Back in 2014, I wrote a column asking my leftist friends two very serious questions. And I often repeat these questions when debating proponents of bigger government.
- Can you name a nation that became rich with statist policies?
- Can you name a nation that with interventionism and big government that is out-performing a similar nation with free markets and small government?
I’ve yet to receive a good answer to either question. Many leftists point to certain European welfare states, but I debunk that claim by pointing out that those nations became rich when government was very small (about 10 percent of GDP, about one-half the size of the current Hong Kong and Singapore public sectors).
Others point to rapid growth in China, but that’s rather silly since improvements in that country’s economy are the result of partial liberalization. In any event, it’s not that difficult to have rapid growth rates when starting from a very low level. But even with a couple of decades of good growth, living standards in China are still relatively low.
So my challenge remains. I want a leftist (or anybody) to identify a successful statist nation, but I’m not holding my breath for good answers.
Yet even though the real-world evidence against big government is so strong, it’s rather baffling that many young people are drawn to that coercive ideology and disturbing that a non-trivial number of voters favor this failed form of statism.
The London-based Institute for Economic Affairs has released a video on the false allure of socialism.
I suppose a caveat might be appropriate at this stage.
Socialism has a technical definition involving government ownership of the means of production and central planning of the economy.
But most people today think socialism is big government, with business still privately owned but with lots of redistribution and intervention (I’ve argued, for instance, that even Bernie Sanders isn’t a real socialist, and that there are big differences between countries like Sweden, China, and North Korea).
For what it’s worth, that’s actually closer to the technical definition of fascism. But I guess I’m being pedantic by wanting more precision in how terms are used.
In any event, the IEA video is spot on. If you like videos debunking socialism, I have other examples here, here, and here.
Last but not least, here’s my favorite visual from the IEA video.
P.S. If you like visuals mocking socialism, I’ve amassed a very nice collection. Click here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here for examples.
P.P.S. The good news is that socialism isn’t very popular in the United States, particularly compared to free enterprise.
As long as a government has the power to do whatever it wants to do to any business entity within its reach, that’s Socialism (a.k.a. Communism), no matter whose name is on the title deed or on the share certificates.
It’s not about government ownership of the means of production: it’s about government control of the means of production.
And as things stand in the United States today, we have full-blown Socialism.
I believe the allure of socialism for young people was observed a number of years ago when a French person(I believe) made the statement that “if you are not a socialist at the age of 20, you have no heart, if you ARE a socialist at the age of 40, you have no brain” (which is kind of a neurological evaluation of Bernie Sanders)
Very few socialists know that the abbreviation for the German National Socialist party is Nazi. The Nazi party’s full name is NAtional soZIalistische deutsche arbeiter partei – which literally translates from German as the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. Socialist? Workers? Nazis were left-wing, not right-wing.
Mind you, Wikipedia do a very good job of muddying the waters by pretending that the abbreviation is actually NSDAP rather than Nazi. They evade attempts to clarify, I’m told because Wikipedia is funded by Soros – a strongly committed Socialist. He obviously believes in Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s immoral justification:
“The end justifies the means”
Socialists hate the fact that the Nazi party was a National Socialist party with the same strong gun control agenda, the same strong social programs, the same government control of education, the same government control of the economy, and the same emphasis on government jobs and worker’s rights as modern socialists.
There’s also the same Nazi brownshirt violence against those who refuse to follow their left-wing agenda (history calls it brownshirt violence because they dressed in brownshirts to easily identify attackers from their victims.) Today they’re masked and dress in black – and still very violent.
So Socialists frequently try to rewrite history by pretending Nazi means right-wing whereas in truth Nazi is actually left-wing and socialist. The facts prove the left are devout followers of Nazi ideology, even if they don’t know it, and are increasingly accepting violence as a strategy.
Pity for the Venezuelan people who believe the Socialist rhetoric. And the same for Americans who believe the sophist message of Clinton and Bernie Sanders…
Thanks Mr. Mitchell. This post pretty much summarizes the wealth of nations in the twenty first century.
A couple of thoughts:
The French frog is missing from the cartoon. The French frog is the quintessential frog of America’s future.
A somewhat successful statist nation seems to be Austria. No they don’t have stellar growth, their growth is only half the world average at best and so they are on trajectory to be re-absorbed into the middle income countries of this world by about mid century. But compared to most other countries in the statism, prosperity, growth spectrum they are somewhat of an outlier.
Humans are not attracted to socialism only. The parent detrimental mentality, which includes socialism, is coercive collectivism.
