Home » Why socialism is okay now (and, did you even actually listen to some of the claptrap that emanates from Bernie Sanders’ mouth?)

Comments

Why socialism is okay now (and, did you even actually <i>listen</i> to some of the claptrap that emanates from Bernie Sanders’ mouth?) — 43 Comments

  1. He’s saying that the individual’s level of wealth determines their level of political power. Does he mean the rich person’s vote counts as more than the less wealthy person’s vote? That’s rather illogical and incoherent; how can one vote be worth more than another in a democracy? I think what he means is that the wealthy person has access and influence into the political process that the less wealthy do not. If true, I’m left to wonder how that happens? My answer is that the access and influence of the wealthy in our political process – which is not a small ‘d’ democracy – is granted by our representatives to them, often in return for financial contributions and favors.

    In Bernie’s world, what is economic democracy other than redistribution of wealth and income from one group to another? Nothing, it seems to me. That young people view Bernie’s theme of equality as desirable simply tells me they haven’t spent the time and energy necessary to understand what he’s proposing.

  2. “Seems that socialism is no longer a dirty word these days in the US as long as you call it “democratic socialism”.

    Seem to me that a more fitting term would be “National Socialism”……….

    That should go over really well (sarc).

  3. For the last half century, Bernie has been a fanboy of Latin American despots. Here is an example from 2011.
    From Bernie’s Senate website: Close The Gaps: Disparities That Threaten America

    These days, the American dream is more apt to be realized in South America, in places such as Ecuador, Venezuela and Argentina, where incomes are actually more equal today than they are in the land of Horatio Alger. Who’s the banana republic now?

    (While Bernie didn’t write this, its appearance on his website is an implicit endorsement of what it says. Similarly, politicians do not often write their own speeches.)

    The American dream is more likely to be realized in Venezuela than in the United States, Bernie Sanders tells us. As we all want to realize the American dream, we should emulate Venezuela, Bernie Sanders tells us. Just as Mayor Bernie said that Sandinista Nicaragua should be a model for Vermont.
    BTW, while Venezuela was purported to have those GREAT inequality statistics that Three-House-Bernie adores, they don’t take into account all the billions that the Chavista insiders are skimming off the top. If that were reported in the income figures, the reported inequality figures for Venezuela would be a lot higher.
    The absurdity of Bernie’s claim with regard to Venezuela is rather obvious. Today, no one in his right mind would claim that the American dream is best realized in Venezuela.Nor would anyone in his right mind have made the claim in 2011 that the American dream is best realized in Venezuela.

    The World Bank has little GINI data for Venezuela past 2006, so I will merely post data for Argentina, Ecuador, and the US. The lower the GINI, the more equal the income distribution. Let us investigate how accurate Bernie’s claim is about income being less equal in the US compared to Ecuador and Argentina.

    Country Name 2007 GINI index (World Bank estimate)
    Argentina 46.3
    Ecuador 53.3
    United States 41.1

    Country Name 2010 GINI index (World Bank estimate)
    Argentina 43
    Ecuador 48.7
    United States 40.4

    Country Name 2013 GINI index (World Bank estimate)
    Argentina 41
    Ecuador 46.9
    United States 41

    When Bernie Sanders made his claim in 2011, he would have had GINI data for about 2007 or 2008. For 2007 and 2010, the US had a lower GINI- and thus more equal income- than Argentina and Ecuador.
    That is, Bernie’s castigation of the US was based on a false claim.
    Bernie claims, “I know much more about Latin America than you proles.”
    No, you don’t, Bernie. You are bullshitting us.
    https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI

  4. Must disagree.

    1. Sanders was at age 40 a mess of a man who found his niche in municipal government. He was a seminal figure in Burlington politics. There’s Before Sanders and After Sanders in Burlington. Few politicians made a difference in that way.

    2. He may have been inspired by Eugene Debs, but during his time in Vermont politics, he was associated first with the Liberty Union Party and then with a civic association in Burlington he himself founded. The old Socialist Party of America dissolved in 1971 and Sanders ca. 1983 expressed no interest in any of the three successor organizations (he was specifically asked about Michael Harrington’s outfit and pooh-poohed it).

    3. Sanders is arguably wrong on the issues. However, he himself is interested in issues and programs over which you can argue. Try tangling with street-level Democrats in fora like this. It’s guises and poses and status-games all the way down.

