Text 20513, 115 rader
Skriven 2006-05-28 21:25:00 av Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
Ärende: Socialism
=================
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2006/0605/033.html

Digital Rules 
Why Isn't Socialism Dead? 
Rich Karlgaard, 06.05.06, 12:00 AM ET 
  
 
I owe this title to writer Lee Harris. Last month Harris posed this 
headliner question in a piece he wrote for Tech Central Station's Web 
site, TCSDaily. Harris is right to ask; socialism's track record is 
abysmal. 

The milder forms of it have yielded economic stagnation where and 
whenever tried: England in the 1970s; France today. The more impatient 
strains--"socialism in a hurry," as Lenin reputedly called communism--
did nothing but plunder economies and destroy lives. Their fine leaders 
ordered the deaths of more than 100 million people--Lenin and Stalin (40 
million), Mao (60 million) and Pol Pot (2 million), not to mention that 
syphilitic dictator of the German National Socialist Party, Adolf Hitler 
(11 million directly, another 35 million through the war he started). 

By all rights socialism should be dead, sealed in a steel vault and 
buried in Hell. Yet the disease lives. You might even say it's spreading 
when you look at the ascent of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Evo Morales in 
Bolivia, Ken Livingstone in London and the "progressive" American Net-
based left (which says Hillary Rodham Clinton is too far right). What 
accounts for socialism's reappearance? To discover the answer, we must 
ask another question. Why do so many people around the world hate its 
opposite--free-market capitalism? 

Denial on the Left 

Old news, but worth repeating (since the mainstream press is in denial): 
U.S. GDP growth for the first quarter clocked in at a whopping 4.8%. 
Remember that this figure is typically revised upward weeks later. Look 
for a final tally of 5.0+%. Gosh, what else is there to say about the 
roaring U.S. economy? Oh, yes. Unemployment is safely below 5%, and--
wonder of wonders--even the New York Times admits that wages are rising 
faster than inflation. 

And the bad news? Let's see. Could it be the crunch in U.S. 
manufacturing jobs, such as in the auto industry? Actually, no, says 
heartland economy expert Jack Schultz. In 1990 there were 955,100 
Americans employed in the auto sector, compared with 956,200 in 2005. 
Thank you, Toyota (nyse: TM - news - people ), Nissan (nasdaq: NSANY - 
news - people ), Honda (nyse: HMC - news - people ) and BMW. The stock 
market likes what it sees. The Dow has been flirting with its high of 
11,723, set in January 2000. 

No matter how you look at it--from business starts to job growth to 
salaries to share prices--the American form of free-market capitalism 
delivers the goods. But you'll never convince socialists and their 
fellow travelers on the trendy Left that anything good has occurred. Or 
that freedom--in the form of reduced regulation and taxes--is 
responsible. Take this recent post from the leftist Daily Kos (the Web 
site that thinks Hillary Clinton is too far right): 

"The Bush tax cuts were designed to stimulate the economy by giving huge 
tax cuts to the wealthy. But Voodoo economics (trickle-down economics 
or, as we like to call it here, trickled-on economics) has been proven 
over and over again to NOT WORK.… Demand will dry up if there's nobody 
out there who can afford to pay for your goods and services.… This is a 
simple law of economics." 

The only thing atypical about this brain-dead Daily Kos post is the lack 
of four-letter words beginning with "f." 

The Revolutionary Myth 

Back to writer Lee Harris, who also asks: "Why are the people in Bolivia 
and Venezuela responding so enthusiastically to the socialist siren-
songs of Evo Morales and Hugo Chávez, instead of heeding the eminently 
rational counsel of [free-market proponent] Hernando de Soto? Why are 
they clamoring to give even more power and control to the state, instead 
of seeking to free themselves from the very obstacle that stands in the 
way of any genuine economic progress? 

"It may well be that socialism isn't dead because socialism cannot die. 
As [the early 20th-century French revolutionary writer Georges] Sorel 
argued, the revolutionary myth may, like religion, continue to thrive in 
'the profounder regions of our mental life,' in those realms unreachable 
by mere reason and argument, where even a hundred proofs of failure are 
insufficient to wean us from those primordial illusions that we so badly 
wish to be true. Who doesn't want to see the wicked and the arrogant put 
in their place? Who among the downtrodden and the dispossessed can fail 
to be stirred by the promise of a world in which all men are equal, and 
each has what he needs? 

"The whole point of the myth of the socialist revolution is not that 
human societies will be transformed in the distant future, but that the 
individuals who dedicate their lives to this myth will be transformed 
into comrades and revolutionaries in the present. In short, revolution 
is not a means to achieve socialism; rather, the myth of socialism is a 
useful illusion that turns ordinary men into comrades and 
revolutionaries united in a common struggle--a band of brothers, so to 
speak." 

Harris says free-market capitalism needs a "transformative myth of its 
own" to fight the myth of revolutionary socialism. But don't we have 
that? I thought that's what entrepreneurial heroes were all about. Bill 
Gates and the Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) boys are still 
heroes to millions of Chinese and Indians, if not to the French or 
Bolivians. That's why, though I share Harris' concern about socialism's 
odd new vitality, I think capitalism will win the battle for men's 
minds. 

You can find Harris' terrific piece at www.tcsdaily.com/ 
article.aspx?id=050506I.


Read Rich Karlgaard's daily blog at http://blogs.forbes.com/digitalrules 
or visit his home page at www.karlgaard.com.

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