I already talked extensively about socialism and communism, especially in my article series about the misconceptions people have about socialism. I didn’t finish that series, because during the process I realized that socialism wasn’t what I thought it was either. For example, I wanted to explain how socialism isn’t a social welfare State but a State economy (sounds similar but is VERY different). But then I realized that actually, it’s not really that either and there is something else behind it.
So I am starting over and this time I am more fittingly calling my series “Socialism and communism aren’t what you think they are” and this is the first part. So we have to recap a bit and start at the beginning again.
So I previously already explained how socialism has nothing to do with social welfare and how you don’t have social welfare in any socialist country at all and how if you don’t wanna work, they won’t give you welfare at all, but will have ways to make you work.
Socialists only advocate for social welfare in “capitalist” countries. Because while welfare, free healthcare, free university level education, free housing and an unconditional and universal basic income for everyone including non-citizens and at least in SOME cases even for undocumented migrants, is of course good and commendable; the reality is that these in one way or another all represent goods and services that in reality don’t just grow on trees and that someone needs to provide and work for…
Because even though the whole point is to make it all free, these are not things that ARE free. So unless you don’t really compensate the people providing these goods and services and essentially turn them into slaves, SOMEONE has to compensate them – usually the taxpayer. And of course I am not like those extreme Libertarians who scream “taxation is theft!”. No it’s not, it’s for the good of society, so stop whining and pay your taxes you veiled anarchist!
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That said, if you do it too much, it can eventually weaken, destabilize and even collapse the economy if done in excess. For example, once universal basic income was implemented in some regions in my area, unemployment skyrocketed even though the demand for UNSKILLED workers also skyrocketed. Because people with low paying jobs all stopped working cause now they made more money not working and once that catches on, the economy collapses. But before it does, the government will try to “save” the economy and keep things going by printing more money, and thus inflation skyrockets.
As I said, socialism ISN’T social welfare, it’s a State controlled economy and social welfare is only used to collapse the “capitalist” economy. But even so, EXCESSIVE social welfare in itself is already a first step in the direction of the State starting to interfere in the economy. Which leads to problems such as inflation. But the socialists will not admit that this was the result of their policies, instead they will paint it as a “failure of capitalism”.
Anyway, price controls and digital (programmable) money (which is essentially just a modern form of price controls) are then introduced to “fix” the inflation that they created through their policies in the first place. And that’s the next step of the State gaining control over the economy. Now the State isn’t just interfering with the economy by taking the wealth from hard working, successful people and allocating it to less hard working, less successful -ahem- I mean less fortunate people; now the State is directly starting to control the economy itself and starting to tell everyone how much of what they can sell to whom at what time and at what price.
And people are likely to accept it at that point cause it seems like the only way out of inflation. Except of course it will lead to even worse problems that people from the oh so evil “capitalist” countries have never experienced before and therefore don’t even have a concept of. Because what happens if the State dictates what you are allowed to sell and to whom and at what price?
Think about it. Suppose there was a bad harvest, so wheat is scarce and therefore bread is becoming more expensive. The State decides that it’s becoming too expensive and so implements price controls, artificially making the price of wheat and bread much cheaper than it would be. That’s a good thing, right?
Those greedy bakers and greedy farmers were asking for too much money for their products, right? So the State under the control of the altruistic socialists simply needs to intervene and force them to sell their products much cheaper and the problem is solved, right? Inflation done away with thanks to State intervention, right? Well, not exactly. I know it might seem that way at first glance and that’s why people fall for it.
But think about it. Why was wheat getting more expensive? Because it was scarce. Why was it scarce? Because maybe there was a famine or war or farmers might have even intentionally been hit with excessive taxes and regulations or many of them might have even been forced by the State to sell their farms. So farming wheat was already challenging for various reasons, resulting in a much smaller harvest than before.
A higher price then compensates farmers for the additional challenges their harvest faced, allowing them to stay in business. It also compensates for the scarcity. Because if it’s more expensive, only people who really need it will buy it and those who maybe can make corn bread instead, will make that.
