Anarchism Goes Mainstream

Most visitors to St. Petersburg in Russia usually find their way there.  The Church of the Spilled Blood is an exotic example of Tsarist architecture.  More importantly, it memorializes the assassination of Alexander II by an anarchist in 1881.

Anarchism reached a high point during the latter part of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century.  Lest it be forgotten, World War I was triggered when an anarchist murdered the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria.

Although anarchism may seem exotic in contemporary America, it is making a resounding comeback.  Indeed it has gone mainstream in a big way.  Thus not long ago we saw it in the Occupy Wall Street Movement.  Here young radicals sought to undermine capitalism by tearing out its beating heart.

Anarchists are against all authority.  They believe that if they can kill those at the top of the social pyramid, everyone else will be free of oppression.  The rest of us will accordingly be able to live our lives unfettered by exploitation and tyranny.  As the successors of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, anarchists believe that we humans are inherently loving and therefore will live in harmony once allowed to do so.

At first glance, this conviction might seem at odds with socialism, which demands that the means of production be controlled by the government.  But this leaves out Karl Marx’s belief that socialism would inevitably be followed by the withering away of the state.

So what does this have to do with us?  The answer is simple: today’s democratic socialists have a strong anarchistic bent.  They too both want to build up the government and to topple it down.  This might seem like a contradiction to clear-headed souls, but the radical’s heads are filled with ideological mush.

Consider what is happening at our southern border.  Many left-wing Democrats are arguing that virtually anyone who wishes to enter the United States should be able to do so unimpeded. This has even been depicted as a “human right.”

Others, including most of the Democratic presidential aspirants, have declared themselves in favor of decriminalizing what had been illegal entry into the United States.  They want no barriers to interfere with non-citizens who are only attempting to improve their condition and that of their families.

Nor do they want people to be detained if they are undocumented. However they cross the border, they are to be immediately released.  This includes unaccompanied children.  They too must be set free on our streets to go where they will, when they will.

Then, if people are adjudicated as having broken our laws, they are not to be deported.  This is said to frighten them and their children; hence they must remain unmolested.  Indeed, the so-called sanctuary cities intentionally make it difficult for the federal government to enforce its laws.

When you add this up, it is a direct assault on the concept of law. In the name of compassion, the radicals have decided that legally enacted statues must be flouted.  They don’t seek so much to change these laws as to have them disregarded.  They intend to decide which regulations to respect and which to ignore.

This is a prescription for—guess what—anarchy.  If people can do whatever they want with respect to immigration, why wouldn’t the same apply to other aspects of society?  In fact, the radicals do make this assumption.  They feel justified in breaking whatever laws they dislike.

Antifa is a prime example of this attitude.  These thugs believe they are saving society when they pummel conservatives on the street.  Although they claim to be fighting fascism, they are really promoting anarchism. They are, in this sense, a law unto themselves.

To some, these developments seem amusing.  They are dismissed as young people going overboard.  In reality, they are a threat to organized society and our mutual wellbeing—including that of the activists. These insurgents are essentially holding a knife to our throats in the name of freedom.

But anarchy is not freedom.  It never was and never will be.  However much it may be lauded, it leads to what Thomas Hobbes called a war of all against all.  Without shared rules that are reliably enforced, anyone is free to do whatever they want to anyone else.

Modern government has brought us the benefit of social stability. The radicals, in their unenlightened idealism, wish to snatch this away from us.  The insanity occurring with respect to our border is merely a symptom of their misunderstanding of what allows societies to function.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University

Political Bathos Hits Its Stride

Most people know what pathos is.  It is a form of pity that descends into unwarranted emotionality.  Bathos takes this a step lower.  It seizes upon our concern for the welfare of others and corrupts it into a mockery of human compassion.  Instead of genuine caring, it offers a caricature of kindness.

Closely related to this is the logical fallacy called the argumentum ad misericordiam.  This occurs when a person attempts to win an argument by appealing to pity rather than sound reasons.  It seeks to win by manipulating our emotions, rather than appealing to facts.

