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Severe Outflow by R. Edwards

Socialism vs. Communism

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Often, when comparing policies of socialist governments, or proposed ideals of the Democratic Party here, which is increasingly influenced by the radical extremist organization, “Democratic Socialists of America,” one will encounter a reactionary, reflexive, overly defensive statement to the effect of, “Socialism is not communism!”

That is glib sloganeering, and also, exceedingly misleading or disingenuous.

A few points…
1. Marxism: They’re branches of the same ideological tree (Marxist theory). In Marxist theory, socialism is the transitional phase to communism. Socialism involves state control of production, nominally for workers (“from each according to his ability, to each according to his contribution”), while full communism is the classless, stateless endgame (“to each according to his needs”) with no private property. Lenin, Marx and others explicitly framed it this way. There is a reason the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had its name.

Socialism isn’t communism the same way adolescence isn’t adulthood — it’s the stepping stone. History shows the “transition” rarely ends…just slows or gets temporarily distracted, without some form of true revolution or outside military intervention.

2. Shared core, regardless of semantic games: Rejection of private property and markets — both nominal systems advocate public/collective ownership of the means of production (factories, land, computing, energy, other resources) over private enterprise. Communism goes further (no private property at all, often via revolution), while socialism allows some private ownership but with heavy state regulation/redistribution. In other words, distinctions that are semantically correct but functionally meaningless!

That’s because socialism and communism differ in degree, not kind. Both subordinate individual liberties to collective control. So-called “Democratic socialists” still push expansive government ownership and planning (look up the latest DSA platform*). This historically concentrates great power and money into centralized bureaucracies. Human nature is to abuse great power and control over unearned treasury largesse.

3. Historical track record: Socialism often leads to or masks authoritarian communism. Regimes like the USSR, China, Cuba, and Venezuela called themselves explicitly socialist, while pursuing communist goals (e.g., “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,” as I noted above; Chinese Communist Party’s “socialism with Chinese characteristics”). Even the Nazis were socialist; it was firmly amid their name (National Socialist Party), and like many others, including their war opposition in the USSR, their “socialist” experiments involved one-party rule, suppression of dissent, and economic centralization. Two sides of the same tyrannical coin!

Yet logically, failures of “real socialism” are frequently dismissed as “not true socialism,” which is a classical No True Scotsman fallacy, and as such, easily exposed as invalid rhetoric. Every major 20th-century communist state and the German Nazis started as or claimed to be socialist. Body count: tens of millions (famines, purges, gulags, Holocaust). The supposed distinctions didn’t save the victims.

4. Convergent incentives and outcomes: Without market prices and private property, both struggle with calculation problems (Mises/Hayek critique), leading to shortages, inefficiency, and coercion. So-called “Democratic socialism” often slides toward more controls when voluntary cooperation falters. That occurs when citizens realize that: a) they have lost liberty, b) they are poorer, and/or c) their bureaucratic overlords are corrupt and untrustworthy (a feature common to all forms of governance, but rampant in collectivist states).

Nordic models (often cited) pose as pseudo-capitalist welfare states with free markets, strong property rights, and high economic freedom — generally, not socialist ownership of production. However, socialism nominally sells the compassionate halfway house. Reality: it inherits communism’s knowledge and incentive problems, just with slower erosion of freedoms and prosperity.

5. Rhetorical sleight-of-hand: The phrase is often used to distance “nice” policies (welfare, regulation) from authoritarian failures. But classical socialism (e.g., nationalization) goes well beyond that. “Socialism is not communism” is a semantically crafted PR slogan, a parlor trick with words, not reality on the ground. When it expands state control over energy, healthcare, housing, or speech, it follows the same logic: bureaucratic elites deciding “the greater good” over voluntary exchange.

