Socialism Is a Good thing

There, I hope I got your attention.

In socialism. the government owns the basic means of production, decides how to use resources, distributes the products and wages, and provides social services, such as education, health care, and welfare. It has three main goals:

1. The distribition of wealth and economic opportunity equally among people.

2. Society's control, through its government, of all major decisions about production.

3. Public ownership of most land, of factories, and of other means of production.

It's not my intention to go over each of the above, point by point. It should be obvious to any reasonable, honest individual how much our present government has "fundamentally transformed" our society.

And don't think I'm letting the previous administration off the hook, either. Wasn't it President Bush who said that we needed to trash the free market system to save it (I'm paraphrasing)?

My point here is that socialism would be an outstanding way of living our lives if it wasn't for one, teensy little reason: we're dealing with human beings here.

Socialism has a very laudable goal of helping all of mankind. If someone needs something, then by all means, let's help them. But, human nature will not cooperate.

This would only work if everyone (EVERYone) strove toward the same goal. But, you can't tell me that NObody will sit on their behinds, sucking up the largesse of people who do contribute.

The Pilgrims tried this when a common store of food was maintained for everyone's use in hard times. No matter what, the townspeople were granted their share. But some less-than-stellar citizens (i.e., "humans") figured they'd get food whether they worked or not. The result? The store of food ran out and people starved.

Things improved when farmers were allowed to keep what they grew to feed their families (with an amount being set aside for the truly needy).

Jamestown Plantation was socialist to an extent. Although, Captain John Smith made a stipulation that if "you didn't work, you didn't eat" (I'm paraphrasing again).

My point is that, while Socialism is a grand idea, it will never work because there will always be those who will just suck off the labors of others. There is nothing to indicate that human beings have evolved to where it is "one for all and all for one." And no amount of frantic, pitiful, hand-wringing from the "Kumbaya" crowd will change that basic fact.

It just won't happen. Let me keep the corn I grow.