Socialism

by Kristian Niemietz

The Nordic states are large, but they are not particularly interventionist. The Nordic economies are characterised by high taxes and high levels of public spending, but they are otherwise relatively liberal market economies.

Haidt’s research is not specifically about intellectuals, but he cites a study which investigates how reasoning skills vary by education level and intelligence (ibid.: 80–81). Study participants were asked to pick a side in a contemporary policy debate, to write down the case for their own position, and to write down the case for the opposing position. This latter task is about testing people’s ability to put themselves into the mind of a political opponent and to argue as an opponent would argue. When it comes to defending one’s own position, the study results are as one would expect: reasoning skills are positively correlated with education and intelligence. But on the second task – arguing from the perspective of an opponent – there was no such correlation

They define ‘real’ socialism in terms of outcomes they would like to see. When a socialist experiment does not produce those outcomes, it retroactively becomes unreal. Since socialism never produces those outcomes, all socialist experiments sooner or later become unreal. This is the deeper meaning behind the old adage that ‘real socialism has never been tried’.

Socialism in the sense in which self-identified democratic socialists define it, namely, a democratised economy planned collectively by ‘the people’, has never been achieved anywhere, and could not be achieved. Economic planning can only ever be done in a technocratic, elitist fashion, and it requires an extreme concentration of power in the hands of the state. It cannot ‘empower’ ordinary workers. It can only ever empower a bureaucratic elite.

The freedom to choose where we want to live is one of the most fundamental and unnegotiable of human rights. Nobody knows this better than I do. Back in the bad old days, I spent a year in prison for assisting a friend to escape. He committed no crime. He never harmed anyone. All he wanted to do was live together with his West German girlfriend.

Our opponents have long asserted that socialism is incompatible with individual liberty.

In our personal lives, we all know this, and most of us act accordingly without even thinking about it. It’s just what you do. But the same principle applies to whole economies. Unlike the West German economy, our economy is a team effort. Our socialist economy turns our society into a large community, a much more close-knit community than West Germany will ever be.