Today I heard a guy arguing against the conservative idea that "socialism" is bad. As a former member of the military, he suggested that the military was run on a socialist model...because the health care was the same for a private as for a general.
Never mind the practical accuracy of that statement, Sean Hannity, to whom that objection was raised missed an opportunity to explain what was wrong with the guy's premise. Hannity did take the opportunity to explain socialism and its ills, but I think he missed a "teachable moment",
First, he should have told the idiot...er...caller that "Socialism" is not a philosophical notion, or a social contract, or a religious belief, or a world-view. It is an economic system. As is "communism". And beyond economics, the word has no meaning.
Indeed, the caller said as much, calling "socialism" a overly vague term whose meaning was "subjective".
Well, no.
Socialism has a very specific meaning in economics. Used in another context, it has no meaning at all. To say the military is socialist is like say a tree is socialist. It's gibberish.
The military is not an economy. The military is an institution wholly supported by an economy external to itself. The American military is an institution wholly supported by a Free Market Economy.
But the military itself produces nothing, it only consumes wealth. (I'll stipulate that it does take the raw material boy and uses it to "produce" a warrior... but that hardly qualifies as "production" in the traditional sense.)
As I was thinking about this something else clicked into place. If Socialism is an economic term for an economic system, what then is the political term which applies to the economic system Socialism. And of course it was obvious...hiding in plain sight all the time: Fascism.
Fascism is the political system that accompanies the economic system Socialism.
We pretend that Socialism is a sort of "collective" in which everyone has the same identical rights. But practically speaking, it is the running, regulation, ownership and control of everything by a dictator who lives, depending on his character and his popularity, within or beyond rules of the contract he promised to adhere to before he was given dictatorial powers.
In every Socialist European country Fascism is the form of government. All means of production are controlled and regulated by the STATE, as is medicine, education, speech. Political correctness is legislated, permitted personal behavior and "rights" are determined by the STATE.
It is, of course the natural result of the STATE having the power of life and death — the means of production of food and shelter as well as access to medicine — over its subjects. And that is exactly what socialism is...state control (if not the actual "ownership") of the means of production...which in the real world translates to total control over life itself.
Fascism is the political system that accompanies the economic system, Socialism
I think I'm on to something here. Everyone talks about Socialism and Fascism as though they were both members of the same genus: Political Systems. We speak of living under Socialism OR Fascism, as though they were mutually exclusive.
But they are arise mutually, and are interdependent. And I think that's why even smart people have difficulty explaining the difference between them.
The Gunslinger
Joebama American citizens 2024 print
9 months ago
Right on,Sister! Will pass this particularly well-written post on to personally-known others (alas,not "Big Hollywood","Intellectual Conservative",et al again,since they replied to my pass-along with "We likee,a good writer (:o),but we only accept original material submitted directly to us"...dipsticks,I say! Well,get crackin',if you wanna)...And,OF COURSE Hannity missed the opportunity.He's a lightweight,with that "You're a great American" reply to callers who he hasn't even talked to yet.It's flakey,like the callers to Rush who spend half their time telling how great they think he is,how they've waited soooo long to talk to him....ARRRGH! Jeez! Don't misunderstand me,I count Limbaugh himself as a major factor in my "conversion" back in 1993,but the difference between him and Hannity is that Rush would know what your backing is,philosophically,whereas Hannity would merely retard it to a mere anti-Democratic Party diatribe.ANYHOO...thanks for the deep,and please submit the like directly to the stuck-up jerks mentioned above.
ReplyDeleteMay I suggest Nazi or Nazism. I know, you are technically correct with fascism, but nazi has that gut level reaction to it. Besides, nazi is the acronym for national socialist worker's party. You can't get a stronger connection than that.
ReplyDeleteThanks tj...you're really good for my "self-esteem"!
ReplyDeleteArctic Wolf...agreed. But I think it's possible that "Nazi" has been sort of overused lately.
It's a contraction of the German language. Maybe we need to create one from English.
(National Socialist: "NATSO")
We should have a contest to see who comes up with the best one...then use it everywhere, all the time, and see if we can label THEM for a change.
GS,
ReplyDeleteThe link below is from a speech given by a character in Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged" named "Francisco" on the nature of money and men. If you havent read it yet get the novel yourself and it will seem eerily prophetic.
One word of caution in reading any of Rand's work.. keep in mind this fact..
ALL Truths are Gods truths.
Her work focuses on the truth of individualism and ancillary benefits to the larger society. She posits in her "theology" that this truth is self evident, but this a philosophical impossibility.. All truths in order to be true must have a truth giver... God..
anyways enough of my preaching.. here is the link..
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=1826
Enjoy, and God Bless you,
BHenry
Funny you should mention this. I read Atlas Shrugged when I was 21.
ReplyDeleteAnd I just ordered a copy of it two days ago.I figured it was time to read it again.