If I’m too wordy for you on this, here’s a bullet list from commentator Michael Smith for shorter attention spans:

    “Democratic socialism” is an oxymoron.
    • Central planning requires centralized power. Someone must decide what gets produced, by whom, and for whom.
    • No planner possesses enough knowledge. Economic information is dispersed among millions of individuals and cannot be effectively centralized.
    • Planning replaces voluntary choices with political decisions. Resource allocation becomes a matter of government judgment rather than market exchange.
    • Democracy struggles to sustain comprehensive planning. Citizens rarely agree on the countless tradeoffs required, leading to political conflict.
    • Conflict drives greater coercion. As voluntary cooperation breaks down, government increasingly relies on regulation, mandates, and enforcement.
    • Economic control becomes political control. A government that directs livelihoods inevitably gains leverage over individual behavior.
    • Liberty erodes incrementally. Each planning failure invites additional intervention, concentrating more power in the state.
    • The destination is authoritarianism, not because it is intended, but because it becomes necessary to preserve the planned system.
    I agree with F.A. Hayek:
    Democracy can elect a socialist government, but a fully socialist economy cannot remain genuinely democratic for long because comprehensive economic planning requires a concentration of power incompatible with individual liberty and limited government.”
    — Michael Smith

There’s your (lower-case) libertarian lesson on socialism and communism for the year. It would be wise to heed!

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* Footnote:
The DSA’s new platform is as authoritarian/Communist as can be, while avoiding the C word. Truly batshit crazy, horrifying, dystopian, far-left extremism, including:
1. Forbid bills (payment invoice) for any person
2. Government-run food, transportation, housing, medicine, and nationalization of large corporations and essential industries (Communism!)
3. The drafting of a “new Constitution”
4. Defunding the Department of War/Defense
5. Slavery “reparations”
6. Unlimited free abortion and “gender-affirming care” for all, including minor children with underdeveloped brains;
7. Taxpayers cover all student debt and unlimited “free” higher education for all (payable only through top-down coercion, of course);
8. Taking “steps toward fully abolishing the police and prison system”
9. Ending all deportations, providing amnesty for all illegal immigrants, and allowing unlimited migration to America (fully open borders)
10. Abolishing the Presidency, Supreme Court, and Senate (in effect, destroying the Constitution)

I’m not going to give their site clicks by linking here, but the DSA platform is not hard to find for those morbidly interested.

Scattershooting 171220

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Scattershooting while wondering what happened to honor, courage and integrity as virtues to aspire…

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STUPID, COMPLICATED, WOEFULLY INSUFFICIENT NEW TAX BILL:
The new tax bill does a few good things (such as repeal the horrid Obamacare mandate), but in sum total, is a massive waste of time and taxpayer money. Now, for me personally, it’s a wash. However, unlike most of the electorate, I don’t vote selfishly on what’s best for me, but on what’s best for the country — and I didn’t support this Rube Goldberg mess of a bill. It falls far, far, far short of true tax reform! Instead it’s a half-baked (or less) kluge that’s bad for the nation: maintains extreme complexity of tax code and returns, is not a flat tax, doesn’t fit onto a postcard, is full or pork, and worst of all, adds to horrendous looming crisis of our national debt. Yes, absolutely and without reservation, I am letting the (nearly) perfect be the enemy of the good. Damn right I am, especially since this isn’t very good at all. I actually have a backbone, and ideals. Too bad our RINOs and faux-libertarians in Congress don’t. Forget the boring, old, hackneyed, outdated, repetitive, “steals from poor to give to wealthy” liberal company line. Go grow up and come up with something interesting and original for once, leftist parrots. You’re even more out-of-touch than the RINOs are.

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ALABAMA SENATE RACE and ANTIQUATED TWO-PARTY SYSTEM: If I lived in Alabama I would have abstained or written in a third party option for their Senate election to fill a two-year end-of-term. What a wretched choice they had between a creep (and possible criminal) vs. an endorser of infanticide of the unborn and other destructive leftist policy. This (aside from complex tax-code bullcrap noted above) is what the horrendously outdated and Constitutionally unjustifiable two-party system yields — a choice of bad choices. It’s much akin to last November nationwide, when voters largely chose between an imbecilic and immoral faux-conservative buffoon on one side, and a corrupt, cutthroat, immoral neoliberal criminal on the other.

