agreement
These are the first four paragraphs of a November 29, 2001 article on the United Nations website. Notice that the third paragraph explicitly states their goal of implementing Agenda 21, which is discussed after this article.Following high-level talks in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, delegates from around Asia and the Pacific today adopted a regional platform statement on sustainable development that will feed into the global preparatory process for next year’s United Nations summit on this issue.This is the third paragraph.
The document, which was approved after three days of meetings and negotiations involving nearly 500 government and civil society representatives, will contribute to preparations for the World Summit on Sustainable Development to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa, in September 2002.
In its assessment of the implementation of Agenda 21 -- the blueprint for sustainable development adopted at the landmark UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 -- the Phnom Penh platform states that while significant achievements have been made in many sectors, the environment continues to deteriorate and the number of poor in the region continues to increase.
The statement highlights several critical environmental issues for the region, such as land and biodiversity, oceans and coastal resources, freshwater resources and atmosphere and climate change. On the economic and social front it points to chronic and persistent poverty, the impacts of globalization, sustainable energy development, human settlements development, unsustainable consumption and production and natural disasters as key areas of concern.
"In its assessment of the implementation of Agenda 21 -- the blueprint for sustainable development adopted at the landmark UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 -- the Phnom Penh platform states that while significant achievements have been made in many sectors, the environment continues to deteriorate and the number of poor in the region continues to increase."
Many private organizations can make improvements in the environment faster than government-sponsored organizations. In addition, poverty is always a relative concept because the poorest people in a wealthy country often have a higher quality of life than the wealthiest people in a poor country, unless that poor country is run by a wealthy and politically-powerful family, like the Castro brothers in Cuba or the Duvalier family in Haiti.
This is the U.N.'s explanation of Agenda 21 on their own website.
Agenda 21 is a comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally and locally by organizations of the United Nations System, Governments, and Major Groups in every area in which human impacts on the environment.The second paragraph of the previous statement says that 178 countries agreed to "The Rio Declaration" and to "The Statement of Principles".
Agenda 21, the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, and the Statement of principles for the Sustainable Management of Forests were adopted by more than 178 Governments at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 3 to 14 June 1992.
The Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) was created in December 1992 to ensure effective follow-up of UNCED, to monitor and report on implementation of the agreements at the local, national, regional and international levels. It was agreed that a five year review of Earth Summit progress would be made in 1997 by the United Nations General Assembly meeting in special session.
The full implementation of Agenda 21, the Programme for Further Implementation of Agenda 21 and the Commitments to the Rio principles, were strongly reaffirmed at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) held in Johannesburg, South Africa from 26 August to 4 September 2002.
Links to a few of the commentaries about Agenda 21. These are listed in chronological order, oldest first.
This is the Wikipedia page about Agenda 21.
Some of these commentaries openly criticize people on the right side of the political spectrum because they criticize the United Nations and its' stated plans for more control over national governments. For example, the Mother Jones article mentions "former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich" and "Tea Partiers" in the first paragraph. The second sentence of that paragraph then criticizes him this way.
It was an odd subject to bring up at a debate that focused mostly on the Middle East and Central Asia, but as it turns out, Newt’s been beating this drum for a few months now.
| This two-minute video, uploaded in 2007, shows real people beating real drums during a street demonstration in London in favor of the people who want to stop climate change. If Newt Gingrich has ever beaten a drum, I haven't found any video of it. |
The author of that 2011 Mother Jones article is criticizing
The title of this 6½-minute video, uploaded in January 2017, is "Bibi Beating The Drums of War". Bibi is the knickname of the Prime Minister of Israel. There are no drums in the video. The critic of his policies, who uploaded this video, is making the same two mistakes as the author of the Mother Jones article.
- Neither man is beating any drums.
- Other people are beating drums for a political purpose, but they aren't being criticized for doing it.
The 2001 Report from the United Nations
These are the first four paragraphs of a December 21, 2001 article on the United Nations website. The link in the first paragraph (the word "notes") was on their page.In a just-released report, the Secretary-General notes that the global economic growth that propelled many economies over the last decade did not promote sustainable development. Despite "impressive" overall economic trends, including world trade amounting to over $6 trillion last year alone, many regions, notably Africa, faced numerous difficulties, the Secretary-General says.This is the first sentence, without the link.
"The state of the world's environment is still fragile and the conservation measures are far from satisfactory," writes Mr. Annan. "In most parts of the developing world there has been, at best, limited progress in reducing poverty."
The Secretary-General's report will serve as one of the key documents being considered by delegates at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, to be held in South Africa from 26 August to 4 September. It offers a critical assessment of progress towards the objectives of Agenda 21, the landmark plan of action on sustainable development adopted at the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (the "Earth Summit") in Rio de Janeiro.
While affirming that Agenda 21 still constitutes a powerful vision for the future, the Secretary-General says that, "progress towards the goals established at Rio has been slower than anticipated, and in some respects conditions are worse than they were 10 years ago."
"In a just-released report, the Secretary-General notes that the global economic growth that propelled many economies over the last decade did not promote sustainable development."
In economic terms, the sustainability for any company or organization requires that it must have more income than its' expenses. After this company pays all of its' employee salaries and all of its' operating expenses, if there is any money left over, the executives of this company or organization will have the economic opportunity to invest this money with the goal of making the company or organization larger. They can use this money in may ways, such as:
- hiring more employees
- giving raises and promotions to their current employees
- opening branch offices (leasing office space from the owners)
- buying a new office computer or better telephone service
- advertising their services, with the hope of having more customers
- if the company makes a product,
- buying some manufacturing equipment for the second (or third) manufacturing facility,
- paying people to install and maintain the new equipment in the second (or third) manufacturing facility, and
- buying more of the raw materials that are ingredients for the product
Self-driving cars as an alternative to owner-driven cars
These are the first four paragraphs of an October 10, 2019 Newsweek story. The link in the second paragraph was in their article.The founder of electric supercar maker Rimac Automobili has said it won't make sense for people to own or drive their own cars in the coming decades.
Mate Rimac, 31, is the mastermind behind the creation of two hypercars that are among the fastest-accelerating electric vehicles in the world: The Concept One and C-Two. He says the industry is on the cusp of radical change—and it will be bad news for petrolheads.
According to Rimac, most people will no longer own or operate their own cars in the future. Instead, vehicles will be shared, self-driving and electric. These changes are already starting, he said.
"There will be people who still want to own their cars and drive their cars and I am happy for that because that is our business," Rimac said, speaking to Newsweek in London this week while laying out his vision for the future of the industry. "Long term, I think 20 years down the road, it will be totally changed and people will not own or drive their cars anymore."
As I have said many times on my Twitter account, self-driving cars will not have high sales unless the owner's state government allows him to sit in the back seat and get some productive work done with a phone or a laptop.
 |
 |
The owner must not be forced to sit in the driver's seat and watch the road. That prevents the owner from getting productive work done. Any company that manufactures a vehicle that is truly "self-driving" must be willing to stand behind his claim by assuming the legal liability for any accident that is caused by the vehicle.
The U.N.'s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
The United Nations has updated its' plan for world domination by publishing Agenda 2030, as mentioned on this page of the United Nations website.This is a little more than half of the Preamble of this undated declaration, titled Knowledge Platform, on the U.N. website. This paragraph uses the British spelling of the word "recognize".
