Why ‘Socialism’ Sounds Like ‘American Values’ To So Many
The Epoch Times quotes CEI’s Iain Murray
Support for socialism in America isn’t new, nor is the successful push for socialist policies. It seems to reemerge every few decades, but what’s new this time, according to Iain Murray, is a much poorer understanding of what socialism actually is.
“At the moment, it’s hard to pin down what they mean by socialism,” said Murray, who directs the Center for Economic Freedom at the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington.
If he asks, one might answer “an economy like Sweden’s,” except that Sweden ranks higher than the United States in free-market trade, has a competitive school-choice model, and taxes corporations at about the same rate as the United States. People are likely referring to Sweden’s welfare system, which includes free health care, not considering that such a system creates more demand than supply can meet.
“So you then ask, ‘So, what do you really want?’ and socialists will say, ‘We just want democratic control over all things,’” Murray said. “They tend to mean a massively expanded regulatory state, so they’re basically calling for the same sort of thing that was rejected by Western Europe. Rather than calling for direct control of industry and public services, it’s a micromanaging, indirect control—which will eventually result in the same thing: the bureaucrats are in charge and not the entrepreneurs.”