You have perhaps heard the observation that God must love the poor because he created so many of them. Whether or not this is true, it seems to apply to liberals. They claim to be the party of the people, but there policies are intent on increasing the numbers of poor.
The recent proposal for a Green New Deal heads the list of crackbrain schemes that if implemented will impoverish us all. Socialism, in general, has been conducive to scarcity. Everywhere it has been tried, it has degraded the living standards of ordinary people.
The misery inflicted on Venezuela is only the latest example of the tangible implications of the collectivist dream. Politicians, who promised to redistribute the country’s oil wealth, reduced what had been the richest nation in South America to destitution.
In fact, the richest person in Venezuela is currently the daughter of the country’s late dictator Hugo Chavez. She became a billionaire while ordinary Venezuelans literally lost, on average, twenty pounds in weight because they had so little to eat.
Similar declines in the quality of life occurred in Russia, China, and Cuba. Most people do not realize it, but the Russian economy grew more quickly under the Tsars than the Soviets. Forced industrialization lined the pockets of communist party hacks, while it reduced millions of Russians to slavery.
As for China, Mao Tse-tung lived like royalty in multiple palaces, while he concocting a Great Leap Forward that resulted in the starvation of tens of millions of Chinese. Meanwhile, Cuba under Castro went from one of the wealthiest countries in Latin America to one of the poorest.
This is not an admirable track record. It is certainly at odds with what Karl Marx promised. He believed that once the means of production were ripped from the capitalists’ hands, the excess value produced by nascent industry would automatically be redirected toward the poor.
Ordinary workers would then become so comfortable that they could go fishing in the morning and report to the factory in the afternoon at their own discretion. No longer wage-slaves, by cooperating with one another, they would ensure that all became prosperous.
This remains the vision of contemporary neo-Marxists. We see it in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green Dream. She believes that by eliminating the use of carbon fuels we will not only save the planet, but improve the living conditions of the poor.
How this is supposed to happen when entire industries are put out of business is a mystery. Does she really believe that Detroit can completely switch over to electric cars within a decade without massive dislocations among its work force? And where will those folks working in the oil industry go? Will they all be installing wind farms?
Only economic illiterates could assume that these changeovers are feasible. Only they would fail to realize that the modifications in equipment and worker skills require long periods to evolve. These must be developed and tested and gradually put in place.
Liberals do not comprehend this because they are dreamers. They actually have the nerve to tell us that as long as we can dream something, we can make it happen. Their assumption is that they are such good people that whatever they imagine must be possible.
How absurd this is was revealed in one of Ocasio-Cortez’s throwaway lines. She wants to ensure that everyone will have the resources to live contentedly. According to her, the government must therefore supply funds to those who cannot work or are unwillingto work.
That’s right: unwillingto work. This is a dream all right. It is the dream of college graduates who still want to live in mom and dad’s basement. It is the fantasy of those who have never worked, and thanks to a superior education, believe they should never have to.
In this neo-socialist dream, some people voluntarily work at jobs so that a large proportion of their income can be confiscated and conveyed to the layabouts. Aside from the fact that this is unfair, it is a prescription for pervasive poverty. Such a strategy guarantees lower work force participation and therefore less wealth to dispense to anybody.
So here are three cheers for socialism and poverty. If the Democrats get their wish, there will indeed be more poor voters. The question is whether these folks will realize that their erstwhile saviors foisted this circumstance upon them. Do you think they will really like being poorer?
Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus
Kennesaw State University
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