This Agenda is a plan of action for people, planet and prosperity. It also seeks to strengthen universal peace in larger freedom. We recognise that eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions, including extreme poverty, is the greatest global challenge and an indispensable requirement for sustainable development. All countries and all stakeholders, acting in collaborative partnership, will implement this plan. We are resolved to free the human race from the tyranny of poverty and want and to heal and secure our planet. We are determined to take the bold and transformative steps which are urgently needed to shift the world onto a sustainable and resilient path. As we embark on this collective journey, we pledge that no one will be left behind. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals and 169 targets which we are announcing today demonstrate the scale and ambition of this new universal Agenda.
This is the first numbered item on the page.
1. We, the Heads of State and Government and High Representatives, meeting at the United Nations Headquarters in New York from 25-27 September 2015 as the Organization celebrates its seventieth anniversary, have decided today on new global Sustainable Development Goals.
This is the last numbered item on the page.
91. We reaffirm our unwavering commitment to achieving this Agenda and utilizing it to the full to transform our world for the better by 2030.
Please notice that the United Nations hasn't set, as an important agenda item, the sustainability of business development.
A Socialist website (but it's misnamed)
These are the first three paragraphs of a July 13, 2017 article on a website called Socialist Alternative.Divisions continue to deepen within both major political parties, as the U.S. ruling class struggles for a way forward in the face of historic social crisis and upheaval.This is the last sentence in the second paragraph.
The health care debate has served both to expose the polarization within the Republican and Democratic parties and to further exacerbate it. While Republican attempts to force through some version of their vicious “Trumpcare” legislation have faltered again and again, the Democratic Party leadership has faced a new stage of revolt, particularly in California, as they fight to stem the growing tide for single-payer.
Facing a full blown movement for a California single-payer system on June 23, the state Democratic Party leadership abruptly pulled the plug. This graphically illustrates the conflict between the interests of working people and a party leadership beholden to corporate interests, including the the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, who stand to lose billions if single payer is enacted. To add insult to injury the California Democratic apparatus fiercely backed former Big Pharma lobbyist Eric Bauman for state party chair, who then won a narrow and disputed victory even though Berniecrats dominated the recent party convention.
"While Republican attempts to force through some version of their vicious “Trumpcare” legislation have faltered again and again, the Democratic Party leadership has faced a new stage of revolt, particularly in California, as they fight to stem the growing tide for single-payer."The graphic on the left, a copy of the front page of a newspaper that this organization publishes, was included in the article quoted above. It includes this sentence. "Youth rise up against violence, sexism, and racism."
This is why the website is misnamed
The title of this website, "The Socialist Alternative", is deceptive. Violence, sexism, and racism, as mentioned on the front page of the journal, only affect an economy indirectly. Their direct effect is on the political control over various educational and business organizations.This fact is strong evidence of the wish of this organization to have political, not economic control over these organizations. That fact makes this organization a political one, not an economic one, so this organization is more accurately called a Marxist organization, not a Socialist organization.
These are the first four paragraphs of a July 31, 2017 Current Affairs article titled "What Socialism Means". The subtitle of this article is "It’s not about regulating profit, but doing away with it entirely…" The links in the first and fourth paragraphs were in their article.
If you’re plugged into the narrow world of online political debate, particularly in left-leaning circles, you may have heard about a war between leftists and liberals. Epitomized by the bruising primary fight between supporters of Bernie Sanders and those of Hillary Clinton, this divide has been endlessly debated, pulling in disagreements about policy, tactics, messaging, and the future of the Democratic party. That debate has been discussed, among other places, in this very publication.These are the last two sentences of the third paragraph and the first two sentences of the fourth paragraph, which in my opinion, should have been in the same paragraph because they are the same topic.
I think this argument is an essential political battle, and I find it encouraging that we are having it, after so many years of “serious” people endorsing the center-left consensus. But I feel compelled to point out that in a basic sense, the terms of the debate are misunderstood. Often, this fight is labeled as a battle between liberals and socialists, and this is simply not the case. Instead, it is a fight between two competing visions of welfare state liberalism, with genuinely socialist ideas almost entirely unspoken in the debate. The idea that these groups come from fundamentally different political ideologies is a misconception.
Leftist is, by nature, a very loose designator, and I have little interest in policing its boundaries. But socialism is a term that, for all of the variety and inconsistency in its use, has a certain bedrock definition that we should protect, in order to make clear what the range of possible futures ahead of us are. Socialism refers to a system where sectors of the economy and basic aspects of human society are moved outside of a market system and into communal ownership. This process of the people taking ownership of basic human needs like housing, health care, education, and food is precisely what we call socializing a public good. This is, in my opinion, a non-negotiable minimal condition of socialist belief. Socialism, at bottom, must entail an alternative to capitalism, not a series of systems to ameliorate capitalism’s deprivations. It must do away with the profit motive and markets, or else it is bound to fail.
Why? Because one of the basic contentions of socialist thought has long been that the welfare state and worker’s movements are indefensible within capitalism. The demand for endless growth and ever-increasing profits, coupled with the power that corporations and the rich have within capitalism, makes even the most robust safety net and the most empowered labor movement vulnerable. Indeed, this is the history of the past 40 years of American and British politics – the gradual erosion of redistributive programs and a sustained assault on labor unions. As the leftist writer Peter Frase wrote recently,
"Socialism, at bottom, must entail an alternative to capitalism, not a series of systems to ameliorate capitalism’s deprivations. It must do away with the profit motive and markets, or else it is bound to fail.
Why? Because one of the basic contentions of socialist thought has long been that the welfare state and worker’s movements are indefensible within capitalism."
Why? Because one of the basic contentions of socialist thought has long been that the welfare state and worker’s movements are indefensible within capitalism."
No
A Socialist Democrat wins an upset election victory
... but a different Democrat said, publicly, that socialism is a mistake for the whole party.This section was added July 2, 2018 and updated January 2, 2019.
These are the first four paragraphs of a July 2, 2018 Washington D.C. Examiner story. The link at the end of the second paragraph was in their story.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the self-declared socialist who defeated fourth-ranking House Democrat Joe Crowley of New York last week, shot back Sunday at a sitting Democratic senator who questioned the efficacy of embracing the far left in a presidential race.The story included a copy of this tweet.
Appearing on the Sunday morning talk show circuit on CNN, Sen. Tammy Duckworth said such a strategy would be destined for failure in the Midwest, which the Illinois Democrat said would be critical to winning a presidential race. “And I don’t think you can go too far to the left and still win the Midwest — coming from a Midwestern state," she said.
She further opined that the socialist policies Ocasio-Cortez openly espouses are the “future of the Bronx, where she is," and not the "industrial Midwest."
As a rebuttal, Ocasio-Cortez pointed to the success Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., had during the 2016 Democratic primaries against Hillary Clinton.
With respect to the Senator, strong, clear advocacy for working class Americans isn’t just for the Bronx.— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) July 1, 2018
Sen. Sanders won:
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- Kansas
- Nebraska
- Wisconsin
- Indiana
We then lost several of those states in the general. What’s the plan to prevent a repeat? https://t.co/99K08qr7SH
She also posted this tweet on her account in April 2018 and retweeted it on July 2, 2018.
Abdul speaks the truth.— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) April 15, 2018
Medicare for All, Tuition-free College, & a Green New Deal are all JOBS bills.
They spur hiring, open up training, and fill the need for good jobs that will improve society overall.
