To the socialist

Companies, the "rich" and profits from sales of natural resources like oil and gas, are the sources of money that should pay for the State and government-programs, according to the Leftist. In exchange, the "poor" should more or less be free from taxes, the Leftist says. The "rich" are especially targeted as those who should pay for the common services. This is always thought to be "fair" by the Leftist, because those who have "enough" money already are morally obligated to contribute more than others, and not just in monetary-value (like they do already) but also proportionally.

This might have worked a few years ago when the world was pretty much fixed - when moving across borders was hard and free flow of money was restricted. However, today, in an every-increasing globalized world, how does the Leftist expect a State to create a system which punishes those who rise in pay above the average, and still finance its programs of welfare-checks and socialized health and education? Isn't it so that what drove the Soviet-union into bankruptcy, and is driving more or less every Western "welfare"-state into ruin, is exactly the fact that richness isn't being created?

Usually we forget that when an economy becomes richer, the poorest in it become richer as well. An economy which earns (in some respect) a value of 10 has poor people 10-times poorer than those in an economy which produces 100. Empirical data shows this again and again. The exceptions are few and usually tied with oil-profits or socialist-governments. Will the Left ever learn or is that just fantasy?

The Leftist-unionist

A representative from my work-place's union approached me the other day, asking me if I wasn't going to join the union. I said no. This union, Fagligt Fælles Forbund (or simply 3F), is active in Danish politics and buys whole-page commercials in newspapers to try to move votes to the Left. The union has forgotten that unions used to be about pressing wages up and worker's rights into a positive direction. This one simply wants to have a government to the Left. Since unions became "accepted" in the Western world, they have had to find new ways of being controversial, and pushing for a certain pattern of votes is certainly a way to achieve that. Therefore I want nothing to do with it, although they had a lot to do with the wages and "benefits" I get in my workplace.

In my conversation with the unionist I discovered a major controversy in the Leftist-mind. The unionist said that workers need to "stick together" against their employer because the employer is always trying to increase the worker's load without fair compensation. The worker should always be alert and not be pushed over by his employer. That is why a union is necessary, the unionist said, because it activates the workers if the employer goes too far.

My question is this: Why is it that a unionist and a Leftist realizes this about his employer, but completely ignores it when it comes to the State? Actually, the Leftist-unionist is for a bigger State and therefore increased State-interference with the worker's life and budget. This is remarkable. The State is always trying to squeeze in more regulations and taxes and hopes it can do so in steps small enough for anyone to notice. The worker has its union to "protect" him against his employer. Does the normal, law-abiding, working citizen have anything similar when it comes to the State, besides a few noise-making right-winged groups of libertarians and freedom-fighters?

Three questions

Question 1: How come socialists and other modern offspring of them build their whole political existence on economic equality? Isn't there more to life than money?

The question is simple but I haven't seen an answer so far that didn't fill up books.

Question 2: How can it be, in the light of the horrible experience men have with trying to force on a certain distribution of wealth/freedom, that people still lean to the Left? Is it simply so that economic equality must be enforced because that's simply the right thing to do? Is it so that people can't be trusted to build a free society without some pre- or post-demands on how wealth, freedom and opportunities distribute among individuals?

I have never seen or heard of a politician succeeding in enforcing a certain pattern upon a society without horrible consequences. Must we try again and again? When will the Left prove itself wrong if the whole 20th century didn't do the trick?

Question 3: How is it possible to separate between personal freedom and economic freedom? If I choose to spend my time on work, how is someone taking a part of my earnings away without asking me first not an attack on my personal freedom?

Socialists say they have no objections when it comes to free people choosing their own lifestyles, words and activities. Still they want to remove a part of one man's fruits of labor and hand over to someone else, and not call it a restriction on personal freedom!

The Leftist's money-obsession

Being to the Left in politics usually involves a very strong focus on one issue: Money. That's all the Leftist thinks about. How should these people's money be moved from here to here, and how much? How can we spend it so as to make sure we get elected again? Where can money be taken from one or another to sponsor this and that program? Who will object the least if we take some money from him or give him less than before of other people's money? The core thought of people - like me - to the Right, justice, is only a small irritation in the Leftist's mind. That money and property is actually the fruits of efforts and labor is not important to the Leftist. That removing a percentage of income/property without permission is equal to partial slavery is ignored by the Leftist.