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A RECENT EXPERIENCE with HOME AWAY CUSTOMER SERVICE: In trying to get overdue information to access a vacation rental, I called customer service for HomeAway, a major company (owned by Expedia) dealing in that sort of thing. My interaction is summarized by the survey results I filled out after completing the third call. The survey questions were worded as if there only were one call, but I had to make three. This is but a sympton of a larger problem with outsourcing and hiring. See this screen capture of my response. Has political correctness gone so far that supposedly English-speaking “customer service” outlets feel they must hire people who are essentially incomprehensible?


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CHINESE OPPRESSION/TORTURE of ITS OWN — AND NOTHING BEING DONE ABOUT IT: Communist red China is setting the horrid example for other nations to follow in using the domestic-spying technological surveillance state (increasingly including artificial intelligence, AI) as a tool of Orwellian mass authoritarian oppression: elimination of privacy, overt and passive-aggressive censorship, blackmail, torture, imprisonment without trial, and killing, on massive scales, especially of ethnic/religious minorities and any in the 91.5% Han majority who dare challenge authority. Yes, nearly every nation has done this since to some extent since 1950…regardless, scale matters. And as surveillance cameras and AI become more common worldwide, more shall follow. Meanwhile the U.S. and other nations are passively ignoring and sticking heads in sand, as China terrorizes its own people in this manner. Why? For one, don’t think for a minute the domestic deep state — NSA, CIA and FBI power-that-be — and their counterparts elsewhere in Five Eyes, as well as Russia and especially Islamic nations, aren’t envious of this ability to technologically control and manipulate the people. For two, money talks. As of June, China held $1.15 trillion of U.S. debt, plenty enough to demolish the economy, easily, at the whim of instantly calling in said debt — in effect, unspoken blackmail of one nation over another. And we have sat idly by and let them do so…

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JERUSALEM IS THE RIGHTFUL CAPITAL of JUDEA (ISRAEL)!: Where two sovereign nations agree to put an embassy is nobody else’s business. The U.N. needs to STFU and butt out. The courageous and correct resolution veto sends exactly that message. This veto is absolutely warranted. Every other Council nation is wrong on this. Jerusalem is the rightful capital of the Jewish people, and of Judea/Israel, and has been for thousands of years. I stand by Israel firmly, unequivocally and without apology. This is nonpartisan! Readers of this BLOG know I have been a huge critic of Trump in many ways, but when his administration does do something right, I will support that. Finally obeying the law passed by a bipartisan Congress, and signed in 1992, is simply the right thing to do. Nikki Haley is spot on in her words here, as was Edmund Muskie of the Carter Administration in 1980 under similar circumstances. More details in this link…

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END of BLOG YEAR: This is my last entry for 2017, much to the relief of leftists and freedom-haters (redundant terms, I realize) everywhere. Regardless, I love even my left-wing friends…it just sometimes has to be tough love. For all: Have a joyous and blessed Christmas and new year!

False Equivalencies?

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A notion handed down from Richard Dawkins to assorted atheistic laypeople goes to the effect of this: the Inquisition and Crusades were mass killings in the name of religion; however Stalin’s (and other atheist dictators’) genocides of millions weren’t done in the name of atheism. Notice the subtle semantic dodge? Because Stalin et al. didn’t specifically state to the world their atheism as the reason for their genocides (most of which were kept secret at the time anyway), it must be a “false equivalency”. My my, how convenient.

Well, if you drill deep enough into any literal comparison, it becomes a “false equivalency”. For example, two slightly different isotopes of sodium are indeed slightly different at that level, and therefore, not truly identical. Nonetheless, they give you the same salty effects in molecular bond with chlorine, offering the same level of taste, electrolytic action and solubility. Of course, even that can be arbitrarily declared a “false equivalency” by someone who doesn’t like the idea. Just because somebody claims it’s a “false equivalency” doesn’t make it so. “False equivalancy” does happen: witness, for example, the ridiculous yet common comparison of homosexuality–a behavior–to skin color, an immutable genetic characteristic and not a behavior. Yet, “false equivalency” more often is a buzz-phrase used as a weapon to stifle discussion.

