Contemporary Venezuela. End of essay. Oh! You want me to say more.
How many times do we need to experience the travesty of socialist governments before we learn our lesson? More than 160 million people died in the twentieth century because of socialist/communist/fascist governments, most of them through totalitarian “cleansings.”* The product of the socialist dream has been not only death, but also impoverishment, the most recent examples residing in Cuba and Venezuela, countries from which those who can, flee.** Yet, here we are in 2020 facing the same old arguments of “fairness,” “wealth distribution,” and “enforced equality without opportunity for individual freedom and responsibility.” And those arguments are made by those who have profited from the very system they wish to overturn, that is, the system based on individual freedom, some lucky happenstances (and some unlucky ones), and opportunities seen, made, and taken.
So, now we find citizens of the United States embroiled in the same political battle that has plagued the world since Marx and Engels, a battle forecast by the insightful Nietzsche in The Will to Power. The drive toward Equality of Result that replaces Equality of Opportunity hides the underlying drive for totalitarian power demonstrably evident in numerous dictators in the twentieth century. Should the State control individuals or individuals collectively control the State? And the arguments for control by the State are always based on some scapegoating, typically blaming the “rich,” the “aristocrats,” or even some religious or political group for the world’s ills. The arguments always justify redistributing wealth (that is assumed to be fixed) by some supposedly wise and benevolent leaders. And as we all know from historical results, the power to redistribute always concentrates itself in some “elites” who believe they know the best course of action for those in their control. That control, by the way, usually entails an insidious growth of agencies and nameless bureaucrats with little accountability, agencies that enact de facto “laws” through untrammeled regulations.***
As the socialist dream of “equality” unfolds, it invariably leads to its opposite, to consequences that are the very antithesis of what the demos anticipated in their acquiescing to State control. Far Left becomes Far Right. It’s as though quantum tunneling is manifested in political realities as philosophies flip and people ask themselves, “How did we get to this point?” The quest for “equality” leads to a ruling class and a new “inequality.” Need proof? Look at world history. Look at the perks, the graft, the corruption that ensue the rise of a socialist government. In the Soviet Union, for example, a group of “political elites” had luxuries and freedom of travel not available to most citizens. Hypocrisy inevitably balloons as those who rule the State guiltlessly become wealthy while speaking about “fairness” and “equality.” I don’t need to name names as examples. Anyone can research those contemporary politicians who advocate “fairness” and “equality of result” while they live and justify their ostensibly “unfair” lives of wealth and luxury as defined by their own terminology.
The socialist dream is always a nightmare for the general population. Nevertheless, in 2020 politicians still argue for a system with no record that it ever accomplished its stated goals for the masses, unless one counts among those goals the equality of impoverishment, oppression, and deprivation of opportunity. Of course, one can always hear the argument that “Yeah, that happened in the past, but this time it will be different because we know we have the right people to run the government.”**** But, as has been the case for more than a century, the mysterious tunneling to the “other side” occurs, if not in the first generation, then assuredly in the second. What begins as a utopian dream becomes a dystopian nightmare for all but a few who (proclaim to) know what is best for the rest.
*No clearer examples exist than those enumerated by Rudolph Rummel, whose books center on democide, the killing of a people by its own government. Rummel uses data from abundant sources in support of his death estimates. Although I wrote “160 million” above, Rummel’s estimate is much higher, many of them killed under Stalin, Hitler, and Mao. More recently, Venezuela’s shift into socialism by Chavez and Maduro initiated an exodus that the CIA estimates in the millions. And before that exodus, Cubans fled Castro’s regime in two intense waves, a first emigration of about 250,000 mostly educated people and a second one in 1980 of about 100,000 that included some of Castro’s criminal and political prisoners.
**CIA FACTBOOK: VENEZUELA. “While CHAVEZ was in power, more than one million emigrated… since 2014, falling oil prices have driven a major economic crisis that has pushed Venezuelans from all walks of life to migrate or to seek asylum abroad to escape severe shortages of food, water, and medicine; soaring inflation; unemployment; and violence. As of November 2019, an estimated 4.6 million Venezuelans were refugees or migrants worldwide, with almost 80% taking refuge in Latin America and the Caribbean (notably Colombia, Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Argentina, and Brazil, as well as the Dominican Republic, Aruba, and Curacao).”
***Canada recently debated an Act that would prohibit speech that someone or some group might find offensive, opening the door for muzzling anyone outside the politically correct spectrum, a spectrum that keeps changing. “Offensive” is always defined by the group in power, of course. Just think Orwell’s 1984.
