Continuing on from parts one and two, the third theme of Vivek Chibber and Bhaskar Sunkara’s argument for socialism is that socialism best serves human opportunity.
Chibber claims that capitalism’s failure is proven by productivity increases that have not translated into greater income growth. Socialism, he suggests, would change this. But while Chibber is right that productivity is a crucial input for income growth, he totally ignores the fact that while private sector productivity has increased, public sector productivity is almost nonexistent. As an extension, socialist policies that expand the public sector would obviously make the productivity problem even worse!
We shouldn’t be surprised by the delusion here. Just as the far-left utterly ignored the lessons of Seattle’s recent minimum wage experiment, they cannot look beyond their emotional reflex against capitalism.
Chibber offered another example of this dynamic when he was challenged on his opposition to charter schools. “Public schools are failing…” Chibber suggested, “because they have been choked.” Rather than giving parents the choice to send their kids to a better school, he said, the solution is to “genuinely fund [public schools], actually give them money the way they’re given money in other industrialized nations.”
It’s a poor dodge.
Assuming it didn’t translate into union profligacy, I think many conservatives would support increased spending on public schools. Conservatives also can and must do more to lower college costs. Nevertheless, to deny parental choice in education is to worship government as a righteous end in and of itself.
Still, Chibber’s philosophy class was just beginning.
“If you really do take liberty and freedom seriously, you have to be a socialist,” the NYU professor explained. This is because capitalism “forces [people] to subordinate every other one of their longings; for artistic expression, for love, for health, for whatever they want to do, to the imperatives of the job. It systematically pits them against each other, it forces people to treat each other as means not as ends. It forces every worker to see every other worker as a threat to his job.”
Again, this is intellectual excrement.
For one, capitalism’s ability to reward hard work with monetary rewards gives unparalleled opportunity to pursue the “longings” Chibber outlines. Thanks to free market competition, America is the world’s best place for varied and affordable pursuits of happiness. It’s also the world’s best place to find an array of possible career paths. Conversely, where capitalism offers many choices, socialism offers only the choices which government produces. And as the Soviet Union proved, socialist goods and services tend to be crap.
But the socialists weren’t done.
Sunkara expanded on Chibber’s theme of individual opportunity by lamenting that in a capitalist society: “Workers do most of the work at a job,” but “owners have unilateral say over what happens to the profits afterwards.”
Neglecting the pivotal importance of entrepreneurs and business creators in developing new technologies, goods, and sustainable jobs for our society, Sunkara then pulled the veil on his ideology. “Of course, we believe in individual rights and individual freedoms,” Sunkara notes, “but our individuality can only be achieved in a society truly embodying the virtues of liberty and solidarity.”
Solidarity.
The ultimate socialist code word for government direction of individual lives. It’s the rallying call of Lenin, Mao, Chavez, Maduro, Morales, and Corbyn and one that would be particularly pernicious for millennials.
Amazingly, however, that wasn’t Sunkara’s silliest assertion. That came with this gem: “Capitalism has everywhere and always fought against the implementation of democracy and the expansion of suffrage. … Once we got democracy, capitalism has worked to undermine it.”
Yes, because giving government officials and their allies control over the means of production is the best way to empower democracy.
Of course, the opposite is true. Capitalism fuels democracy by giving consumers the ultimate power and by facilitating the emergence of a prosperous middle class capable of challenging vested interests.
Ultimately, that cuts to the heart of the division between socialism and capitalism. Where the former trusts special individuals to make choices for everyone, the latter trusts individuals to make choices in their own best interests.
