Here is some more elaboration on my post regarding the new star socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, specifically in my comparing and contrasting socialism vs. freedom.
I am not going to use “capitalism” because unfortunately there is too much smearing of free-market capitalism by those who think that crony capitalism (i.e. crony socialism) is “free-market capitalism.” So, I’ll refer to freedom and free markets.
Free markets are free of government controls. “Laissez-faire capitalism,” which I’m sure you’ve heard of. Laissez-faire means to let be, to leave it be, or to leave people alone. The right to be left alone by others, especially by the government, is a part of freedom and free markets. Certainly not a part of socialism, and I’ll explain that here. This laissez-faire or to leave people alone is a part of live and let live, which is also a part of the libertarian way of life and the non-aggression principle. All our civil liberties, such as what we see protected in the Bill of Rights, are a part of this free market, libertarian way of life.
This is why the people on the left who want socialism don’t like the Bill of Rights. They especially want to repeal the First Amendment, and they oppose due process.
And no, live and let live doesn’t mean let people steal and defraud others, or let others take a gun and shoot people, and so on. The idea of presumption of innocence is that, if you don’t have reason to suspect someone of violating the persons or property of others, then you leave them alone. The neighbors leave them alone, the government leaves them alone. Government police don’t search persons or property, bureaucrats don’t demand reporting your private matters to them, and no one steals from anyone else. The government doesn’t demand from you a portion of your earnings involuntarily.
That’s what freedom is. “Free markets” go with freedom in a civilized society.
An important part of free markets and laissez-faire is private property and private property rights. This begins with what you have initially, your person, your body and whatever comes from within you. That’s your “property,” and I know some people don’t like the thought of their life and their body as their “property,” but it’s better that you think of it that way, because the government already does, in which your body and your life are its property (e.g. the income tax, drug prohibition and the war on drugs, etc.).
Some people refer to it as “self-ownership.”
So, from your body and your self comes your own creative energy, your talents and abilities and skills, that you are the initial owner of. At some point you will sell those results of your intellectual and physical labor, to employers, to clients, or to customers. Some people like to refer to that as trading and the people involved are “traders.” I know Ayn Rand did.
As long as there is no force, no coercion, no “involuntary servitude,” as long as such trading is voluntary, then obviously such associations and trades are ethical and moral. That’s what’s known as the “free market.” And in a society of freedom.
Socialism is completely different. The U.S. became very socialist with some major schemes that were imposed in the 20th Century, including the income tax, various New Deal policies such as Social Security, and Medicare, and the Civil Rights Act.
In the income tax, the government takes away some of your earnings involuntarily. You are required to report personal information to the government such as your employment, your income and the details of those things.
Can you imagine your neighbors demanding such private information (and at the point of a gun)? You see, that’s one good way to know that a government scheme is no good, is dishonest, and in fact, criminal. If the neighbors tried to impose such things on you they would be arrested. So this scheme is not a part of a “free market.” It is a part of socialism, in which you must do extra labor to serve the government, involuntarily, and if you resist, YOU are the one sent to jail.
Socialism sacrifices the individual to serve the collective or the community. You do not have property right of ownership and control in your person, your labor and the fruits of your labor, and really anything else you think you “own.”
In Social Security the government demands that you forfeit a part of your earnings to allegedly care for the elderly or the disabled. The idea that your Social Security confiscations from your paychecks are then put into some account and saved for you when you retire, is a myth. But many people think that. No, the loot is taken from you and put into the general fund of the U.S. treasury, and Congress spends and squanders it in real time. It is a real time redistribution of wealth scheme. Congress defrauded the people on this from the very beginning (.pdf), and, as Ron Paul observed, the young people are right to fear never receiving their Social Security benefits.
What make Social Security a scheme of socialism are the involuntary income confiscation, the forced redistribution of wealth, and government central planning. Note how the federal government continues to defraud the people, how generations and generations of people still believe that Social Security is “insurance” or an “account” from which you will later receive your benefits. You see, because socialism and its schemes of theft and exploitation of the workers of society to benefit the few (bureaucrats and their cronies), are inherently dishonest, it requires its proponents to deceive the public in bamboozling them to accept it, as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and their ilk continue to do.
“Free health care,” “free education,” “jobs for everyone,” “universal basic income,” etc. And all centrally planned by the gubmint. After all, the government does such a great job with Medicare, veteran health care, immigration, and its wars like Iraq and Afghanistan and Vietnam, and of course, delivering the mail. Don’t forget that one.
So in socialism you do not have any property rights. You don’t have a right to own your own person and your labor. The government assumes ownership of them. Socialism is government ownership of the means of production, and one of the most important means of production is the people.
In socialism, the individual, one’s life and one’s person and labor, are sacrificed to serve the collective. This is where the real “exploitation of the workers” comes from. In the private sector, where everyone is expected to be accountable under the law, stealing and defrauding are forbidden. In the government sector, the rulers are not accountable under the law, because the government IS the law.
Have you considered yourself a “socialist,” but are not sure now? I hope so. Study the Soviet Union and why it collapsed. Study the human rights abuses of socialism. And Cuba, North Korea, the U.K. And of course the U.S.
For more information, read these:
Ludwig von Mises’s Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis (.pdf).
America’s Great Depression by Murray Rothbard (.pdf)
The Myth of Efficient Government Service by Murray Rothbard
Other schemes that are socialist are government-monopolized and centralized law enforcement. i.e. the police state. The police state is a product of socialized community policing and security. It is not a product of the free market. I wrote this article on police socialism, and Anthony Gregory has this article on law enforcement socialism. And see Murray Rothbard’s For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto (.pdf), Chapter 12. Also, see Chaos Theory by Robert P. Murphy (.pdf)
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