The Appeal of Socialism

Someone I know once said, “If a man works for ten years, the government ought to have to take care of him.” This is the appeal of socialism to many of today’s laziest Americans and their willing accomplices in the media and educational establishments. The man I just referred has accepted this as true in his heart, and has passed this counterproductive logic (if it can be called that) on to his children. This is the type of man that frequently uses the threat of lawsuits directed at anybody he can intimidate, and has spent a good deal of his working life on disability.

This “something for nothing” mentality has permeated throughout our society, and socialists in education and the media have made it legitimate. Schools today focus on the idea that “truth” is relative, and “feelings” are the most important thing to being an “educated” person. Instead of teaching literature, writing, math, history, government, and economics, most of our students are leaving school with a high school degree in victimization. When people behave in a self-destructive manner, there is always somebody willing to make excuses for them and blame “society” instead of the individual. The man alluded to above may be beyond hope, but the tragedy is his children escaped the education system with many of his bad habits. Are people like this entitled to government handouts?

The media is often times worse than the education establishment in enabling counterproductive behavior. Take the recent news of General Motor’s cost-cutting measures (leftists read this as “job cuts”). In an article on CNN.com, entitled “Shock and sadness at GM plants,” one worker is quoted as saying, “The engineers, to me, they’re stuck on stupid. They never talk to us, the people on the line.” Most readers get the impression that the only reason GM is struggling is an inferior product. While it may be true that competitors have bested GM in design, comfort, performance, and reliability that is not the only reason that GM has struggled. The aforementioned article does not once mention the outrageous labor costs GM has incurred throughout the years.

Another “big media” target is Delphi, the biggest autoparts maker in America, which recently declared bankruptcy. The left will lament the “jobs lost” at Delphi, never seeking the truth about the reason for Delphi’s actions. In a column on National Review Online, Henry Payne cites a “manufacturing job” at GM and Delphi that pays $65 an hour including benefits ($26 an hour average). If you think this worker would be doing something more than cutting grass or cleaning toilets, you would be wrong! According to Payne, “UAW members are guaranteed a traditional "30 years and out" provision,” meaning that most begin drawing pensions in their early to mid Fifties.

Not only does GM and Delphi (per their contract with UAW) have staggering labor costs for current employees, their legacy employees only increase those costs. It makes this writer wonder what these companies were thinking when they made these agreements in the first place. I guess the “Big Five” are to blame, but for the above reasons, which is contrary to what most socialists and leftists would have you believe.

This reminds me of another man I know who once said the most difficult thing he did on some particular days was changing a light bulb. This union electrician no doubt makes a very handsome wage. It is no wonder American producers cannot compete with their foreign counterparts in many industries; the costs are simply too high.

If we continue on this self-destructive path of misinforming generations of Americans through the mass media and school system, our production costs will continue to climb and jobs will continue to be “lost,” the number of people in need of government aid will increase, and the few producers we have left will be taxed heavily. I can imagine a future young American saying “If a man works for ten years, his company, ought to have to take care of him for life.” Our future politicians will probably have no qualms legislating this.

Article written by Sweet Lou

In his book, Black Rednecks and White Liberals, Thomas Sowell has exposed the intellectual dishonesty of many members of the academic elite. Sowell, in this collection of six essays discredits widespread myths that have been passed off as historical scholarship.

Most of Sowell's book deals with history in general, and the issues of slavery, education, and culture in particular. The first essay is a discussion of the circumstances of blacks today and the historical causes of those circumstances. Unlike many contemporary criticisms of Western culture Sowell's analysis looks at the actual cultural characteristics and behavior patterns that have led to a lower standard of living for most blacks. This culture, he argues, is not an African culture, but the culture of the white Southerners with whom the blacks lived for centuries. According to Sowell, "aversion to work, proneness to violence, neglect of education, sexual promiscuity...," were cultural characteristics of most white Southerners who brought those behaviors from those parts of Great Britain where their ancestors lived. These behaviors, Sowell argues, have been transplanted into the poorest black urban ghettos today. This argument is contrary to most politically correct assessments that slavery or white society is to blame for the lack of resources available to most blacks.

Sowell has written with clarity and passion on the issue of slavery and its legacy that has divided American culture for centuries. The purpose of the essay is not to debate that wrongs were perpetuated against blacks in our history, but to highlight the fact that slavery was perpetuated against every race in our collective history. Sowell points out that only relatively recently has there been moral indignation in regards to slavery. Before the seventeenth century slavery was accepted as a fact of life by almost all societies, and most slaves sent to Arab countries were at times treated worse than those sent west. This is not to say that slavery is unimportant in our history our culture, but it says that there is a more honest picture than can be drawn of this awful human tragedy. Blaming contemporary white male Americans for slavery is near sighted at best, and does not help blacks get ahead in American life. Honesty is one of Sowell's greatest qualities in writing, and this essay is brutally honest. He calls on the carpet those who try to score political points today by condemning American society for a centuries old evil that was not peculiar to the United States.

In the fifth essay of this book Sowell has written a ringing indictment of the education system in America today. Sowell painted a picture of education in America that has left a substantial part of our children behind. Dunbar High School is a public high school in Washington D.C. that before 1950 held black students to a standard of scholarship and behavior that produced most of the leading black figures of those generations. These schools did not tolerate the behavior that leads to poor outcomes for any ethnicity, let alone blacks, and the students succeeded as a result. Those that perpetuate contemporary educational dogmas will not find this essay to their liking. What Sowell calls "just plain teaching," has been shoved aside to allow unproven and untested theories to fill the void.

Most tragically, a message of self improvement has been replaced by a victimization mentality in our educational culture. Young people are rarely taught there are consequences for poor behavior and benefits to behaving at school. Instead they are taught that whatever their problems someone else is to blame. That was certainly not the philosophy espoused by the founders of Dunbar High school.

Much of this book focuses on the concept that ideologues mold history into fitting contemporary agendas or philosophies. Sowell uses the example of middleman minorities like Jews and the history of German culture to drive that point home. Sowell comes to the realization that Jews were not alone in being discriminated against for their occupations, but so were other middlemen minorities throughout the world that offered a necessary service to every society. Jews were discriminated against for, seemingly, making money by being the means of transporting goods from producers to consumers. Most people thought they were just hiking the price, and could not see the valuable function that these middlemen served. Sowell points out that this has not only happened to Jews throughout the world, but to other middleman minorities. Lebanese, Chinese, and Koreans were among others that provided these very important services. What many of these minorities had in common was a zeal for education and a disdain for spending wastefully. Many of these minorities rose out of poverty by spending frugally and valuing education for their children.

Sowell also analyzes how history can be used with good intentions, but with catastrophic results. According to Sowell, there was no reason to believe that Germans were culturally more prone to violence or racial intolerance as any other society, yet twelve years of German history (1933-1945) has stigmatized that culture. Sowell argues that using history to illustrate past injustices and correct contemporary problems will only lead to disaster. A look at German history suggests that he is right.

Sowell finishes his work with a detailed look at how history is used and twisted to meet contemporary agendas. Any seeker of truth should be disturbed that our modern culture has become so ignorant as to allow history to be perverted to suit the whims of certain groups in our society. Sowell argues that solutions to today's problems are not found in making up for perceived historical injustices. We should learn from previous mistakes and travel down the clear path to justice, instead of blindly following demagogues down a path that leads to cultural destruction.

(Review written by Sweet Lou)