Economic Freedom measures living standards, growth, income equality and less corruption. The US has dropped from second place as the most economically free – to 16th! And falling!
We are now behind Chile, Jordon, the United Emirates, and Mauritus (a small island country off Africa). Economic freedom is defined as a laissez faire capitalist market system with minimal government regulation. Socialism is defined as greater government regulation, greater individual control of companies as in cooperatives, higher taxes, non-profit enterprises, and collective sharing. While it has been around in various forms for many centuries, it’s lacking success has shown that it is not an ideal system to aspire toward. Historically, Socialism has gravitated toward communism and the breeding of intense corruption, and a failing economy.
Leon Trotsky, Lenin, Karl Marx, the Jewish Bolsheviks, Charles Kingsley, Rosa Luxemberg, and Charles Fourier have all dabbled in Socialism. There are Socialist political parties in Norway, Sweden, the UK, Africa, Canada, and the US. Advocates push for the creation of a society in which each person is ranked according to his or her capacities and rewarded according to his or her work… Sounds a lot like communist China to me. The government decides what your capabilities are at birth and your entire education is directed toward that final destination. It’s called – absolute control.
And that is the reason it has never worked. You simply can not control an entire population indefinitely, we are a people inherently, instinctively built on freedom. We crave freedom. We fight our wars for freedom. Braveheart! We are willing to die for freedom. Corralling people into a socialist-communist agenda has never worked historically, and will not work today.
Some point to successes; Norway and Canada. But is it working? They have specific social products, like healthcare, that are hailed as great positives promoting socialist success. And while socialized medicine has some benefits, the negatives are ripe too. Fraud, corruption, long wait times – sometimes months and months, doctor shortages, higher taxes, and even the forced euthanasia of people deemed too far gone to benefit from medical care and left to die. A friend of mine told me she was on a six month waiting list to get an MRI for a suspected brain tumor.
Advocates claim we already have a socialized government, consider Social Security… Oh, that’s right, Social Security, the system that is bankrupt and borrowing from other coffers simply to sustain itself. Or our military? Currently failing for its internal corruption and fraud? The Postal Service? Failed. Public Schools? Failed. Jail system? Failed. Veterans Healthcare? Failed. Food Stamps? Failed. IRS? Failed.
Why? Why do socialized systems consistently fail?
Because the theory assumes people will comply in a world without incentive, without reward, without merit, and without voice. Because the theory assumes we will comply much like cattle. Mindless. Which opens the door to a greater medicated society, one in which we comply because we are so medicated we don’t care. Where population growth is a factor of immigration not birthrate of ethnic nationals. And because the theory supports the growth of fraud and corruption within government. Is there fraud and corruption in the private sector? Yes. But they are subject to consequence for that behavior. In the government, the corruption and fraud is tolerated, even encouraged, ie the EPA.
Alberta just this year elected a Socialist leader, Rachel Notley. But, Alberta’s economy is sliding and collapsing. Why? Fires, drought, a devastated agriculture, oil revenues in the toilet, and a budget deficit. Their ministry solution – invest more money in infrastructure and subsidize oil and agriculture losses. With what funds?
Norway’s economy is showing signs of contraction as well as 30% of government revenue is linked to oil. But Norway has been experiencing a dramatic deficiency. Over the last decade or more, it’s ethnic population has been in a spiraling decline. Some point to the need for dual incomes, others point to a lack of desire for children, and others point to infertility issues. At the same time, immigrants now account for upwards of 23% of the population, 69% from Arab countries, 31% from European countries.
Socialism is akin to pyramid marketing, everyone gets rich in the beginning, but as the dispersion of wealth becomes greater and greater, only those at the top of the pyramid survive. It sounds great in theory, but the long term sustainability has proven over and over to be a complete failure. We abhor the communist-socialists of former Russia, North Korea, and China, and yet seem oblivious when Socialism is professed as the solution elsewhere. Why?
Whenever a country’s citizens feel impoverished, they look to other methodologies as the solution. Its similar to Democrat vs Republican rule. Switch. Switch. Switch. Let’s try something new. Socialism? Destroys economies. Destroys nations. And is a precursor to the next new – a New World Order of Globalization, as we look on like sheep for someone, something, to save us from this horror called Socialism.
Just sayin’ …