So farming wheat was already borderline unprofitable and therefore wheat was already scarce. Now none of these problems are solved in the least, yet the price is artificially lowered. So what happens? Farmers will stop farming wheat altogether, because it has become completely unprofitable and unsustainable and so they will either plant something else or go out of business. Same with bakers.
So wheat and bread has gone from being expensive to not being there at all. So the State can boast that thanks to their progressive socialist policies they have completely solved the inflation. And that’s true, they have. Because now all the stuff they implemented price controls for isn’t expensive anymore, but instead is just gone completely. At least for the average consumer who doesn’t have any special connections.
That’s a simplified version of what happened to pretty much all goods and services in pretty much all socialist countries.
This raises the question of; why would anyone want this? Of course the common socialist follower doesn’t understand these complex economic principals. He demands an end to any and all exploitation while simultaneously demanding everything for free, because he doesn’t understand that demanding goods and services for free necessitates exploitation. Just like he doesn’t understand that giving away money for free creates inflation, just like he doesn’t understand that price controls (in whatever form) will then “solve” that inflation by making basic goods like food completely unavailable for most people, leading to widespread starvation.
So the common socialist follower doesn’t necessarily have bad intentions. He might even have good intentions, but might just be very naive and not realize that the policies he advocates for don’t serve to free the common people from oppression and slavery but are actually designed to do the exact opposite.
But the socialist and communist leaders who designed all these socialist policies in the first place don’t have that excuse. They know very well what they are doing and they know very well that they are essentially and intentionally oppressing and enslaving their own people.
So why would they want to do this? For power? Yes, but also kinda no – at least not in the sense of coming to power cause in many cases these people are already in power or at least already have a lot of power to begin with. They are not at all common workers like their followers. They are basically aristocrats, oligarchs and heads of powerful cooperations and monopolies (what their followers would call the capitalist elite).
And here we can see the difficulty of being an anti-communist. People call me an anti-communist and they mean it as a derogatory term. I don’t see it that way, I wear it as a badge of honor. That said, I would never ever call myself an anti-communist, because trying to oppose communism and socialism is like trying to oppose a paradox.
So for example in this case, since it’s basically (part of) the “bourgeoisie” and ruling and exploiting “capitalist” class of elites that’s behind communism, I would have to say that I am against them. But if I were to say that, I would just sound like a communist and that’s inevitable because communism IS contradictory with contradictory principles and a self-contradicting ideology.
But why is that? And why would their leaders intentionally act paradoxically and destructive and be completely willing to jeopardize both their position of power as well as the well being of their subjects? It’s because they think they have a higher goal and that’s communism. Of course they don’t call it communism. They call it a new golden age of Saturn (hammer and sickle and the five pointed red star are all symbols for Saturn) as I explained in my previous video.
They see it as a man made paradise on earth and they think they have the power to create such a paradise. Of course such a great undertaking requires a correspondingly great sacrifice (can’t make an omelette without breaking a few balls – I mean eggs). So they are perfectly willing to sacrifice some of their subjects in the process which is why they fully know that some of their policies entail war, starvation and genocide, but also just fully don’t care.
But their ideology isn’t really “evil” in the classical sense – it’s much worse than that – it’s warped and twisted beyond any resolution or redemption. If it was “just” evil it wouldn’t be so bad, as at least it would be easy to recognize as evil and therefore easy to expose and oppose. But instead communists always start out with seemingly good intentions. Their common followers say they want to end oppression and their leaders say they want a new golden age – a paradise on earth where milk and honey flow – for everyone.
And those seem like good intentions that even an “evil anti-communist” like me would certainly not be against, right? Right! It’s just that their ways of trying to reach those goals are so incredibly warped and twisted, that in the end they only achieve the exact opposite of what they promised.
See, I don’t need to actually be an anti-communist and people don’t need to bring down communism. Communism and especially the cult behind it, is so warped, contradictory and self-destructive that eventually they always manage to destroy themselves all by themselves.
But why is that? Why is their ideology so paradoxically contradictory and ultimately self-destructive?
In the next part I will explain all that.
And in meantime, feel free to share this article. The more people read and like this article, the more it encourages me to finish writing the next part 😉
By Emmanuel Goldstein.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Vision Times.