I can’t wait to see Abdul inaugurated as the next Governor of Michigan. https://t.co/Y9XOfY2iPH
The dispute between a Democrat Senator and a Democrat who won an upset victory for a House seat is the reason why this news story is titled "Dem Civil War" and why it's subtitled "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez knocks Dem senator who warned far left can't win the Midwest"
That dispute is also unmistakable proof that the Democrat Party has factions, one of which believes in Socialism as an alternative to Capitalism. One member of this faction won a Democrat primary election in New York City. Another member of this faction is a Democrat candidate for the Governor of Michigan, who has the support of the primary winner in New York City.
Alexandria still disagrees with the rest of her party
These are the first four paragraphs of a January 2, 2019 Washington Examiner story. The links in these paragraphs were in their article.A handful of prominent progressives said Wednesday that they would oppose rules proposed by Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives that would continue a requirement for mandatory spending cuts or tax increases for any provision that increases entitlement spending.
Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and returning Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., criticized the inclusion of a so-called pay-as-you-go, or PAYGO, rule within a proposed package of rules for the coming Congress, published Tuesday night.
“I will be voting NO on the Rules package with #PayGo. It is terrible economics,” wrote Khanna on Twitter.
Ocasio-Cortez made a similar pledge on Twitter, introducing another friction point between Democratic rank-and-file and likely House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders before the new Congress can even begin. Liberal economist Robert Reich also took to Twitter to urge Democrats to vote no on the rules package that would govern the House for the next two years.
Alexandria wants a high tax rate
These are the first three paragraphs of a January 4, 2019 Washington Examiner story. The story included a tweet from the Twitter account of 60 Minutes, but I didn't include it.Freshman congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., suggested that the highest earners in America should pay tax rates of 60 to 70 percent to help pay to fight climate change.The Washington Times published a similar story on the same day.
“People are going to have to start paying their fair share in taxes,” Ocasio-Cortez told "60 Minutes" in an interview that will air Sunday. “[O]nce you get to, like, the tippy tops – on your 10 millionth dollar– sometimes you see tax rates as high as 60 or 70 percent. That doesn't mean all $10 million are taxed at an extremely high rate, but it means that as you climb up this ladder you should be contributing more.”
The youngest woman ever to be elected to Congress said the funds brought in from such a dramatic tax hike would pay for the “Green New Deal,” which is a proposed program that seeks to eliminate carbon emissions and the use of fossil fuels in the U.S. entirely within 12 years.
There's a fatal flaw in every economic plan that is conceived by a socialist. They always ignore the economic effects of the Laffer Curve.
When the tax rate of a state or national government is a single-digit percentage of the income of an individual or a corporation, minor increases in the rate, as shown by the change from
However, if tax rates are increased higher than Tax Rate 3, the state or national government will see a decrease in the amount of taxes that are received by that government.
A tax rate of 60% is far above the rate that would maximize the amount of revenue into the U.S. Treasury. This 2013 blog page has information on Americans who have given up their citizenship and moved to other countries that didn't tax and regulate them as much as the United States did.
Alexandria is already hurting the workers she claimed to protect
This section was added January 10, 2019.These are the first two paragraphs of a January 10, 2019 New York Daily News story. The links in these paragraphs were in their article.
ALBANY – The campaign for new Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has made helping the working class and poor her top priority, was fined by the state for not carrying workers’ compensation coverage for a month last year.This is the last quoted sentence of the previous story.
“The employer did not have the required workers’ compensation coverage from March 31, 2018, to April 30, 2018, and was issued a final penalty of $1,500, which was paid,” state Workers Compensation Board spokeswoman Melissa Stewart said. “This coverage is vital to ensuring workers are protected for on-the-job injuries.”
“This coverage is vital to ensuring workers are protected for on-the-job injuries.”
This is a link to a similar story in the Daily Caller.
If the new Congresswoman wants to be admired as a champion of the working people, she could start by helping some of them.
World Hunger demands a right to have food
These are the first two paragraphs of an undated article on a website called World Hunger. Notice that most of the organizations that they claim as the authorities for this right believe in a world government.The Right to Adequate Food is a fundamental human right firmly established in international law. This right flows from the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) of 1966. The Right to Adequate Food has been reaffirmed in many pronouncements of the international community over the last 50 years. It is the UDHR which clarifies that the realization of all human rights– civil, cultural, economic, political and social– is needed to guarantee a life in dignity for all members of the human family. A life in dignity requires that “everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing…” (Article 25, UDHR).This is the first sentence.
The commitment of states to the indivisibility of all human rights has been renewed with the Vienna Declaration and Program of Action of the World Conference on Human Rights of 1993. Economic, social and cultural rights (ESC Rights) and within them the Right to Adequate Food have also been supported and strengthened by the series of international conferences in this decade: the Copenhagen Declaration and Program of Action of the World Summit for Social Development of 1995, the Beijing Conference on Women of 1995, and the Rome Declaration on World Food Security and the World Food Summit Plan of Action of 1996. All these documents come to similar conclusions with respect to implementing the Right to Adequate Food: societies today possess sufficient resources, organizational capability and technology– hence the capacity– to achieve this objective. It is this assessment, and the renewed commitment of governments, that has led non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and social movements to increasingly make use of the right to food approach.
"The Right to Adequate Food is a fundamental human right firmly established in international law."
If the basis for the "international laws" that are cited by this website is one or more treaties signed by two or more sovereign countries as a voluntary action by their Chief Executives (Presidents, Kings, etc), then the terms of these treaties, as negotiated by the countries will determine the rights that the citizens of their countries will have.
If, however, a politically powerful governmental body, aided by its' military forces, acts like a world-wide dictator and imposes its' will on the people of the world, then the people of the world do not have any rights, because the first, most important right of any people is the right to choose their own leaders in a free and fair election.
There is another, more powerful argument with the concept of a right to have food. That goal always requires someone else to grow the crops (at their own expense) that are the raw materials for the food that is given, not sold, to the poor person who is said to have the right to eat it.
| The requirement that someone else has to use their own resources to grow the food that you eat also helps to define the difference between voluntary charity and The Redistribution of Wealth (my 2012 essay), which includes this video. |
Whenever one person has a right to eat, it makes a lot of other people, like farmers and food-processing companies, into servants or slaves because they now have an obligation to provide the food that the poor person eats, usually without any compensation to them for their own expenses (seeds, fertilizer, the operating costs of farm equipment, and the labor of the people who operate the farm equipment).
The video on the right shows corn being harvested. |
If farmers and food-processing companies aren't compensated for the work that they do, they will not have any money to pay their own employees for the work that they do.
If work is demanded and then performed without any compensation, it is sometimes called slavery. Any compensation that is paid to the people who do the work must come from the money that is paid to the farmer for his crops.
Scripps College
Their self-description
These two paragraphs are on their About page on their own website. The link in the first paragraph is on their page.When Scripps was founded in 1926 in Claremont, California, it was one of few institutions dedicated to educating women for lives of commitment and engagement. Since then, Scripps has continued to champion qualities of both mind and spirit in accordance with the vision of its founder, newspaper entrepreneur and philanthropist Ellen Browning Scripps. Scripps today offers a rigorous interdisciplinary curriculum, a robust intellectual community, a commitment to diversity and inclusion, and a rich residential experience designed to shape the next generation of leaders.This college is located in Claremont, California.
