Democratic Socialism and the Politics of Envy

I was just asked again by visitors to the Victims of Communism Museum in Washington, DC.  

“What is going on?” 

What they mean is, “How can there be a rising tide of communism masquerading as a democratic form of socialism, so-called “democratic socialism,” among our young people and in our cities? 

One magnet attracting the young is a politics of economic envy. 

More specifically, look at the violently partisan, scarcity worldview that animates them, for example this from the DSA website, “Taxing the Rich Means Taking Their Power.” 

Their presuppositions are not just wrong, they are anti-American. They begin by asserting that the U.S. economy is based on the generational concentration of wealth in the hands of just a few “oligarchic” families.  This “aristocracy” hoards and passes on wealth in a political system they control.   

Taxation is not about meeting the basic needs of a limited government providing security and justice as part of the social contract, but “the redistribution of influence.” Thus, the tax system “should be understood as a tool to build an expanded vision of democracy…” and “tax laws designed to level the playing field…” by “target[ing] high earners.”  

In other words, there is just one big economic pie out there and it all comes down to how it is divvied up. 

Theirs is a Machiavellian vision of a society where everything is about power.  Dem Socs promise that upon taking power, they will use the power of government to choose winners and losers.  There is zero buffer between their all-powerful state and the individual citizen, whether rich or poor. It is a vision that is totally contrary to the American dream and American history.  

To be clear, no family, no civil society, no private sector. No buffer between Big Brother and you. 

Alarmingly, they have no respect for initiative, the family, and responsibility at the most local level. American civil society is based not on what government takes and hands out, but rather on the initiative and opportunity that individual men and women take. The fundamental building block of our society is not a powerful state choosing winners and losers, but it is the family and the local community making decisions, caring for one another, investing, and innovating. 

They disregard civil society outside the politicking of their own dem soc activism. Everything is political campaigning: “base building,” “direct action,” and “seize” this or that.  They praise “collectivism” and more than hint at violent “revolution.” 

What a contrast to American civil society! Americans have prided themselves on a buffer zone between the individual and the state, a civil society largely made up of pluralism and volunteerism:  

volunteer fire departments, libraries, service clubs (e.g., Rotary, Kiwanis), the PTA and sporting associations, the business community, and, especially, the faith sector.  

Importantly, Americans are the most charitable people on the face of the earth, and much of that voluntary giving to help one’s community and one’s fellow men operates through churches and other religious institutions.   

America’s lived reality of a robust, voluntary, and philanthropic civil society is totally alien to the dem soc vision of an entirely politicized society dominated top-down by a socialist elite.  

Moreover, the American experience is one of growth and innovation from our first entrepreneurs and men of science, such as Benjamin Franklin, through the 19th century (Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, George Washington Carver) to today (Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and many others). Look at the founders of Intel or Interactive Brokers whose families fled communist Hungary in 1956. This is not an oligarchy: does anyone know who the grandparents of Jeff Bezos or Steve Jobs are?   

The way that wealth and value has been created in ways that lift society has been through risk-taking, entrepreneurship, and a free market system that is intrinsically tied to stable, representative, liberty-respecting government.  

The U.S. economy is not one big pie to be sliced: our innovators keep baking new pies! 

Finally, there can be many debates about tax policy, the structure of the tax code, how to handle the legitimate aspirations of a society, from everything from caring for its poor to sidewalks to national defense. But, tax should never be a weapon. Dem socs see tax policy as a way to punish one class of citizens rather than be looking for common-good approaches that benefit everyone. 

Marxists whip up divisions in society by framing everything through the lens of “oppressor vs. oppressed.” This justifies using all means of political power to achieve their ends. In their words, a “radical” reordering of society.  

Citizens going to the polls this year ought to ask themselves if they really want to elect those who want to weaponize the tax code and have zero respect for a robust civil society made up of individuals, families, faith-based organizations, the business sector, service clubs, and the like. 

Photo by Alec Perkins via Flickr under CC BY 2.0.