Although Ayn Rand’s views are very sympathetic to the responsibilities and virtues of self sustaining individual, her atheistic world view has always troubled me. On utube, see the 1959 interview with Mike Wallace. I'm no fan of Wallace, but it clearly exposes her philosophy. She substitutes reason for faith, and although men should make decisions using reason, to forego the hand of God in making good decisions is counter to our founder’s views. In Ayn’s world view, the third Reich probably did the right thing in killing the mentally disabled. If one looks at reason alone, your decisions about life and death is strictly limited to human beings as the sole arbiter of what is good or bad. Abortion is another such issue dictated by conscious, and not by reason alone.
ReplyDeleteI've never trusted the altruism of men. Unalienable rights from God cannot be challenged by any dictator or State. Freedom is a gift of God. If reason only rules and we loose our faith, what does that bode for the future? I don't know. If the State then gives us rights, then the State can bloody remove them. I have only recently come to understand how important the concepts of unalienable rights are to our collective freedom.
Ayn Rand is a fantastic writer and political scientist, and makes perfect sense in many of her economic arguments. I cannot agree with her views on how humanity is valued. I don't agree with her assumption that the Christian world view teaches money is evil. That is a distortion. The Christian world view is that money is the ‘root’…meaning, money is the motivation for all nefarious acts commented on earth. Money is power. He who has the gold makes the rules. This is a great truth. The Christian world view makes a very clear distinction between the love of money, and its proper use to benefit the individual and society. It does not compel government to tax, but teaches a morality that we do have responsibilities to our "brothers". I think I would rather live in a world like that than one Ayn Rand proposes.
On your article, I agree with what you said. The distinction between fascism being a political movement, and socialism an economic system is dead on. Your comment about the military used as an false example of ‘good socialism’ is brilliant. I've always resented National Socialists (Nazis) being affiliated with the Right, when radical leftists are the Nazis…and always have been. There wasn’t a hairs difference between Hitler and Stalin. Leftist Nazis have always been the pro abortion Margaret Sanger types who think nothing of killing (starving) the physically and mentally deficient, such as Terry Shivo.
I enjoyed reading your piece. PW
PW...people like Ayn Rand can never explain where their thinking faculty, which they takes such pride in, comes from.
ReplyDeleteAll their explanations are weak and illogical..as they must be when insisting that human consciousness and reason arise from a stupid, material, mindless, accidental universe.
And they invent all kinds of unlikely scenarios to explain the spontaneous growth of almost identical moral codes throughout history and across cultures.
Moral codes which require that people NOT act in their immediate self-interest. What sort of strictly biological instinct is that?
Clearly, there's a design at work here. And the "natural law" of the designer is written on our hearts.
And thus all humans know what's right and true, even if they don't always act like it.
Ayn Rand, like so many "geniuses", has a hole in her basket.
BHenry...Rand is among those atheists who think that what they believe has nothing whatever to with the culture they were raised in - or with the source of all human "culture".
ReplyDeleteThey soak in all the virtues and morality of their, typically, God-based culture, then pretend they arrived at them all on their own, and despise the culture, and its divinity, from whom they learned everything they know.
They're very odd, conveniently forgetful people, these atheists.
Yeah,they're as forgetful as the politicians doing the same on that level,after greedy careers of sucking up money from the corporations in donations,etc.,and now are busy dismantling the system that greased their way to power.If the Left's conspiracy theories were valid,those "evil" corporations would be planning certain rectification measures by now...
ReplyDeleteI'll have to take a very minor objection to your statement that the military produces nothing.
ReplyDeleteSince they have to do training on a regular basis, it is actually quite common for the military to use the opportunity to do something useful, rather than just pretending to do something.
As an example, the summer camp I went to as a youth had a lake that was built by the Army Corps of Engineers. An Army National Guard engineer unit I was in once used their training time to do all kinds of construction work for parks and local governments and such.
I think that the Air Force and Air Guard and Navy do similar things, transporting goods and people for charitable organizations and such since they're going from point A to point B anyway. Or they can just as easily have their training go from point C to point D and they can do some good by doing so.
Not to mention all the times that they've done things like pull a ship up to a port and provided power, clean water, etc to areas hurt by natural disasters.
Granted, it's not a lot of production, but they do tend to try to use their training time in ways that can be productive to society as a whole instead of just as generic training.
The rest of the time they blow things up. :)
GunGeek...I don't mean they don't do anything productive. I mean just meant, economically, they don't create wealth.
ReplyDeleteThe military is responsible for maintaining the free and safe environment required for those who DO create wealth to get on with it. And that service is priceless!
Believe me, I'm not slamming the military, just trying to disarm the foolish argument that it is a "socialist" system that "works".
Sorry, I didn't mean to sound like I was criticizing what you said...
ReplyDelete...just wanted to remind folks that the military does do actual productive stuff and not just all the destructive stuff they're famous for.
Dude...you get to criticize...I just wanted to explain what I meant...
ReplyDelete...and that I think the Military is full of heroes—the BEST of America.