Socialism

Adlai Stevenson said that, “A hungry man is not a free man.” Many assume free exchange is invalid unless a basic level of wealth is achieved by the parties, but this is an error.

With the recent collapse of air traffic control systems at Newark International Airport, air safety again is in the news. The problem is that the US ATC system is run on socialist principles. To fix this problem, turn to private enterprise.

Progressive supporters of USAID claim that the agency does vital work overseas to provide medical care and other necessities for the poorest of the poor. Yet, a careful look at its record reveals that USAID often is a hindrance to the very people it claims to help.

When people speak of “social justice,” they are not speaking of justice in any historical form but rather an imaginary state of affairs in which the state enforces a progressive view of equality. F.A. Hayek wrote that “social justice” is “wholly devoid of meaning or content.”

Although government officials and true believers in “green energy” are denying it, the collapse of the electric grid in Spain and Portugal proves that reliance on renewables for electric production is doomed to failure. Whether people listen is another story.

When intellectuals and political elites call for equality, they usually mean creating social conditions that are make believe at best and harmful at worst. Their latest hustle is “equity,” which means the state should guarantee equal outcomes for everyone.

The California Bullet Train has become the Eternal Project That Won‘t Go Away no matter how big a failure it has become. Political inertia is a powerful force and California politicians have used it to deceive voters and taxpayers, who will face a reckoning.

South Vietnam ceased to exist as a separate country 50 years ago. What followed was an object lesson on the failures of socialism, as Marxist ideology turned Vietnam into one of the world's poorest countries. Vietnam‘s “second revolution” was successfully embracing a market economy.

When modern progressives claim to support equity, what they really mean is the confiscation of wealth and transferal of private property to politically-favored groups. These policies have a sorry history from Reconstruction and continued through the 20th century communist regimes.

The welfare state is supposed to signal the existence of the “compassionate” society that provides care for all. However, this “compassion” has resulted in the proliferation of social pathologies that undermine civilization itself.