    4. Sanders is an honest man (with the usual qualifications for public figures). There’s a reason HRC’s been called the most morally corrupt presidential candidate of consequence since Aaron Burr.

    Sanders is a sign of some green shoots in the Democratic Party. If we’re fortunate, the Democratic Party will be more like Sanders in the future while the Republican Party will be 1/3 Guiliani, 1/3 Cruz, and 1/3 Trump.

  5. Venezuela has price controls on food and agricultural prices. The consequences are food shortages and food lines. The FAO informs us that Cereals (grain) production in Venezuela fell by over 50% from 2014 to 2016. Back in the 1980s, Sandinista Nicaragua had price controls, food shortages and food lines- just like Venezuela today. Mayor Bernie Sanders, as a big fan of the Sandinistas- just as he was a big fan of Fidel- took it upon himself to praise food lines.
    Bernie Sanders Praising Bread Lines and Food Rationing.

    Bernie Sanders: “It’s funny, sometimes American journalists talk about how bad a country is, that people are lining up for food. That is a good thing! In other countries people don’t line up for food: the rich get the food and the poor starve to death.”

    As Mayor Bernie Sanders liked food lines- and the accompanying price controls in Sandinista Nicaragua, why wouldn’t Senator Bernie Sanders also like food lines in Venezuela? Just sayin.’

  6. Ah yes, radical egalitarianism. Equality means equality of outcomes. It says so right in the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence. Oh wait … We’ll just ignore the words “created” and “pursuit.”

    From “Discover the Networks,”

    After college, in 1963, Sanders lived and worked for a number of months in an Israeli kibbutz known as Kibbutz Sha’ar Ha’amakim (KSH), which was co-founded by Aharon Cohen, an Arabist who was a harsh critic of Israeli policy and was arrested for spying for the Soviet Union in the 1950s. The founders of KSH referred to Joseph Stalin as the “Sun of the Nations,” and a red flag was flown at outdoor events held at the kibbutz. Sanders stayed at KSH as a guest of the Zionist-Marxist youth movement Hashomer Hatzair (HH), which pledged its allegiance to the Soviet Union; some left-wing groups described HH as Leninist and even Stalinist.

    Yes, Sander was only 22 years old at the time. But it sure is convenient that he didn’t want to spend any time subsequently explaining why he wasn’t a pro Soviet.

  7. Back in the 1980s, when Burlington was about the only city in the US with a foreign policy, Mayor Bernie was a big fan of the Sandinistas. When Bernie Sanders Thought Castro and the Sandinistas Could Teach America a Lesson. Bernie told us:

    “Vermont could set an example to the rest of the nation similar to the type of example Nicaragua is setting for the rest of Latin America.”

    According to Bernie, as Latin America should follow Marxist-Leninist wannabe Sandinista Nicaragua, Vermont should set a similar example for the US that Nicaragua was setting for Latin America.

    Bernie believed that Sandinista Nicaragua in the 1980s was a democracy. However, the Sandinistas endorsed the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan. The Sandinistas did so less than three months after the Soviets invaded in December 1979. (So much for the claim that Reagan pushed the Sandinistas into the laps of the Soviets.) Nicaraguan Biographies/Cadre

    “The Soviet Union and Nicaragua resolutely condemn the campaign that the imperialist and reactionary forces have launched of building up international tension in connection with the events of Afghanistan, a campaign aimed at subverting the inalienable right of the people of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and other peoples of the world to follow the path of progressive transformation.”

    How many democracies endorsed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan? None that I know of. The above endorsement is worthy of a Soviet bloc apparatchik.

    Mayor Bernie, by being a big fan of the Sandinistas, was a big fan of a government that endorsed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. I have never come across Mayor Bernie- or Senator Bernie- expressing any discomfort with the Sandinistas endorsement of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. (At the time, available in Congressional Record and in the Sandinista newspaper Barricada. Later available in the 1987 publication, Central American Crisis Reader.)

    I doubt that Bernie was ever aware of the Sandinista invasion of Afghanistan.

    Bernie: “I know much more about Latin America than you proles.”
    No, you don’t, Bernie. Once again, you are bullshitting us.

  8. Bernie Sanders can say what he wants.

    (Nobody has to listen and nobody ought to, except for a kind head-shaking kind of way, which is good for loosening up tight neck muscles—and also for uproarious laughter, which is good for everything.)

    But nothing and nobody can take away from Bernie Sanders the fact that he was instrumental in bringing about a Trump victory in 2016, and in so doing he has redeemed himself for the ages.

