Socialism is Evil

Wednesday, July 28, 2004

Posted: July 28, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Walter Williams

What is socialism? We miss the boat if we say it's the agenda of left-wingers and Democrats. According to Marxist doctrine, socialism is a stage of society between capitalism and communism where private ownership and control over property are eliminated. The essence of socialism is the attenuation and ultimate abolition of private property rights.

Attacks on private property include, but are not limited to, confiscating the rightful property of one person and giving it to another to whom it doesn't belong. When this is done privately, we call it theft. When it's done collectively, we use euphemisms: income transfers or redistribution. It's not just left-wingers and Democrats who call for and admire socialism, but right-wingers and Republicans as well.

Republicans and right-wingers support taking the earnings of one American and giving them to farmers, banks, airlines and other failing businesses. Democrats and left-wingers support taking the earnings of one American and giving them to poor people, cities and artists. Both agree on taking one American's earnings to give to another; they simply differ on the recipients. This kind of congressional activity constitutes at least two-thirds of the federal budget.

Regardless of the purpose, such behavior is immoral. It's a reduced form of slavery. After all, what is the essence of slavery? It's the forceful use of one person to serve the purposes of another person. When Congress, through the tax code, takes the earnings of one person and turns around to give it to another person in the forms of prescription drugs, Social Security, food stamps, farm subsidies or airline bailouts, it is forcibly using one person to serve the purposes of another.

The moral question stands out in starker relief when we acknowledge that those spending programs coming out of Congress do not represent lawmakers reaching into their own pockets and sending out the money. Moreover, there's no tooth fairy or Santa Claus giving them the money. The fact that government has no resources of its very own forces us to acknowledge that the only way government can give one American a dollar is to first – through intimidation, threats and coercion – take that dollar from some other American.

Some might rejoin that all of this is a result of a democratic process and it's legal. Legality alone is no guide for a moral people. There are many things in this world that have been, or are, legal but clearly immoral. Slavery was legal. Did that make it moral? South Africa's apartheid, Nazi persecution of Jews, and Stalinist and Maoist purges were all legal, but did that make them moral?

Can a moral case be made for taking the rightful property of one American and giving it to another to whom it does not belong? I think not. That's why socialism is evil. It uses evil means (coercion) to achieve what are seen as good ends (helping people). We might also note that an act that is inherently evil does not become moral simply because there's a majority consensus.

An argument against legalized theft should not be construed as an argument against helping one's fellow man in need. Charity is a noble instinct – theft, legal or illegal, is despicable. Or, put another way: Reaching into one's own pocket to assist his fellow man is noble and worthy of praise. Reaching into another person's pocket to assist one's fellow man is despicable and worthy of condemnation.

For the Christians among us, socialism and the welfare state must be seen as sinful. When God gave Moses the commandment "Thou shalt not steal," I'm sure He didn't mean thou shalt not steal unless there's a majority vote. And I'm sure that if you asked God if it's OK just being a recipient of stolen property, He would deem that a sin as well.

Socialism is evil: Part II
Walter E. Williams

August 17, 2004

Positive reader response to "Socialism Is Evil" was quite surprising.

That column argued that it was an immoral, not to mention unconstitutional, act for Congress, through the tax code, to confiscate the earnings of one American to give to another American in the forms of prescription drugs, Social Security, food stamps, farm subsidies or airline bailouts. It's immoral because it forcibly uses one person to serve the purposes of another. Indeed, that's one way to define slavery and other forms of servitude.

Several letters of disagreement interpreted my argument as being against taxation. They used the sleight-of-hand approach saying that we need taxation for national defense, the courts and other constitutionally authorized purposes as if that observation meant that taxation for any other purpose was just as legitimate. Let me be explicit. Taxes to finance certain federal activities are indeed legitimate as well as constitutional.

Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution enumerates just what federal functions Congress has taxing and spending authority. Among them are national defense, post offices and post roads, courts and a few other activities. Or, as James Madison, the Father of our Constitution, explained in Federalist Paper No. 45, "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined.

“Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected."

Nowhere in our Constitution is there even a hint of authority for most of what Congress taxes and spends for today. Don't be tricked by those who'd argue that Congress has such authority under the Constitution's "general welfare" clause. James Madison explained, "With respect to the two words ‘general welfare', I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them …" Thomas Jefferson said, "Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated." The "detail of powers" or those "specifically enumerated" refer to what's actually laid out in the Constitution. The Framers had the foresight to see that these powers might need modification. That's why they gave us Article V as a means to amend the Constitution.

One reader criticized, "The essence of democracy is that the will of the majority conveys legitimacy to actions of the state." That's a sad commentary on both understanding and education. The Founders didn't intend for us to be a democracy but instead a republic. But more importantly, majority rule often confers an aura of legitimacy to acts that would otherwise be deemed tyranny. Let's look at it:

Consider a few everyday decisions such as: whom we marry, what food we eat, where we live and what clothes we wear. How many of us would want majority rule to determine those decisions. For example, your family would like ham for Thanksgiving dinner and vacations in Mexico, but you're prevented from doing so because the majority of Americans decided on turkey for Thanksgiving and vacations in Canada. Were decisions actually made this way, most of us would agree that we'd be living in a state of tyranny.

Of course these particular decisions aren't made through a majority rule political process, but they do illustrate that there's nothing sacrosanct about majority rule; it can be just another form of tyranny. It's just as tyrannical for majority rule to determine other choices such as: retirement (Social Security), prescription drugs, health care and other unconstitutional uses of a person's earnings.

When the democratic process reigns in matters of constitutionally enumerated federal government matters, we have the liberty that the Framers envisioned -- anywhere else it most likely means tyranny.

Dr. Walter E. Williams is the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.