Ed Rogers in WaPo’s Post-Partisan blog indulges in some quaint intellectual dishonesty concerning history:
Rather than there be a wholesale capitulation to the shallow-minded embrace of socialism, I hope at least a few Democrats will have the courage to teach millennials and others the history of socialism’s debilitating, murderous past and the historic human advancement that has been produced by a free market. Remember, socialism is just a kinder, gentler version of communism. Democrats should think twice before they abandon capitalism.
Capitalism is rife with equivalent examples of man abusing man – and that’s the key. The economic system isn’t all that relevant to the question of how those in charge of the economy, or means of production (to use the old Marxian phrase), are indulging that control, but rather it’s much more direct – that is, do they see them as their fellow man, or as objects that will lead to their own greater wealth?
Communism essentially melds the political system to the economic system. Socialism, so far as I can tell, tries to do so but to a lesser extent, trying to be more intelligent about it – think of the Scandinavian countries, which seem to be full of Scandinavians fairly happy with how those things work out. The gulf between the economic and political systems in those countries is larger than in Communist countries.
In capitalist countries, the gulf is larger yet – but not unbridgeable, nor should it be. The political system’s responsibility in this case is to safeguard the citizens, who constitute the essence of the political system, from the more predatory aspects of an economic system not particularly well-designed to regard workers as PEOPLE, rather than OBJECTS.
Capitalism has the capacity to be just as barbaric as does communism – and that suggests it’s not a problem with either system so much as a deeper problem, which will, if ever properly studied and understood, turn out to be something to do with xenophobia (most communist victims tended to be outside of the ethnic or national group of those in power) in sync with sociopathic personalities with an urge to power.
Right now we’re in a vast social experiment to see if the American political system can withstand just such a personality successfully.
