Socialism Made Simple
Karl Marx is most often quoted saying:
“From each according to his ability,
To each according to his need.”
All agree that this sounds wonderful. However, everywhere these principles have been implemented throughout the world, the result is anything but wonderful. Socialism is, as Winston Churchill said, “The philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” How then, is the person from the “according to his ability” sector to be convinced to provide for the “according to his need” sector? By force, coercion, extortion, torture, force of law, of course. And, what happens to the “according to his ability” person’s attitude? Any sane person would reflexively say “No! I refuse work to support someone who refuses to support himself.” So, his morale collapses, and, if he works at all produces the bare minimum, does a poor job in terms of quality and quantity. And, when those of the “ according to his ability” people happen to be farmers who produce the society’s groceries, it begins to starve. When the “ according to his ability” class is forced to work and refuses, or has simply been declared non-essential, he is simply executed, as with millions of Russians and Ukrainians under “Country Joe” Stalin. Again, when such people happen to be producers of food, famine becomes the order of the day.
Therefore, the first casualties of a Socialist takeover are personal initiative and motivation. Such attitudes cannot be forced. They must be encouraged by the reasonable prospect of reward or payment, and in sufficient proportion to be considered profitable. For a mass population to be deprived of such animus, the only result can be mass deprivation and starvation. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics witnessed by Will and Ariel Durant during their month-long rail journey from Vladivostok to Moscow, which he described as “one gigantic prison” was of millions condemned to a life sentence, being slowly tortured to death by forced labor, hunger and want.
No civilization has ever begun its life with socialism. Instead, all began their existence with some rudimentary form of capitalism in which the clever and ambitious prospered, while the dull and indolent lived in relative poverty and/or peonage. Eventually, as the spoiled children of the clever and prosperous grew up, the attitudes of privilege and entitlement to which they had been conditioned by their over-indulgent parents would ultimately prevail in the sociopolitical and governmental theater, and, after enough generations plunge their once-prosperous lands into sloughs of socialistic misery.
No single, operative word better informs the struggle between the heights of personally-renumerative prosperity and the depths of a collectively-endured impoverishment than “attitude.” The attitude of personal optimism and self-worth that motivates hard work, thrift and confidence in assuming risk, contrasts sharply with the envious and cynical sullenness that drives the Socialist to covet and conspire to appropriate the fruits of others’ labor through propaganda and legislation – but never by personal effort or self-sacrifice. It’s always “If another has it, I am entitled to it.” However acquired, whether from one’s bitterly resentful parents or from similarly-affected and influential co-workers, companions and associates – or teachers and professors – this self-destructive, piss-poor attitude feeds upon itself as it spreads like a carcinogen throughout a society, mimicking Marx’ own satanic words in a letter to his brother “Now, I’m going to Hell and I’m going to drag everyone I can in with me!” This attitude burns itself into its possessor’s psyche like a cult-ish religion and consumes him every bit as metastatically as an individual as it does his society.
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