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The Problem with Socialism

Posted by freedomforall 8 years, 9 months ago to Books
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From the publisher:
What’s the Problem with Socialism? Let’s start with…everything. So says bestselling author and professor of economics Thomas J. DiLorenzo, who sets the record straight in this concise and lively primer on an economic theory that’s gaining popularity—with help from Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders—despite its universal failure as an economic model and its truly horrific record on human rights. In sixteen eye-opening chapters, DiLorenzo reveals how socialism inevitably makes inequality worse, why socialism was behind the worst government-sponsored mass murders in history, the myth of “successful” Scandinavian socialism; how socialism is worse—far worse—for the environment than capitalism, and more. As DiLorenzo shows, and history proves, socialism is the answer only if you want increasing unemployment and poverty, stifling bureaucracy if not outright political tyranny, catastrophic environmental pollution, rotten schools, and so many social ills that it takes a book like this to cover just the big ones. Provocative, timely, essential reading, Thomas J. DiLorenzo’s The Problem with Socialism is an instant classic comparable to Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson.

Thomas DiLorenzo is professor of economics at Loyola University Maryland and a member of the senior faculty of the Mises Institute. He is the author of The Real Lincoln; How Capitalism Saved America; Lincoln Unmasked; Hamilton’s Curse; Organized Crime: The Unvarnished Truth About Government; and The Problem with Socialism.


All Comments

  • Posted by term2 8 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I would agree with you, but in the end the elitises propagandize the mob into agreeing with them. Its mob rule though when it comes to the democracy part of it. The elites have to get popular support.
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  • Posted by 8 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Turning the job of president to a megalomaniacal person like Trump does not achieve the goals you propose. He is the dictatorial person you appear to oppose.
    Yes, the solution will be gradual but it must be done by someone who is ethical and opposes government programs. If you keep consenting to statist control, the gradual solution is just delayed again, as it has been for 30 years of GOP betrayals interspersed with aruably more "honest" Democrat socialism.
    Everyone is not statist, but Trump is.
    Back in the 80s New Zealand had a revolution in government and turned away from socialism to free market solutions. It you read the accounts from the insiders who achieved that miracle, its clear that it was only done because they were relentless in pursuit of free market solutions, not because they made continual compromises. I think this is an example that should be followed in the US.
    (NZ gradually returned to more socialism, so there is no rest for those who know that liberty is the solution.)
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  • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 8 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    No, my solution is that we got in this mess incrementally with a lot of indoctrination of the population to prepare them to accept an all-powerful government over decades. We are going to have to get out of it incrementally as well. Unless you want to advocate a dictatorship, we are going to have to bring the population along with us and it will take time.

    Trump has used the system. I admit I do too. I think it's really stupid to have tax credits for buying "energy efficient" furnaces, but when I replaced mine I took the money. I guess I'm a statist too.

    I don't think any career politicians is really going to make significant inroads in the power of government. I think it will take someone who has spent most of their lives in the private sector. Trump has done so. Yes, he does make me bang my head against my desk from time to time -- but then he may have a better understanding of what the populace will support than we do.
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  • Posted by 8 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    So your solution is:
    Resistance is futile.
    You propose to entrust government to Trump, someone who has a proven record of looting for his own benefit, and who throws irrational proposals out just to get votes. Same old rubbish.
    So just ignore history and conclude that no one will ever fix government so it gives you an excuse to consent to statist evil.
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  • Posted by term2 8 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I am not so sure that is valid today in this mob rule culture. Its all about money and propaganda and media attention. Eventually the mass of people just fall in line. Its disgusting.
    There is a small minority of people who really understand freedom, some more that kind of like it, but I think Romney was right that 47% (and that was THEN) just want free goodies and are out for themselves only.
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  • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 8 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    No one is going to promise to eliminate unconstitutional parts of the government -- at least no one really could do it, so if they promised to do it, they would be lying. Cutting back is the best we can hope for in the near term -- and would be a terrific battle.

    If Trump finally straightens out immigration, gives us some fairer trade and generally makes the government a little less wasteful, I'll consider it successful and vote for someone who will do even more next time.