As an internationally recognized leader in women’s liberal arts education, Scripps has an increasingly competitive admissions process that reflects the growing demand for a Scripps education. The College has garnered numerous prestigious national grants for student and faculty research, curriculum development, and educational initiatives, and has established a reputation for thoughtful leadership among higher education peers. Scripps students win many national fellowships and research grants and offer the skills employers value and society needs: strong critical thinking, written and oral communication abilities, a global orientation and intercultural competence, and the ability to collaborate effectively.
The 2017 Speaker's Series
These are the first five paragraphs of an October 24, 2017 article in a journal called the Claremont Independent.Scripps College is hosting and funding a three-day speakers’ series with a Venezuelan government official to valorize that country’s totalitarian regime and spread awareness of the “truth in today’s Venezuela,” whitewashing the ruling regime’s extensive human rights abuses, the Independent has learned.This is a similar article, dated October 25, 2017, in the Daily Caller.
The series, which ends on Wednesday, features Antonio Cordero, who serves as a Consul General of Nicholas Maduro’s authoritarian government and has been a business director for “various People’s Power enterprises,” according to an event advertisement.
One event in the series will focus on Maduro’s new assembly—the product of a rigged election that prompted the U.S. to institute economic sanctions against the Maduro regime—and explain how it expresses the “PEOPLE’S POWER in Venezuela, the Highest Power in the Land.”
Other events will whitewash the dictator’s imprisonment of political opponents and blame the slaughter of political protesters by Maduro’s government on his “rightwing” opposition.
Three Scripps programs and departments—Core, History, and Latin American & Caribbean Studies—are listed as sponsors of the series. In an email to the Independent, Andrew Aisenberg, the chair of the college’s history department, confirmed that “the history department did provide financial support for the Venezuela events.” Additionally, at least some Scripps students are required to attend this speakers’ series or an unrelated talk later in the week.
The 2018 Speaker's Series
These are the first three paragraphs of an April 10, 2018 article on the Media Research Center website. The first paragraph omitted a word. I inserted it in brackets.If you don’t think Socialism exists in the U.S., it’s [time] to wake up. College campuses are havens for Socialist activity, and one California college — go figure — is actively supporting it.The article then quoted and linked to this April 7, 2018 article in the Claremont Independent.
California-based Scripps College will be hosting a Socialist love-fest with actual members of Venezuela’s Socialist government. They will talk about the joys of starving people and making people who disagree with the government disappear.
Okay, they’re not going to say it like that, but you get the idea. The speakers — as well as the college — will paint Socialism with a democracy paintbrush and call it art.
These are the first three paragraphs of an April 12, 2018 article on a website called Claremont Independent. The links in these paragraphs were in their article.
Scripps College will be inviting two Venezuelan officials next week to to speak on a three-day speaker series praising “grassroots initiatives” of the country’s totalitarian government. The officials, Venezuelan Consul-Generals Antonio Cordero and Jesús Chucho GarcÃa, will be speaking to students on “African solidarities,” “coups and imperial wars,” and the country’s vision for “a new society rooted in political participation, communal economies and democracy.”
Last semester, Scripps College also funded and invited Venezuelan officials, including Cordero, to whitewash the country’s human rights abuses, drawing criticism from students and even United States Senator Marco Rubio.
Link to an April 14, 2018 Washington Examiner story about the same three-day conference that included the same people in the Venezuelan government. They are labeled as "propagandists" in the title of the story.
These tweets from Senator Marco Rubio were included in the article.
Crazy but true, a $69k a year college funds lecture series touting “success” of #Venezuela @NicolasMaduro regime 1/2 https://t.co/jePdhetjXV— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) October 25, 2017
Wonder if part of lecture series is about how to destroy economy,imprison opponents,or allow drug lords like @dcabellor to control govt 2/2— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) October 25, 2017
 |
 |
More about Scripps College
Link to a March 15, 2016 article on the website Powerline Blog titled Anti-Semitism at Scripps College which included a copy of this flyer which was attached to many of the dorm-room doors by an organization called Students for Justice in Palestine.Scripps College scheduled a racially-segregated pool party, according to this April 12, 2018 article in the Claremont Independent. This article was quoted and linked in this April 13, 2018 article in The Blaze, which named the college-approved student organization that organized this event.
The website called Campus Reform reported, with links to document their facts, that the college later opened up this party to all students after the excluded students, their parents, and the wider community transmitted their outrage at the segregation. Link to the April 15 article.
| The website run by the man known as "Joe the Plumber" wrote this article, dated April 16, 2018 about the same racially-segregated pool party at Scripps College. The video on the left, featuring Joe, was uploaded in October 2008 by the Associated Press. It has been watched almost 400,000 times. |
Link to the scheduled list of upcoming events at Scripps College.
The Democrat Party
This section was added on August 15, 2018 and updated on October 13, 2018 with a quote from an October 12th Canada Free Press story.These are the first three paragraphs of a syndicated column that appeared in the Kansas City Star on May 7, 2018.
Speaking at an event in New York City last week, Hillary Clinton said something interesting about Democrats today and their lurch to the left. Clinton said being a capitalist “probably” hurt her when campaigning against democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Think about that. Part of the reason so many Republicans are frozen like deer in headlights when it comes to President Donald Trump is the horror of thinking about Clinton as president. It is stunning to realize that in today’s Democratic Party, being a capitalist is something one must either apologize for or at least give qualified acceptance. Talk about nostalgia for the 1950s. It seems that socialism is making a comeback.This is the first sentence in the second paragraph of the previous column.
I think if Bill Clinton had been asked the same question Hillary was, he would have thought it was a softball and proceeded to give a valuable history lesson on the negative impact of socialism versus the global benefits of capitalism. Of course, Hillary Clinton’s instinct is to pander and hedge, but it is nevertheless revealing that she thought she had to keep from alienating the socialists.
Democrats want to talk about Republicans living in the past, but the new progressives, as they like to call themselves, are in fact a lot like the old socialists. They want free college, free cash, free health care and so on. The latest progressive policy du jour to be gaining traction among Democratic Party presidential hopefuls is the so-called “job guarantee.” Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey announced one. Sanders has one in the works, and Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York supports the idea, too.
"I think if Bill Clinton had been asked the same question Hillary was, he would have thought it was a softball and proceeded to give a valuable history lesson on the negative impact of socialism versus the global benefits of capitalism."
A Democrat who was President of the United States from 1993 to 2001 knows the global benefits of capitalism, but his opinion is now a minority opinion in his own party.
These are the first three paragraphs of an August 13, 2018 CNBC story, formatted the way that they did.
- Democrats view socialism more positively than capitalism, according to a new Gallup poll, and it's mostly because voters on that side of the aisle view capitalism less favorably than they did a couple years ago.
- Forty-seven percent of Democrats and independents who lean Democratic now view capitalism positively, down from 56 percent in 2016. Those with a positive view of socialism remained somewhat steady at 57 percent, down a point from 58 percent two years ago.
- The organization started asking the question in 2010, two years after the global financial crisis.
These are similar stories, published on the same day.
| U.S.A. Today | Fox News | Investor's Business Daily |
| C.B.S. News | The Blaze | The Washington Free Beacon |
| Washington Times | C.N.N. | United Press International |
| Washington Times | New York Post | Canada Free Press |
Gallup's own story about their poll is titled Democrats More Positive About Socialism Than Capitalism. It includes the results of polls on the same subject (Capitalism vs. Socialism) that they conducted in previous years.
These are the first three paragraphs of a story about the same poll, published by Slate.
America’s burgeoning socialist movement got a bit of good news and a bit of bad news today.
