A Government Cannot Act for “the Good of Society” by Implementing Socialistic Policies; Socialism Merely Provides a Specific Cause to Which the Individual Is Supposed to Sacrifice Himself

Socialism is based on the altruist code of morality. Altruism says it is a virtue for the individual to sacrifice himself to others. Socialism merely provides a specific cause to which the individual is supposed to sacrifice himself. Under socialism, people are told to sacrifice themselves for the good of the state, the race, the nation, future generations, and so on. In practice, socialism has succeeded tremendously in sacrificing people. Literally hundreds-of-millions of people have been sacrificed on the altar of socialism. It has been estimated that almost one-hundred million people have starved, been murdered, or been worked to death in labor camps under socialist regimes that have existed, and still exist, around the world. This figure does not include the suffering of the hundreds-of-millions of people who have been forced to live in abject poverty and misery under socialist dictatorships. Based on this, it is clear that both in theory and in practice socialism is destructive to human life. . . .

Many people think that the mixed economy combines the best of the two economic extremes. They think it combines what they consider to be good about capitalism (such as the incentive to produce an abundance of wealth), but allows the government to intervene with socialistic policies (such as to redistribute income) to act for “the good of society.” Based on what has been said above, however, it should be apparent that this statement is completely false. There is nothing morally or economically good about socialism or socialistic elements in a mixed economy. When the government interferes in the market to, for instance, redistribute income or enact worker and product safety legislation, it violates individual rights and thus acts in a manner that is inconsistent with the requirements of human life.

The government cannot act for “the good of society” by implementing socialistic policies. When the government initiates physical force it benefits some members of society at the expense of others. For example, when the government redistributes income, it gives income to some people by taking it from others. When the government initiates force, someone is being sacrificed. Believing it is good for the government to initiate force to sacrifice some people to others is based on an acceptance of the validity of the morality of sacrifice. However, as was shown above, the morality of sacrifice, in any of its variations, is destructive because it stands in opposition to the requirements of human life. It does not matter whether a more virulent form of sacrifice is being implemented through socialism or a milder form is being implemented through the mixed economy. Either way it is destructive to human life.

--Brian P. Simpson, Markets Don't Fail! (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2005), 22-24.

Income Redistribution Is Not in the Interest of the Poor; Imposing Equal Incomes Will Make Everyone's Income Extremely Low

Forcibly imposing equal incomes on people might make everyone's income the same; however, it will also make everyone's income extremely low. Even poor people will have lower incomes when income equality is imposed on an economic system. Their incomes may be higher relative to that of rich people (because now there are no rich people); however, poor people's incomes, in terms of the goods and services they can purchase, will be lower relative to what their incomes would have been had the rich been able to keep the incomes they earn. Why is this so?

Here, one must, again, keep in mind how someone becomes rich in a capitalist society. One does so by being more productive; i.e., by inventing new products, improving upon old ones, using better methods of production, and producing those goods for which people have a demand. This means when income is taken from the rich and given to the poor, it is being taken from the most productive members of society and given to the least productive members of society. This means the productive capability of the economic system will be lower and the rate of economic progress will be lower. Over time, any one-time gain by poor people from income redistribution will be erased by the loss in purchasing power of their additional money income due to the lower rate of economic progress and thus the slower year-to-year increase in the standard of living. In other words, the poor may have more money to spend with income redistribution but because of the decreased incentive to produce, and because money is being taken from the more productive members of society, very little will be produced and thus there will be very little for the poor to buy with their additional money income. In a society with complete income redistribution, where everyone has the exact same income, everyone will be--equally--miserably poor.

So income redistribution is not in the interest of the poor, as many so-called humanitarians believe. In fact, income redistribution is positively against the self-interest of the rich and the poor. It is in the interest of everyone to have each individual's right to keep the income he earns protected, no matter how large or small that income. This is what is required to provide people with the incentive to produce and thus make possible a high and rising standard of living for everyone, rich and poor alike.

--Brian P. Simpson, Markets Don't Fail! (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2005), Adobe Digital Editions, 174.

Economic versus Political Monopoly

There are two concepts of monopoly that exist and one provides a good understanding of monopoly while the other provides a poor understanding of monopoly. The concept accepted by most people today is the one that is deficient, and it is the acceptance of this invalid concept of monopoly that leads people to (incorrectly) believe that monopolies arise out of the free market. The concept of monopoly accepted by most people today is known as the economic concept of monopoly. This concept says a monopoly exists when there is only one supplier of a good in a given geographic region. The concept that provides a sound understanding of monopoly is known as the political concept of monopoly. This says that monopolies arise when the government initiates physical force to reserve a market or a portion of a market to one or more sellers.

The economic concept of monopoly focuses on the number and size of firms in an industry. It says the smaller the number of firms in an industry, and the larger those firms are, the more monopoly power that exists in that industry. It says monopoly power can arise naturally out of the market simply by firms becoming big. The political concept focuses on the restriction of competition by the government and says monopoly power can be held by many small producers against just one or a few large producers, or can be held by one large producer against other, smaller producers. It says as long as a firm is being helped by the government in some way--no matter what its size--then that firm has monopoly power.

The problem with the economic concept is that it leads to confusion because it can be used to say that no firm is a monopoly or all firms are monopolies, depending on how broadly or narrowly one defines a good. It can also be used to say a firm both is and is not a monopoly. It other words, the economic concept of monopoly leads to blatant contradictions. Based on this concept, it is arbitrary whether a firm is a monopoly or not.

--Brian P. Simpson, Markets Don't Fail! (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2005), Adobe Digital Editions, 31-32.