Looking Backward On Socialism: Socialism Is Intolerant

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Politics today is fraught with accusations of intolerance by all sides of the political divide. Lost in this debate are clear definitions of what it means to be tolerant or intolerant. And most importantly, there is room in the middle for those who are neither intolerant nor do they tolerate everything.

Intolerant” is defined as “unwilling to grant equal freedom of expression,” or “unwilling to grant or share social, political, or professional rights.” Intolerance is when your disagreement makes you unwilling to allow the other person to express or act on the rejected viewpoint. The intolerant say, “I will not allow you to say that” or “I will not let you do that.” Intolerance is about rights.

On the other hand “tolerate” is defined as “to allow to be or to be done without prohibition, hindrance, or contradiction.” Tolerance includes allowing others the right to express or act on their viewpoints but it goes further when it includes the prohibition to contradict. Tolerance is when you keep your disagreement largely to yourself. You disagree internally while externally putting up with what is being said.

This leaves a gap between tolerance and intolerance. That gap in between is simply called disagreement.

Many people strongly believe in the freedom of expression, the freedom to speak your mind. They do not believe in laws which curb these rights. They are against intolerance. They defend the rights of others to express perspectives to which they disagree. But they do not sit idly by and keep their disagreement to themselves. They are not tolerant. They express their disagreement in no uncertain terms and try to persuade others of their position.

Many people may verbally disagree with someone and still defend their opponent’s social, political, or professional rights. They allow the other person’s perspective to exist or practice to be done without prohibition or hindrance, but they do not allow it to be done without contradiction. If that is the case, with these definitions such a person would neither tolerate what they disagree with nor would they be intolerant of it. They would simply disagree with it but allow it.

Many people decried as intolerant these days actually merely disagree. However, with the dictionary definitions in mind, socialism actually is largely intolerant of other perspectives.

On Tuesday, January 14, 2020, David John Marotta appeared on Radio 1070 WINA’s Schilling Show to take a closer look at the intolerance of socialism.

Listen to the audio here:

The space of disagreement between tolerance and intolerance is often lost in the socialist perspective.

It is common for socialists and progressives to use intolerance to mean not tolerant. This alternate definition of intolerance means that those who do not quietly tolerate opposing viewpoints but rather openly disagree are accused of being intolerant. The progressives then see it as a desirable campaign to eliminate the so-called intolerance of disagreement with cries of “I will not let you say that.” Ironically, this stance against disagreement is the dictionary definition of intolerant.

Stanley Rothman, author of “The End of the Experiment: The Rise of Cultural Elites and the Decline of America’s Civic Culture” explains this liberal intolerance:

Herbert Marcuse, considered “the Father of the New Left,” articulates a philosophy that denies political expression to those who would oppose a progressive social agenda. In his essay on “Repressive Tolerance,” Marcuse (1969) argues that in order to promote true tolerance, one must be intolerant of those who would threaten tolerance. For Marcuse, this means limiting the expression of the right. He explains:

Tolerance is extended to policies, conditions, and mode of behavior, which should not be tolerated because they are impeding, if not destroying, the chances of creating an existence without fear and misery. This sort of tolerance strengthens the tyranny of the majority against which authentic liberals protested … Liberating tolerance, then, would mean intolerance against movements from the Right and toleration of movements from the Left (Marcuse, 1969, P.82, 109)

Marcuse’s idea of “liberating tolerance” then is one in which intolerant ideas are suppressed.

Free speech, according to socialism, is not a human right. According to their thought, the only speech that is protected is that which support their ideals. Speech which doesn’t support the socialist utopia is harmful to society and therefore should be banded. To them a free market of ideas should be prohibited.

In the same way, many modern progressives think some speech poses such a threat to their societal aims that it too should be prohibited.

Among the liberal movement these opposing viewpoints are sometimes called “microaggressions.” Microaggressions are defined as brief, commonplace verbal or behavioral acts which offend another person. At a minimum, this term can shame divergent thinkers by calling them the aggressors. Because the term includes “aggression,” some progressives feel justified to respond with real aggression of their own. This escalates their response to statements they find offensive to actual violence or the threat of violence intended to silence the other person’s speech. Such escalation is both dangerous and intolerant. It reacts to someone who disagrees with actions designed to prohibit their point of view.

Denying political expression to those who would oppose a progressive agenda or disagree with their political correctness is intolerant. Disagreeing with someone, on the other hand, neither tolerates nor is intolerant.

