Sunday, August 7, 2011

A Capitalist Economy Can't Support a Socialist Welfare State

The obvious realities are the ones people most desperately resist, especially progressives, who live in a utopian world where higher taxes and endless spending are held to promise a classless, want-free society, which is impossible.

See Janet Daley, "If we are to survive the looming catastrophe, we need to face the truth" (via Memeorandum):

Identity Theft

Contrary to what the Obama Democrats claimed, the face-off in Congress did not mean that the nation’s politics were “dysfunctional”. The politics of the US were functioning precisely as the Founding Fathers intended: the legislature was acting as a check on the power of the executive.

The Tea Party faction within the Republican party was demanding that, before any further steps were taken, there must be a debate about where all this was going. They had seen the future toward which they were being pushed, and it didn’t work. They were convinced that the entitlement culture and benefits programmes which the Democrats were determined to preserve and extend with tax rises could only lead to the diminution of that robust economic freedom that had created the American historical miracle.

And, again contrary to prevailing wisdom, their view is not naive and parochial: it is corroborated by the European experience. By rights, it should be Europe that is immersed in this debate, but its leaders are so steeped in the sacred texts of social democracy that they cannot admit the force of the contradictions which they are now hopelessly trying to evade.
I discussed the political angle previously, "Time for Institutional Reform? Well, Only When Democrats Are Losing." But read Daley all the way through. Progressives argue that "politics is broken" when the people revolt against the socialist political class. If folks want to fix what's broken they need to look at what we're spending. Are we going to cut spending and reduce the size of government? It'll take a helluva lot more than downsizing defense. But America's Obama-Democrat-Socialists are impervious to reality. The reckoning is coming in 2012. Folks always say this election is "the most important election in my lifetime." I usually don't, but with the credit downgrade and America's military abusively stretched thin around the globe, my normal optimism is found wanting.

More on this in upcoming posts.

IMAGE CREDIT: The People's Cube.

2 comments:

  1. Donald, Great post! You are spot-on with this post...I didn't realize what was happening until my daughter came home and said she was getting money from the Sam through earned income credit....Or something to that effect......I couldn't believe the government was giving money for nothing.....then the it hit the fan when I read that illegals were getting the same from Sam the man....Like getting a loan for a house when you didn't qualify because you didn't make enough money....It doesn't add up....No wonder this nation is in such a mess....stay well......

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  2. I seriously don't get this. We already know and we've known for a hundred years what happens to a Capitalist economy unleavened by social democracy.

    We get either violent revolution or financial collapses leading to general impoverishment.

    If Daley were to be correct (she isn't, but that's not the point), we're at least as likely, if not more likely, to decide "Ditch that Capitalist economy" as we are to say "Dump that Social Democracy" if the two are incompatible.

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