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My best personal explanation for why socialism (and other forms of coercive collectivism) is so attractive to humans is this:
Socialism is evolutionally baked in our genes from a time immemorial when collectivism was indeed the optimal approach — and that immemorial time represents at least 99.9% of human existence. Things only changed in historical times, and most notably the last three centuries. Now the pace of human growth and development is so rapid and accelerating that we may soon reach a singularity… but that’s another topic, let’s return to why coercive collectivism is baked in our genes…
In a world where nothing changes (99.9% of human existence) most small deviations from current practice have invariably been tried and have led to inferior results. Thus the individual and the tribe all over humanity are in an optimized state (a local maximum as future stellar human growth proves) but yet a stable local maximum. In that local maximum environment any deviation from current practice (that is any deviation from the wisdom of the ancients passed down from generation to generation) leads to an inferior result. This evolutional pressure inevitably bakes statism into your genes in the name of efficiency. In other words, the best approach for both individual and tribe in that ancient static environment becomes to bow your head, accept collectivism, and implement the same central plan that is passed down to you as intergenerational wisdom from your ancestors. The tribe does best if it reels in individuals who disrupt things by diverging from the “wisdom of the ancients” because all immediately reachable deviations have already been tried and have lead to inferior results. Evolution stamps the non collectivist individual out of the gene pool. The tribe that implements conformity to the central plan of the wise ancestors — and suppresses disruptor individuals– is the most successful. Those tribes that allow the disruptors more freedom go through the overhead of experimenting with new but inferior changes (the changes have already been tried and do lead to inferior results) as well as the overhead of reeling back in the disrupters. These tribes are less efficient and over time decline from natural selection.
Following standard evolutional theory this is an environment that strongly favors baking a coercive collectivism mentality into the genome of the human individual.
Of course,
This genome is now colliding head on with our fast moving human world (for the first time ever in at least two million years of human history! — why now really? That is a coincidence that poses a lot of existential puzzles, but again that is another long story…).
So what is the practical impact of all this?
The practical impact is that our genetic baggage is mal adapted to our current (unheard of in all previous human two million year history) current fast growth environment. (*)
And it is very difficult for individuals to keep rationalizing day in day out a scientific rejection of their very own basic nature and a genome that constantly seeks safety in the groupthink of coercive collectivism. Hence, it’s not a coincidence that libertarianism is a peripheral and secondary player in world affairs.
Now, to override this innate detrimental behavior in our current age… this is where religion comes in. It is not a topic I can elaborate on in this already long post, but I will leave you with a thought: The tribes and nations of history that experienced the best long term success were those social groups that practiced religions that pulled humans away from coercive collectivism the most (compared to competing religions of course! — because religions are coercively collectivist ideologies too).
In other words the genome of coercive collectivism is too strong for an individual to override on his/her own day in day out in isolation, or even with the backing of a libertarian philosophy and science. The individual needs some bigger moral framework to overcome the innate coercive collectivism that is baked into his/her genes. Religion has become the de-facto vehicle for this successful liberation — of course not all religions, and religions also have to compete amongst each other in that arena.
Just think of three things:
1. Max Weber’s “The Protestant ethic”
2. Judaism and capitalism
3. In the secret isolation of the polling booth, when marking a few Xs on the ballot will confer you some freebie goodies, who is going to prevent you from marking the Xs other than religion? The utilitarianism of not driving your country into long term decline? Or some libertarian ideology? How many people can resist the temptation in the last two modes? No, only religion can do that consistently. And that is why in societies that reject religion citizens become socialist jerks.
(*) You can change the length of human history (to say two hundred thousand years) and you can change the number of centuries considered fast human growth, but the main argument does not change.
Zorba,
I’m no expert on genetic theory or related topics, but here’s a couple more points to support the possibility that collectivism is baked into our genes. Both have to do with life in the hunter-gatherer time of long ago.
One, collectivism can work in small groups (think family), and tribes back then were small. Two, they didn’t have any reliable meat preservation method back then, so any large animal killed for food was best divvied up among the tribe members before the meat went bad. I share my kill with you now; you share yours with me later. Just theory, of course.
Zorba, interesting comment, and a useful analysis.
Here is my favourite video along the lines of this post… 🙂
John,
In my opinion there is a huge utilitarian chasm between voluntary collectivism and coercive collectivism.
We trade and exchange with other people more than we ever did in ancient, historical , neo or Paleolithic times. We are more interconnected and efficient than ever through voluntary collectivism, that is, through free trade of goods, services, capital, and people (migration).
