What’s the matter with socialism?
Man is a social animal. For the most part, human beings live in cities and interact on a regular schedule. When people do not interact with their peers, they are in a state of deprivation. In prison, the most severe of punishments is solitary confinement. We abhor being alone. We need each other.
So why is it name-calling in America when we refer to someone as a socialist? We work and we play socially: I lay the bricks, my brothers drive trucks, saw boards, pound nails, plumb pipes, plan the work, and together we build a house. Then we enjoy a beer at the local pub. And the house we built is better than when the frontiersman built a cabin all by himself. A lot better.
Socialism is the rule, not the exception. You see socialism in insurance, construction, schools, assembly lines and cafeterias. Taxation and government are the clearest example of socialism on a macroeconomic scale. And no matter what they are called, government and taxation are social institutions.
Nevertheless, it is argued that creeping socialism will destroy our productive economy because it will inhibit the entrepreneurship that helped to create it. The Rockefellers, the Carnegies, the Morgans, will cease to exist if we foster socialism. But Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and millions of lesser entrepreneurs are proof that capitalism and socialism can live side-by-side. They are, in fact, brothers. Socialism and capitalism do not inhibit one another, they nurture each other. In America they not only co-exist, they prosper.
Government, whether led by Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals, is the social institution that maintains the level economic playing field for both the worker and the capitalist to prosper. Together, these joined-at-the-hip brothers create prosperity for all of us. The issue is how we divide the economic pie? When 5 percent of the people control 90 percent of the wealth, the government is not doing its job.
When the legitimate claims of both entrepreneurs and workers become distorted, there could be blood in the streets. It will be brother against brother and the social fabric that unites us in prosperity will be torn apart.
Gene Kuban
Eighty Four
Kuban is a retired economics teacher.