Conservatives aren’t advocating a “repressive tolerance.” They simply disagree. Liberals shouldn’t be given a pass because they characterize their intolerance as “liberating tolerance.” No adjectives added to the word tolerance can change the intolerance of the left. Their actions and behaviors are intolerant because they want to dictate how their opponents are allowed to live and are unwilling to tolerate the existence of opinions or behaviors that they don’t agree with.

Capitalism tolerates socialism. Socialism does not tolerate capitalism.

Today’s socialism is a radical movement that wants to end capitalism. Megan Day in an article for Vox entitled “Democratic socialism, explained by a democratic socialist ” explains:

I’m a staff writer at the socialist magazine Jacobin and a member of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and here’s the truth: In the long run, democratic socialists want to end capitalism. And we want to do that by pursuing a reform agenda today in an effort to revive a politics focused on class hierarchy and inequality in the United States. …

Pooling society’s resources to meet people’s basic needs is a tenet of social democracy, one that’s been advocated domestically by much of the labor movement and many of its political supporters among New Deal and post-New Deal liberals. This is a vision we share. But we also want more than FDR did. A robust welfare state in an economy that’s still organized around capitalists’ profits can mitigate the worst inequalities for a while, but it’s at best a temporary truce between bosses and workers — and one that the former will look to scrap as soon as they can.

Social democratic reforms like Medicare-for-all are, in the eyes of DSA, part of the long, uneven process of building that support, and eventually overthrowing capitalism. …

Many proponents of Medicare-for-all aren’t driven by any kind of ideology — they’re simply sick of high deductibles and constant claims denial and ballooning medical debt, which is one of the top causes of personal bankruptcy in the US. But in fighting for Medicare-for-all, people will inevitably start asking basic questions like why corporations are allowed to get rich off of something that should be a basic human right. Medicare-for-all might not be socialism, but at its core, it’s a demand to take something out of the market.

Anyone who prefers the freedom of free market exchanges are not allowed to live that way in a socialist society. Socialism requires everyone to participate whether they like it or not. First, they claim that you will like what they are proposing but when people do not like it there is no turning back. Whatever is thought by socialists to be “best for society” is mandated without allowing other viewpoints to survive.

Small mandates are just the beginning of the socialist agenda. They are the first step of overthrowing capitalism. Medicare-for-all makes it a right to require others to deliver medical services to you for free. Somehow enslaving others to work for you is a right, but expressing a dissenting opinion is prohibited.

Meanwhile, capitalism tolerates all forms of socialism, so long as they are voluntary.

Art Carden has a nice article in the Library of Economics and Liberty entitled “Intolerant Socialism ” in which he explains how important the difference between something being voluntary or compulsive is, and how socialism does not allow individual choices. He writes:

Like Bryan, I really enjoyed Jason Brennan’s discussion of “Why Utopia is Capitalist .” Bryan is correct to note that one of the main problems with G.A. Cohen’s camping trip example is that it assumes (albeit implicitly, if I remember correctly) that we have all decided to go on a camping trip together. It’s basically a question of constitutional choice: what kinds of contract do we wish to adopt if we are all going camping together? It reminds me of Peter Leeson’s work on contract and governance among pirates (he explains it in a 2007 Cato Unbound symposium ).

As Brennan writes, capitalism is preferable to socialism because voluntary socialist experiments like utopian communes and socialist camping trips are possible in a world with private ownership of the means of production. Capitalism tolerates socialism. Socialism does not tolerate capitalism.

For the last few weeks, we’ve been getting together with friends from church for potluck lunches on Sunday afternoons. These are “socialist” ventures like Cohen’s camping trip, and I think most of us would agree such gatherings are integral parts of a robust and thriving civil society.

What if we went around the neighborhood and instead of inviting people to lunch we tried to jawbone people into joining us out of moral obligation? What if we started trying to conscript people into our Sunday lunch gatherings? Most people would find such behavior boorish, intolerant, and once force is involved, evil.

Capitalism accommodates diversity in ways that socialism simply cannot.

Voluntary communitarianism is allowed in a free society. But forced conscription into what should be voluntary associations is evil. The closer and more intimate the association, the more evil it is to apply force.