The good: For the first time since Gallup began polling the issue in 2010, more Democrats (and Democratic-leaning independents) now say they have a more positive image of socialism than they do of capitalism. The party’s ideological balance seems to be tipping towards the Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez camp of new-wave leftists.
But here’s the bad: Socialism isn’t winning because it’s become more popular in the last couple years. Capitalism is just becoming significantly less popular.
The political center of the United States is where the voters have opinions that are easy to change. This is why the presidency changes so often from the Republican Party to the Democrat Party and back again in four years, sometimes eight. During the 20th century, the Presidency changed nine times, even though President Roosevelt stayed in office from 1933 until he died in 1945. This is an average of almost one party change per decade.
The centrist "swing" voters always distrust the radicals on both sides, the Socialists on the left and the Anarchists on the right. That means that Socialist candidates, like Alexandra and Bernie, shown below, will continue to lose elections to moderate Republicans, who have always kept a respectful distance between them and people who don't want any form of government.
 |
 |
Any Anarchist who runs a campaign for public office would have to explain to his Anarchist friends and supporters why he's participating in a process that could result in him being part of the government system that he claims to hate.
120 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives
... have co-sponsored legislation to enable "Medicare for All".These are the first seven paragraphs of an October 12, 2018 article in the Canada Free Press. The link in the first paragraph was in their article.
’m not sure why Washington always wants to talk about the cost of everything “over 10 years.” Let’s talk in terms of one year.
The entire federal budget is just about $4 trillion a year. Is that too high? Yeah. Way too high. But that’s where we are. The proposed “Medicare for All” bill that’s been sponsored by the likes of Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker and Kamala Harris is projected to cost $32.6 trillion “over 10 years,” so let’s just spread the average across the decade evenly and call it $3.26 trillion a year.
That’s 80 percent of the entire current federal budget. How much money is that? It’s so much that one estimate shows you could double all existing corporate and individual income taxes and it wouldn’t be enough to cover it. Among other things, “Medicare for All” would eliminate employer-sponsored health insurance. It would also eliminate the current element of the Medicare model that requires a premium to be paid by beneficiaries. Everything would be paid for by taxes, and your care would be “free”. That probably sound pretty good until you realize a couple of things:
Now, having said all this, this is the sort of proposal that even in the leftist Democratic Party used to only get the support of a handful on the fringe. Most recognized that while they love big government, it would be insane to take it this far. Others might have secretly loved the idea, but they didn’t think it was politically viable to admit it publicly.
- You are neither the payer nor the care provider, so when it comes time to decide if you’re going to get care – and how much – you have no say in the matter. You’re not a party to the transaction. You’re just a helpless would-be beneficiary hoping someone will take care of you and someone else will pay the bill. It’s out of your hands entirely.
- Nothing’s free. Your taxes are going to be doubled and then some. So will your employer’s. Good luck keeping your job.
- One of the ways Bernie plans to reduce the cost of health care delivery is to reduce reimbursements to physicians. They’re already just barely breaking even on Medicare patients. If everyone is on Medicare and reimbursement levels are even less, guess what’s going to happen. A lot of doctors are going to find other things to do with their lives. And you’ll have a shortage of providers. That’s what always happens with socialism.
Individual policies of some named Democrats
B. Hussein Obama
Former President Barak Obama himself stated twice, over the course of ten years, that he believed in redistributing wealth, which means that he was a believer in an alternative to capitalism. Two YouTube videos of his spoken words, one of which is audio only and the other includes a video of him saying the words, are included in this September 2012 essay on a different blog. The page is titled "Redistribution of Wealth". Those same two essays are also included in this essay I published on this blog in February 2015. That page includes documentation of $115 billion in fines on companies by government agencies that were under his direct control when he was the President and thus the Chief Executive of all of the U.S. Government's Executive Branch agencies.Elizabeth Warren
These are the first four paragraphs of a June 4, 2009 article in the Canada Free Press. The link in the first paragraph was in their article.Elizabeth Warren has another study out showing that medical expenses contribute to more than half of all bankruptcies--indeed, this time, it's 70%, up from the 50% she found in 2001.
Now, it is possible that this is true. The fact that it seems to disagree with every other study I've ever read that is not authored by Elizabeth Warren, and also, the self-reports of the people in her study (only about a third of whom attribute their bankruptcy to a health problem) could just be a fluke. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's wrong.
Yet upon closer examination, it turns out that it is not just wrong, but actively, aggressively wrong. Warren and her co-authors have obscured important and obvious facts that call the integrity of the work into serious question.
The text itself raises a huge red flags. It's hard to believe that more than half of people who have been pushed into bankruptcy by a medical issue don't understand this fact. Perhaps they are not the brightest bulbs on the Christmas tree, but could it really be true that most people catapaulted into a financial crisis by their medical bills don't even notice that health care expenses are their main problem?
These are the last three paragraphs of an August 10, 2010 article on the website of the American Enterprise Institute. Before she was elected as a U.S. Senator, Elizabeth Warren was the first person who was nominated to be the Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (C.F.P.B.), a U.S. Government agency that was created by the passage of the Dodd-Frank law, legislation that she had asked for. She helped legislators to write the bill, yet her own academic research shows a definite lack of scholarship, which is puzzling because she was a professor at Harvard University.
Warren’s findings, based on research of dubious academic standards, exaggerate the magnitude of the problem and affect policymakers’ ability to make informed, unbiased decisions regarding pending legislation. Yet perhaps because of the Harvard label attached to the papers or dismay over the plight of medically distressed households, far too many in Washington seem willing to accept these findings without question.She was the wrong choice for the job of being the Director of this U.S. Government agency. She was the wrong choice to be a U.S. Senator. She would be the wrong choice to be the next U.S. President, whether she is reelected in November 2018 or not.
It is troubling to think that the person responsible for this distortion may become the first director of the CFPB, an agency that will establish critical new rules affecting nearly all Americans. While Warren’s academic affiliation and her achievement as a bestselling author on personal finance are impressive, these accomplishments do not, of themselves, qualify her for this post.
A candidate’s eligibility should be based on his or her proven ability and willingness to consider all facts fairly and put forward proposals for the larger good of the country. Given Elizabeth Warren’s questionable and seemingly biased research methods, we believe she would be the wrong choice for such a powerful job.
Link to a January 2, 2018 Politico story titled Warren positions herself for potential 2020 run.
She is also a strong believer in redistributing wealth. This was stated in the previous opinion, published in the Washington Post, and it is also documented in this essay that I published in a Massachusetts-based blog in March 2014, which begins with this quote of a March 6, 2014 article on the website Think Progress.
Warren plans to introduce a bill that would create an “America that invests in those who get an education” by revising the tax code and enacting the Buffet rule.Every economist knows that economies are dynamic, not static. Individuals, families, and businesses will always modify their spending and investing behavior whenever there is a change in the laws, including the tax laws.
The Buffet rule is named after billionaire Warren Buffet and would establish a minimum tax on income in excess of $1 million. The measure, which never got out of Congress, raises approximately $50 billion in revenue and ensures that millionaires do not pay lower tax rates than middle-class families.
The specific behavioral change that would happen if there is a high tax on millionaires is that they would move out of whatever country or state has imposed the tax. During the process of moving out of a high-tax state or country, they would sell their businesses to someone else who is unlikely to manage this business as well as the person who is selling the business. This means that the new business owner is likely to experience a reduction in his profit margin, and he is just as likely to react to this reduction in his business profits by reducing the size of his workforce, which is usually the biggest expense of a business.