    In fact, the American people owes him one.

    So as far as I’m concerned, he can—and certainly will—continue to be as much of a goofball as he wants. He’s earned that right, helping as he has to make America great again!! (Take that, Cuomo!!)

  9. TommyJay:
    Yes, Sander was only 22 years old at the time. But it sure is convenient that he didn’t want to spend any time subsequently explaining why he wasn’t a pro Soviet.

    Bernie would inform us that he just wanted to expose himself to diverse points of view. But, in the interest of exposing himself to diverse points of view, would 22 year old Bernie have worked at National Review or at American Opinion (John Birch Society magazine)? I very much doubt it.

  10. Correction
    I doubt that Bernie was ever aware of the Sandinista invasion of Afghanistan.

    Correct to:
    I doubt that Bernie was ever aware of the Sandinista endorsement of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

  11. In 2008 Stanley Kurtz at National Review revealed Obama’s connections to the “New Party,” a some-kind-of-socialist third party, which was sufficiently socialist that Obama and his campaign promptly denied it.

    A few years later Kurtz documented Obama’s involvement cold. Not that it mattered.

    https://www.nationalreview.com/2012/06/obamas-third-party-history-stanley-kurtz/

    My point supports neo’s. Not long ago Democat leaders felt obliged to deny any association with socialism. But home is where the heart lies and Democrats are now over denying their yearnings for socialism.

  12. ““I’ve stayed away from calling myself a socialist,” Sanders said in the Boston Globe in the aftermath of his win in ‘81, “because I did not want to spend half my life explaining that I did not believe in the Soviet Union or in concentration camps. where I spent my honeymoon.” [Bernie Sanders, quoted above]

    There, fixed it for Bernie

  13. “One has to be an idiot to believe that the average working person who’s making $10,000 or $12,000 a year is equal in political power to somebody who is the head of a large bank or corporation. So if you believe in political democracy, if you believe in equality, you have to believe in economic democracy as well.”[Bernie Sanders, quoted above]

    So in free market/capitalist societies the privileged few have greater power impact and wealth? How does this differ at all from the common people in the old soviet union waiting in line for domestic staples like meat and bread, while the senior party regulars got to shop at Gum ? The answer: There’s no difference at all. The end result is the same. As Glenn Reynolds is wont to write: “In capitalism the wealthy become powerful; in socialism, the powerful become wealthy.” The only difference is that in socialist societies, someone else other than you is determining what you “need.”

    My acid test for socialism, which I here put to Bernie Sanders is: In a society that preaches from each according to his ability, to each according to his need, explain to me why Leonid Breshnev had an antique car collection and why you, Bernie, need three rather expensive homes and a million-plus dollar net worth.

  14. Steve Walsh,

    Thatcher’s observation about running out of other peoples’ money gets to the heart of why socialism inevitably fails. It’s not because it hasn’t been correctly implemented. it’s because it demise is part of its very creed.

    Socialism deals with wealth redistribution and (at least in principle) power redistribution, but it eschews wealth creation. You can only redistribute wealth as long as wealth exists and the socialist system has no mechanism for the creation of new wealth; in fact, it is opposed to the creation of new wealth.

    Like Thatcher, as the economist Herb Stein said, something that can’t go on forever . . . won’t. That is why socialist systems never did work and never will.

  15. +The answer: There’s no difference at all. The end result is the same. As Glenn Reynolds is wont to write: “In capitalism the wealthy become powerful; in socialism, the powerful become wealthy.” The only difference is that in socialist societies, someone else other than you is determining what you “need.” [T @ 2:56]

    Sorry, poor choice of words. “The distinction is that in socialist societies . . .”.

    Fixed it (I hope.)

  16. Socialism=We take your stuff and give it to somebody more deserving
    Democratic Socialism=We take a vote then we take your stuff and give it to somebody more deserving
    As Frédéric Bastiat pointed out, socialism is theft, it is based on plunder your neighbor. Naturally the socialists don’t tell people they are going to steal their stuff. They put it much more euphoniously, from everybody according to their ability, to everybody according to their needs. In the late great USSR that was part of the constitution. If you were a citizen of the USSR, where it said from everybody according to their ability, that meant you. Where it said to everybody according to their needs, that meant the nomenklatura.

  17. In reading this post, I found myself reacting with wonder to the cognitive dissonance in Sander’s prior comments… is Sanders simply an incoherent fool or a scheming knave?

