By Anthony Trevlac
- May 6, 2024
- 6-min read
If socialism ever officially ends up on the ash heap of history, where it certainly belongs, it will be because it is based at least one fundamental error. There is a fatal flaw in its basic approach that no amount of misdirection, finger-pointing, or excuse-making can overcome.
The problem is that socialism/Marxism/Democratic Socialism are all based on the assumption that groups are the dominant and fundamental operating units in a society. That notion is wrong. The embrace of it undermines everything on which it is based.
The individual is the building block of society, here and in every other nation. This has been true from the moment the first primordial sign of life appeared on the planet. This was billions of years ago, even before Keith Richards was born.
To recognize the primacy of the individual is not to say what government wants to be true: it is a statement about what is true. Opinions have no more impact on this than they do on determining the freezing temperature of water.
Putin or Xi or Biden can develop policies, tactics, and strategies that try to force groups to do something. But the people those policies affect react as individuals, not groups.
They may give an order to share food equally. But lots of people will disobey it given half a chance. They will care more about their own child than about another’s. They will care more about themselves than their neighbor. They may disobey any and every directive if they disagree with it, think ignoring it will help them, and are unlikely to be punished for their recalcitrance.
Lots of individuals will disobey an order if they can do it without getting shot or otherwise sanctioned. The fact that people don’t act in unison, without fail, every time, means that disparate outcomes are a certainty.
The exercise of executive fiat at the state and national levels led to disastrous policies during. Certainly, millions of people just said “ok” when told to wear a mask or stay home, but millions also told authorities to take a long walk on a short pier. This historical exercise should have told our government that trying to herd these cats is a pointless effort and doomed to fail.
One is astonished at time at how many people seem to just love to follow rules. They can’t want to be told what to do. And huge swaths of them don’t even give it a second thought. The feds say we have to wear yellow shirts, walk backwards, and yell “Spongebob rules” incessantly. Let’s do it! Don’t ask questions. Have they ever lied to us before?
Well, yes, they have.
There will always be people who love to follow rules. Fortunately, there will be many more who do not.
Past decisions by thig If that weren’t the case, we would not be a nation today. We would be serving a king, speaking German, and allowing slavery (or all of the above). Change comes because at least some people buck the trend. Often, those changes amount to great progress. Advancements are not made by groups. They are made by individuals who see take risks, swim against the stream, and see hope, dreams, and possibilities where others do not.
This isn’t a flaw of human beings; it is a feature. Humans have endured because they have a strong survival instinct, not because they like to get group hugs, stare at the stars, and sing “Michael, row the boat ashore” in rounds.
We most definitely also feel connection and commitment to collections of individuals. Community, family, church, schools. But those connections are, again, driven by individuals. Are you a member of any groups? Do they have a chair, president, finance officer, volunteer coordinator?
Think of the nation. Do we vote to select a person to be in charge of America? Or do we have a group making the decision on whether to launch a nuclear strike?
No system of government can prevail long-term if the basis of it is completely bogus. Leftist thought, in all its permutations – socialist, Marxist, “Democratic Socialist” – is rooted in the belief that groups matter more than individuals. They do not.
America’s left is obsessed with putting all of us into easily defined and manipulated groups they can exhort to keep them in office. That effort divides us in the bargain. The left fears few things more than the thought of genuine unity, comity, good will. The left thrives on class division, jealousy, and envy. Without it the very arguments for their existence evaporate. And they should.
Importantly, leftist elites like to think of themselves as more intelligent and enlightened than the rest of us. That isn’t unusual. Many conservatives have the same flaw, honestly. Most closed-minded people seem to think they are anything but.
However, leftist hypocrisy and vacuity is easily revealed if one just looks at the fairly limited number of groups about which they actually care. All “Asians” aren’t the same, nor are all black people or white people. But the rhetoric of the left presupposes everyone with the same skin color or heritage is exactly the same.
It is also stunning to realize how many of the categories leftists think should be celebrated and make you proud are things totally beyond your control. People are lauded for race, ethnicity, and gender preferences we are told they were born with. Got it? You should be proud of things you don’t control. But most of the things you DO control make you a suppressor. If you have chosen to be a Christian, or have made a lot of money, or got a good education, you are considered “privileged.” The illogic of it is incredible.
Unless and until leftists quit trying to divide us among a list of variables that appeal to their target voters, assigning everyone to a category based on something that usually wasn’t even their choice, people under their rule will continue to suffer compared to those who live in an environment of real freedom. The freest nations are the most prosperous. It will always be so.
