Antiracist training involves confessing one’s thought crimes, reporting on friends for "wrong ideas," and other "reeducation" methods familiar to the Stalinists of old.
Massive "fiscal stimulus" programs by European governments failed to reduce unemployment. The latest buzzword from the Continent is the "entrepreneurial state," based upon the delusion that government spending and regulation are responsible for wealth creation by private entrepreneurs.
Flawed as we are and with limited knowledge about the world and ourselves, we might not know what is objectively “best for us long term.” Government planners know even less.
Across so many fields, from money to nutrition, I’ve found that the corollary to the government-heavy approach is a desire not to make choices for oneself.
The knowledge of government planners is much overrated. Instead, we must "trust no man beyond his infinitesimal area of competence; hold him to the very little he knows."
Further, if solidarity is a value, why can’t the common enterprise be that people in a society share a commitment to the free market? Or is solidarity only good when people jointly do things socialists like?
In the fall of 2016, I was a left communist. As any Marxist can tell you, ideology can blind one to the insights that might disrupt one’s political adhesions. Only it was Marxist ideology itself that blinded me.
It's fairly easy to destroy the spontaneously created institutions and groups that make up a well-functioning society. But it is nearly impossible to rebuild them once they're destroyed by central planners.
