Socialism

What fundamentally makes someone a libertarian or a socialist is not the end he finds most important, but the means he believes to be the best way of achieving it.

Britain‘s new Labour Government is doing what leftist governments always do: raising taxes on everyone, but pretending that only the wealthiest citizens will pay more. Middle-class British farmers are quickly finding out that the taxman is coming for them too.

Like Santa, who gives free gifts to our children, people think of the state as providing services “for free.” However, the state cannot provide anything without first confiscating wealth from others—like the Grinch, who first stole all the presents in Whoville.

The idea that the state can provide services and other advantages to its citizens that did not previously exist is in contrast to the arguments of state protection—a fallacy that ought to be dismissed outright.

The original Mont Pelerin Society meeting in 1947 featured Ludwig von Mises, whose warnings about the dangers of socialism and totalitarianism had gone unheeded. In the wreckage of World War II, the truth of his message should have been obvious. It wasn't.

Even though DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) has taken a beating in some state legislatures, it still has a corrupting influence, especially in higher education. As Murray Rothbard pointed out, egalitarians are “at war with nature.”

Modern American culture is statist to the core. The typical school curriculum tells students that capitalism is evil and socialism is good.  This only gets worse in college. 

While most of us know George Orwell as an authoritative critic of totalitarianism, few people know he was a committed socialist and a lifelong defender of communist Leon Trotsky. While he understood totalitarianism, he never understood socialism.

The political theorist Anthony de Jasay takes on the left‘s ideas of equality, and David Gordon is there to agree—and disagree. Jasay likens the left‘s view of equality to the Indian Rope Trick.

Capitalism is characterized by the private ownership of capital, coming from Lockean homesteading principles, and not from state coercion and force.