    As I said, almost the entire country is statist. You will not solve that by a dictator taking control who will, in a few short years remove all of the support for government that has been carefully built up over decades. You solve that by education -- and possibly a few good examples.
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  • Posted by 8 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    “It does not take a majority to prevail. but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.”
    Samuel Adams
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  • Posted by 8 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Trump has not promised to eliminate unconstitutional parts of the federal government and he won't because that would reduce his power as president. Trump has not promised to stop meddling in business and in individuals' lives. Trump has promised tariffs, not a free market. Trump is a statist.
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  • Posted by $ puzzlelady 8 years, 9 months ago
    Great subject, brilliant treatment by DiLorenzo. Thanks, freedomforall. A friend of mine just sent me a capsule comment of the same tenor. I'd like to share it with you here:

    "The socialist poison in America is the greatest danger to our society. That's why HilLIEry is so dangerous - far more than Trump because Trump is really naive about these things. HilLIEry, Obama, and Sanders and the so-called "progressives" have created a path to the destruction of the greatest wealth-producing machine the world has ever known which they will blame on the very people who created it because a 19th century German "philosopher" created a ridiculous idea that there should be economic equality and that "the state" should impose this, and this would "miraculously" lead to peace and harmony. We have over 100 years now of how IT HAS FAILED EVERYWHERE!! And yet they insist that everywhere else just didn't do it "the right way". That's because IT DOESN'T WORK!!" -- Patric Hale

    Patric writes eloquently and enthusiastically pro-capitalism and anti-socialism, and has switched to supporting Gary Johnson. I may drop in some more of his comments that this group may enjoy.
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  • Posted by term2 8 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I will grant your argument stands on more solid philosophical grounds. But people in Venezuela and Hillary supporters here won't understand philosophical arguments. They would say free college is good for them. My practical argument is its not sustainable and your free college paid for by someone else will disappear when the someone else's get tired of working for you- and the college education isn't going to be very good anyway as private colleges who can't compete with "free" simply disappear.

    I agree that the response is. It would have worked "if only". But human nature can't be subjugated by "if only..." And will defeat any statist plan.
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  • Posted by KnowledgeisaBurden 8 years, 9 months ago
    Socialism is the 'polite' way to force all to comply, always with your well good as a reason. It preceeds Communisim always has, and that is when the remainder who won't obey are forced. Both with the threat of the gun, one uses verbal threats first...
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    the other name or names for democratic socialism and its attendant democratic economics is state national socialism and state economics and heavily regulated by any means is the definition of both AKA Fascism.
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  • Posted by term2 8 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    What you say is true. They do engage in "if only" scenarios ad infinitum. So what will it take to see a change? Even in AS the country had to completely collapse. I guess that's going to happen here too
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  • Posted by LeoSopicki 8 years, 9 months ago
    An organization I used to work for had an office right next to the Pomona Freeway in Ontario, California. A co-worker and I were leaving when he remembered he was supposed to coordinate something with a person there, so he went back in and I just leaned against our car and watched the freeway.

    In the fifteen minutes he was gone, hundreds of cars, trucks and buses passed by, each with different destinations, routes, purposes, and options. I thought, a socialist is a person who thinks that they are capable of controlling and managing an economy thousands of times more complex than the those cars and that they could do it better than all those drivers individually.

    No wonder socialism ends up as a massive wreck.
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    It is the reality of believing in fairy tales and lottteries. Nothing more complicated than that. Repeating a failure? They are taught it wasn't a failure but the fault of......(laundry list) The normal routine is to wring their hands and plaintively cry 'if only .....if only .....if only .....this and that and thus reassured go out and bash their brains in with any nearby convenient rock.
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  • Posted by Dobrien 8 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Yes a destroyer like Godzilla dressed as the cute gecko peddling insurance.
    Insuring that you will forfeit your liberties and future.
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  • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 8 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The problem is that a large percentage of the population is irrationally attracted by things being "free".

    Have you ever watched your coworkers get drunk because there is a "free bar"? These are people who can certainly afford to buy alcohol in sufficient quantities to become drunk without concern for the price. They generally avoid doing that, but if it's free, they'll make asses of themselves.
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  • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 8 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Trump is a statist only in the respect that almost everyone is a statist. The progressives have extolled our joint responsibility and "you didn't build that", our need to "give back" and all those other reasons to explain their hand in our pocket so long that with the exception of a relatively small minority, the issue is not what right the government has to run our lives and take our stuff but how much they should.
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  • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 8 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    That's funny...I never saw the movie either but your description caused me to visualize that character.

    Must be a quantum entanglement of sorts...laughing
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  • Posted by Dobrien 8 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    That is exactly what I thought of also, but I never saw the movie . Just advertising trailers, not of much interest to me.
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