Voluntary verses involuntary associations

Coercive governmental force is much more dangerous than voluntary market incentives. With coercion I am not given a choice. My options are restricted to only those that they have decided to allow. I say “decided to allow” while they would say “in the best interests of society.” Alas, even if it is in the best interests of 80% of society, society includes the other 20% who used to be free to pick a better course of action and now are forbidden by law. Only if you allow freedom of choice can it truly be best for all of society.

This idea of voluntary verse involuntary causes socialism to be intolerant of capitalism. Voluntary implies that I am free to choose. Involuntary implies that you will not tolerate any choice but the one you select for me. Libertarians believe that such coercion is evil. Voluntary association in small groups is highly desirable, but monolithic coercion is never the best way to build communities.

Libertarians and conservatives are not anti-social. In fact they tend to build, support, and participate in some of the most robust communities. But they do so voluntarily.

G.A. Cohen, socialist author of “Why Not Socialism?,” uses as his example of socialism a voluntary and temporary camping trip. Capitalists make such agreements all the time in the form of corporations, social clubs, and nonprofit charities. But these examples make a poor argument for socialism which is neither voluntary nor is it temporary.

Jason Brennan expands on the importance of voluntary vs. coerced when he writes :

If Cohen presented a thought experiment about a camping party that inducts dissident passersby at gunpoint, almost everyone would draw an anti-socialist lesson. And when people evaluate socialism in the real world, involuntary socialism is almost always what they have in mind.

Furthermore, there’s a simple way to make even Cohen’s voluntary socialism unappealing: just make the campers’ commune pushy and demanding. E.g., a stranger walks by the camp site minding his own business, and the voluntary socialists start preaching, “Join us! We won’t force you, but you’re morally obliged to join us and do whatever a majority of us say. You’re selfish – selfish – unless you join. Come on, pitch in. Do it. Do it. Do it!”

Socialists want a forced communalism. They want to dictate the rules. They want to silence any and all dissenters, because a conservative’s failure to wholeheartedly assent ruins their utopian narrative.

How did liberals become illiberal?

The progressive wing of the Democrat Party was not always so illiberal. Even as recent as the beginning of this century, moderate Democrats comprised the majority of the Democrat Party. Here is a chart from the Gallup article “Understanding Shifts in Democratic Party Ideology ” by Lydia Saad, Jeffrey M. Jones and Megan Brenan:

Democrats' Ideology by Time Period

When liberals were in the minority within the Democratic Party the socialist progressive agenda was not the official party agenda. The current progressive push within the Democratic Party is something new within the party.

Within Gallup’s analysis there are some interesting trends. The movement toward progressive socialism has been almost exclusively among white Democrats with 54% now identifying themselves as Liberal. Only 38% of Hispanic Democrats and 33% of Black Democrats identify themselves as Liberal. Educational attainment is also correlated to being progressive with 47% of liberal Democrats holding college degrees.

The Democratic National Committee itself described its 2016 Party Platform as “our most progressive platform in our party’s history ” with the Washington Post describing it as “far more liberal than four years ago .”

Even prior to this period, the Democratic Party lost its moderate base in the 1994 midterm elections when Newt Gingrich lead a Republican Revolution by promoting an agenda of items that polls suggest had at least a 60% support of the American people. Republicans gained 54 seats in the House and 8 seats in the Senate taking control of both houses of Congress. The Democratic members of Congress who were displaced were in conservative districts and comprised the moderate portions of the Democratic Party. Unhinged from these moderate members the Democratic Party began its left turn.

Increasingly the political left has been policing its own members to keep them in line.

Steven Kautz, in his American Journal of Political Science entitled “Liberalism and the Idea of Toleration” chronicled the death of tolerance and the beginning of intolerance.

From the left, it is sometimes said that toleration is not the “enlarged and liberal policy” of a free people, but rather the cramped and even “repressive” policy of reactionary parties, against which “authentic liberals,” who are enemies of “institutionalized inequality,” must struggle (Marcuse 1965, 81-84). This suspicion, that the liberal idea of toleration is a fraud perpetrated by apologists for reactionary oppressors, persists among postmoderist social critics; it may be reflected as well in some of the recent controversy concerning “political correctness” in the academy (Berman 1992, 1-26).

Kautz wrote those words in 1993 when political correctness was being popularized by several articles in the New York Times. Today the idea of political correctness is used as a weapon by the furthest left progressives against moderates within their own party.

Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, Kim Holmes, describes this tendency in her book, “The Closing of the Liberal Mind: How Groupthink and Intolerance Define the Left“:

What we call a “liberal” today is not historically a liberal at all but a progressive social democrat, someone who clings to the old liberal notion of individual liberty when it is convenient (as in supporting abortion or decrying the “national security” state), but who more often finds individual liberties and freedom of conscience to be barriers to building the progressive welfare state. …

They are postmodern leftists. A postmodernist is someone who believes that ethics are completely and utterly relative, and that human knowledge is, quite simply, whatever the individual, society, or political powers say it is.

When mixed with radical egalitarianism, postmodernism produces the agenda of the radical cultural left—namely, sexual and identity politics and radical multiculturalism. These causes have largely taken over the progressive liberal agenda and given the Democratic Party most of its energy and ideas.

The illiberal values inherent in these causes have been imported from neo-Marxism, radical feminism, critical race theory, sexual revolutionary politics, and other theories and movements imbued with the postmodern critique.

The current socialist agenda of the Democratic Party isn’t your grandfather’s or father’s Democratic Party. It may not even be your older sibling’s Democratic Party. And when moderates turn to Marxism your loyalty should not necessarily make the transition as well.

Private property is required for individual happiness

Jason Brennan in his book “Why Not Capitalism” explains why even the nicest people would want to own private property. Brennan does not accept the view that if we were saints we would all be socialists. He argues that capitalism would remain the best system even if we were morally perfect, arguing “Even in an ideal world, private property and free markets would be the best way to promote mutual cooperation, social justice, harmony, and prosperity.”

In one of his arguments he suggests that our individual creativity is expressed in our work even when our work is more entrepreneurial and less so-called artistic.

Some philosophers – themselves never having owned a business – might have a hard time understanding these kinds of desires. But if that philosopher can understand why one might want to write a book by oneself, rather than with co-authors or by committee, the philosopher can similarly understand why someone might want to own a factory or a farm or a store. Or, if an artist can understand why one might want to paint by oneself, rather than having each brushstroke decided by committee, or rather than having to produce each painting collectively, then the artist can similarly understand why someone might want to own a factory or a farm or a store.

Progressives often clamor for governmental control and regulation for private businesses. But can you imagine their reaction to governmental control and regulation of private art?

That we should each be individuals and able to make as many decisions about our lives seems a reasonable assumption. Brennan expands on this idea of individual rights and ownership to suggest, “Another closely related reason for having private property, even in utopia, has to do with the sheer aggravation of always having to ask permission.” And nowhere is it more important to have private property than in our daily lives where we live.

People have a need to feel “at home” in the world. Most of us feel “at home” in our homes because we may unilaterally shape our homes to reflect our preferences. Our homes are governed by the principles we endorse. We do not have to deliberate in public and justify our furniture arrangements to others in society. To the extent that we have private property, we acquire the means to carve out a space for ourselves in which we can be at home.

Most people understand the importance of letting people be in the privacy of their own homes. But for many of us, our daily lives are expressed in the economic interactions of businesses that we have built. Individual rights and self-expression aren’t just for our private lives. They are, for many of us, expressed most profoundly in our public commerce.

Socialism disdains human choice

Socialism feigns promoting free choice in the abstract utopian view. In Chapter 17 of “Looking Backward“, the main character, Julian West, questions how the state can accommodate a minority desire. He voices:

“…Where there is no opportunity for private enterprise, how is there any assurance that the claims of small minorities of the people to have articles produced, for which there is no wide demand, will be respected? An official decree at any moment may deprive them of the means of gratifying some special taste, merely because the majority does not share it.”

Dr. Leete, the tour guide of the book, replies that, of course, this would never happen in the current utopia, saying:

“The administration has no power to stop the production of any commodity for which there continues to be a demand. Suppose the demand for any article declines to such a point that its production becomes very costly. The price has to be raised in proportion, of course, but as long as the consumer cares to pay it, the production goes on. Again, suppose an article not before produced is demanded. If the administration doubts the reality of the demand, a popular petition guaranteeing a certain basis of consumption compels it to produce the desired article. A government, or a majority, which should undertake to tell the people, or a minority, what they were to eat, drink, or wear, as I believe governments in America did in your day, would be regarded as a curious anachronism indeed. Possibly you had reasons for tolerating these infringements of personal independence, but we should not think them endurable.”

