The Future of the United States (Defined)

If some men are entitled by right to the products of the work of others, it means that those others are deprived of rights and condemned to slave labour. Any alleged "right" of one man, which necessitates the violation of the rights of another, is not and cannot be a right. No man can have a right to impose an unchosen obligation, an unrewarded duty or an involuntary servitude on another man. There can be no such thing as "the right to enslave." -- Ayn Rand

Tonight's post is simply a few descriptions of political systems just for you "Libruhls" (see recent comments by Anonymous). Enjoy!

SOCIALISM

Sharing the same collective view of mankind as communism socialism is a political system in which the means of production, distribution and exchange are mostly owned by the state, and used, at least in theory, on behalf of the people (whose 'good' is decided by the legislator). The idea behind socialism is that the capitalist system is intrinsically unfair, because it concentrates wealth in a few hands and does nothing to safeguard the overall welfare of the majority, we will see later that this is fallacious.

Under socialism, the state redistributes the wealth of society in a more equitable way, according to the judgement of the legislator. Socialism as a system is anathema to most Americans, but broadly accepted in Europe - albeit in a much diluted fashion.

Socialism is a system of expropriation of private property (regardless of how this was earned) in order to distribute it to various groups considered (by the legislator) to warrant it, usually the unemployed, ill, young and old and significantly, those with political pull. Since all property must be created before being distributed modern socialists allow some free market enterprise to exist in order to 'feed' from its production. This seems to admit that the free market is the best way to produce wealth. The current British government (Labour) purports to be quasi-socialist but is in practice conservative (non-radical) with additional taxation and state intervention.

I believe that genuine socialism has not fared that well in Britain due to a sense of individual sovereignty shared by many Britons, expressed in such sayings as "an Englishman's' home is his castle."

http://www.wsws.org/ is an informative site regarding modern socialism.

See also "communism."

COMMUNISM

Strictly speaking, communism means a scheme of equalising the social conditions of life; specifically, a scheme which contemplates the abolition of inequalities in the possession of property, as by distributing all wealth equally to all, or by holding all wealth in common for the equal use and advantage of all.

The means to achieve this is by collectivisation of all private property. Although meant to indicate the means of production, to be consistent, communism requires that no individual may own anything exclusively, privately. Not the product of his work (thus his mind), nor any personal material benefit he may achieve as a result of it. All material is centralised and distributed by legislators, the intention being to achieve equal utility (of material) by all. Freedom of expression tends also to be mediated by the state for the same reasons and to maintain the 'integrity' of the collective. You can find a Marxist book in a US bookstore but you can't find Ludwig von Mises in a Cuban library

In practice communism fails dismally. The only way it can be achieved is if every single member of a communist society is in absolute agreement with the above arrangement - and that the legislators are not open to corruption in the form of personal acquisition or favour. We have seen in section one that is it proper for man to own the product of his mind, or that acquired by accident of birth. If such is taken in any way other than voluntarily it is robbery.

For a fuller explanation of communism please refer to the communist manifesto and observe the manner in which human beings are to be moulded and shaped according to Marx and Engels' beliefs.

[Source: "Freedom in the UK"]

While "Freedom in the UK" is not an academic site, it does provide a well researched and well articulated description of political systems that undermine the individual. Many thanks to the UK author!