After socialist Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega released several political prisoners and sent them packing to the United States, he proceeded to confiscate their homes and convert them into government-owned assets. His action demonstrates how socialism works here in the United States.
What Ortega is doing is taking private property from those who have it and converting to the benefit of “society.” The homes he has confiscated will be used to house poor people or social-welfare government offices.
His action is based on the Marxian principle “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” Translation: Use the force of government to take from the rich to give to the poor and equalize wealth in the process.
Ortega will portray himself as a heroic figure, one who is taking from the rich and giving to the poor. He will also portray himself as someone who is bringing economic equality to Nicaragua by reducing large disparities of wealth.
All of this is precisely what America’s welfare state is all about. The welfare state uses the force of government — i.e., the progressive income tax and the IRS — to take money from people who have it and give it to people who, officials say, need it more — e.g., the poor, the elderly, broke financial institutions, Ukrainian officials, etc.
Every welfare-state program is based on the same socialist principle that guides Ortega. That includes Social Security. Contrary to popular belief, especially among seniors, Social Security is not a retirement account. No one has ever “put his money” into the system. And there is no Social Security “fund” into which everyone’s taxes have been placed and that has been earning interest over the years. Seniors paid taxes, just like everyone pays taxes. That tax revenue was spent on receipt. Gone. Poof! They used it to pay for such things as their invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan? Today, they’re using it to send money to today’s seniors and to Ukrainian officials.
Some young people today lament, “Oh, golly, Social Security won’t be there when I get old.” Oh, sure it will. All that you young people have to do is make sure that you and your peers have plenty of children and grandchildren. Then, when you get old, you will be able to do to your children and grandchildren and their friends what your parents and grandparents did to you.
Oh sure, by that time, that might well mean having to tax your children and grandchildren 60 or 70 percent of their income. But so what? If they complain, all that you have to do is say to them, “Just suck it up. Our parents and grandparents did it to us and, therefore, we have the right to do it to you. And you’ll have the right to do it to your children and grandchildren.”
Licensed under Creative Commons.
The challenge facing American socialism is keeping the golden goose alive. There has to be a careful balance by which the government taxes only a certain amount of people’s income and wealth so as to ensure that the goose doesn’t get sick and start dying. After all, if a goose is laying golden eggs, the worse thing that one can do is kill the goose. Government officials have to suck just enough blood out of the goose that she is able to be kept alive and continue to lay those golden eggs.
Unfortunately, that’s not what ultimately happens under socialism. So many people begin demanding welfare (or warfare) largesse that the government comes under extreme pressure to confiscate more and more of people’s income and assets. At the same time, the producing sector of society (i.e., the golden goose) starts to diminish. The goose begins laying less eggs. The devolutionary process accelerates until the goose finds herself producing just a few eggs and struggling to survive.
American socialism has been able to survive because government officials have not sucked enough blood out of the golden goose to kill her. Equally important, the golden goose has figured out ways to produce more eggs notwithstanding the increasing amount of blood that is being sucked out of her. However, given the out-of-control federal spending and debt to cover both the welfare state and the warfare state, that phenomenon might well be coming to an end. America’s golden goose might well start shrinking and dying at the hands of our socialist welfare-warfare system.
The post Nicaragua and America’s Golden Goose appeared first on The Future of Freedom Foundation.
The Future of Freedom Foundation was founded in 1989 by FFF president Jacob Hornberger with the aim of establishing an educational foundation that would advance an uncompromising case for libertarianism in the context of both foreign and domestic policy. The mission of The Future of Freedom Foundation is to advance freedom by providing an uncompromising moral and economic case for individual liberty, free markets, private property, and limited government. Visit https://www.fff.org