Thomas J. DiLorenzo: Ten things you should know about socialism

A video presentation on socialism and why it should be avoided like the plague.

This is a presentation from economist Thomas J. DiLorenzo on the societal slavery of socialism presented at the recent Mises University. Mises University is an annual event teaching the precepts of Austrian Economics.

This is long form lecture on the societal slavery of socialism, based on Professor DiLorenzo’s book: The Problem with Socialism. This and the other lectures are well worth listening to as a way of becoming informed of the re-emergence of the hideous organised evil that is socialism [oops, did we say that out loud?]

Knowledge is power, the more we know about the accursed collectivist ideologies. The better we can counter them in the debate over the course of the nation. This is why it is imperative that we patriots become informed about what we are up against, view and share these lectures for the good of the country. Unfortunately, we can’t detail the entire lecture, but these are some of the highlights:
[From the auto generated transcript -emphasis added]

1. [03:39] “Destruction is the essence of socialism. It produce produces nothing it only consumes what the social order based on private ownership and the of production has created.”
Ludwig Von Mises, socialism

2. [05:33] socialism will destroy your economic future.

3. [10:15] You cannot fix socialism.

4. [17:53] Most people don’t know that fascism is a form of socialism fascism. Socialism, communism it’s all the same gang as far as I’m concerned, they’re all collectivists.

A question I’ve always asked as people would ask me isn’t communism different from socialism and the answer’s no. For the Soviets the name of their country was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. They didn’t call themselves the Union of Soviet communist republics. Communism was the Utopian ideal that they hoped to achieve in 500 years, but in the mean time they’re all socialists. they called themselves socialists so it’s the same thing so don’t fall for that and of course, Hayek in the road to serfdom pointed out that all the fascists of the 20th century, Mussolini’s and the rest they all started out as socialists.

Of course the word Nazis National Socialism and so the Russians call themselves International Socialists the German socialists call themselves National Socialists, but they were all socialists just a different variety. They all had in common in the literature of the fascists all it attacked liberalism classical liberalism.

The main bullet points of liberalism:

• Private property
• Freedom
• Peace
• Equality under the law
• Inequality of income
• Limited government
• Tolerance

These are the ideas that were attacked very voraciously by Mussolini himself and Hitler and the Nazis because they understood who the enemy was.  These were the ideas that lay the groundwork for the acceptance of markets and capitalism and private property . You can’t have capitalism and private property and markets if people don’t understand the virtues of them.

[20:55] Hayek noted in the road and the road to serfdom he said this the dominant feature of Nazi Germany was a fierce hatred of anything capitalistic individual profit seeking large-scale enterprise, banks, joint stock companies, department stores, international finance, and loan capital and the system of what they called interest slavery

[21:35]The Common characteristic of the Nazis was their anti-liberal an anti-capitalist trend they even adopted the slogan “The end of capitalism” as their accepted Dogma.

5. [23:54] Hayek pointed on the Road to Serfdom, in Germany they nationalized about the Nazis did about half of all industry and then the other half was so heavily regimented and controlled and regulated. That it was de facto nationalized.

That’s probably the big difference between Soviet socialism and the German and the Nazi socialism is that fascism allowed a degree of private ownership, but it was heavily controlled and dictated you know what it would do would be dictated by the government by the state so ownership was not really private ownership since the state controlled everything

6. [25:30] Inequality historically is far worse under socialism than under capitalism

It’s never it’s never been true that equality is even a desirable thing because of course we’re all different

7. [27:10] The only way you can move in the direction of trying to force equality is with a totalitarian society. You can never have equality because human beings are not equal.

As Rabbi Daniel Lapin, who gave made the point that you know God made all human beings unique just like he made all stones unique stones are all different. Every stone is different nothing you can’t find two stones that are the same, but humans can make bricks identical.

Do you want to think of yourself more as a stone or a brick?

8. [32:08] Scandinavian countries are about as socialist as the United States is. One of the myths out there that the Bernie has been spreading is that we need to be more like Sweden you need be more like Denmark since Scandinavian countries they’re more socialists you know democratic socialism he says there’s a huge

The index of economic freedom it’s published by several different groups the Fraser Institute in Canada,  The Heritage Foundation publishes an index of economic freedom every country in the world is ranked.

The more that you safeguard private property, the rule of law, minimal government, minimal regulations lower taxes you get a higher rating.

They come up with an index number for every country

The United States is twelfth at 76.8, Denmark is 76.7 so we’re about as socialist as Denmark Sweden and Finland.

9. [ 36:21] Socialism has caused the worst pollution problems in the history of the world

10. [41:16] Socialist welfare harms the poor, there’s a lot of literature about how welfare destroys work causes family break-up and so forth.

Walter Williams asks: What would you call a system in which one person is forced with the threats of kidnapping and imprisonment to work for the benefit of another person?

It usually takes about five person seconds for someone to say would be slavery. Then of course he describes the welfare state, what else would you call that when the average American works until May to pay taxes for mostly for the benefit of other people. That’s what the welfare state has done

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