The newly nominated Democrat candidate for Congress from the Bronx, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, says she is a socialist. She is for Medicare for all, and single payer health care meaning the the government pays for and provides the health care of everyone. She is for free college education and guaranteed jobs for all.
Hmm, let’s see. Socialism is usually defined as the government ownership of the means of production, of industry and property. Some people like to say it’s “public ownership of the means of production,” because the word “public” is a little buzz word that makes socialism sound nice, like the “social” in socialism. We love everybody and want to take care of the whole “public,” and all that.
Socialism also involves government central planning. Bureaucrats in a centralized location like Washington attempt to plan the economic activity for an entire population. Socialism also involves taxation, the process of bureaucrats stealing wealth and earnings from the workers and producers of society. And yes, taxation is theft because it is via a lack of voluntary contract. For every transaction and contract to be legitimate ethically and morally, it needs to be voluntary.
And enabled by taxation-theft, socialism also involves forced redistribution-of-wealth schemes. The wealth is stolen from the workers and producers, and redistributed to the bureaucrats, their bureaucracy fiefdoms of control, the banksters, the military-industrial-complex, crony Big Insurance, crony Big Pharma, and of course, the drug war racket.
Throughout history there is one example after another of the destruction of socialism, government takeovers of economic sectors, government central planning and government theft of private wealth and income. Look at Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea, most African countries, and, worst of all, the U.K.
And currently? Well, we can take a look at Venezuela. The Maduro government has seized the means of food production and distribution. As we have already seen, the results of that are distortions in such food production and distribution, shortages, empty store shelves, long lines, starvation, and chaos.
In contrast, in the U.S. where the means of food production and distribution is mainly under the control of private companies, we have well-stocked store shelves, and, no very long lines.
In the U.S., prior to the imposition of Medicare and Medicaid, medical care was handled privately and there were no major wide-spread problems with the general population being able to access health care. Usually if someone couldn’t afford to see a doctor or go to hospital, the doctor often would provide care for free. But now, because of Medicare and subsequent seizures by government of the health care sector, such as ObamaCare and Medicare Part D, many doctors can’t afford to provide care for a patient for free. You see, socialism causes distortions in every area that it has been imposed, including health care.
Socialism also results in the police state, with the socialized and government-monopolized system of community policing and security taken away from the free market. Thus socialism, government controls over the people, produces the most violations of human freedom. Freedom is most sacrificed when the government takes control over everything.
One thing that could help Ms. Ocasio-Cortez to understand that socialism is a fantasy and can and will never work in reality, is that most of the dysfunctional schemes that we see in Washington that have been imposed on others unwillingly are socialist schemes. The military-industrial-complex is a socialist scheme. And immigration restrictions, and the police state criminality now inflicted by armed government goons in attempting to control the movements of millions of people who are peacefully trying to seek and make a better life for themselves and their families.
In this video, Jacob Hornberger and Richard Ebeling explain the immorality of immigration controls that are a part of socialism and government central planning.
One intervention by government causes chaos and government’s own solution is further intervention and thus further chaos. As I have written here before, the immigration crisis with people fleeing Central America or South America has as one of its main causes the drug war, another socialist scheme.
Anyway, another thing about socialism is that it enriches those in power, as we have see with the Chavez and Maduro families in Venezuela, and many of the people who go to Washington unwealthy and leave ultra-rich. That’s because we have an immoral, criminal socialist system of taxation-theft in place. And many of those who have a socialist point of view seem to be very generous with other people’s money, money seized from the people involuntarily. The same socialist-minded people don’t seem to be that generous with their own money in the private sector (as studies have shown that conservatives donate more to charity than progressives, and as we have already had a glimpse of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez in that respect).
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