Monday, November 30, 2015

Democratic Socialism' Means the Loss of Liberty

Richard Ebeling emails:

Dear Bob,

I have a new article on the “EpicTimes” news and commentary website on “‘Democratic Socialism’ Means the Loss of Liberty.”

Democratic Party hopeful Bernie Sanders has recently delivered a speech explaining what he means by “democratic socialism.” It turns out that that what he means is Franklin Roosevelt’s 1944 “economic Bill of Rights,” in which FDR called for everyone to have a government-given entitlement to a job, a “living” wage, “adequate” food, clothing and “free time,” as well as a “decent” home and health care.

These are labeled “rights” because people are not truly “free” when the needs and necessities of life are not “freely” available to all. In this FDR and Sanders have merely picked up on a theme in Karl Marx that the only person who is really free is the individual who does not have to do anything that he does not want to do to get things he wants.

But since little of value is “free” in life because of scarcity – the limitedness of means to use to achieve our desired ends – if we don’t work ourselves to get what we want, then someone else must do the work and be compelled to part with the fruits of his own labor through government taxation and redistribution.

At the end of the day, the “freedom” dreamed of by Bernie Sanders and other “democratic socialists” (or American “progressives”) imposes government command over all, some of whom must be coerced to give up what they have produced, and others who become political dependents, getting from government to “set them free” from material wants, by being confined to the standards and requirements of what eligibility for these “entitlements” imposes.

Moving further down this road will only reduce the liberty of the citizenry even more than is already the case.

http://www.epictimes.com/richardebeling/2015/11/democratic-socialism-means-the-loss-of-liberty/

Best,
Richard

2 comments:

  1. Aynn Rand crap. Americans now believe that Liberty means the freedom to kill and steal. You lot are idiots. Ideological fundamentalists every bit as bad as any the world has seen. True liberty is a myth - an illusion like "heaven". The more the world's population puts pressure on resources the more we will struggle against each other and the more your lot will empower the elites who crave nothing but power with no clear future direction in mind except more theft, murder and pointless grasping at an immortality that defies the laws of thermodynamics. Idiots. The only true valid human system is endless revolution: pulling down the rich and powerful over and over again so that equality emerges from chaos. That is the only true Liberty that might ever be achieved but you lot sit in your little dream-worlds chewing on the bones of your biblical heroes and forever supporting that which you think most empowers you. Cowards. Cowards, thieves, liars and fools.

    Liberty? The make of the word a curse on the whole world.

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  2. It looks like Stalin forgot to sign the previous POS.

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