Extreme socialism contains its own destruction

Extreme socialism contains its own destruction

Be very careful what you wish for.

The basic idealism of the anti-capitalists, extreme socialist and communist political activists, is simple. You take all the wealth from group A (all those who have above average wealth now) and you share this out with group B (the political leaders and senior bureaucrats of the new government) and group C (all those employed by the state) and group D ( everybody else)

In practice this has a few problems that its proposers choose to Ignore. First getting the money from group A, then the fact that even if this group has individual members with relatively huge amounts of wealth, when all added together and then divided by the millions and millions who make up groups C and D; the individual share is small, much smaller than they promised when taking power. Group B do the sharing out and they take the view that their leadership entitles them to a larger proportion than say anyone in group D Which lessens the amount to be shared with groups C and D Since group C are obviously going to be supportive of the new regime they get a share proportionally more than D So the poor get very, very little and that is just the start of the problems.

Most of those in Group A, particularly the wealthiest, will ensure that their wealth is offshore or otherwise out of reach of the new political reality. This has the effect of reducing the investment and residual wealth of the nation, this leads to a fall in the value of the currency and so increase in inflation and increase costs for the consumers of imported goods, which includes the foods consumed by groups B, C and D Group B are insulated from this by their increase in the wealth share, group C can demand higher wages and so stay about equal while group D suffer the ill effects of this.

Many of group A will have been asset rich but cash poor and taking their assets collectively into government control, will reduce the value of those assets. No one is going to want to buy these assets, that is obvious. Can the government mange these assets and make them produce greater wealth to be shared out between groups B C and D ? The activists will insist this can be done but experience and history indicate they always fails. They fail for several reasons, firstly personal incentive to work is lacking in state owned enterprises, then the management has to be, by definition, via the political government and its bureaucracy and not by people with the technical knowledge to make it succeed. The innovators and future entrepreneurs will go and work abroad. This applies to manufacturing and financial sectors. Retail operations will be rigidly controlled because, as a political necessity, of attempts to control inflation. With a combination of a static economy and an inflationary financial situation, the poor Group D will fall further and further into poverty. In an effort to prevent Groups C and D acting against the socialist regime, it will declare a one-party state and start suppression of all dissent in group D.

Political survival by suppression of all opposition becomes the normality, rivalry between individuals in Group B distracts the whole government apparatus from its true task, that of ensuring the welfare of all its people. The objectives of all senior officials, political and bureaucratic, get focused on survival and personal advancement, rather than efficient function of the state. Adding more numbers of staff to an administrative department gives more status and income to the leader of that department and so administrative staff are added rather than actual “productive” workers. Old adage but true as the time exists so does the work to fill it. So, tasks are invented that become essential, regardless of the fact that previously everything functioned without them. Reporting political success becomes the objective of all senior bureaucrats. Spin and adjustment, in order to ensure all reports are of success, replaces critical evaluation, decisions are based on false information.

The nation stagnates, the poor get to be poorer still while a new class takes over from previous group A. Corruption sets in, starting with the necessity of always reporting success which leads to distortion of facts and coercion of people who may know the truth. The people who actually make things work cannot accept that wealth goes to the politicians and not to themselves. So, they seek to find ways to alter this. Disharmony becomes the norm, suppression is increased. The use and dependence on drugs and alcohol; the great enemies of poverty, as coping strategies, increase. Criminal and corrupt officials seek to profit from the supply of these.

Social order breaks down and new “political” leaders take control, by promising an end to the chaos.

Uncontrolled Capitalism has similar pathways and almost the same end results, but in modern times uncontrolled capitalism would lead to the governance by multinational conglomerates rather than native oppressive greedy individuals. In medieval times individuals could rule over small groupings of people but the population is now so large, and communication is so universal, that control needs much more deviousness and organisation. So, we have “social media.”

A mix of controlled capitalism and moderate socialism is obviously better than either extreme but getting the balance right is difficult, especially when democracy itself is being distorted by fake news, where opinions are presented as if fact, when the media controls mass opinions, but do not disclose their vested interest. In present situation people can be misled by scientific sounding facts being repeated over and over but these “facts” are opinions based on expectations that suit personal agendas rather than practical reality. The publication of statements such as X% of road accidents are caused by Y or XX numbers are killed by pollution, influence the minds and actions of people, but the data to support such claims is not made available to the public. So, there is no impartial, unbiased examination of the data or how it has been interpreted, no list of the assumptions made about relevant influences on the figures. Targets are set for improvement with no data to show why this target is needed let alone the practicality considered when arriving at it.

Democracy itself is being damaged by the sheer weight of numbers and the modern speed with which disinformation is spread.