Show Me Any Other Country...; B. Hunt

It must be very disheartening for sincere socialists to note the continuing impotence of their party, while, at the same time, a pseudo-socialism in free-enterprise wrappings has been able to command such a tremendous following from the rank and file. This is a sad commentary on the political and economic ignorance of the American people. They dismiss socialism with a wave of the hand, and then line up in droves behind social security, socialized indus try, medicine, housing and education. They denounce socialism, and yet innocently and ignorantly spout its doc trines day in and day out. Nothing more constructive could happen to the American public than to have it understand socialism clearly, be able to identify its doctrines beneath all their various disguises, and then eith~r to endorse or repudiate its principles-openly and honestly. [ 12] I have done my own personal job of study, analysis and evaluation of socialism; I take my stand in its opposition, and would like to present some of my reasons for so doing.

There is no question but that socialistic proposals seem logical, just and humanitarian. They sound like the idealis tic answer to a muddled world's prayer. In one breath, they denounce the slavery of totalitarianism and the "crazy quilt of capitalism"" and offer a Utopian cCmiddle way" which eliminates the liabilities and retains the assets' of both collectivism and individualism. They mix the oil of one with the water of the other and present their mixed formula of perfection. It is all very intoxicating and con soling-until one' realizes that oil and water will not mud At that point, it becomes necessary to say to you, Mr. Socialist: cCShow me!" Utopia-On Paper You say: cCWe socialists offer logical reasons why we shall have more freedom, and certainly a surer victory over poverty on the basis of public ownership of things neces sary to the common life and their democratic control under democratically controlled planning." This is a lovely blue print, but show me a concrete example of where this has taken place. Show me a spot on God's green earth where socialism has increased individual freedom and eliminated povelty. Show me where it has not meant C'rigorousand arbitrary regulation,'" and where it has increased c'private initiative and consumer's choice." Show me where it has proved "the road of escape to true freedom as well as to [ 13] peace and plenty." Show me this Utopia-not on paper, but in reality!

You admit, in your writings, that socialism in Germany, Italy and Russia resulted in nazism, fascism and commu nism, but you say these were perversions of true socialism -and you abhor them. That's fine, I do too. But show me where socialism has avoided these pitfalls and led to free dom and prosperity for everyone, as your blueprint says it will. The Cure That Kills You point out and underscore many of the errors of Ameri can capitalism, and I heartily concur in them all, but your solution and mine are at opposite ends of the pole. I am more afraid of your cure than I am of our present ail ments! You point to the evil of private monopoly, and then you propose to cure this evil by a bigger and more power ful state monopoly. I find this very inconsistent. If monop olies are destructive of freedom-and I believe with you that they are-then the answer ought to be to curtail or prevent monopolies, not to substitute one for the other.

The only cure for monopolies is freer and wider-spread competition in an economic system which insists that this door of private competition stay open. When you write in one of your pamphlets, "There wasn't much freedom when the 200 largest corporations controlled more than 50 per cent of the business wealth of America," I have to smile at your concern, despite the fact that I would prefer to see fewer "big" businesses and more "middle-sized" [ 14] businesses. Two hundred businesses with only 50 per cent of OUr business wealth is still a far cry from monopoly, and not half so glaring a danger as a completely concen trated monopoly such as John L. Lewis enjoys in the coal mines. You say nothing at all about this, and ignore the most stifling monopoly in the world-socialized Russia where everything is owned by the state, and everyone is compelled to belong to one huge closed shop, and to work wherever and for whatever the state decrees.

You admire the British experiment in socialism, but you do not say how socialism is to solve Britain~s problems. The key to her post-war struggle still is·production, and yet you fail to show socialism's incentive to more produc tion. The weary miners want shorter hours and higher pay. The trade unions of England have geared their output to accommodate their weakest member. How can debt-bur dened Britain pay more money for less work-when what she needs is more work for less money? And how can she keep her Labor government in power, except by force or by acceding to the unanswerable demands of the workers who are the bulwark of her support? Poor Britain is damned if she does and damned if she doesn't. So is France. So is Italy. So is Russia-and all of Europe. We may have our troubles here in America, but the socialized world is 100 per cent worse off than we are. It is also note worthy that in the two least-socialized European nations Holland and Belgium-recovery has been most rapidl What makes you believe that men who are supposed to "manage" in the public interest will be any less subject to the love of power or the human evils of greed and cor[15 ] ruption than those who "manage" privately? They are the same people, and they possess the same shortcomings.