Contemporary politics are now awash with bathos and argumentums ad misericordiam.  Instead of politicians carefully explaining why their policies would be beneficial, they go straight to emotional exploitation. They do not care if what they claim is right as long as they can persuade voters that it is.

Although all politicians are prone to this tactic, the Democrats are turning it into an art form.  They descend into bathos so easily because so much of what they favor is unattainable. Rather than admit this, they seek to win through the backdoor of illegitimate emotionality.

Consider what is happening at our southern border.  Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants have overwhelmed our ability to cope with this tide.  Federal officials have neither the manpower, nor the facilities to keep up with growing numbers of families and unattached children.

So what do the Democrats say in the face of this deluge?  First they denied that there was a problem.  They told us that it was a manufactured crisis. Then they insisted that there was a crisis, but it was a humanitarian one.  The trouble was that the border agents were Nazis.

Nowadays, as regular as clockwork, we are told that children are being tortured.  They are being ripped from their parents’ arms and then shunted into cages.  Donald Trump and his minions are so heartless that they do not even provide mattresses or toothbrushes.

Almost any issue that comes up, be it court-ordered deportations or sanctuary cities, sooner or later the children are trotted out to defend the liberal position.  They have become the equivalent of hostages that are pushed out in front of the line of march so as to ward off counterattacks.

Thus not long ago, several Democratic congresspersons ventured to south Florida to observe that was happening at a detention facility for children. They concluded that the crowding was disgraceful.  It could not be tolerated.

But did they have an answer?  Did they propose legislation for more funding?  Or did they seek to change the asylum rules?  No and no!  What then did they want?  Were the authorities really supposed to let these youngsters go, thereby allowing them to survive as best they could on the street?

These cries about “the children, the children,” are shameful.  Why then do they persist?  It is because progressives pride themselves on being compassionate. If the policies they support are not actually helping people, they must nonetheless pretend that they care.

In fact, compassion is compassion only when it seeks genuine solutions to human problems.  Merely trying to wring tears out of the eyes of voters is no substitute for actually doing good.  While this may fool many people in the short term, in the long term it is apt to be found out.

Liberalism is failing.  It has not solved the problems it promised to solve.  Nor does it have any ideas other than those that have been tried and failed. Someone should tell them that socialism has never improved social conditions anywhere that it has been implemented.

By now millions of Americans have grown cynical.  They keep being subjected to bathos on a daily basis. Whatever their political loyalties, observers of this chaos must eventually realize that this will probably not lead to progress.  It is, in truth, public theater and little more.

Almost everyone knows that we are at a political impasse. Nevertheless, no one wants to lose. As the result of being intellectually bankrupt, those on the left have found no alternative except raw emotion. They scream, they shout, they bring out the crying towel—all to no avail.

It is time for people caught in this political drama to dry their eyes. Rather than listen to the boy who cried wolf, they need to face the facts.  The bathos has become tiresome.  If its promoters have not yet grown weary of it, they may rest assured that a significant portion of the electorate have.  

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University

Social Stupidity: My Most Timely Book

The times are out of joint.  Everyone seems to hate everyone else.  There is plainly more craziness abroad in the land that at any time in my long life.  Once Americans were assumed to be a reasonable people.  That conclusion seems to have gone out of date.

When I was in college, I imagined that the world was becoming more rational.  As the first in my immediate family to get a higher education, I believed that I, and those like me, were increasingly apt to use facts and logic to come to important conclusions.  I was dead wrong.

We humans are inherently non-rational creatures.  Although we are able to think in terms of evidence and strict reasoning, most of the time we do not.  Instead we use a variety of techniques that have both positive and negative side effects.  Ironically, this is necessary if we are to maintain our social integrity.

I know that liberals believe conservatives are not very smart; whereas conservatives return the compliment.  The truth is that intelligence has nothing to do with our propensity to be unreasonable.  Not only is this so, but ironically we would be in deep trouble if it weren’t

In order to coordinate our activities, we humans require mechanisms that enable us to arrive are synchronized conclusions.  Not only that, but these techniques must also permit us to shift from stable arrangements to flexible ones.  Logic per se might not allow this to happen.

