There is a lot of misunderstanding of what socialism is. Funny thing is, the proponents like to talk about “social” security when bringing up the subject of socialism. What is funny is, that social security is a classic example of what is wrong with socialism. Its going broke! That is AWAYS what happens when socialism is implemented, and that is what is wrong with it.
Proponents of socialism like to bring up 3 things to make socialism look good, Jesus, northern Europe and Democratic socialism. First, let me talk about northern Europe.
Northern Europe has a lot of socialist programs like a welfare state, government health insurance, and public education. What people don’t know is that these countries also engaged in pubic ownership of private enterprise. This was a dismal failure. These countries are successful today because they were pragmatic and abandoned this activity and returned to capitalism. These countries are actually capitalistic and not really socialistic at all, in the strictest definition of the word. People need to realize, the goal of socialism is public ownership of private property. Whether they do it all at once, like they did in the USSR or they do it slowly like they tried in northern Europe, the goal is the same.
A lot of people like to say Jesus was a socialist (or more often, a communist). They say this because the idea is that they had all things in common. In the book of Acts, it talks about Ananias and Sopphira selling land and bringing the proceeds to the apostles. Apparently, this was public ownership of private property for the purpose of redistributing the wealth so that no one was poor. From Acts 4:34:
“For there was not a needy person among them, for all who were owners of land or houses would sell them and bring the proceeds of the sales”.
What people don’t understand about this, is that socialism does this by force, where what is happening here is just generosity. People willingly giving away their private property to help the poor is not what socialism is proposing. Socialism proposes taking away private property and giving it to the government. Helping the poor is supposed to result, but more often than not, the government gets rich (and by side effect the administrators also) and everyone else, except the most destitute, gets poorer. The end result of this is bankruptcy. Aways, Aways, Aways.
The so called “Democratic” socialism implies that we can have freedom AND socialism. What happens is that the “democracy” only works as long as people continue to choose socialistic politicians. If they get upset with the status quo, and vote out the socialists, then the country becomes capitalist again. This is what happened in northern Europe. In Venezuela, what happened, is that when the people didn’t vote for the socialists, the government ceases to be democratic and a despotic dictatorship is born. So the reality is, socialism really cannot be “democratic” because if the democracy is real, socialism can be voted out. Since socialism AWAYS goes bankrupt, the people AWAYS try to vote it out. This happens because the goal of democratic socialism is public ownership of private property. This is the very definition of socialism. Democratic socialism seeks to do this slowly, with allowing private ownership for a while, but gradually taking over the ownership of private property over time. Whether the process happens over time, or happens immediately, the goal is the same.
The reason that socialism goes broke is because it kills the private sector, and takes away incentive to work hard. Capitalism offers a reward for hard work, and socialism takes it away. Its just that simple. Human nature is to not bang ones head against the wall for no reason. The proponents of socialism think people work because they enjoy it, and while this may be true for some people, most people don’t enjoy work at all, and there is plenty of work that needs to be done that nobody wants to do. The incentive to do this work, is payment. Employers need to incentivize this work so that it gets done by paying as more for these jobs as for more interesting jobs. Socialism takes this incentive away, because it redistributes the wealth from hard working people doing jobs no one else wants to do, and giving the money to people who aren’t working at all or are doing easy jobs. As a result the income of the state goes down. Add to that, the gradual increasing corruption that occurs when making a lot of money disappears from hard work, and the end result is bankruptcy as the cost of government services goes up to pay for all the administrators who are skimming off the top.
So, lets all be generous and just keep capitalism! Ever wonder why socialism is endorsed by so many atheists? Ever wonder why Karl Marx said “Religion is the opiate of the masses”? Socialism is just part of Satan’s plan.
