by Robert Gore
Human progress has been three steps forward, two steps back. That a non-fringe candidate of a major political party in the United States can call himself a socialist constitutes a leap backward. That it can happen after a century of socialistic horrors: impoverishment, ruination, tyranny, war, and tens of millions dead, bespeaks not just deadly ignorance and delusion, but depravity.
Socialism is a political system whereby the state owns or controls the means of production for goods and services. It can be partial—government control of some industries, or total—government control of all industries. According to Marx, who advocated the total version, the goods and services would be produced by each according to his or her ability, and distributed according to each individual’s need: production severed from distribution. No particular acuity is necessary to see the fatal flaw. The “needy”—and those who garner political power by distributing goods and services to them—are all for this system, but what’s in it for the able? They have to be coerced to produce, and something has to be done with those who object or refuse to submit.
Coercion sounds like slavery and that something has to be done sounds like repression. That is what socialism has produced—slavery, concentration camps, and slaughter—on a scale unimaginable prior to the twentieth century. Once you reach 10 million killed you’ve plumbed the depths of evil. Additional deca-millions are redundant blood on your hands, but the Titans in the Socialist pantheon—Lenin, Stalin, and Mao—killed around 100 million between them, while lesser lights like Pol Pot and the Kim dynasty in North Korea killed single digit millions. The numbers are exclusive of war dead.