Let me provide and example.  We humans are hierarchical creatures.  We rank ourselves in terms of our relative power.  Moreover, those at the top are accorded deference.  This enables them to organize group pursuits. Among other things, this permits them to dictate what we believe.

When those at the top know what they are talking about, this can be beneficial.  Yet when they do not, all concerned may be led off a cliff.  Isn’t this what both liberals and conservatives accuse the other side of doing?  Moreover, don’t both sides argue that their adversaries’ leaders have lost touch with reality?

Even so, both factions put up a vigorous fight to impose their visions. Irrespective of this, the rank and file do not take time out to examine the facts.  They don’t privately sit down to apply logic to verified data.  Instead they simply accept what they were told and use this as ammunition against their rivals.

As to their leaders, they too are not necessarily seekers of truth. More often than not, they are in quest of persuasive talking points.  Their desire is to influence people, not to assemble a catalogue of undeniable verities.

The upshot is that we are able pursue common goals.  Because we don’t think for ourselves, we adopt shared perspectives.  Furthermore, when there is widespread agreement, this is usually beneficial. When, however, there is not, the conflicts can get out of hand.

Today this is exactly what is happening.  Given that neither liberalism nor conservatism can muster universal consent, people fight about what we should collectively believe.  As it happens, this is characteristic of periods of change.  With the authorities are incapable of sufficiently influential answers, people fight to see who will prevail.

All of this can be quite unsettling.  It can also lead us into folly.  The good news is that our mistakes are usually corrected.  The bad news is that this may only be after blood has been spilled.  

There is an answer however.  If we understand what leads us to be non-rational, we can control the most dangerous aspects of this tendency.  Denial is far worse.  This can produce a dangerous hubris, which prevents us from recognizing our deficiencies.

In any event, non-rationality will be with us for as long as we are human.  In my book Social Stupidity: The Inevitability of Folly,I explain the many ways we go off track.  It is precisely because we are a creative species that we make a host of imaginative errors.

Although none of us likes to believe we are at fault when things go wrong, humility is in order.  Only when we accept our limitations can we calmly review what we know and what we don’t. That is not what is happening today, but it could if we had the courage to admit what we were doing.

Anyway, Social Stupidityis now available on amazon .com.  As usual, this is at $10 for the paperback and $5 for the eBook.

Melvyn L. Fein, P.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University

The Book Everyone Hates: Social Stupidity

I have written over two dozen books, but of these only one has drawn almost universal disdain.  Not only did the publishers to whom I submitted it reject my manuscript, but the reviews were scathing.  In one case, I did obtain a contract, which was shortly rescinded.

The name of the book is Social Stupidity: The Inevitability of Folly.  Although I assumed the subject would interest many people, the usual reaction was anger.  Liberals were offended by my inclusion of liberal examples of irrationality, whereas conservatives were offended by the conservative examples of irrationality.

Apparently everyone wants to believe they are rational.  It is the other guy who is unreasonable—not us. And yet the fact is that most of our important decisions are not based on facts and logic.  We use other bases to come to these conclusions. 

I began to come to this realization when Bill Clinton was impeached. The Democrats demanded evidence to substantiate the charges.  Nonetheless, when this was provided, they did not bother to go to the secure area where it was stored.  They already knew what they believed; hence additional facts were irrelevant.

We saw this same attitude when congressional Democrats insisted upon seeing redacted portions of the Mueller report.  Somehow, when this was made available, they failed to show up to read it.  They made no excuses.  Indeed, they doubled-down by accusing the Attorney-General of illegally refusing to supply what they asked.

Now don’t get me wrong.  Liberals do not have a monopoly on this sort of behavior.  Conservatives also act this way when their political ambitions are thwarted.  The goal of all these folks is winning, not being faithful to reality.  You know what, this is true of you and me as well.

We as a species are addicted to non-rational modes of thinking.  We have to be.  There are many reasons why, but one is that we seldom have all the facts needed to make sensible choices.  We therefore use shortcuts that get us reasonably close to a serviceable result.