Also, the incentive to good judgment is stronger with pri vate managers who must assume the flnancialloss for their mistakes, while the government managers can call upon the federal treasury to subsidize their incompetence. We have the freest, most democratically-controlled gov ernment on earth, and yet in the past score of years we have had very little to say about the edicts which have poured forth from government agencies and their ap pointed directors. Power is intoxicating to all. It feeds upon itself. We the people gain nothing by substituting new people for old in Washington. Our only hope is to take away the power that has been concentrated there, so that no one can use it benevolently or otherwise. Once we allow ourselves to become the subjects of benevolent power, we shall soon flnd ourselves the slaves of a very unbenevolent power. Natural Bedfellows You explain the coalitions of socialists with communists in Europe as cea grim necessity at a critical moment'" but this is not the whole answer. You neglect to point out what a broad base of common ground exists between the two parties. Both believe in public ownership instead of pri vate ownership, and both are buddies in their hatred of capitalism, free enterprise, and the profit·motive. You dif fer only in degree and in means, but socialism is closer to communism than it is to capitalism. And when that "criti[ 16] cal moment" comes, you will sacrifice your belief in "free dom" before you will relinquish your collectivized program for "security.'"

Here lies the greatest danger of socialism. Actually, it is the economic philosophy of communism. Those of us who repudiate it do so for two very definite reasons: First, we believe that economic and political philoso phies go hand in hand and are inseparable. We believe it is no accident that "free enterprise" developed along with a free republic, and that it is equally no accident that where a collectivized economy was installed, individual freedom was sacrificed. In the same way, those countries which have tried a hybrid system, half-collectivized and half-free, have in the same proportion increased regimen tation, decreased individual initiative and choice, and are in constant danger of swinging further to the left. Second, despite your emphasis on increased production and plenty via socialism, we can find no examples of such results in proof. Show me a socialized or even a half socialized country which has remotely approached our free-enterprise record· of production and plenty. Show me a socialized or half-socialized country which has produced a higher standard of living for workers than capitalistic America. Show me where socialism has produced cheaper cars, telephones, radios, movies, gadgets or comforts, and where they have been wider distributed among the aver age people,' than here in America. Show me any other country where people own as many homes, or can match our 75 million life insurance policyholders, or our 50 mil lion bank accounts, or our 80 million bondholders. If you [ 17] know a better, happier,more envied workers' republic than we have right here in America, where is it?

Don't tell me that this difference is merely because America has large natural resources t India, China and Russia also have great natural resources. Somebody once said: "Only Americans find oil." Why? Don't tell me that our miraculous output of inventions and creations is due to our "natural inventiveness." We are nothing more than a conglomeration of all other peoples. Our Steinmetzes, Pupins, Einsteins and others came to our shores as penni less refugees, and brought their genius with them. Why have we had to erect barriers against those who would come in droves to this land of freedom and opportunity? Why have the socialist countries had to erect barriers to keep their own people at home? Name me some of the major inventions produced under socialism in order to prove that individual incentive still exists there. I do not know of them. Socialists and communists make the same fatal mistake.

They place security ahead of freedom. America is the prime example of a nation which founded itself on the basic principle of individual freedom. Its Constitution bristles with limitations upon the government-and the result has been a greater measure of security for Ameri cans than for all other nations. America offered unlimited rewards for initiative, enterprise and wisdom-and she guaranteed no subsidy for laziness, incompetence or fail ure. Thus she used the carrot and stick method of en couraging individuals to create, produce and succeed. This free way of life is a rugged, painful business at times, [ 18] but it has paid the biggest dividends on earth and it has been worth every weary mile of it. Freedom appeals to man's strength; socialism and com munism appeal to man's weakness. Freedom teaches a man to stand independently on his own feet; the others teach him to lose himself in the protective herd. Freedom places its emphasis on man himself; the others lose man in their emphasis on mankind.

