Here is another example of the complete lack of intellect and reason on the part of Marxists.

The following article appears in the August issue (not yet online) of "Ideas on Liberty," which is published by the Foundation For Economic Education, and is thrown in with a donation of $30 or more. This is an excellent publication, and it is rare when at least four great articles on free markets and individual freedom do not show up in each issue.

I too remember the days--they weren't that long ago in places like China--when Marxism promised prosperity. Every propaganda poster that was printed in Red China showed at least one power line or factory in the background behind the happy proles. Now, given the proven record of ghastly poverty and human destruction of Marxism, Marxists are left to try and make us believe that prosperity, wealth, happiness, and human existence itself are evil. Total philosophical bankruptcy.

The Contradictions of Capitalism: The Dearth of Rational Discussion



by Jim Peron

We can’t win. We advocates of individual rights, free markets and limited government simply can’t win the intellectual debate with the Left. And the reason for it is that there is no intellectual debate with them. And there can’t be such a debate since the Left is simply not open to rational discussion. They know that capitalism is inherently evil and nothing that is said, no evidence that is presented, no facts that are marshaled will convince them otherwise.

Fabians

Consider this example. The Fabian socialists were founded in 1883, the same year that Karl Marx died, when a small group of “intellectuals” gathered at 17 Osnaburgh Street in London to hear some lectures on the promised new world order of socialism. From this meeting was formed the Fabian Society, dedicated to the willfully slow evolution of a socialist society in England.

The Society was named after the Roman general and dictator Quintus Fabius Maximus who fought, and laid the groundwork for the defeat of, Hannibal. In Fabian Tract No.1 the Society explained its strategy:

“For the right moment you must wait, as Fabius did most patiently when warring against Hannibal, though many censured his delays; but when the time comes you must strike hard, as Fabius did, or your waiting will be in vain and fruitless.”

The credo of the Fabians said that the society “consists of Socialists” who will work to destroy private property, free markets and individualism.

Fabians were a strong, if not the strongest, influence on the British Labour Party and used the likes of George Bernard Shaw and Sidney and Beatrice Webb to spout its propaganda on the virtues of Stalinism and Soviet Communism. Its list of members read like the Who’s Who of British intellectualism and included RH Tawney, GDH Cole, Harold Wilson, Harold Laski, Oswald Mosley (the founder of British fascism), Bertrand Russell, Clement Attlee, John Strachey, Stephen Spender, George Orwell, and others.

For over a century the Fabian Society has continued to promote a Marxist agenda for the various countries of the world. At the turn of the last century the Fabians would wax eloquently on the virtues of socialism and the vices of capitalism. They never tired of telling anyone who would listen how capitalism would lead to poverty and misery for the bulk of England's workers. They promised that only a socialist, centrally planned society, could achieve wealth and prosperity. The workers, noted the socialists, could never find happiness and self-satisfaction as long as they were entrenched in the poverty of a capitalist economy.

One hundred years later the Fabian Society stills exists. And not long ago, on BBC World, I watched a documentary series entitled “Big Ideas”. It was billed as an antidote to the pessimism of the politically correct. In truth it was hardly that at all. Instead the entire show concentrated on an “economist” who represents the Fabian Society. So what do the Fabians have to say 100 years later? Will they continue with their rhetoric of the last century and castigate capitalism for leading millions into poverty? Of course not. The laughter from the millions of “workers” viewing the show on their color televisions would drown out their rhetoric.

Capitalism Causes Too Much Prosperity

Instead this Fabian went on about how the wealth of capitalism doesn’t lead to happiness. This “economist” lamented the luxuries of the average worker. He ridiculed those who work hard to get ahead in the world. And he said that this problem was clearly the fault of capitalism. It seems that capitalism leads to prosperity. In fact it leads to too much prosperity. People start seeking out luxuries, and status symbol consumer goods, as a result.

When it was pointed out to him that individuals who didn’t want to work hard didn’t have to do so, he was unpersuaded. The problem with the wealth of consumer capitalism is that the system itself forces people to compete. The individual who wants to drop out, perhaps to read the works of Marx, can’t do so because of the structure of the system. He is a victim of capitalism. People should, instead, be free to concentrate on the “important” things, by which he means things which he thinks are important.

And, of course, the solution to this structural problem was the “social ownership” of the means of production. He wanted regulations and laws to prevent rampant competition and wealth-gathering.

Now just about one century ago his forerunners in the Fabian Society were saying that capitalism leads to poverty and that only socialism can create wealth for the workers. Turning a blind eye to a century of rhetoric, today’s Fabians are attacking capitalism for creating too much wealth. A century ago the worker, living in poverty, would never find happiness. Today the Fabians argue that happiness is illusive because of the temptations of the riches created by capitalism.

