VICTOR JOECKS: Why socialism erodes liberty

Socialism doesn’t just destroy wealth. It strips people of their freedom.

A growing number of Americans now support socialism. A recent YouGov poll found 31 percent of people have a favorable view of socialism. Just 43 percent viewed it unfavorably. But among those 18 to 29 years old, socialism had a positive approval rating, 42 percent to 26 percent.

Polls like this are a bit noisy because “socialism” means different things to different people. Twenty-six percent of respondents said they considered fire departments and National parks to be examples of socialism. They aren’t.

Just ask the ascendant Democratic Socialists of America, who definitely aren’t confused about what the term means. They envision an economy run by the government. And they aren’t trying to hide it. The DSA’s platform calls for “public ownership of the largest corporations and essential industries to ensure democratic control and accountability to the people.” The government will provide “universal healthcare at no costs to individuals.” The DSA claims that “housing is a human right” and wants to “cancel all student debt.” Presumably, this would be funded by the “aggressive wealth taxes” it wants to enact “on the richest individuals and corporations.”

If socialism sounds like rebranded communism — you’re right. It is. Karl Marx used the terms interchangeably.

One flawed economic assumption socialists make is to view wealth like a child views a birthday cake. If my mom gives my brother a big piece, there’s less for me. In other words, because Elon Musk is rich, you are poorer.

But that isn’t true in a free market. Imagine you go to In-N-Out and order a Double-Double combo. In exchange for your $10, the restaurant gives you a burger, fries and a drink. Who loses in that transaction?

No one. You valued the food more than the $10, and In-n-Out valued your money more than the food. It’s a mutually beneficial transaction that creates value. Billions of interactions like that over a few centuries have resulted in you having better stuff than billionaire John Rockefeller ever did.

Ignoring economic realities like this one is why socialist countries tend to run out of toilet paper.

While a lack of TP is uncomfortable, socialism poses an even graver threat. Collective ownership of the “means of production” is directly conflicts with individual freedom. The Declaration of Independence lays out that the government’s job is to secure the unalienable rights that individuals have received from their Creator.

In an 1816 letter, Thomas Jefferson wrote the “first principle of association [is] ‘the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it.’” Writing in the 17th century, John Locke put it like this, “The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly his.”

Socialism contends that your labor doesn’t belong to you because it’s unfair if you produce more fruit than your neighbor does.

“The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence,” John Adams wrote in 1787.

Events since the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 have proved him right. Communist regimes pursuing socialism murdered more than 100 million people in places like China, the USSR and Vietnam. Socialist Hugo Chávez was elected as Venezuela’s president in 1998. He died a dictator in 2013. Cuba is a socialist republic that jails political dissidents.

You can have freedom or socialism, but not both.

Next week, I’ll look at why Islam threatens liberty.