Leftists only flourish in free, capitalistic societies where free trade and good business creates all the nice taxmoney they want to spend. Their success depends on them being unsuccessful in carrying out their ideas. Hopefully the lessons from the first half of the 20th century will keep us away from socialism for ever, be it national socialism or any other form of it.

Leftism keeps the poor poor

How does Leftism keep the poor poor? There are many reasons why, and here are a few:

1. Leftists want the State to hand out generous contributions to those who don't have jobs. Governments which follow this policy usually deal with sky-high unemployment. It's that simple.
2. Leftists demand all kinds of regulations for the poor countries of the world, similar to those the rich countries have today. They want to "save" the environment with regulations, "help" the workers with regulations and "level" the ground on which countries compete on the world market. This, in short, keeps the poor, underdeveloped countries out of the loop in which the rich countries deal.
3. Leftists want companies and "rich" people to carry up the tax-burden, while the "poor" people are given all kinds of financial benefits and handouts. This, in short, stops everyone from seeking increased wealth, and hinders companies from performing well, which again puts a stop to the creation of new jobs, higher-paid jobs, innovation, price-drops on common products, and so on.

I would more than welcome any additions to this short list, because in reality its endless (or as long as the issues Leftists make proposals for).

How to get it wrong

The year is 2005. The Communist Manifesto was first published 157 years ago (on the 21st of this month). Since then we've had Stalin, Castro, Pol Pot, Mao and many other good-hearted souls testing out the theories of Marx and Engels with well-known results. Still, despite all the cruel lessons of humanity, and in a rich, well-developed country like Denmark, socialists clean up 10% of the votes in free elections! How can this be?

Socialistic theory is interesting (I think!). It is a theory of how to shape society into some given form, for example that of an equal distribution of wealth (leading to no wealth existing at all, but that's another story). Socialists are willing to do a lot before they realize that humans are not pieces of clay, and some never realize this.

But is it all that wrong? Don't humanshapers (socialists) sometimes get it right? Yes, and that is a part of their remarkable success in an industrialized country in the 21st century - they sometimes get it right. But that's about it. When they get it right they usually mess it up with something wrong. I have an example.

The following text is taken from the Danish Socialistisk Folkeparti (SF) and roughly translated into English:

As far as SF is concerned, it's not a question of having free trade or not - but on what conditions we should have free trade. Today it's the rich countries which can export without limits to the poor ones. On the other hand, many obstacles hinder the poor countries from exporting to the rich ones. The European Union, for example, puts the special-interests of the European sugar-factories above the lives and well-being of the poor sugar-farms in the Third World.

Following this text is a statement saying that SF wants the agricultural-policy of the European Union dismembered. The text starts out good I would say. The rest is not so good:

There is need for playing-rules that serve the public and especially the poor's interests - for example in the form of environmental-demands, worker's rights [if I understand the Danish correctly] and a stop of weapons-trade. Also, there might be a need to give the poor countries possibilities to enforce customs and other trade-barriers for certain products to enable them to protect their home-marked. And there is need to remove tax-exceptions, make demands regarding pension-savings and other savings as well as limiting currency-speculations, for example via the so-called Tobin-tax

This is where the whole text goes wrong. The first part shows how even socialists learn, and that they have learned that free trade creates wealth and long lives. The second part shows that Marx and Engels might as well have written the text, giving its lack of historical understanding (along with every other form of lack of understanding there is!). A few notes:

• The Tobin-tax cannot be exercised, and its only purpose would be to slow down the market with all the difficulties/disasters that creates.
• Trade-barriers are the enemy of the poor - not the friend. Those countries who have removed barriers prosper. Others build up industries that cannot compete on the market, and will therefore always have to be protected unless they are to go bankrupt and again lead to great poverty.
• Demanding regulations on environment and worker's rights is not a good first-step for poor countries to take. How can a poor country compete with the Western world by being tied up with regulations that took 100 years for Europeans to adjust to in small steps? Perhaps someone thinks that the poor countries should also take 100 years to build up?

I understand how someone would want to control others and shape them according to a certain image. However, I will never understand anyone who thinks it's okay!