Edward Bellamy’s vision of a utopian socialist United States is filled with layers of administrators who are attempting to simulate free market forces to satisfy consumer demands. But in an actual free market no one has to be omniscient, as the market is self-regulating and centralized planning is not required. Socialists wave their hands to suggest that “the administration” can satisfy demand by means of a “petition” but of course it doesn’t happen.

Alas in practice, the government is intolerant of many demanded practices like selecting your own health insurance coverage, drinking large sodas, or consuming raw milk. They won’t allow it regardless of the demand.

Socialist utopias are all based on the idea that the innovation and competition of the free markets is wasteful. In reality, it is a beautiful way to brings us the choices that people are willing to pay for and indifferently removing choices that people are not willing to pay for.

In Chapter 17 of “Looking Backward” Dr. Leete attacks the very idea of free markets, saying:

“The next of the great wastes was that from competition. The field of industry was a battlefield as wide as the world, in which the workers wasted, in assailing one another, energies which, if expended in concerted effort, as to-day, would have enriched all. As for mercy or quarter in this warfare, there was absolutely no suggestion of it. To deliberately enter a field of business and destroy the enterprises of those who had occupied it previously, in order to plant one’s own enterprise on their ruins, was an achievement which never failed to command popular admiration.”

In economics, this constant displacing of inferior businesses with those more demanded by people is called “creative destruction.” Most all innovation and increases in productivity have happened as a result of creative destruction. Without this freedom of competition the world would be much poorer. Capitalism gives consumers choices that they never would have considered signing a petition to request. This choice leads to encourage businesses offering the options consumers want.

The liberal attack on personal choice is built into the socialist worldview. In an interview with CNBC’s John Harwood Bernie Sanders commented, “You don’t necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or of 18 different pairs of sneakers when children are hungry in this country.”

This comment illustrates several ways that socialism is intolerant of the freedom of choice provided by capitalism.

Jeff Jacoby, columnist for the Boston Globe , explains part of Sanders’ misconceptions.

Sanders didn’t explain exactly how the profusion of toiletries and athletic footwear leads to childhood hunger, but for the only self-described socialist in Congress, it is no doubt a matter of faith that the abundance of capitalism must generate poverty and undernourishment.

In the real world, the opposite is true: Hunger and deprivation are rarest where trade is freest. Food in America couldn’t possibly be more plentiful; no one starves because too many economic resources are being channeled into marketing Old Spice instead of oatmeal. But in the socialist delusion, centralized control is always preferable to voluntary enterprise. Better that government czars should decide what is produced, and impose their plan from above. After all, when buyers and sellers are left free to choose for themselves, grocery and department store aisles fill up with “too many” goods that consumers desire to buy. And that’s not the worst of it: In the process of fulfilling those desires, some capitalists may be getting wealthy.

Sanders can suggest such nonsense here in the United States, although he was mocked for it , because Capitalism tolerates alternate political beliefs. Meanwhile attempts to advocate for economic freedom in actual socialist countries such as China, Cuba, or Venezuela are silenced through violence or the threat of violence. And those are the countries in which children are the most likely to go to bed hungry.

Jeffery A. Tucker, writing for the Foundation for Economic Education , reacted to Bernie Sanders’ comment by writing:

To disagree with the choices of others is really to exercise a kind of disdain for the choices of the masses of people. Intellectuals, particularly socialists who claim to champion the people’s interests, have been doing this for hundreds of years. This attitude of mind is the opposite of populism. It is to replace the value priorities of average people with the value systems of elite intellectuals.

To the socialist, centralized control can keep you from making stupid choices. To the socialist, most of society’s choices are stupid and inefficient.

Back in 2015 we wrote “The Delirious Happiness of Free Market Choice“, an article describing Malcolm Gladwell’s TED talk on psychophysicist Howard Moskowitz’s discovery that there specifically isn’t a one size fits all choice for “the best” anything. In our article we applied these principles to government when we wrote:

Our current administration has not yet adopted Moskowitz’s insights and does not follow these libertarian principles. Instead, they are guided by what economist Thomas Sowell calls “the Vision of the Anointed.”

They believe they are the anointed, morally superior and vastly capable compared to those they rule over, the benighted. The anointed assert there is “a need for government to drastically curtail the dangerous behavior of the many, in response to the prescient conclusions of the few.”

Furthermore, the anointed are characterized by “a disdainful dismissal of arguments to the contrary as either uninformed, irresponsible or motivated by unworthy purposes.”