An even more important reason is that we require non-rational means to keep our societies intact.  Were we all independent operators, we would seldom be on the same page; which would make it difficult to cooperate on interpersonal activities.

As a consequence, we are biologically primed to honor authority. It is no accident that the children of Baptists usually grow up to be Baptists, whereas the children of Hindus generally become Hindus.  As children and adults, we rarely question those believed to know the truth.

This, in fact, is one of our glories.  It enables us humans to learn more than any one of us could on our own. Advanced civilizations could never have taken shape if we did not learn from those who preceded us.  Their discoveries thus become our discoveries.

On the other hand, what if they are wrong?  If the people we respect tell is things that are not so, we can easily be led astray.  Because we do not examine the foundations of what they say, we can adopt opinions that are off base.

Nowadays we see this all the time on television.  Both political parties have become addicted to “talking points.”  Their spokespersons repeat absurd memes because they have learned that these are the official position.

I am now going to give an example that I know most liberals will hate. President Donald Trump is routinely excoriated for being a racist.  Yet on what grounds do people come to this conclusion?  Have they directly witnessed Trump discriminating against a person because of race?  Of course, not.

They are, however, told by their co-partisans that Trump has articulated many racist slurs.  To illustrate, he is said to have praised the KKK when their members marched at Charlottesville.  He allegedly claimed that they were good people.

Nonetheless, anyone who heard Trump speak on that occasion knows this was not the case.  He was really saying that there were good people on both sides of the confederate statue controversy.  So why don’t those who condemn him realize this?  It is because they were not taking their cue from his words, but from those who despise him.

How often do all of us do this?  How many leftists have actually read Karl Marx; how many rightists have leafed through Adam Smith?  You know the answers.  The truth is that most of our economic beliefs derive from our party affiliations, not an independent study of the subject.

P.S. Social Stupidityis now available on amazon.com, at $10 for the paperback and $5 for the eBook.

Melvyn L. Fein, P.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University

Kamala Harris: A Rising Star?

By most accounts, the Democratic Presidential debates were a dud. The first was dismissed as boring, whereas the second devolved into a gong show.  Nonetheless, at least according to media types, Kamala Harris emerged as the candidate to watch.

Aside from attracting positive commentary from these political observers, she was able to raise two million dollars in the wake of her performance. Apparently some people who were watching concluded that she was the best choice to become our next chief executive.

Why was that so?  The main reason was ostensibly her attack upon former vice president Joe Biden. She took him to task for praising segregationist senators and for opposing school busing.  According to Harris, as a black woman and a beneficiary of the busing, she was deeply offended.

Biden responded in a very measured way that he had not praised Eastland and Tallmadge.  He also argued that he had not been opposed to busing, but only a federal law that mandated it.  As far as he was concerned, if states and localities instituted this practice he would not object.

Biden was right.  He was never in favor of segregation and never buddies with segregationists.  His goal was not to promote racism, but to collaborate with folks he disliked on projects that would benefit the nation. He was trying to be reasonable, as opposed to extremist.

So why were Harris’ mischaracterizations of him so warmly embraced? I suggest that it had more to do with her attitude than the content of her charges.  She was energized.  She was passionate.  It clearly looked as if she cared deeply about what she was saying.

Many people like fervor.  They associate it with a genuine desire to pursue important objectives. What we were witnessing, however, was calculated anger.  Harris is a wrathful person.  We also saw this rage come to the surface when she cross-examined Brett Kavanagh in his quest to sit on the Supreme Court.  We likewise saw it when she tried to take Jeff Sessions apart during a senate hearing.

I am not sure why she is angry, but I am sure that her zeal serves as a substitute for genuine understanding.  No doubt Harris hates racism.  No doubt she also believes in the progressive agenda.  But does this add up to accurate insights into how to advance our nation?

Consider two of her schemes.  One of the programs she champions is Medicare for all.  When asked to explain how this would operate, she did not initially recognize that this would mean stripping most Americans of the health insurance they currently have.  Now that she realizes this, however, she is still for a federal take over.