Conform Or Be Liquidated One of the pleasant -sounding doctrines of socialism and communism is "economic and social planning instead of individual anarchy." But you neglect to mention that for a "plan" to succeed, we must all be fitted into it-whether we like it or not. You would like us to accept the "plan" voluntarily, but if we do not, you fail to explain that we must then be compelled to do so. This is where communists defeat socialists. They have no compunctions about using force to further their ends. "Conform or be liquidated" is their motto. The end justifies the means. Socialists are more squeamish, and that is why the communists will always supplant them when the "emergency" comes along. In free America, we have recently had an inkling of what this could mean. Under OPA planning of our whole industrial and economic life, when the cattle raisers balked at selling their produce without a normal profit, our Presi dent stated in a nation-wide address that he had actually considered government seizure of all the cattle. Shades of Russia! It does not require much imagination to picture [ 19] the result of such a plan. Cattle raisers would have re belled. Force would have been used. Fines, imprisonment and death would have followed. Is this so different from Russia's collectivization of her farms, her ruthless "elimi nation" of rebels, and the subsequent starvation of five million of her farm families? But the communists will argue that the plan was for the benefit of all, and that individuals do not count when society is expected to gain.

Nonsense! How can you possibly increase the security of society by destroying the security of its individuals? Advocates of planning as a stabilizer always forget that planners also must be human, and subject to all the short comings and mistakes of other human beings. Even the most rabid endorsers of OPA admit that the individual injustices were numerous and unavoidable. Yet these indi viduals were expected to submit and be sacrificed in the interest of the over-all plan. Government-subsidized potatoes are rotting in the fields by the ton. The planning advocates say: "But this is be cause we did not control the production." And so it goes. Mter you control production, then you must control dis tribution, and back we go to rationing, price fixing, wage fixing-and the whole involved, impossible mess. I do not blame the pl~nners. They could be the wisest and best intentioned persons in the world. I blame the whole idea, because it is impossible, impractical, and incapable of justice, and because the taxpayers foot the bill for every inevitable mistake.

There is not a single socialist or communist doctrine that does not sound good, but which is not equally fatal. [20 ] "Production for use and not for profit." You do not say who is to decide what is for use. It is easy to look upon the auto today and call it "useful," but who thought so in its awkward infancy? Would the airplane have been con sidered "useful"? Or the radio? Or splitting the atom? Who among men is so wise that he can know these things in advance, and therefore be trusted with the power to permit or forbid them? And who profited most from the creation and mass production of the auto together with all its subsequent allied industries? Did Henry Ford? Or did the whole American people, whose standard of living was raised thereby? Did Henry Ford's accumulation of wealth come out of anyone else's pocket? Or did he create a new source of wealth for millions of less gifted people?

Liberty Means Responsibility My argument against socialism is that America already has the best economic and political system yet devised, and that this is proven by her glorious record-and not in a paper blueprint. America did not become the bread basket, the factory, the bank, and the hope of the world by following the wrong systems or believing in the wrong principles. Her solution is to reacquaint herself with her own best way of life, and to live up to its tenets more faithfully-not to throw it away before she has completely understood or practiced it. American capitalism has never failed; only some of our human capitalists have failed. Whenever a free-enterpriser [21 ] achieves his own goal, and then attempts to shut the door of opportunity behind him, or to choke off the free play of competition around him, then he has cheated his own system. Whenever believers in freedom discriminate against minorities, or show favoritism to meritless friends, then they are sabotaging their own constitutional prin ciples and weakening the foundations upon which America was built. Whenever individuals or groups in America use the political power to gain advantage at the expense of others, then such persons or groups are undermining the structure of our republic, and the results will be evil and unjust. Whenever an American acquires wealth or power-and then fails to be a good and honest steward of these benefits-then he not only denies the principles of Am'erica, he denies the principles of Christianity.

The answer, and the only answer, is for all of us to edu cate ourselves to the responsibilities as well as to the benefits of freedom. Perhaps as a people, we are not morally strong enough to be free. If that is the case, then we shall certainly lose our freedom, and it will not matter much what "ism" supplants Americanism. But this will not prove that our free way of life was not the best way. It will only prove that we were not worthy of it. [22 ] LEGALIZED IMMORALITY b'l Clarence 'manton IT must be remembered that 95 per cent of the peace, order, and welfare existing in human society is always produced by the conscientious practice of man-to-man justice and person-to-person charity. When any part of this important domain of personal virtue is transferred to government, that part is automatically released from the restraints of morality and put into the area of conscience less coercion. The field of personal responsibility is thus reduced at the same time and to the same extent that the boundaries of irresponsibility are enlarged.