    In reading the comments, T’s proposed question to Sanders crystallized it for me; “In a society that preaches from each according to his ability, to each according to his need, explain to me why Leonid Breshnev had an antique car collection and why you, Bernie, need three rather expensive homes and a million-plus dollar net worth.”

    That brought to mind Pres. Harry Truman’s acid comment about the Bernie Sanders of the world; “Professional liberals are too arrogant to compromise. In my experience, they were also very unpleasant people on a personal level. Behind their slogans about saving the world and sharing the wealth with the common man lurked a nasty hunger for power. They’d double-cross their own mothers to get it or keep it.”

  18. This would be so much easier if they would lose their pro-choice religion, their twilight faith. Deny your diversity. Deny your abortion rite. Embrace individual dignity. Acknowledge evolution of human life from conception. Then reconcile.

  19. T: “Socialism deals with wealth redistribution and (at least in principle) power redistribution, but it eschews wealth creation. You can only redistribute wealth as long as wealth exists and the socialist system has no mechanism for the creation of new wealth; in fact, it is opposed to the creation of new wealth.”

    Just so. Could not have been more clear and succinct myself.

  20. Check the date here.
    (From a comment on a series at Sarah Hoyt’s blog fisking Sanders’s campaign biography. Seriously.)

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/billflax/2011/09/01/obama-hitler-and-exploding-the-biggest-lie-in-history/#2584691a47a6

    “The line between fascism and Fabian socialism is very thin. Fabian socialism is the dream. Fascism is Fabian socialism plus the inevitable dictator.” John T. Flynn

    “Interestingly, almost everywhere Marxism triumphed: Russia, China, Cuba, Vietnam, etc., all skipped the capitalist phase Marx thought pivotal. Instead, they slid straight from pre-industrial feudal conditions into communism; which essentially entailed reversion back to feudalism supplanting the traditional aristocracy with party cronyism – before dissolving into corrupted variants of state capitalism economically similar to fascism.

    As usual, Marx got it backwards.”

    “While political correctness as manifest in the West is very anti-Nazi and those opposing multiculturalism primarily populate the Right, it’s false to confuse fascism with conservatism. Coupling negatives is not necessarily positive. Because the Nazis would likely detest something that conservatives also dislike indicates little harmony. Ohio State hates Michigan. Notre Dame does too, but Irish fans rarely root for the Buckeyes.

    America’s most fascistic elements are ultra leftwing organizations like La Raza or the Congressional Black Caucus. These racial nationalists seek gain not through merit, but through the attainment of government privileges. What’s the difference between segregation and affirmative action? They are identical phenomena harnessing state auspices to impose racialist dogma.”

    “Mussolini recognized, “Fascism entirely agrees with Mr. Maynard Keynes, despite the latter’s prominent position as a Liberal. In fact, Mr. Keynes’ excellent little book, The End of Laissez-Faire (l926) might, so far as it goes, serve as a useful introduction to fascist economics.” Keynes saw the similarities too, admitting his theories, “can be much easier adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state than . . . a large degree of laissez-faire.” Hitler built the autobahn, FDR the TVA. Propaganda notwithstanding, neither rejuvenated their economies.

    FDR admired Mussolini because “the trains ran on time” and Stalin’s five year plans, but was jealous of Hitler whose economic tinkering appeared more successful than the New Deal. America wasn’t ready for FDR’s blatantly fascist Blue Eagle business model and the Supreme Court overturned several other socialist designs. The greatest dissimilarity between FDR and fascists was he enjoyed less success transforming society because the Constitution obstructed him.

    Even using Republicans as proxies, there was little remotely conservative about fascism. Hitler and Mussolini were probably to the right of our left-leaning media and education establishments, but labeling Tea Partiers as fascists doesn’t indict the Right. It indicts those declaring so as radically Left.”

  21. Sometimes I agree with Conor; other times I just want to shake my head.
    This is sort of in between.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/08/a-risk-that-democratic-socialism-poses-to-all-minorities/566528/

    Democratic Socialism Threatens Minorities
    Nothing better protects victims of bigotry than a system where they can pursue their needs and wants outside the realm of popular control.

    CONOR FRIEDERSDORF
    AUG 9, 2018

    “Instead of individual capitalists deciding what to produce in their endlessly varied, constantly competing private businesses, “without any democratic input from the rest of society,” control over industry and decisions about what to produce would reside in state planning agencies. And imagine their decisions perfectly, if improbably, reflect the actual democratic will of workers, whether in the nation; or a state, like Ohio or Utah; or a metropolitan area, like Maricopa County or Oklahoma City.