According to Harris, this would be cheaper that our current system because their would be no middle man and less paperwork.  My question is: Has she dealt with any federal agencies.  If she has, she should have realized that red tape is their specialty.  In short, they are not noted for their efficiency.  Witness the Veterans Administration.

Another of he favorite ideas is reparations.  She would take money from whites—all whites—and give it to blacks—all blacks.  This is supposedly to compensate for the free labor extracted from the slave ancestors of African-Americans.

Yet what would this accomplish?  Would it suddenly vault the recipients into economic prosperity?  I very much doubt this.  In fact, I suspect that most of the money would soon be gone and that in a few shorts years there would be demands for additional funds.

In the meantime, I also suspect that most whites would feel that they had been fleeced.  Given that a majority of Americans do not have slaveholder forebears, they would likely resent being made poorer so as to subsidize individuals who were never themselves slaves.

Is this the best way to establish racial harmony?  Is this how racial justice will be restored?  My guess is that most blacks will be angered by white bitterness.  Furthermore, almost no one will be in a mood for a national dialogue that promotes racial understanding.

So why is Harris for reparations when even Obama was against them? She is plainly a race warrior. Her deep resentments float just behind her warm smile.  These antipathies are sure to emerge if she makes it into the final rounds of the Democratic debates.

For the moment, Harris looks good to many people, but I find it hard to believe that eventually she will not alienate many more.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University

The Democratic Debates in Prspective

Now that the first Democratic debates are behind us, it is time to put them in perspective.  What stands out for me was how anti-American many of the candidates were.  They don’t like our country and want to change it into something profoundly different. 

First of all, they don’t want the United States to have borders. They intend to throw our nation open to anyone who decides to come and stay.  Sure, they claim this is not true, but their policies put the lie to this assertion.  Thus, when Julian Castro said he wanted to decriminalize illegal immigration, few demurred. 

Castro insists that we turn unlawfully crossing our border into something like a parking ticket.  In other words, there would be no negative consequences for doing so.  Furthermore, he wants us to stop deporting people—with the possible exception of getting rid of murderers.

If this is not open borders, I don’t know what is.  In addition, he, and all of the candidates in the second debate, would give free medical care to everyone who arrived on our shores, irrespective of their legal status.

This, of course, is an invitation for every person around the world to inundate our nation.  Free goodies, without any negative repercussions, has to sound wonderful to people living in the third world.  Why wouldn’t they pick up stakes and move here?

But what if they did?  One result would be that our culture would be overwhelmed.  Were tens, if not hundreds of millions, of people without democratic traditions to flood our country, the way of life that enabled us to remain democratic would be destroyed.  We too, in short, would revert to third world conditions.

Not only would our political system be put in jeopardy, but so would our economy.  Despite what the liberals say, tens of millions of peasants will not improve our living conditions.  Without the skills to fit into a technological workplace, they would be a drain on our social services—and personal incomes.

In addition to wanting to protect foreigners rather than American citizens, the Democrats flaunted their hatred of capitalism.  Especially on the first night, they repeatedly insulted the wealthy and our corporations.  Elizabeth Warren was particularly guilty of blaming of our nation’s ills on these sources.

At every turn, people with money or power were accused of being immoral. Forget about the American Dream where everyone was supposed to have the opportunity to rise as far as their talents and energies could take them.  The Liberal Dream is evidently about tearing successful folks down.

This is the politics of envy—pure and simple.  It is not about self-improvement, but putting the government in charge of our wellbeing.  We are supposed to feel better if we jointly confiscate everything the affluent have, irrespective of whether this makes the rest of us poorer.

And mind you, it would.  Removing the incentive for anyone to start a business or to make it efficient would eventually reduce the size of the pie available to share.  All of us would have less once government functionaries took total control.

America became rich because of capitalism.  Sure some people got super-wealthy, but most of us live far more comfortably than our ancestors.  The economy is not a zero-sum game.  As long as our total wealth grows, more of us can share in the benefits—including the poor.