****The injuries and deaths in CHOP (CHAZ) reveal the harsh realities.
How many times do we need to experience the travesty of socialist governments before we learn our lesson? More than 160 million people died in the twentieth century because of socialist/communist/fascist governments, most of them through totalitarian “cleansings.”* The product of the socialist dream has been not only death, but also impoverishment, the most recent examples residing in Cuba and Venezuela, countries from which those who can, flee.** Yet, here we are in 2020 facing the same old arguments of “fairness,” “wealth distribution,” and “enforced equality without opportunity for individual freedom and responsibility.” And those arguments are made by those who have profited from the very system they wish to overturn, that is, the system based on individual freedom, some lucky happenstances (and some unlucky ones), and opportunities seen, made, and taken.
So, now we find citizens of the United States embroiled in the same political battle that has plagued the world since Marx and Engels, a battle forecast by the insightful Nietzsche in The Will to Power. The drive toward Equality of Result that replaces Equality of Opportunity hides the underlying drive for totalitarian power demonstrably evident in numerous dictators in the twentieth century. Should the State control individuals or individuals collectively control the State? And the arguments for control by the State are always based on some scapegoating, typically blaming the “rich,” the “aristocrats,” or even some religious or political group for the world’s ills. The arguments always justify redistributing wealth (that is assumed to be fixed) by some supposedly wise and benevolent leaders. And as we all know from historical results, the power to redistribute always concentrates itself in some “elites” who believe they know the best course of action for those in their control. That control, by the way, usually entails an insidious growth of agencies and nameless bureaucrats with little accountability, agencies that enact de facto “laws” through untrammeled regulations.***
As the socialist dream of “equality” unfolds, it invariably leads to its opposite, to consequences that are the very antithesis of what the demos anticipated in their acquiescing to State control. Far Left becomes Far Right. It’s as though quantum tunneling is manifested in political realities as philosophies flip and people ask themselves, “How did we get to this point?” The quest for “equality” leads to a ruling class and a new “inequality.” Need proof? Look at world history. Look at the perks, the graft, the corruption that ensue the rise of a socialist government. In the Soviet Union, for example, a group of “political elites” had luxuries and freedom of travel not available to most citizens. Hypocrisy inevitably balloons as those who rule the State guiltlessly become wealthy while speaking about “fairness” and “equality.” I don’t need to name names as examples. Anyone can research those contemporary politicians who advocate “fairness” and “equality of result” while they live and justify their ostensibly “unfair” lives of wealth and luxury as defined by their own terminology.
The socialist dream is always a nightmare for the general population. Nevertheless, in 2020 politicians still argue for a system with no record that it ever accomplished its stated goals for the masses, unless one counts among those goals the equality of impoverishment, oppression, and deprivation of opportunity. Of course, one can always hear the argument that “Yeah, that happened in the past, but this time it will be different because we know we have the right people to run the government.”**** But, as has been the case for more than a century, the mysterious tunneling to the “other side” occurs, if not in the first generation, then assuredly in the second. What begins as a utopian dream becomes a dystopian nightmare for all but a few who (proclaim to) know what is best for the rest.
*No clearer examples exist than those enumerated by Rudolph Rummel, whose books center on democide, the killing of a people by its own government. Rummel uses data from abundant sources in support of his death estimates. Although I wrote “160 million” above, Rummel’s estimate is much higher, many of them killed under Stalin, Hitler, and Mao. More recently, Venezuela’s shift into socialism by Chavez and Maduro initiated an exodus that the CIA estimates in the millions. And before that exodus, Cubans fled Castro’s regime in two intense waves, a first emigration of about 250,000 mostly educated people and a second one in 1980 of about 100,000 that included some of Castro’s criminal and political prisoners.
**CIA FACTBOOK: VENEZUELA. “While CHAVEZ was in power, more than one million emigrated… since 2014, falling oil prices have driven a major economic crisis that has pushed Venezuelans from all walks of life to migrate or to seek asylum abroad to escape severe shortages of food, water, and medicine; soaring inflation; unemployment; and violence. As of November 2019, an estimated 4.6 million Venezuelans were refugees or migrants worldwide, with almost 80% taking refuge in Latin America and the Caribbean (notably Colombia, Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Argentina, and Brazil, as well as the Dominican Republic, Aruba, and Curacao).”
***Canada recently debated an Act that would prohibit speech that someone or some group might find offensive, opening the door for muzzling anyone outside the politically correct spectrum, a spectrum that keeps changing. “Offensive” is always defined by the group in power, of course. Just think Orwell’s 1984.
****The injuries and deaths in CHOP (CHAZ) reveal the harsh realities.
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