socialism

October 4, 2017|capitalism, Centesimus Annus, First Things, Globalization, Michael Novak, R.R. Reno, socialism, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism

Capitalism and the Common Good According to Michael Novak: A Law and Liberty Symposium on First Things

by Michael Matheson Miller, James R. Rogers, Grattan Brown, Michael M. Uhlmann, Jay W. Richards|2 Comments

Michael Novak

Novak-as-Liberationist Won’t Fly

By Michael Matheson Miller

In his recent essay on the legacy of Michael Novak, First Things editor Rusty Reno has explained to longtime subscribers to Richard John Neuhaus’ old magazine where Reno is going with it and why. Observers such as John Zmirak and Joe Carter have wondered at several First Things pieces that shyly or openly make defenses of socialism.

Reno’s piece makes it clear that he disagrees with Michael Novak, and perhaps by implication Father Neuhaus, on the viability of a dynamic, open society—and the economic system that underpins such a system. He is looking for some alternative to the market economy. For him, that involves a number things including succumbing to the allure of what I’ll call “managerial capitalism.”

The merit of Reno’s piece is to provoke discussion about complex issues and to highlight some of the problems we face in the current system of global capitalism. I share some of his worries. Unfortunately, he seems to have let his desire to be provocative overcome a fair and reasonable assessment of Novak, and his analysis of the current state of affairs reveals less about Novak’s flaws than his own. Continue Reading Here

July 5, 2017|Bernie Sanders, Redistribution, socialism

Risk, Not Redistribution, Motivates America’s New Socialists

by James R. Rogers|16 Comments

A recent survey reports 37 percent of Americans over the age of 18 “prefer socialism to capitalism.” After Bernie Sanders near-run candidacy last year, that cannot be much of a surprise. Still, the U.S. historically has stood out among Western nations due to its lack of a sizeable socialist movement. So what’s changed?

November 6, 2016|American Founding, hegemon, Immigration, interests, Peter Thiel, principles, socialism

The United States Must Not Become a “Normal Country”

by John O. McGinnis|Leave a Comment

photo credit: Rena Schild (shutterstock.com)

Peter Thiel gave an interesting speech endorsing Donald Trump. Many people are very unhappy about the endorsement. I am ambivalent about this aspect, because it is beyond my poor powers of calculation to determine which of the worst pair of major party presidential candidates in American history would do the most long-term damage to the republic. But I disagree strongly with the theme of his speech—that what American needs is to become a “normal country.”

What Thiel seems to mean is that America should resemble most other nations, which are less interventionist in foreign affairs and whose citizens see themselves as acting out of interests rather than some set of unique principles. Becoming a normal nation in this respect would not only represent a change from America’s historic role in the world but be against our long-term interests.

The United States is a very unusual, indeed extraordinary nation, because it is founded on principles rather than ethnicity or conquest. And its principles were mostly fine classical liberal ones. That has made it look and behave very differently from other nations. For instance, it has not had as large a welfare state as other industrial nations or even a socialist party. One of my greatest fears is that this election is making it more “normal” in this respect.

The Republican standard-bearer is not trying to trim our burgeoning entitlements; the Democratic candidate, now influenced by the socialist Left of her party, wants substantially to increase them. Insofar as citizens see themselves as part of a “normal nation” rather than one dedicated to principles of liberty, the United States will decline, as the ever-larger entitlement state creates economic stagnation and a war of all against all.

April 25, 2016|corruption, Dilma Rousseff, Inacio Lula da Silva, Partido dos Trabalhadores, Petrobras, socialism

Trauma in Brazil

by Rodrigo Constantino|10 Comments

BRASILIA, BRAZIL - APRIL 17: Deputies of the Lower House of Congress vote on whether to impeach President Dilma Rousseff. (Photo by Igo Estrela/Getty Images)

The people of Brazil confront the impeachment of their President for the second time in 25 years. It is always a traumatic event. What does it mean? Is it true that President Dilma Rousseff is under attack because our elite can’t stand a popular government, as the members of her Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores, or PT) say? Or is it a constitutional and necessary step to get rid of a thoroughly corrupt government?

March 6, 2016|American Exceptionalism, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, National Front, Nationalism, Protectionism, Seymour Martin Lipset, socialism, xenophobia

The End of American Exceptionalism?

by John O. McGinnis|35 Comments

photo credit: Rena Schild (shutterstock.com)

American exceptionalism may be disappearing. American exceptionalism posits that the United States is fundamentally different from other nations, particularly those in Europe. The United States was founded on a commitment to principles whereas other nations were founded on ties of blood. Moreover, our principles were those of the Enlightenment, embracing individual liberty and the rule of law.