    Popular control is finally realized! So: How popular is Islam? How many Muslim prayer rugs would the democratic majority of workers vote to produce? How many Korans? How many head scarves? How much halal meat would be slaughtered? What share of construction materials would a majority of workers apportion to new mosques?

    Under capitalism, the mere existence of buyers reliably gives rise to suppliers. Relying instead on democratic decisions would pose a big risk for Muslims. And Sikhs. And Hindus. And Jews. And maybe even Catholics.

    Right now, under capitalism, vegetarians and vegans have more options every year. But there aren’t very many of them. Five percent of Americans are vegetarians. Three percent are vegans. Would “the workers” find a societal need to produce vegan meat or milk substitutes? No one knows the answer.

    How important would worker majorities consider hair products for African Americans? What if a majority of workers decided that only English-language commercial reading material should be printed in the United States? Would planning bodies decide for or against allocating materials for sex toys? Or binders for trans men? Or sexually explicit artwork?

    The birth-control pill has “massive public implications.” And remember, “Only when the private decisions that have massive public implications are subjected to popular control will we have a democratic society.”

    Is Trump ending free birth control?

    So, young leftists: Would you prefer a socialist society in which birth control is available if, and only if, a majority of workers exercising their democratic control assents? Or would you prefer a society in which private businesses can produce birth control, per their preference, in part because individuals possess economic rights as producers and consumers, the preferences of a majority of people around them be damned?

    If contraception at every CVS and Walgreens sounds better than “popular control,” you may be a laissez-faire capitalist, or at least recognize why democratic socialism can be a nightmare for many sorts of people.

    As the economist and philosopher Friedrich Hayek put it, “Our freedom of choice in a competitive society rests on the fact that, if one person refuses to satisfy our wishes, we can turn to another.” But, he added, “if we face a monopolist we are at his absolute mercy.” Socialists are attuned to the ways individuals are vulnerable in capitalism but blind to ways that it frees us from the preferences of the majority. Nearly all of us would hate abiding by the will of the majority on some matters.”

  22. http://thefederalist.com/2018/08/16/intellectual-dark-web-stick-culture-not-shift-politics/

    “We don’t live in a totalitarian society, but institutions that accept identity politics ultimately obey a totalitarian logic. “The personal is political” is essentially a totalitarian idea, even if it sounds nicer when the left calls it “holistic.”

    The only political idea that should be central to the Intellectual Dark Web is the rejection of identity politics and its implicit totalitarianism. Simply re-popularizing the idea that not everything is “politics” is political enough for them for now. “

  23. http://thefederalist.com/2018/08/16/support-socialism-arises-ingratitude/

    “In the twentieth century, there were three great attempts in the West to replace the social order created by the Enlightenment. Each was an attempt to put the government back in charge. The Germans and the Italians tried national socialism; the Russians and the Chinese tried Communism. Both systems brought ruin and catastrophe.

    The third version, the American one, called itself Progressivism. The Progressives realized the American people were not ripe for the kind of revolutionary upheaval that had worked in Germany or Russia. Consequently, their plan was to introduce government control of the American people little by little, progressively.

    You have to give them credit: They have made remarkable “progress.” Today, in moments of candor, they come right out and state that they intend to regulate every aspect of people’s lives. That is, of course, precisely what the Nazis and the rulers of the U.S.S.R. aimed for. Is regulating every aspect of people’s lives going to work any better this time simply because it is being introduced step-by-step instead of suddenly?

    By failing to appreciate the free market’s gift of prosperity and by failing to appreciate the American founders’ gift of liberty, we put ourselves in jeopardy. We risk losing our inheritance by cooperating with those who want to take it from us.”

  24. In Venezuela, Hugo Chavez rebranded Socialism by calling it “21st Century Socialism”. Exactly how it was supposed to be different from the old variety was never clear. Nevertheless, enough Venezuelans were clear that it meant more free stuff for them, that he was elected over and over again.

    By the time the economy and the country were in ruins, it was too late. The thugs running the government had already destroyed all the institutions of democracy and had consolidated power to where no democratic means of regime change remain.

    Bernie Sanders was a huge fan of Hugo Chavez. Although he no longer points to Venezuela as a successful model, like he used to, he has also never repented or apologized for his former lavish praise and support.