Self-proclaimed Christians killed many during the Inquisitions and Crusades, true. Self-proclaimed atheists killed many in the Stalin/Pol Pot/Mao regimes. True. Each set of killers was motivated by psychopathically warped version of their personal ideals (whether rooted in faith or lack thereof) which don’t represent the basic tenets of either Christianity or secular humanism/atheism, respectively. Really, those are two sides of the same evil coin. The atheists and Christians I’ve known would not murder millions, given the opportunity–but then again, I don’t make a habit of hanging out with cold-blooded killers.

The oft-repeated regurgitation of Dawkins’ “in the name of” semantic dodge, in the context of Stalin (as if Dawkins is an authority on anything in particular aside from genetic biology…but that’s another story) is popular, is viral, makes a nice catchphrase…and doesn’t stand the salty taste test, nor is it backed up by historical truth. To the contrary, I (no more nor less an authority than Dawkins on religious matters) have decided that the Stalin/Inquisition comparison is is NOT a false equivalency at its fundamental root. Here’s one example why: The League of Belligerent (or Militant) Atheists, about which Stalin’s loyal aide Yemelyan Yaroslavky said, “It is our duty to destroy every religious world-concept… If the destruction of ten million human beings, as happened in the last war, should be necessary for the triumph of one definite class, then that must be done and it will be done.”

That statement alone damns the notion that atheism was an irrelevant sideshow of the Stalin regime–not to mention the exemplifying behavior of the regime within which the “League of Militant Atheists” thrived. This group also participated directly in killing and fatal prison/Gulag exile of religious individuals, including clergy, bishops and monks*. Indeed militant state atheism was a central creed of the USSR, and the LMA was disbanded officially only under great pressure from the Allies in World War 2. Other purges of religious figures and believers followed, however–the death toll numbering in the millions as part of one of the largest genocides in history.

“NO evidence”? There goes that idea. The League of Militant Atheists, and the philosophy with which it was associated far beyond any official membership numbers, makes one hell of an “inconvenient truth” for the field of secular apologetics.

Yet the tiresome “false equivalency/in-name-of” tenet of atheistic catechism will persist for a long time, because it does make a tasty piece of gristle for militant atheists–the modern version, not as a capitalized league, and thankfully not genocidal–to latch on with fangs bared.

Personally, I’d like to see the mutual mistrust and animosity cooled off between atheists and the religious; we all have at least some common goals and interests and should be able to get along much better. If I somehow have contributed, through my unwillingness to let what I see as heretic falsehoods propagate, then please forgive me. I am idealistic in standing by my faith and in attacking an idea (not the person), and also wish no harm on atheists. Only God will deliver the ultimate, perpetually binding judgment of us all.

At the core, we all actually see the same fundamental order of creation, whether through science or the pages of Genesis. [Quite obviously, the writers of Genesis had access to some amazing insights not available to science for another couple thousand years!] Being a scientist who also is faithful, I see science as a great, God-given tool to understand His enchanting, marvelous and infinitely complex universe better and better, and see my role in contributing to science as fulfilling a God-given talent and ability. The more I read and work and play and observe in science, the more I see God’s handiwork.

Meanwhile, I say: God bless all atheists; for they, as for me and everyone else, religious or not, whether one chooses to have faith or not, are made in His image and have become imperfect through sin. Denying God won’t make Him disappear. Good thing I live in a place and time where I’ll not be burned at a stake by an Inquisitor or made to disappear by the Soviet League of Militant Atheists for saying that!

    * For more information, I highly recommend this book: A History of Marxist-Leninist Atheism and Soviet Antireligious Policies (History of Soviet and Atheism in Theory and Practice, and the Believer), by Dimitry Pospielovsky. It’s a text, and very expensive, so if you can find the book in a major library (as I did when studying all sorts of material about the USSR during the early ’90s), that’s the best bet.