But we lose our enthusiasm for work (at least compared to our competitors) when we are subject to coercive collectivism and the forced conscription of a large percentage of our vitality to serve distant unknowns rather than ourselves and our families. The lost productivity and foregone growth quickly compound and our societies are swiftly re-absorbed into the middle income countries of this world.
I imagine a mid nineteenth century debate between an American farmer simpleton and the much more eloquent and sophisticated mind of Karl Marx. Karl Marx would have monopolized the debate with eloquent and sophisticated scientific tirades about the mechanics of politics, economics, class struggle, and the upcoming better world of coercive collectivism. The American farmer would have already been lost in the first minute of the conversation, reduced to listening with a glazed look. At the end of the conversation, having spoken few words, the American farmer might have just said: “I don’t understand these high concepts, but I don’t think people will work for distant unknowns”.
Who was right in the end?
tens of millions of people have been murdered by socialist despots… worldwide… perhaps 85-100 million people have died for the sanctity of a worker’s paradise… it’s a flawed and deadly ideology… and yet our educational system continues to ignore it’s failures… romanticize it’s proponents… and promote it as an idyllic and viable system of governance…
go figure……………………………………………………
Zorba again is right on.
Socialism presupposes the world is a family. However, a family (sharing) model can only operate smoothly in very small groups. Even within the group, there are factions. Each faction wants to maximize its own situation relative to the “others”. Since there is little incentive to cooperate, [trading for mutual benefit would not be socialism], force is required.
In every socialist state, there is a ruling faction that enforces its will over the others. “All are equal, but some more equal than others.”
In an ideal socialistic world, everyone is equal. However, in such a world no transactions can take place, without one or both parties improving their situation relative to all others.
With no incentive, not only will people not work, but almost as bad, even if they wanted to fill their time, they have no method to select their best option.
As Mises pointed out, without a pricing system freely arrived at, they lack the ability to prioritize human action.
Zorba,
Just in case you think I agree with coercive collectivism, I want to be clear I absolutely do not. I agree, there is an incredibly huge chasm between voluntary and coercive collectivism. Coercion is almost always wrong. It’s morally wrong and generally reduces prosperity. That’s why smaller government is almost always better.
I think society can solve most problems through freedom, choice, and competition. I only mentioned my couple hunter-gatherer collectivist comments as further support of your comment that collectivism may be baked into our genes.
John
True enough. Aboriginal tribes were/are socialist, because sharing food maximises health and friendships. They never had to create bigger societies, so the ‘dreamtime’ laws don’t work now.
Socialism also works because the term is flexible. In fact, any social variation between autarky and communism can be called ‘socialist’, since the word describes any society! All ‘societies’ are ‘soci-alist’! The different names describe the degree of group-think, not if there is any.
To figure out where you are on the altruism spectrum I always ask people to answer for themselves the following question: To a destitute person in good standing with you how much of your wealth/income would you give on an permanent basis (i.e. Day in day out for life):
A) your children
B) your parents
C) your sibling
D) your cousin
E) a good friend
My answers: A:50-100% depending on situation, B: 50%, C:15%, D:2%, E:1-2%.
Remember this is lifetime giving, day in day out, not a one time handout.
Then imagine how much you would give distant unknowns and subtract that from the 60% total taxation level of a typical democratically socialist state like, say, France. The result of the subtraction is what must be covered by coercion.
So, as you can imagine coercion — lots of coercion is needed in socialism. It does not matter whether the ruling class that enforces this coercion is a truly small class or if the majority of people themselves do the coercion (in places like France it’s a combination of both: a ruling elite that feeds the masses redistribution and lofty ideals, so that the masses will continue to allow the elite to live in the once Royal Palaces).
Even in the case where the people themselves are the direct enforcers of coercion, the effort reward curve still flattens on both ends, as the competent are milked and the less competent feel less incentive to work and self improve since they’re partially insulated from the consequences of their mediocrity — until the entire country declines. Competitiveness with respect to competing nations declines. The compounding growth deficit makes everyone worse off until the entire society cries uncle. But that bottom is very far and the pain until you hit it enormous (Greece has not hit it yet). Worse, even after hitting bottom most collectivist societies never learn. Once social capital is lost it is very very difficult to recoup. Only serendipitously once in a while a country comes out of the bottom. Those who think it will be the country they live in are delusionally optimistic.
It seems to me that author of this article is not able (or willing) to differentiate communism from socialism!!!