    Given a chance, Bernie Sanders and his ilk would do exactly the same for the U.S. that Hugo Chavez did for Venezuela. I have lived in Venezuela for the last 12 years, a witness to the slow motion train wreck this formerly beautiful country has experienced. Believe me when I tell you that you really don’t want to experience this first hand.

  25. “So, young leftists: Would you prefer a socialist society . . . . Socialists are attuned to the ways individuals are vulnerable in capitalism but blind to ways that it frees us from the preferences of the majority. : [Aesop Fan @ 12:20 am]

    What a superb paragraph! Three comments: 1) it’s so succinct that even an ardent leftist has to work hard to deny it; 2) it underlies the capitalist leanings inherent in those who espouse socialism (see my question to Bernie Sanders above @ 2:56 pm); 3) the Hayek quote restates the same principle as the well-known C.S. Lewis quote:

    Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

    It amazes me that there are so many ways to state and re-state the sane principle, over and over again, and yet the adherents to socialism constantly refuse to understand. It truly has become a belief system (i.e., a religion) rather than any form of economic theory.

  26. “It amazes me that there are so many ways to state and re-state the sane principle . . .”

    “Same principle”.

    Sorry, but I suspect a good Freudian slip anyway.

  27. 100+Million Lives taken in Gulags, Land Reform Famines, mass executions, prison dungeons, slave colonies…. How’bout those Lefty Snowflakes of 20th Century Progressivism??!!

  28. Bernie Sanders was a huge fan of Hugo Chavez.

    Citation please.

    Various commentators have been for years recycling one passing remark he supposedly made in favor of Venezuela a number of years ago. Where did that meme originate?

    He’s been quite explicit in the last 3 years that he has no admiration for Venezuela or Cuba.

  29. Molly Brown on August 17, 2018 at 2:56 am at 2:56 am said:
    The Pilgrims couldn’t make socialism work. The Pilgrims!
    Case closed.
    * * *
    A lot of religious communities, especially in the 19th century, tried the “sacred socialism” of having most public* goods (and a lot of private ones) in common, with variations on the democratic / oligarchic nature of the persons authorized to make plans for production & distribution (it can range widely, even in a theocracy ostensibly governed by God, because someone still has to be His intermediary to the whole group).
    Despite high motivation, sincere charitable intent, and cohesive operation, most of them went under, and all of them only “worked” in very small groups.

    * not just the infrastructure we recognize today, but also including land, food, housing, and clothing — which would be private goods under capitalism / free market / individualist ideologies.

    The following link gives a pretty good list, but it leaves out the Hutterites, the Amish, and the Latter-day Saints’ attempts to institutionalize and live in what they called “The United Order”, which is supposed to prevail in the Millenium.

    The first group is still operating, in very small societies (45,000 total at last count in Wikipedia); the second is only quasi-utopian and quasi-socialist, if that (not all cooperative communities are communist; the element of central planning and direction has to be present as well); and the third foundered on the usual shoals as all the other utopias: even highly religious people are still subject to human frailties.

    https://www.history.com/news/5-19th-century-utopian-communities-in-the-united-states

    Here’s an interesting comment on the Amish that calls to mind the frequent observation that socialists can only survive to the extent that they live in a predominantly capitalist world. (Venezuela shows what happens when they try to go it totally on their own.)

    https//mises.org/library/economic-lessons-amish

    “The Amish live in an agrarian economy. It thrives in the midst of modern society, not because of inherent advantages, but rather because it borrows much more from that society than meets the eye.

    Most third-world countries are also agrarian societies, mired in a state of misery, reflecting the primitiveness of their economies. What they don’t have, that the Amish in America do, is economic freedom, secure property rights, a well-developed system of trade, legal protections, fairly reliable money and access to the fruits of capitalist society. “

  30. T on August 17, 2018 at 10:39 am at 10:39 am said:
    “It amazes me that there are so many ways to state and re-state the sane principle . . .”

    “Same principle”.

    Sorry, but I suspect a good Freudian slip anyway.
    * * *
    Indeed.