Of course we shouldn’t forget that one complaint that socialists loved to voice was that capitalism led to monopoly. They were utterly convinced (by what we will never know) that a market economy would mean less and less competition as time went by. Eventually competition would disappear altogether and the poor consumer would be at the mercy of ruthless profit-mongers. Yet a century later the Fabians are condemning capitalism for creating too much competition. The poor entrepreneur doesn’t have time to smell the roses, red ones of course, along the way. Either capitalism is guilty of dog-eat-dog competition or it results in monopoly without any competition. Have I missed something?

Capitalism Destroys the Planet

Of course the Green allies of the Reds have similar complaints. We all know that capitalism is destroying the planet Just take the matter of “non-renewable” resources. The Greenies love to argue and complain about how capitalism is taking natural resources and using them all up. A non-renewable resource is obviously a resource that, once used, vanishes. A lump of coal that is burnt is no longer a lump of coal and is thus non-renewable. It doesn’t matter that all the known natural resources that are commonly used by man have known supplies that will last us for centuries. The fact is that a resource that is non-renewable must disappear someday — or so they assume. Now there are many reasons why this is simply not true. But let’s grant the Greens their premises for a moment. Capitalism is evil because it uses resources which are destructible.

But that’s not all. Capitalism is also evil because it creates resources that are not destructible. If you think they get upset when modern society uses a non-renewable resource just look how they act when renewable resources are used. Plastic is evil because it doesn’t degenerate. But what are the choices? Under any economic system some resources have to be used. We can use resources that are destroyed — but that is evil. Or we can use resources that are not destroyed — but that's evil as well. As Professor Peter Beckman noted, the Green has a unique argument: “If it is nonrenewable, don’t use it, use something indestructible instead, if it is indestructible, don’t use it either. Nothing is feasible except the two possibilities he has set his heart on: a return to the caves or doomsday.”

Of course we’ve seen this “damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t” logic from Greenies before. Take the issue of the rain forest as an example. We have been warned by Greenies that man’s incursions into the rain forest may bring us to the brink of disaster. Lurking behind some fern could be a new, deadly virus unknown to mankind. Contact with said virus could lead the destruction of humankind since people may not be immune to such diseases. No, it is far better that man avoid the rain forest altogether, except for those primitive tribes who have learned how to live in harmony with nature.

But don’t forget there is another reason the rain forest must be saved. After all who knows what miraculous medical cures could be found in the leaves, roots, or barks of indigenous plant life? We may find the cure for cancer there. Well, that is unless a deadly virus kills us all first.

Capitalism Enslaves Women

The Feminist Left, building on old Marxist theories, attacked capitalism because it enslaved women as breeding machines. It seems the capitalist bosses needed surplus babies to help keep wages down. After all, the greater the number of potential “workers” the less they will have to be paid. In fact classical Marxist theory argued that such workers would be paid only enough to survive on so as to maximize the profits of the capitalists. So capitalism forced women into becoming breeding machines.

Now if you read the anti-capitalist ranting of John Gray you find that capitalism does just the opposite. Instead of forcing women into becoming subservient breeding machines for their husbands the problem is that capitalism liberates individuals from families. Instead, people are free to leave their family behind and strike out on their own. The entire sense of family and community that the “old” world exhibited is being destroyed and the culprit is capitalism. The anti-capitalist Marxists said markets created the nuclear family while the anti-capitalist conservatives are claiming that markets destroy the nuclear family.

Trade Causes Poverty; No Trade Causes Poverty

If you dare to point out the dismal results of socialism, say in Cuba, the Left has a response: Cuba is poor because it is denied access to the trading markets of the West. The US embargo on Cuba has impoverished that island nation. The problems of poverty in Cuba are not rooted in socialist economic theories but in trade embargoes. It is a given that Cuba would be much richer as a nation if it were allowed to participate in market globalization.

But then we should remember that the Third World is poor because it isn’t embargoed. The problem there is that the West trades with these countries and such trade is inherently impoverishing. So trade with Third World countries creates poverty but the lack of trade with Cuba is responsible for poverty. Take your pick.

Capitalism to the Left is what Satan is to the fundamentalist Christian. It is the eternal scapegoat and explanation for all that goes wrong in the world. Whatever social problems exist in the West are, of course, all due to the evil nature of capitalism. And whatever problems exist in Marxist nations are the result of the evil nature of capitalism as well. People are poor —blame capitalism. But blame capitalism if they are “too” rich. The fact is that in the theology of the Left, either of the Red or Green variety, capitalism can do no good. And once you abandon reason for theology there is no rational debate possible.

(Jim Peron is the author of "Die, the Beloved Country?", a book exposing the misrule by mismanagement of the African National Congress during its first term of office in South Africa. He recently finished an expose of the Mugabe regime: "Zimbabwe: the Death of a Dream.")