So a friend of mine and I got into a debate which actually became the impetus for me to write this week’s piece. It all started as we observed that the US is obviously on its way to a collapse under its own weight. People don’t seem to care as much as they should, politicians care less about their constituents and more about where the next campaign dollar is coming from, government agencies take more and more of our rights away by the day, and finally, it’s fun to predict doom and gloom. So, as is the course of these sorts of discussions, we inevitabtly got around to speculating what the next big world trend in government would be. My friend postulated that the EU seems to be doing things right, but unfortunately both of us were lacking on some of the details of how the EU operates. When asking our friends across the pond about their system, we apparently made a political Faux Pas; we referred to their system as socialist.

Now, the word socialism gets tossed around a lot these days. The Conservatives seem to use it as an insult pointed at the Liberals saying that the Liberals want to make the United States into a Socialist state. What does that really mean though? What is Socialism? What is a Socialist state? And why did our European friends get so ticked off when their system was referred to as Socialist? I believe because Socialism brings back thoughts of Stalin, the USSR, and Tiananmen Square. Which isn’t really what I was aiming for.

The popular definition of Socialism seems to be big government, high taxes and government sponsored programs such as welfare and health care. At least, that is the definition I was talking about when I started referring to socialism. It seems that I was wrong however. Socialism refers to an economic system. Webster defines it as “Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.” Never refers to government or services. So what the heck is a government that has a Free Market economy, but has social programs like welfare?

After some digging a Social-Democracy is what it seems a society with a free market economy but with broad reaching government and governmental programs should be called. So, first off, an apology to all offended Europeans. However, this leads us to the real debate, is this a better system than what we currently have in the US?

Since this is my column, you only get my side of the story, and the answer to that last question is no. I don’t believe it is. If you take a look at the US over its history, we’ve moved more and more towards this model and away from the true Capitalist Representative Republic we started out as. Why? Several reasons. First and foremost the creation of Welfare. There is currently a debate raging in New Orleans about public housing. It seems some of the lawmakers in the Big Easy wish to make it so those that get public housing are required to work towards New Orleans reconstruction. Sounds reasonable to me, however, it doesn’t sound reasonable to some others. It seems that requiring folks to do work for their house is discrimination. It’s been proposed that if they didn’t have to work for their housing before the hurricane, why should they have to work for it now? Am I the only person who finds this totally absurd? Why should people be living off the efforts of others, but not have to do work of their own? How does that make ANY sense? What happened two hundred years ago to people who didn’t want to work? Guess what, they starved. Why do these people feel they deserve to live for free? Because of the welfare state mentality. People feel they deserve things instead of feeling the need to earn them.

If that example isn’t enough for you I have one that is simpler. There is no better evidence of why a Social Democracy is doomed to fail then All You Can Eat Crab Legs. Okay, I can see I’ve lost some of you. Bear with me on this one. I’m not sure if this is a phenomenon only based in Western PA or if this happens everywhere, but let me paint a picture for you. We have several AYCE Chinese buffets in the area, and several of them offer Crab legs. If you have ever seen how people abuse this, you’ll know what I’m talking about. They hover about they tray, waiting for fresh ones, then take an ridiculous amount of them, usually almost the whole tray, back to the table, and end up eating about half of them and wasting the rest. Why do they do this? Well, because, they paid for the AYCE, they deserve to abuse it. Hey, you know, I’m no small guy, I can eat and eat and eat, but I at least have consideration for my other diners, the owners of the establishment, and some modicum of self respect that I take a moderate amount back to the table, eat them, then go get more if I want. Besides, I hate cold crab legs.

People abuse what is given to them. It’s human nature. When you borrowed your parent’s car, you probably dinged it or scratched it without knowing. When you bought your first car, you were ever so careful that nothing happened to it. Why? Because it wasn’t handed to you. It was earned. Social programs give what should be earned. People abuse them. People develop a sense of entitlement that leads to a vicious cycle and inevitably brings everything crashing down around them.

Maybe this is a uniquely American mentality? It seems that the EU is getting the job done. Hell, like I pointed out to my friend, it seems that they are getting the whole “Republic of Independent States” down better than we are. Soon American is going to be buried under the own weight of its Federal Bureaucracy. Scary thought.

Last 5 posts by Jeff Hopkins

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