    Here is an interesting series of articles on what Peter Burfeind at the Federalist sees as the root problem of socialism, in that it is a secular form of religious gnosticism, and has many of the same flaws and failures. More can be found in his archive.

    http://thefederalist.com/2015/06/29/gnostic-mysticism-grounds-modern-progressive-ideology/

    http://thefederalist.com/2017/09/18/word-woke-encapsulates-evil-self-defeating-ideology/

    https://thefederalist.com/2018/08/15/leftism-can-never-truly-support-concept-free-speech/

  31. Roy Nathanson on August 17, 2018 at 8:49 am at 8:49 am said:

    Given a chance, Bernie Sanders and his ilk would do exactly the same for the U.S. that Hugo Chavez did for Venezuela. I have lived in Venezuela for the last 12 years, a witness to the slow motion train wreck this formerly beautiful country has experienced. Believe me when I tell you that you really don’t want to experience this first hand.
    * **
    Thanks for the report from the field.
    That’s one of the things I love about Neo’s blog & commentators.

    PS I used to employ the term “commentariat” for the blog-reading community, but in the context of the post and the realization that “-ariat” is a distinctly Soviet terminology, I looked it up: the common use is to designate the members of the media pundocracy as a class, with connotations of power and influence that we obviously don’t have. In this era of fake news, a Soviet-style label is particularly appropriate.

  32. AesopFan,
    Thanks for that link describing the socialist utopias in the USA. My favorite is New Harmony which lasted until Robert Owen ran out of money. That proves Margaret Thatcher’s saying that socialism is wonderful till you run out of other peoples money.

  33. AesopFan,

    Also thanks for the links. Read one of the three (on being “woke”) and found it quite fascinating.

    I actually partly agree with some of the Gnostic observations; reality being “out there” and our perception of reality being self-specific and internal. My admittedly superficial observation is that the Gnostics see these things as changeable simply by changing their perception; for them perception is reality. Conversely, I see reality, “out there”, as something immune to change from simple observation; one can change the word “down” to mean “up” but that doesn’t change the direction that water flows. You can invent a thousand genders as evidence of your freedom and “wokeness” but that doesn’t change the fact that there are only two sex-specific types of human beings. Thus, we perceive reality but reality is not real because of our perceptions, it is real because it is real; it is a tautology. To paraphrase that great philosopher Popeye: it is what it is and that’s all that it is.

    This, I think, is where the Gnostics and the Progressives fail completely. It helps to remember that the Progressives think they are evolving toward establishing a Utopia; in other words, Progressives want to create a “No Place”, a place that doesn’t and that can’t exist.

  34. Art Deco
    Bernie Sanders was a huge fan of Hugo Chavez.
    Citation please.

    My comment : August 16, 2018 at 12:04 pm at 12:04 pm.
    Granted, Bernie merely posted a newspaper article on his Senate website, but his doing so implies approval of what it said.

  35. Bernie Sanders and Maduro made rather similar statements about the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff in Brazil.

    Venezuela’s Maduro: Brazil impeachment is a ‘coup’ that was ‘made in the USA’

    Venezuela’s ruling Socialist Party has long been a strong ally of Rousseff’s Workers Party, especially during the rule of her predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

    “I have no doubt that behind this coup is the label ‘made in USA,'” President Nicolas Maduro said in a speech on state TV.

    “Powerful oligarchic, media and imperial forces have decided to finish with the progressive forces, the popular revolutionary leaderships of the left in the continent,” he said.

    Sanders Condemns Efforts to Remove Brazil’s Democratically Elected Presiden

    BURLINGTON, Vt., August 8 – U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday issued the following statement calling on the United States to take a definitive stand against efforts to remove Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff from office:

    “I am deeply concerned by the current effort to remove Brazil’s democratically elected president, Dilma Rousseff. To many Brazilians and observers the controversial impeachment process more closely resembles a coup d’état.

    “After suspending Brazil’s first female president on dubious grounds, without a mandate to govern, the new interim government abolished the ministry of women, racial equality and human rights. They immediately replaced a diverse and representative administration with a cabinet made up entirely of white men. The new, unelected administration quickly announced plans to impose austerity, increase privatization and install a far right-wing social agenda.

    “The effort to remove President Rousseff is not a legal trial but rather a political one. The United States cannot sit silently while the democratic institutions of one of our most important allies are undermined. We must stand up for the working families of Brazil and demand that this dispute be settled with democratic elections.”