They resemble the haute cuisine chef who emerges from the kitchen to inform the customer that her steak should not and will never be cooked medium well despite her personal preference. Or the wedding planner who insists that, regardless of the groom’s shellfish allergy, every wedding reception must serve lobster.

The anointed march into an industry and lob regulations, restrictions, incentives and laws to force providers and consumers into what they believe will be the one best system for all. To the anointed, government is a tool best used to conform citizens to their uniform societal ideal.

Thanks to Moskowitz, we now understand variability. We now realize there isn’t just one best mustard. There are the best mustards like Dijon, yellow and honey. This embracing of variability contributes to the libertarian ideology that freedom is the ability to choose as you see fit and specialization is highly desirable. Proposing only one social solution creates trade-offs that leave many people’s needs unmet. Putting “for all” after anything provides a more impoverished society. Free choice in a free market allows each of us to pursue happiness. And this is the type of diversity that is essential to happiness.

Bernie Sanders sets a false choice when he suggests that deodorant choice and feeding hungry children are a zero sum game. Free market capitalism is the best sustainable system to satisfy both of them. Real world socialism, satisfies neither.

Socialism does not allow political choice or dissent

You may think that worrying about our choice of deodorant under a socialist regime is trivial. But if socialism tries to dictate the choices of the trivial, think how much more it will do with important matters.

In Chapter 7 of “Looking Backward,” Dr. Leete describes the control the state has over someone’s vocational life calling:

“While frequent and merely capricious changes of occupation are not encouraged or even permitted, every worker is allowed, of course, under certain regulations and in accordance with the exigencies of the service, to volunteer for another industry which he thinks would suit him better than his first choice. In this case his application is received just as if he were volunteering for the first time, and on the same terms. Not only this, but a worker may likewise, under suitable regulations and not too frequently, obtain a transfer to an establishment of the same industry in another part of the country which for any reason he may prefer. Under your system a discontented man could indeed leave his work at will, but he left his means of support at the same time, and took his chances as to future livelihood. We find that the number of men who wish to abandon an accustomed occupation for a new one, and old friends and associations for strange ones, is small. It is only the poorer sort of workmen who desire to change even as frequently as our regulations permit.

If Bernie Sanders thinks 22 types of underarm spray deodorants are too many to be permitted, can you imagine Sanders telling every worker if his petition to change vocations or live in a different part of the country is approved by the state apparatus? Such freedoms should not be given up under any circumstances. Allowing politicians and state bureaucrats such power should be obviously a poor idea. Bellamy even attempts to answer such a question. In Chapter 6 of “Looking Backward”, the main character, Julian West, questions how the state can be entrusted with the control of the economy, saying:

“The demagoguery and corruption of our public men would have been considered, in my day, insuperable objections to any assumption by government of the charge of the national industries. We should have thought that no arrangement could be worse than to entrust the politicians with control of the wealth-producing machinery of the country. Its material interests were quite too much the football of parties as it was.”

To which Dr. Leete, the tour-guide of the book replies:

“No doubt you were right,” rejoined Dr. Leete, “but all that is changed now. We have no parties or politicians, and as for demagoguery and corruption, they are words having only an historical significance.”

If you want to know what it would be like to live in a country without political parties, there are several examples in the world. None of them come anywhere close to attractive, let alone a model of utopian society. Several other countries have token political choices and then are none better.

The only way to avoid political parties is be means of force or the threat of force. As I wrote in “Looking Backward On Socialism: The Use Of Force To Bring About Utopia“:

One of the difficulties with socialists is their assumption that their view of what is “good” is shared by every sane member of society. In reality, many individuals do not share their perspective. This overlooked group of sane divergent thinkers creates problems for socialism. Socialists often dodge the important question of how to handle those who refuse to comply with their socialist view of the world.

They dodge this question because the unpleasant reality is that socialism quickly turns to the use of force to bring about their vision of society.

What do you do when it seems that millions of citizens are standing in the way of your socialist paradise? You are intolerant of them. You have to get them out of the way.

Photo by Arisa Chattasa on Unsplash

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David John Marotta is the Founder and President of Marotta Wealth Management. He played for the State Department chess team at age 11, graduated from Stanford, taught Computer and Information Science, and still loves math and strategy games. In addition to his financial writing, David is a co-author of The Haunting of Bob Cratchit.