America will never be a socialist country
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
“Here, in the United States, we are alarmed by new calls to adopt socialism in our country. America was founded on liberty and independence — not government coercion, domination, and control. We are born free, and we will stay free.”
— President Donald Trump, State of the Union Address February 5, 2019
Venezuela is a real-time example of the failure of socialism. Promises of prosperity frequently lead to poverty for the masses and all-too-often opens the door to brutal dictators.
Nicolas Maduro is such a ruler and we sadly see daily reminders of how far he is willing to go to maintain his power. More than 3 million people are part of the exodus from Venezuela, with another 2 million expected to leave by the end of the year.
Once one of the most prosperous countries in this hemisphere, Venezuela’s economy is falling apart. The socialism promoted by Mr. Maduro is hurting the people of his country. More than 9 out of 10 people live in poverty and the average citizen there has lost more than 20 pounds through malnutrition and deprivation.
Defenders of socialism dismiss Venezuela as an anomaly, but there are plenty of other examples: Cuba, Nicaragua, Zimbabwe and North Korea to name a few. And who can forget the collapse of the Soviet Union or the fall of the Berlin Wall?
Where is the similar list of failed democratic republics supporting free enterprise?
Sadly, many liberal politicians still embrace socialism. Bernie Sanders was for socialism before it became cool on the left as it is today, and many of his advisers view Venezuela as a model. Scary.
Socialism has failed over and over again. Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said it best, “The trouble with Socialism is that eventually, you run out of other people’s money.”
She was right then and even more so now. No matter how much the government taxes the “wealthy,” there will never be enough to cover all of the costs connected with socialism.
Take the so-called Green New Deal. One group estimates the cost of the plan over a decade to be between $51 trillion and $93 trillion.
That would be on top of the federal government debt that already exceeds $22 trillion. The share of that debt for a child born today in America is $67,000 (more than double the average amount of student loan debt). Our kids and grandkids will pay the bills, and they will not have enough money to cover the costs of those bills.
Plus, socialism is not fair.
Again, Prime Minister Thatcher summed it up well when responding to a member of Parliament complain about “income inequality” saying, “The honorable Gentleman is saying that he would rather that the poor were poorer, provided that the rich were less rich.”
She was right — yet again.
It increasingly seems that socialists and liberals (Democrats) are not so concerned about improving the lives of the poor as they are in taking from the presumed rich. Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s wealth tax is a prime example. She doesn’t just want to impose a tax on income. She wants to tax again what many saved up after being taxed on income.
That would be like telling a straight-A student that she has to share her grades with the other students. Most would agree that is not fair. So, instead of stealing her high grades, we should be focused on how we can help the other students improve their own education and get good grades.
Rather than imposing policies that weaken and shrink the economy, what about doing things that strengthen and grow it? Then, we can help people improve themselves with the education and skills that they need to succeed. That will help them get and then keep good-paying, family-supporting jobs.
President Ronald Reagan said it well on June 29, 1981:
“It’s time that we found ways to make the American economic pie bigger instead of just cutting an ever smaller pie into more but smaller slices. It’s time we welcomed those Americans into the circle of prosperity to let them share in the wonders of our society, and it’s time to break the cycle of dependency that has become the legacy of so many federal programs that no longer work — indeed, some of which never did work.”
In America, we know that true freedom and prosperity do not come from the clumsy hand of the government. They come from empowering people to live their own lives and control their own destinies through the dignity that is born of hard work. As I’ve said before, that’s why we celebrate the 4th of July and not April 15th, because in America we celebrate our independence from the government and our dependence on it.
That’s why we, the United States of America, will never be a socialist country.
• Scott Walker was the 45th governor of Wisconsin. You can contact him at swalker@washingtontimes.com or follow him @ScottWalker.
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Citing Margret Thatcher as a counter argument to socialism is nothing more than circular logic. Globalization and socialism both provide the same result; loss of individual economic freedoms, subservience to an oligarchy, and dominance by the state.
Both the Reagan-Thatcher ideas rooted in Austrian economic theory and socialist economic theory focus attention on the supply-side (or greed-side) of the economy. Both Austrian economics and socialist economics are about concentrating capital and economic influence that is controlled by a few. The only difference between the two greed-side theories of economics is whether society will be subservient to (and dependent upon) an oligarchy of monetary monopolists or to a government of power hungry elites.
Supply-side economics is not a pathway to liberty or individual freedom.
Governor Walker (the author) does a great job of illustrating the notion that 'socialism' is ' whatever I do not like '. Walker is all over the map here. This does nothing other than perpetuate ignorance. It would be so much better if Walker were to point out in specific terms problems promoted by the so called 'socialists' in the D party rather than demonize a word that is already nothing more than a pejorative to most in the USA.
Here we have Trump defining socialism as authoritarian rule ("government coercion, domination, and control"). A harsh form of statism.