    Wiki: mpeachment of Dilma Rousseff

    On 31 August 2016, the Senate removed President Rousseff from office by a 61–20 vote, finding her guilty of breaking Brazil’s budget laws. Accordingly, Temer was sworn in as the 37th President of Brazil

    A 61-20 vote is a coup? Neither Bernie nor Maduro are fans of a 61-20 vote, as such a margin is prima facie evidence of a right wing minority oligarchy running things. 🙂

    BTW, the “new, unelected” president was elected vice president on Dilma’s ticket. Why did Dilma have a “right winger” as her vice president? Whatya say, Bernie and Maduro?

    Since you could basically interchange Bernie’s and Maduro’s statements on Dilma’s impeachment, that is evidence to me that they their thought patterns are rather similar.

  36. Art Deco
    He’s been quite explicit in the last 3 years that he has no admiration for Venezuela or Cuba.

    Are you referring to Bernie’s calling Hugo Chávez a “communist dictator?” For decades, Bernie has had the warm fuzzies for “communist dictators” like Daniel Ortega and Fidel Castro. As I have already given sufficient evidence of Bernie’s love for the Sandinistas in the 1980s, I will confine my comments here to Fidel Castro.
    Bernie Sanders of Democratic Socialism fame has done his fair share of defending Totalitarian Socialism as practiced in Cuba. For example: When Bernie Sanders Thought Castro and the Sandinistas Could Teach America a Lesson.

    Sanders had a hunch that Cubans actually appreciated living in a one-party state. “The people we met had an almost religious affection for [Fidel Castro]. The revolution there is far deep and more profound than I understood it to be. It really is a revolution in terms of values.”
    It was a conclusion he had come to long before visiting the country. Years earlier Sanders said something similar during a press conference:
    “You know, not to say Fidel Castro and Cuba are perfect—they are certainly not—but just because Ronald Reagan dislikes these people does not mean to say the people in these nations feel the same.”

    There is, of course, a mechanism to measure the levels of popular content amongst the campesinos. Perhaps it’s too much to expect a democratic socialist to be familiar with the free election, a democratic nicety the Cuban government hasn’t availed itself of during its almost 60 years in power.

    As Bernie has had a half century of being a fanboy of communist dictator Fidel, his calling someone a “communist dictator” is not, from Bernie’s point of view, necessarily a bad thing.

  37. There is an interesting comparison between what Bernie Sanders said about a “revolution in values” and what a “Liberation theology” priest stated in Naipaul’s prescient 1972 article on Argentina. The Corpse at the Iron Gate.

    The priest in charge was one of the “Priests for the Third World.” He wore a black leather jacket and his little concrete shed of a church, oversimple, rocked with some amplified Argentine song. It had been whispered to me that the priest came of a very good family; and perhaps the change of company had made him vain. He was of course a Peronist, and he said that all his Indians were Peronist. “Only an Argentine can understand Peronism. I can talk to you for five years about Peronism, but you will never understand.”

    But couldn’t we try? He said Peronism wasn’t concerned with economic growth; they rejected the consumer society. But hadn’t he just been complaining about the unemployment in the interior, the result of government folly, that was sending two Indians into his shantytown for every one that left? He said he wasn’t going to waste his time talking to a norteamericano; some people were concerned only with GNP. And, leaving us, he bore down, all smiles, on some approaching Indians. The river wind was damp, the concrete shed unheated, and I wanted to leave. But the man with me was uneasy. He said we should at least wait and tell the father I wasn’t an American. We did so. And the father, abashed, explained that Peronism was really concerned with the development of the human spirit. Such a development had taken place in Cuba and China; in those countries they had turned their backs on the industrial society.

    Recall what Bernie said about Cuba.

    The people we met had an almost religious affection for [Fidel Castro]. The revolution there is far deep and more profound than I understood it to be. It really is a revolution in terms of values.”

    Muddle-headed Bernie echoes a muddle-headed priest from the aristocracy. Both full of fantasies about totalitarian communist dictators.

    The muddle-headed priest ended up going the guerrilla route, and was killed in combat. Two decades later, Naipual met one of his acolytes. (Parents of a childhood friend were friends with another aristocratic priest turned dead guerrilla- Camilo Torres.)

    It doesn’t say much for Bernie Sanders that at times he sounds like a Liberation Theology priest.

  38. See my comment here on socialism, progressives, and gnosticism.

    AesopFan on August 17, 2018 at 12:10 pm at 12:10 pm said:

  39. Socialism is like a religion. Liberation theology is perhaps another name for socialism the religion.

    However, that means that Counter Reformation Jesuits were ahead of the curve. They developed intellectual and anti intellectual weapons way before socialism was invented.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>