Link to an October 12, 2017 article in The New Republic titled "How Elizabeth Warren Became the Soul of the Democratic Party". If she really is the soul of the Democrat Party, then a majority of the party now believes in redistributing wealth, which is an anti-capitalist economic policy, according to the July 2017 Current Affairs article that is quoted and linked on this page.
This is a link to an August 29, 2015 Forbes article titled "Hey Elizabeth Warren: Crony Socialism, Not Crony Capitalism, Is The Problem".
Bernie Sanders
These are the first eight paragraphs of an opinion, published in the Washington Post on September 13, 2017.
When Bernie Sanders launched his bid for the Democratic nomination, he was often asked whether he, a democratic socialist, would actually become a Democrat. Now, more than a year after he ignited a movement with his unsuccessful bid, that question is moot. The Democrats have become socialists.
This became official, more or less, Wednesday afternoon, when Sanders rolled out his socialized health-care plan, Medicare for All, and he was supported by 16 of his Senate Democratic colleagues who signed on as co-sponsors, including the party’s rising stars and potential presidential candidates in 2020: Elizabeth Warren. Cory Booker. Kamala Harris. Kirsten Gillibrand.
Several of them dutifully joined Sanders, who is threatening another presidential run himself, at the rollout event in one of the largest hearing rooms on Capitol Hill and praised the guru of the single-payer movement for government-run universal health care.
“I’m all in on this. Thank you, Bernie,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley (Ore.).
Gillibrand (N.Y.): “I will be standing with Bernie.”Gillibrand (N.Y.): “I will be standing with Bernie.”
Warren (Mass.): “I want to say thank you to Bernie for all that you have done.”
“The reason we have a chance to achieve” single-payer health care, said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (Conn.), “is because of advocates like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.”
This is a dramatic shift. In 2013, when Sanders introduced similar legislation, he didn’t have a single co-sponsor. By contrast, you could have been forgiven for thinking Wednesday’s rollout, with Sanders, Warren, Booker, Harris and Gillibrand testing their messages, was the first Democratic cattle call of the 2020 campaign. There were a couple hundred liberal activists in the room (many of them veterans of the Sanders campaign and a few wearing “Join the Political Revolution” Sanders T-shirts) and another 50 in an overflow room.
However, Bernie is a capitalist with his own money
These are the last four paragraphs of an April 9, 2019 New York Times story.Mr. Sanders’s refusal to release his full tax returns was a relatively minor issue in the 2016 Democratic primaries, when Hillary Clinton goaded him to be more transparent. But Mr. Trump’s refusal to release his — and the subsequent effort by House Democrats to force the release — have raised the issue’s profile. Mr. Sanders has bristled at comparisons between his behavior and the president’s.
“Not being a billionaire, not having investments in Saudi Arabia, wherever he has investments, all over the world, mine will be a little bit more boring,” Mr. Sanders said.
Reminded that he is a millionaire, he did not shirk from the description.
“I wrote a best-selling book,” he declared. “If you write a best-selling book, you can be a millionaire, too.”
“If you write a best-selling book, you can be a millionaire, too.”- U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, who has a lot when many others have very little
He can teach by his own example how poor people can raise themselves out of poverty without the need for any government to take from the rich and give to the poor.
Bernie became a presidential candidate
These are the first five paragraphs of a February 19, 2019 story in the Burlington, VT Free Press, his hometown newspaper.Bernie Sanders is running for president in 2020.These other news organizations published similar stories on the same day.
The independent senator from Vermont announced Tuesday morning he will once again seek the Democratic nomination, jumping into an already crowded field of nearly a dozen candidates, with many more expected to join.
"I’m running for president because, now more than ever, we need leadership that brings us together — not divides us up," he wrote in an email that went out to supporters. "Women and men, black, white, Latino, Native American, Asian American, gay and straight, young and old, native born and immigrant. Now is the time for us to stand together."
In his announcement, Sanders called out President Donald Trump as "the most dangerous president in modern American history," as well as a "pathological liar, a fraud, a racist, a sexist, a xenophobe and someone who is undermining American democracy as he leads us in an authoritarian direction."
Sanders'entry into the race has been widely anticipated, with reports that an announcement was imminent surfacing over the weekend.
| New York Times | N.P.P. | Wall St. Journal | Bloomberg |
| New York Post | C.N.N. | the ABC-TV affiliate in Houston, Texas | N.B.C. News |
As of the last update for this page, February 11, 2020, Bernie Sanders was in a tie for first place in the Iowa caucuses, and he was expected to receive a lot of votes in New Hampshire, partly because that state is adjacent to his home state of Vermont. The New Hampshire primary election is being held today, but the results aren't known yet.
These people say that they love Socialism
... but they don't know what it is.These are the first paragraphs of a blog article dated July 17, 2017. The links in these paragraphs were in their article.
In an article written last month for the New York Times, 29-year-old Sarah Leonard suggested that millennials are turning to socialism in droves. The reason, she opined, is that capitalism has let them down:“Across Europe and the United States, millennials are worse off than their parents were and are too poor to start new families. In the United States, they are loaded with college debt (or far less likely to be employed without a college degree) and are engaged in precarious and non-unionized labor. Also the earth is melting.”To advance her point, Leonard goes on to say that a recent Harvard survey found about a third of the U.S. population says it supports socialism. Nowhere is this support more apparent than in a recent YouTube clip from Campus Reform.
| This is the Campus Reform video that is included in the blog article. In the first half, people are asked for their opinions of socialism. They all approve. In the second half, the same people are asked to define it. None of them can do it. |
Both Britain and the United States used to have parties that at least pledged allegiance to workers. Since the 1970s, and accelerating in the ’80s and ’90s, the left-wing planks have one by one been ripped from their platforms. Under Mr. Blair, Labour rewrote its famous Clause IV, which had committed the party to the goal of “common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange.” Under Mr. Clinton, the Democratic Party cut welfare programs and pushed anti-worker international trade deals. Writing in 1990, Kevin Phillips, a former strategist for Richard Nixon, called the Democrats “history’s second-most enthusiastic capitalist party.” Elsewhere in Europe, traditional socialist parties became sclerotic and increasingly business-friendly.
The difference between Socialism and Capitalism
The linked article, mentioned in the previous section, in the June 2017 opinion, written by Kevin Phillips, a former strategist for Richard Nixon, pictures wealth as something to be hated by the poor, not as something that poor people could achieve.However, this achievement is possible, as proven by these 17 billionaires who were born into poor families, including Oprah Winfrey, clothing designer Ralph Lauren, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, and the co-founder of Oracle, Larry Ellison. Their histories prove that individual wealth is possible for any person, no matter what they decide to do with their wealth.
Capitalism allows some poor people to become wealthy
This is the first paragraph of a July 9, 2013 article on the History Channel website titled "7 Amazing Rags to Riches Stories".Not all the wealthy figures of the past were born with a silver spoon in their mouth. In fact, some of history’s most famous business tycoons and royals spent their youths as peasants, poor immigrants and even slaves. Despite coming from surprisingly humble beginnings, these people climbed to the top through hard work, luck and—in some cases— sheer ruthlessness. Get the facts on seven people who defied the odds to establish themselves among the richest and most powerful figures of their time.These are the seven people named by the History Channel as "Rags to Riches Stories".
|
 |
This is a link to my August 2012 essay To Ensure Domestic Tranquility, Encourage Income Mobility. The health and happiness of any society is improved if individuals can use the income mobility in their society to make changes through their own actions, even if those changes take some of their wealth away.
