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Socialism: So Pretty!

The Daily Texan is the student newspaper of UT Austin. It’s one of the largest student newspapers in the country. And yesterday, it ran an opinion piece advocating that Westerners re-evaluate the wonders of socialism. Under normal circumstances, I don’t pay much attention to student newspapers and their opinion pieces, as they just aren’t that well written. But this piece is an exception, and it therefore deserves to be highlighted.

The author is history student Colin Pace, who writes:

Socialism is not a monolithic ideology and it is not a terrible, fear-driven beast that threatens the U.S. masses. In fact, it is quite the opposite. To understand this, one need not look further than Michael Moore's recent movie, "Sicko." Though gimmicky and biased, like his other movies, the film raises an important question about why universal health care systems rank so high above the United States' privatized system in a global comparison.

But Wulf! Michael Moore is a dirty propagandist and his movie is full of lies! We’ve debunked “Sicko”!

But Wulf! The US health care system isn’t actually private, it’s half government funded already!

Come on, Wulf! We have the best health care in the world! People come here from Canada for our health care! The metrics are not fair!

Oh, Wulf! It’s just an undergrad in social sciences, spouting off his dirty collectivist delusions!

Yes, yes, I know all of that. And I also know that every year there a few million kids turning 18 and getting the right to vote. And they don’t read your blog. And most of them don’t know what is inherently unjust about socialism. Rolling your eyes and dismissing them may make you feel better about yourself, but it doesn’t actually advance the cause of liberty. So let’s take a closer look.

Colin Pace represents an articulate voice pointing out that “[i]nstitutions ranging from news stations to school systems teach that socialist and nationalized programs are doomed to collapse under the weight of bureaucracy and corruption.” I would love for this to be the case, but I simply don’t agree that the prevailing theme taught to our youth is that nationalized programs are too big to succeed. Privatized education, health care, public transit, and other government services? No, that’s certainly not the predominant agenda being pushed to our youth by the sources I know of. But to an audience lacking an articulate source to the contrary, Mr. Pace can play the role of the guy who questions authority, and that gives his point the ironic advantage of being anti-authority. “Rebel against convention and think for yourself about the benefits of letting bureaucrats make more decisions for you!”

Pace then makes another appeal guaranteed to garner attention on any college campus: class warfare and rich white guilt. “Factory workers thousands of miles away are harshly exploited so consumer goods such as clothing and TVs can be sold at low prices to American consumers.” For Pace, it’s not a matter of comparing the standard of living for the workers today vs. 40 years ago. It’s a matter of comparing their standard of living to mine, or better yet to Dick Cheney’s. And again, rolling your eyes and dismissing him is not the same as refuting him - or socialism.

But the real reason I chose to highlight this article is not because it’s easy to cherry pick a couple of weak points and mock him. It’s because Mr. Pace really does make an excellent point that we should all consider:

People should not judge the word "socialism" solely by what they know of "socialist" leaders. Leaders like Joseph Stalin and Fidel Castro may have upheld socialist aspects of their administrations, but they were not actually "socialists"…

Spot on. The more distant Stalin and Castro become, the easier it will be to note that they did not actually uphold socialist ideals… and therefore they do not provide an honest example of what is wrong about socialism. Those who wish to refute socialism should beware not to let their argument stop with Stalin and Castro, because it (rightly) won’t sway a collectivist who recognizes that these men were not socialists. There is a difference between oppression by a tyrant and oppression by a democracy. One is appealing to the tyrant and his cult of personality, while the other is appealing to 51% of the population. If we only know how to refute the ills of the former, we will eventually suffer the latter.

In other words, Colin Pace’s final paragraph is one that should be considered by every thinking person the world over:

Even those who are staunchly opposed to the nationalization of industry, believing that the free market is the only means for progress, should question the objectivity of the Western view of socialism. The word is loaded with connotations, but that should not stop people from asking what the system is really about.