Given these facts, what did the Democratic candidates want?  Do they hope we become more like Venezuela?  I know that Americans don’t remember history (neo-socialists certainly don’t), but Hugo Chavez began the process of impoverishing his homeland by promising voters a larger cut of the country’s oil revenue.

As it happens, the government is incompetent to run every jot and tittle of our lives.  Can you imagine the people on those debating stages making the decisions at Microsoft or Amazon.com?  They were not even savvy enough to make coherent verbal arguments.

Those paying attention should have realized that the debaters were asking us to relinquish our freedom in exchange for imaginary benefits. Virtually all of them argued that we ought to trust them to protect our welfare.  But I am not so sure they are worthy of this confidence.

Indeed, after the debate was over a man on the street was asked to explain his preference for socialism.  He replied that where there is socialism people have no problems. Talk about not understanding history. Talk about sacrificing the achievements of the American experiment in favor of despotism and poverty!

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University

Extremists Kill Their Own

It had to happen.  Because the Democrats know that the only way they can elect a president is by labeling the opposition racist, they have escalated their rhetoric.  Now they are grasping at any straw to delegitimize anyone who might threaten their chances.

Donald Trump has long been a target.  For three years—based on little or no evidence—he has repeatedly been accused of racism.  Joe Biden joined this chorus by launching his presidential bid by resurrecting the old chestnut about how Trump praised the Nazis and KKK at Charlottesville.

Trump did no such thing.  He merely stated that there were good people on both sides of the Confederate statue controversy.  In fact, he explicitly disowned right wing zealots of every sort.  That did not matter to his detractors because the president had to be a racist in order to gin up the black vote.

But the Democrats weren’t through.  They also revived the idea of paying reparations to contemporary African-Americans.  On the invented grounds of compensating slaves for their unpaid labor, their remote successors would be given the equivalent of forty acres and a mule.

We have, however, known for decades that this scheme is unworkable. After all, not all blacks were slaves, while the ancestors of many whites never owned chattel.  More than that, we have the anomaly of many blacks who claim white antecedents.  Would they be required to pay themselves?

Ironically, one of the biggest fans of reparation would not be qualified.  Although Kamala Harris is perceived as black, her mother was Indian, while her father came from Jamaica.  How would we figure these things out?  Would we require an exhaustive ancestral study for all Americans?

But the biggest absurdity of all was implying that Joe Biden is a racist. Oddly, uncle Joe himself was not above making such accusations.  Seven years ago he charged Mitt Romney with wanting to put blacks back in chains. Now his white skin has betrayed him.

Biden was thus accused of insensitivity when he used the example of his relationships with two segregationist senators to argue in favor of political civility.  He talked about how he was able to get along with senators Eastland and Tallmadge despite sharply disagreeing with them.

Immediately Senators Harris and Cory Booker pounced.  How could Biden have been so thoughtless?  How could he have cut southern racists any slack whatsoever? Didn’t this prove that Biden’s race credentials were flawed?  Black primary voters were essentially being warned not to vote for this turncoat.

Nonetheless, Biden was right.  A democracy cannot be sustained if opposing parties are not civil; if they refuse ever to compromise.  Under these circumstances, the only recourse is civil war.  This was how historic democracies committed suicide—and ours would be no exception.

Harris and Booker were basically implying that only blacks can be trusted not to be racists.  Only they truly understand the handicaps under which Africans-Americans labor. That this is a kind of reverse racism never occurred to the accusers.

By making everything about race, Democrats have revealed the chinks in their revolutionary armor.  They have disclosed that their socialist extremism is open to the same defects as previous revolutionary movements.

Political revolutions, because they invariably fail, turn on their own when the going gets rough.  The activists begin blaming one another so as to demonstrate that their own skirts are clean. During the French Revolution, they did this by cutting off one another’s heads.

Our radicals have not yet resorted to the Guillotine, but they are getting ready for a series of circular firing squads.  The debating season has begun, yet it will not be over for some time. There are plenty of months left for the partisans to get even nastier.