Stories of dramatic changes in individual wealth used to be on the August 2012 essay, but are now on a page titled Stories of Individual Income Mobility.These stories include the story of Eike Batista of Brazil, pictured on the left. His wealth shrank more than 99% from
A Libertarian website
These are the first three paragraphs of an October 18, 2018 article in Reason Magazine titled Civil Liberties and Socialism Don’t Mix. This is their description of the author of the editorial. "Eric X. Li is a Shanghai venture capitalist and a trustee and chairman of the advisory committee of Fudan University’s China Institute." The link in the first paragraph was in the editorial.In 1981, the socialist economist and best-selling author Robert Heilbroner took to the pages of the democratic socialist magazine, Dissent, to answer what would seem like a rather academic question, "What is Socialism?" His answer was a raw, honest, and devastating critique of democratic socialism from a man wrestling with his faith. In his essay, Heilbroner—reminiscent of a similar definitional debate today among progressives and socialists—explained that socialism is not a more generous welfare state along Nordic lines. Instead, it is something entirely different, an economic and cultural configuration that suppresses if not eliminates the market economy and the alienating and selfish culture it produces.If individuals have the right to make individual choices that benefit themselves, their families, and any businesses that they own or manage, then many of these individuals will exercise whatever economic options are open to them by the laws of their countries. They will invest money in higher education for their children and in whatever products and services can improve their quality of life. If these individuals have the power to purchase products and services for the businesses that they own or manage, they will make this free choice in order for those businesses to compete better with other businesses in the same industry.
"If tradition cannot, and the market system should not, underpin the socialist order, we are left with some form of command as the necessary means for securing its continuance and adaptation," Heilbroner wrote. "Indeed, that is what planning means. Command by planning need not, of course, be totalitarian. But an aspect of authoritarianism resides inextricably in all planning systems. A plan is meaningless if it is not carried out, or if it can be ignored or defied at will."
As Heilbroner reluctantly acknowledged, socialist planning cannot co-exist with individual rights, an achievement of Western culture he wanted to preserve. Instead, under socialism, culture must produce "some form of commitment to the idea of a morally conscious collectivity." This, however, was antagonistic to "bourgeois" culture, which "encourages and breeds the idea of the primary importance of the individual." And bourgeois culture, devoted to the sovereignty of the individual, he wrote, "naturally asserts the rights of individuals to speak their minds freely, to act as they wish within reasonable grounds, to behave as John Stuart Mill preached in his treatise On Liberty." A socialist culture, Heilbroner feared correctly, couldn't abide this "celebration of individualism" because it is "directly opposed to the basic socialist commitment to a deliberately embraced collective moral goal."
These economic choices, made freely in a free country, can combine with hard work and responsible shopping skills to make families and business managers wealthier. Even if an individual is physically unable to perform physical labor, a free-market country will still allow him to invest his individual or family money in whatever stock- or bond markets are available in his country. A wise and prudent trader can improve his individual or family wealth this way as well.
 |
The man on the left is Warren Buffett, who bought a failing textile company called Berkshire Hathaway and turned it into a mutual fund whose stock is now worth more than $100 million per share. |
A Washington Post editorial about the Chinese dictator
These are the first three paragraphs of an April 2, 2018 editorial titled Why Xi’s lifting of term limits is a good thing. This is their description of the author of the editorial. "Eric X. Li is a Shanghai venture capitalist and a trustee and chairman of the advisory committee of Fudan University’s China Institute." The link in the first paragraph was in the editorial.SHANGHAI — Western media and the Chinese chattering classes have been in an uproar since China’s National People’s Congress approved constitutional changes that included lifting the two-term presidential limit. China approves “president for life,” proclaimed Western media.
But this misinterprets the nature of the development. And the world appears to be overlooking consequential political reforms taking place in China that will impact our collective future for the better.
The presidential term limit has no bearing on how long a top Chinese leader can stay in power and lifting it by no means allows anyone to rule for life. In fact, the position of real power — the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee — has never had term limits. The most recent draft of China’s constitution, written in 1982, set the presidency as a symbolic head of state, with no actual power. Although the two offices happened to have been occupied by the same person for more than 25 years since Jiang Zemin, the institutional mechanics of the offices are rather separate.
This April 2, 2018 Washington Examiner opinion criticizes the Washington Post editorial that was published on the same day.
Under the proud motto "Democracy Dies in Darkness," the Washington Post's editors have run a Communist authoritarian defending his party's attack on democracy and subjugation of the state to the Communist Party.Now that the President of China doesn't have to be reelected, he is now less accountable to his people. This is the exact situation that often creates a dictatorship. I wrote about the concept of accountability in a September 2014 essay titled Presidents Must be Accountable to their People and even earlier, in a July 2012 essay titled Why Dictatorships are Always Bad. The 2014 essay is one of a set of three that mentions a way to force any U.S. President to leave office, which is a necessary method of ensuring the accountability of this branch of the U.S. Government.
On Monday, the Post published Chinese venture capitalist, Eric X. Li's endorsement of Chinese President Xi Jinping's recent eradication of term limits for his office.
And by goodness is it an endorsement.
Xi's lifetime centralization is "institutionally fusing the party and the state. This reform is good for China," says Li, "simply because the party has developed into the most competent national political institution in the world today."
Think about those words.
They matter not just in their avowed moral disinterest in democratic accountability, but in what they tell us about the Chinese communist notion of power. Namely, a notion that is the absolute inverse of what U.S. Founding Fathers advocated.
Where Li sees greatness in the Chinese communist party's ability to know what's best for the people and implement those ends without delay, the Founders saw greatness in the ability of competition within a democracy to check the worse impulses of those in power.
The Empty Promises of Socialism
This section was added November 10, 2018 and updated March 8, 2022.That is the title of an October 26, 2018 article on the website of the Heritage Foundation. These are the first paragraphs of that article. The link in the second paragraph was in their article.
What are the costs of adopting socialism? It’s a good question, and one not asked frequently enough.The rest of the article has examples in history of the government in socialist countries keeping a large percentage of the wealth that was taxed.
But a new report by the Council of Economic Advisors at the White House does ask the question. The answer? Socialism destroys lives and societies.
The historical record is clear: Everywhere it has been tried, socialism has done harm. It’s a cautionary tale that should be taught to every new generation.
American socialists like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez overlook the misery socialism has wrought in countries like the U.S.S.R., North Korea, and Venezuela. They maintain that they want socialism without dictatorship or state brutality.
But even if that were achieved, socialism would still fail. As the White House report points out:
[P]eaceful democratic implementation of socialist policies does not eliminate the fundamental incentive and information problems created by high taxes, large state organizations, and the centralized control of resources.In a socialist county, most of the wealth created by workers is controlled by the government, not by those who toiled to create it. The incentive problem is obvious: If what you earn is going to be spent by the government rather than by you, why bother to earn it in the first place?
The article quotes the last paragraph of the White House Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) report.
The CEA does not expect that socialist policies would cause food shortages in the United States, because socialists are no longer proposing to nationalize food production. Rather, the historical experience with agriculture is relevant because it involved economic disincentives, central planning, and a state monopoly over a sector that was large when socialism was introduced — similar to healthcare today. The historical evidence suggests that the socialist program for the U.S. would make shortages, or otherwise degrade quality, of whatever product or service is put under a public monopoly. The pace of innovation would slow, and living standards generally would be lower. These are the opportunity costs of socialism from a modern American perspective.This report has 15 pages of references to other sources of economic information that was used in this report.