Now Walker deems Venezuela an exemplar for socialism and thus defines socialism as authoritarian rule with expropriation of private industry, command economy and irresponsible levels of redistribution of wealth.
All results of authoritarian rule where the people are oppressed. The exact opposite of economic freedom.
Democratic republics operating with a free market is vastly superior to an oppressive authoritarian state. A free market operating with representative democracy with a capitalist economic system is much closer to socialism than an oppressive authoritarian state which controls the economy.
Here Walker conflates authoritarian statism with social democracy. These are profoundly different systems. Social democracy (what Sanders is essentially promoting) is a variant of capitalism wherein a highly regulated capitalist economic engine is used to fund social programs (e.g. universal healthcare). It is the dominant system in Europe ... the system of the Nordic nations which Sanders likes to reference. To label Venezuela and Norway (for example) as two examples of socialism reveals the lack of understanding of what is taking place in those two profoundly different socio-economic/political systems.
In the interview (from which this quote was mined) PM Thatcher starts off by indicating what she means by 'socialism':
Thatcher is referring to the social democrats (the Labour party) in Parliament. Taxation is the key mechanism for generating funds for social programs. In context, Thatcher is using 'socialism' to mean 'social democracy' - a highly regulated capitalist economy that redistributes wealth (via taxation) to fund public programs.
While I agree Thatcher is correct, the problem is that taxing the wealthy to fund social programs is not an economic system and is certainly not socialism (a theoretical system wherein the means of production and distribution are controlled by the people and not by a minority such as aristocracy or state officials). Thatcher was complaining about statism that redistributes wealth ... playing Robin Hood. She was complaining about social democracy.
Now Walker labels a classic liberal initiative based on renewable energy and very expansive public programs as 'socialism'. This is social democracy (and an extreme form at that) wherein the state uses tax revenue (or, in the case of the USA, tax revenues stolen from future generations) to fund giveaways to the American people. This is exactly the kind of crap that contributed heavily to the destruction of Venezuela - irresponsible levels of spending while removing the incentive of producers (who generate wealth in the first place). But Walker stupidly just calls this 'socialism'. Instead of educating his readers on the actual problems he simply demonizes an already demonized word so followers can run about hating 'socialism' without having a clue as to what that means.
This is egalitarian nonsense. Any system that tries to produce equal ('fair') results will fail. People necessarily have different talents, ambition, attitudes, etc. and will produce very different results. It is essential for a functioning economy to have unequal results tied to individual contribution. The 'fair' side of the equation would be equal opportunity. Everyone should have the chance, for example, to higher education pursuant to their ambitions. But this again is not 'socialism'. This is referring to the consequences of irresponsible levels of redistribution of wealth. When a system reduces the incentive of the producers by giving too much to those who produce less (or nothing at all) it is shooting itself in the foot. Calling this 'socialism' hides the problem.
Statism and redistribution of wealth; not 'socialism'.
President Reagan is talking about statism ('the Government is the problem'). He equated 'statism' with 'socialism'.
If every problem is seen as 'socialism' we are all chasing an amorphous boogie man. Know thy enemy. The many problems in the world are not all lumped under the word: 'evil'. We address terrorism, disease, rape, etc. individually. We understand each of these 'evils' so as to effectively deal with them. Unpack the overloaded label and look at the specific problems that are being presented.
Governor Walker has simply packaged a bunch of problems under the label 'socialism' and has done nothing to educate his readers. Instead he has provided yet another talking-head article that people can now parrot to others to express the naive and pointless sentiment that 'socialism' is bad. Brilliant .
This article does not discuss socialism. But it does discuss quite a few bad practices that take place in socio-economic/political systems (ironically with capitalist economies). Focus on the actual bad practices rather than run about with bumper-sticker level of understanding.
These are the factors ultimately at play in this article:
Thank you thank you thank you! We may need to repeat this post a million times!
I saw some "Specifics".
You didn't, or were you more worried about what you were going to write.
One example:
"It increasingly seems that socialists and liberals (Democrats) are not so concerned about improving the lives of the poor as they are in taking from the presumed rich. Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s wealth tax is a prime example. She doesn’t just want to impose a tax on income. She wants to tax again what many saved up after being taxed on income."
Citizen ownership of equity ?
My point (of course) is that the article should focus on specifics rather than lump all sorts of crap into the label 'socialism' and then decry 'socialism'.
Do you consider double-taxation to be a defining characteristic of socialism? If so, let's see your definition for socialism.
America will never be a socialist country
For the second time in as many days I must agree with you (hmmmm), it is a highly unlikely event. Now I must ask, most already know that is the case, so why oh why must the right continue to use socialism (although undefined it would seem) as their bogeyman.
This perpetuating of nonsense has passed trite and gone to inane.
Damn I was unaware that I'm a socialist. Our symbol is quite like the photo in the article.
I threw that hook in 71 and can still throw it.