Posted by
Sam Thomsen on Monday, September 14, 2009 8:52:40 AM
The propaganda success of Socialists in the West was one of the greatest scandals of the 20th century. For most of the century, Socialism was hard at work in the far corners of the earth producing vast amounts of poverty and human misery. Meanwhile, in the West, Socialists succeeded in discrediting their rival, Free-Market Capitalism, by characterizing it as a system that cultivates and leverages human greed.
Free-Market Capitalism is a system based on an individual's freedom to exchange goods and services with others and to keep any surplus wealth created in the process. It is a description of what people do when they are free.
Socialism is a system based on an individual's obligation to share the wealth produced by his ingenuity and labor with the State. It is an ingenious system that enables one group to harness the power of government to control others and to confiscate their property.
It is usually difficult for those in Socialist countries to opt-out of the system. Some countries have even constructed fences to keep their citizens in. Capitalist countries, in contrast, have sometimes required fences to keep the citizens of other countries out. If people vote with their feet, then Socialism has a great tradition of disenfranchising its own.
The success of Socialist propaganda can be attributed, in part, to the clever application of a moral fallacy: that it is inherently evil for an individual to act according to his own personal interest. But all human motivation is based on personal interest. This is not moral weakness; it is logical necessity. A person's motivation is the very same thing as his interest.
This is not to discount the virtue of many instances of self-denial. Self-denial can be a manifestation of great virtue, but it is not a virtue in itself. The term self-denial merely describes behavior; it does not explain it. The real virtue at the heart of any heroic act of self-denial is love, which involves one person's interest in the well-being and happiness of another.
The 18th century economist and philosopher, Adam Smith, noticed that free commerce between individuals promotes civil accord, because the system requires individuals to rely on the good-will of others. Since, in a truly free market, no one can be coerced to purchase goods or services from any particular person, all citizens are motivated to cultivate deep reservoirs of good-will with others. Each person has a very real and material interest in the happiness of others. Though not the same thing as love, this personal interest in the happiness of others motivates cheerful service. When people live in freedom, civility is a social and economic necessity.
Socialism, in stark contrast, promotes civil discord. Since the system is based on coercion, an individual has little use for his neighbor's good-will. Instead, the system motivates all to acquire as much raw power as possible, or, failing that, to purchase the favor of those who already have it. In the democratic, mob-rule form of Socialism, this power is often obtained through coalitions that band together to leverage the power of the State to control the lives of other citizens, confiscate their property, and to obtain special rights for themselves.
Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher played important roles in accelerating the collapse of the Soviet Union, but it is critical to understand that these great leaders and their policies did not destroy the Soviet Union. Socialism destroyed the Soviet Union and Socialism can destroy the United States of America.