One of the results, as Seymour Martin Lipset noted, was that the United States has never had a serious socialist party. But in this election cycle a serious socialist has come close to winning the Democratic nomination. Indeed, Sanders would be winning except for the loyalty Clinton enjoys among African American voters. But as the votes of the congressional Black Caucus show, African American voters are the most left-wing bloc economically. Next time they would be likely vote for the socialist candidate who imitates Sanders.

We have also never had a major nationalist party, like the National Front in France. Such parties run not only on protectionism and xenophobia but on preserving an unreformed entitlement state. But Trump’s platform is a somewhat paler version of such virulent European parties.

The combination of Trump’s and Sanders’ rise shows that the candle of liberty by which American exceptionalism glows may be flickering out.

March 2, 2016|Bernie Sanders, James Buchanan, Public Choice, Self-Interest, socialism

Feel the Romantic Bern

by Dylan Pahman|13 Comments

Public choice theory, which applies to the realm of politics the rational-actor postulate of economists, rightly enjoys a high regard among advocates of liberty. From voting habits to inefficient, Kafkaesque bureaucracies, to the strength of special interest lobbies and rent-seeking behavior, public choice has shined a bright light on the need to affirm limited government and political freedom. It is politics, to use James Buchanan’s phrase, “without romance.”

October 19, 2015|David Cameron, Jeremy Corbyn, Labour Party, socialism

A Frighteningly Sincere Socialist

by Theodore Dalrymple|13 Comments

The election of Jeremy Corbyn to the leadership of the opposition Labour Party in Britain was conducted in a rather peculiar fashion. All one had to do to obtain a vote in it was to declare on-line that one supported the aims of the party and pay £3 ($4.60). It was rumoured that a number of Conservatives had voted for Mr Corbyn in this fashion, in the belief that Mr Corby was so left-wing that he could never be elected, thus assuring a permanent Conservative government.

September 18, 2015|Bernie Sanders, Entitlements, Espionage Act of 1917, Eugene V. Debs, Gordon Tullock, Public Choice, socialism

Bernie Sanders, Genteel Socialist

by Patrick Lynch|17 Comments

Bernie Sanders storms the gates of power as the newly elected mayor of Burlington, VT in 1981.

Not much has been said yet about the fact that the man now giving Hillary Clinton a run for her money in the Democratic primaries, Bernie Sanders, is a self-proclaimed socialist with a picture of Eugene Debs hanging in his Senate office in Washington. Even when his socialism is discussed, for example in a recent Politico article by David Greenberg, more time is spent describing the history of American socialism and relatively little explaining how Sanders fits in.

August 25, 2015|Bernie Sanders, Bicameralism, Donald Trump, maximin government, National Front, Progressivism, socialism

More American Exceptionalism: Less Dangerous Populists

by John O. McGinnis|3 Comments

photo credit: Rena Schild (shutterstock.com)

In both parties’ primaries a real populist is running, the kind of person many of the Framers would have called a demagogue. On the Republican side, the billionaire says we can deport all illegal immigrants and he will persuade Mexico to give the money to build a fence. Although he proclaims himself a conservative, his most substantial complaint about big government appears to be that he is not running it.

On the Democratic side, a self-proclaimed socialist argues that the problem with government is that it is not even bigger. He wants to sharply raise taxes and provide more government jobs. He also wants to criminalize all kinds of voluntary acts, from choosing to work at mutually agreeable wages to trading goods and services with foreigners, including those for whom that trade may mean the difference between subsistence and penury. This tribune of equality would ground down the truly destitute of the world. And, sadly, both these candidates are riding pretty high in the polls.

But these candidacies actually show the relative health of the United States compared to the most comparable democracies—those in Europe. Our populists of right and left are less bad then their populists, less likely to win power, and even in power less likely to do permanent damage.

June 12, 2015|capitalism, James R. Otteson, socialism, The End of Socialism

The End of the Road to Serfdom

by James Bruce|9 Comments

Future students of our age may well treat Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom and James R. Otteson’s The End of Socialism as bookends on an era. Hayek raises the specter of state collectivism in his classic work from 1944. In this new book, Otteson charts socialism’s end, in both senses of that word: the goals it fails to realize as well as its inevitable collapse.