Revolutions cannot succeed without destroying those who stand in their way.  Bernie Sanders’ democratic socialism is consequently a mirage.  Revolutionaries pretend to be nice people, but when the chips are down, the eggs that Lenin said they must break include their rivals.

To be blunt, extremists kill their own.  That’s who they are.  If we do not understand this about them, we will ultimately be on their lists. Hence, when we don’t want to go along with their medical plans, they will allow us to die.  Likewise, when we demonstrate that we are unwilling to subscribe to their ideologies, they will deny us college admission.

Nice is as nice does and we are about to be in for a season of exponentially multiplied malice.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University

The Social Dependency Trap

Liberals tell us they want to help us.  If we will only elect them to office, they will produce a cornucopia of benefits.  They will thus give us everything we ever dreamt of and, as a result, we will be eternally happy.  The downtrodden in particular will be released from their desperation.

Nonetheless, this is a canard!  It is a whopper of the first magnitude.  To begin with, the progressives do not have the wherewithal to produce what they promise to deliver.  The costs of what they project are so great that no nation has the resources to implement them.

Second, the personal costs of these alleged benefits are much higher than assumed.  The provision of free goodies requires people to assign their freedom to their presumed benefactors.  In exchange for wealth and security, these recipients are asked to depend on the good will of their saviors.

In fact, dependency is a trap.  It is a prescription for endless misery.  By assuming the role of helpless children, those who ask to be protected from every potential hazard open themselves up to exploitation.  This is a bad bargain.

Dependency has many hidden costs.  Anyone who works in a welfare system (as I did) quickly becomes aware of this.  Their clients are not perpetually joyful.  Although their physical needs are guaranteed, most are deeply discontented.  For a majority, life is a burden.

Why, you ask?   The answer is simple.  People who are extremely dependent surrender two things of inestimable value.  One is personal control of their lives.  The other is a sense of achievement.  These may sound like small potatoes, whereas they are anything but.

Let us start with personal control.  We must, of course, admit that no one has total control.  Life is filled with contingencies we can never correct, nor even manage.  Some things always go wrong such that we are inevitably exposed to undeserved pain.

Even so, the more control we have the better.  When we possess the power to protect ourselves, we usually feel safer.  This is because we know that we will be there for ourselves. Conversely when we delegate our welfare to others, we are taking a leap of faith.  These folks might not defend us since they really don’t care about us.

Children perforce experience the anxieties of relying on the charity of others.  Their undeveloped skills and lack of experience make them vulnerable.  They therefore have no choice but to depend on their parents.  All the same, don’t they work overtime to break free of this need?

The other major deficit of excess dependency is the loss of individual achievement.  In order to feel good about ourselves, we humans must accomplish worthwhile goals. We have to have purposes that are within our power to attain.  In the absence of these, we not respected—by others or ourselves.

Dependency robs us of self-chosen objectives.  Our protectors now specify these for us.  Nor are we personally able to accomplish these end points.  It is now others who are in charge of reaching them.  As a consequence, they get the credit, not us.

The impact of this shortfall is also on display among welfare clients. They tend to drift along with the tide. With nothing to work for or to feel pride in realizing, their lives are empty.  These folks are not successful because they are not allowed to be.

This is crucial because we humans need to be successful.  Since we measure our worth against others, if we achieve nothing, we are automatically inferior to those who do.  Excessive dependency thus means we have relinquished our ability to move ahead.

To be sure, if we depend on ourselves we could fail.  Our goals might remain unfulfilled and our reputations reduced to tatters.  Nonetheless, the freedom to try means we have the opportunity to win.  Indeed, because we could lose, winning is that much more desirable.

If this is true, then progressivism is a recipe for desolation. All of that free schooling, health care, housing and income deprives us of the chance to feel good about ourselves. The fact is that when we become mendicants, we drop to the bottom of the social hierarchy.

The young do not realize this.  Accustomed to being dependent upon their parents, they are not yet sure they can rely on themselves.  Still, we adults should be past this.  When offered the prospect of becoming the servants of government bureaucrats, we ought to have the good sense to decline.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University