These are the first pages of an March 15, 2020 NBC Opinion.
George Orwell speaks from the grave
These are the first five paragraphs of an opinion published“To the ordinary working man, the sort you would meet in any pub on Saturday night, Socialism does not mean much more than better wages and shorter hours and nobody bossing you about.”
George Orwell had a talent for simplifying complex subjects. At a time when the political left in the United States has a renewed interest in socialist policies, Orwell’s dictum is worth keeping in mind.
The Road to Wigan Pier is not one of Orwell’s best known books. Commissioned as a work of investigative journalism by the Left Book Club, Orwell immersed himself in the world of the English working-class in the mid 1930s. He lived in filthy boarding houses, observed coal miners at work, and scrutinized government statistics on unemployment. He makes no effort to hide his sympathy for his subjects; coal mining is described as a “dreadful job”. Yet, one enduring legacy of The Road to Wigan Pier is its refusal to engage in moral exhibitionism. Orwell attempts to explain why “so many normal decent people” reject socialism by articulating their objections. This devil’s advocate criticism of socialism is something from which his contemporaries did not learn and their spiritual descendants in the United States, social justice activists, ignore at their peril.
If one accepts Orwell’s premise that for the common man socialism means improved living and working conditions, why is socialism unpopular? The fault lies with socialists. For one thing, socialism attracts a fair number of cranks. “One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words ‘Socialism’ and ‘Communism’ draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, ‘Nature Cure’ quack, pacifist, and feminist in England.” Some of those categories should be dropped and new ones should be added, such as gender studies students. However, the sentiment is correct. An ideology that appeals to a large number of oddballs has little hope of being adopted by the average man.
Socialists also know little about those they wish to help. Their language is a dead giveaway of their ignorance. In the Twentieth Century, socialists laced their diatribes about industrial capitalism with jargon, such as “dialectical materialism” and “class consciousness”. Their spiritual heirs decry “systems of oppression” and exhort people to be “woke”. No average man speaks or thinks in those terms. Yet, he is the one who must be “educated".
 |
This is a link to The Road to Wigan Pier, on Amazon. The biography of George Orwell in the Encyclopedia Britannica includes a review of The Road to Wigan Pier. George Orwell's biography on the Biography Channel website. The website for the British Broadcasting Corporation includes a list of historic figures, including George Orwell. |
The five myths of the Russian Revolution
This section was added July 12, 2018.These are the first five paragraphs of a July 12, 2018 American Spectator article. Their emphasis on certain words, shown in italics, was shown that way in their article.
Mindful of Voltaire’s dictum (“To hold a pen is to be at war”), we take up the pen against five enduring myths about the Russian Revolution and the advent of socialism. The five myths are long-standing pillars of falsehood — used to curtail liberty, justify past atrocities, and (in the name of “progress”) lead free people into servitude.
Calling themselves “progressives,” many people today readily accept most or all of these myths as the truth. Filled with socialist yearnings, they have become a new force to be reckoned with in American politics.
Myth #1 — The false story of a heroic beginning to socialism — as a popular uprising by an oppressed people against social injustice and the cruelties under the Tsar.
In truth, the Russian revolution did not really begin until after the military coup that brought the Bolsheviks to power on Nov. 7, 1917. The coup was an almost bloodless event — “as easy as picking up a feather,” Lenin admitted. The Bolsheviks were just one of several parties contending for power in Russia following the abdication of Nicholas II, the last Tsar, early in the year. Credit Lenin with some real foresight: He was quick to realize the advantage that might come from putting together a private army from soldiers and sailors set adrift by the collapse of the old regime. It was a small group of disaffected soldiers — not alienated workers — who stormed the Winter Palace in Petersburg, arrested members of a feeble Provisional Government, and catapulted Lenin — who enjoyed no widespread popular support — into power. The historian Bertram Wolfe quipped:
Lenin seized power not in a land “ripe for socialism,” but in a land ripe for seizing power.
These are the other four myths that this article mentions. I quoted each one.
- The claim that communism would bury capitalism — winning out as a result of being the superior system both economically and socially.
- The lame excuse that, in the sometime messy business of trying to create a more perfect society, you “have to break eggs to make an omelet.”
- The laughable idea of “scientific socialism.”
- The repeated assertion of socialist compassion for the poor and downtrodden, contrasted with capitalist greed and exploitation; and the closely related misconception that great wealth can only arise from terrible exploitation.
Other pages in this series
Part 2e of this series is about Democrats who don't like democracy. They prefer one of two alternatives, either anarchy or a totalitarian form of government, sometimes identified as Marxism.Anarchy is an unstable system for any society. Some form of government is necessary to provide that society with infrastructure such as food production/distribution, waste processing, road- and bridge maintenance, and protection against an armed and aggressive neighboring country. In addition, anarchy is vulnerable to being transformed into a totalitarian state by someone who has more charisma than political and executive skill. This page on the website of the Encyclopedia Britannica has the history of both Russian Revolutions. This is the first paragraph of one page on the National Geographic website.
In January 1917, Tsar Nicholas II ruled Russia while Bolshevik Vladmir Lenin lived in exile. By October, revolution had reversed their roles, leaving the former tsar a prisoner and Lenin holding all the power.If Vladimir Lenin had good political skills, he would've been in Moscow early in 1917, organizing the people who overthrew the Russian Tsar and his family.
Part 3 of this series will show that there are factions within these parties, all registered as political parties with the U.S. Federal Election Commission.
The wisdom of the father of economics
This is the first paragraph of an article in a website called Investopedia that was updated onAdam Smith was an 18th-century philosopher renowned as the father of modern economics, and a major proponent of laissez-faire economic policies. In his first book, "The Theory of Moral Sentiments," Smith proposed the idea of the invisible hand—the tendency of free markets to regulate themselves by means of competition, supply and demand, and self-interest. Smith is also known for his theory of compensating wage differentials, meaning that dangerous or undesirable jobs tend to pay higher wages to attract workers to these positions, but he is most famous for his 1776 book: "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations." Read on to learn about how this Scottish philosopher argued against mercantilism to become the father of modern free trade and the creator of the concept now known as GDP.
These are the first three paragraphs of a January 7, 2007 New York Times article.
The Wealth of Nations is, without doubt, a book that changed the world. But it has been taking its time. Two hundred thirty-one years after publication, Adam Smith's practical truths are only beginning to be absorbed in full. And where practical truths are most important-amid counsels of the European Union, World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund, British Parliament, and American Congress-the lessons of Adam Smith end up as often sunk as sinking in."Even intellectuals should have no trouble understanding Smith's ideas. Economic progress depends upon a trinity of individual prerogatives: pursuit of self-interest, division of labor, and freedom of trade."
Adam Smith's Simple Principles. Smith illuminated the mystery of economics in one flash: "Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production." There is no mystery. Smith took the meta out of the physics. Economics is our livelihood and just that.
The Wealth of Nations argues three basic principles and, by plain thinking and plentiful examples, proves them. Even intellectuals should have no trouble understanding Smith's ideas. Economic progress depends upon a trinity of individual prerogatives: pursuit of self-interest, division of labor, and freedom of trade.
The Democratic Party of the United States would be well-advised to avoid any association with Socialists.
