"Revolutionary" Socialism

Richard Ebeling emails:

Dear Bob,

My new article on the website of the Future of Freedom Foundation is on, “‘Liberal Socialism’ Another False Utopia.”

Old, bad ideas like socialism never fad away, they just return again in a slightly different form promising the same faulty dreams of blissful utopia. Now a latest version is offered by John Judis in “The New Republic” online under the notion of “liberal socialism.”

Yes, Soviet-style socialism didn’t seem to work out; central planning did not deliver the goods and it did seem a bit authoritarian. But we, in America, should take as our model the “democratic socialism” found in Western Europe. It’s “liberal” because it will respect civil liberties and personal freedoms, while be “socialist” in regulating private enterprise and heavily taxing it to fund a far more generous redistributive welfare state.

But, wait. Isn’t this just the interventionist-welfare state we’ve been living under for decades already? Well, sort of. You see, the current interventionist-welfare state is too dominated by business interests, says Mr. Judis, that is, its really “crony capitalism.” What Mr. Judis is calling for is, an interventionist-welfare state that is more “socialist.”

This just means that he wants the interventionist-welfare state to do more of the things he wants it to do, as opposed to what the establishment “liberal” Democratic and Republican Parties do with it.

This is the “revolutionary” promise of a reborn “liberal” socialism. It shows just how bankrupt and dead the socialist “ideal” really is. But you wrap it up in talk about “the people” and “social justice,” and it fools some people to think that it’s all “bright and shiny,” once again.

https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/liberal-socialism-another-false-utopia/

Best,
Richard