E-Newsletter No. 115 July 2023
“A Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch” (Author unknown).
Steven Crowder explained Democratic Socialism in this YouTube video –
In our opinion, the best snippets are the first 30 seconds, and then [1:05-1:34], [6:08-7:17] and [16:44-17:58].
So, if Democratic Socialism is simply Socialism with a deceptive adjective inserted in front of the noun, then how does Socialism differ from Communism?
Under the theory of both Communism and Socialism, the “people” (collectively) own all of the elements of economic production, which are (in theory) shared equally by all citizens. There is a slight difference between Socialism and Communism in how the output of that economic production is distributed to the people.
Under Socialism, the economic output is (in theory) distributed to individuals according to each individual’s abilities and level of contribution. However, the “theory” does not address who makes the assessment of the value of each individual’s abilities or the value of their level of contribution. (That is a topic for next month’s newsletter).
Many of the early Communists derided the above approach and referred to it as Utopian Socialism. Karl Marx coined the phrase “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” Again, the issue of who would determine what each individual “needed” was not specifically addressed. The “easy answer” became that under Communism, the government (or more specifically, the elitists in the government) would make the determination of how the outputs of the economic system would be distributed. Therefore, under Communism, the government elitists effectively “own” the means of production AND determine how those outputs are to be distributed.
Next month we will discuss Adam Smith and free market capitalism versus Socialism/Communism. As you can probably deduce already, Free Market Capitalism (individualism) and Socialism/Communism (collectivism) are polar opposites.
US Debt Clock – – June 1st – $95,025 per citizen / July 1st – $96,500
Here is a side note: The federal government’s “on book” debt increased from $31.8 trillion as of June 1st to $32.3 trillion as of July 1st. This $500 billion increase in just one month is the single largest monthly increase since May, June and July of 2020 when the federal government was disbursing massive amounts of “COVID cash” and the government shut down the economy, cratering tax revenues. With the suspension of the debt ceiling until 2025, if the federal government were to add $500 billion (nearly $1,500 per citizen) each month for the next 18 months, the debt amount would grow to well over $40 trillion. Socialists do not have any qualms about stealing that amount of money from future generations. In fact, they are still angry that minor cuts were made to their grandiose spending plans.