Make Money, Buy Socialism, and See What Happens

[bmarinov]

December 7, 2000. I was sitting at the Greyhound Bus Station in Springfield, Missouri, waiting to board the bus to Detroit. My friend Will and I were watching CNN on the TV set in the lobby. CNN was reporting about the shortage of electric power in California, the blackouts affecting hundreds of thousands of people, and then governor Gray Davis’ intention to declare a state of emergency.

Will, who had lived in California most of his life, couldn’t believe California could have such a crisis. “What do you think caused this, Bojidar?”

To explain it to him, I told him a joke of the times of the Cold War, one of those that were very popular on the other side of the Iron Curtain, one that could send you to a concentration camp or at least get you a good beating by a KGB officer:

“Two guards, Ivan and Johnny, pace their ranges on both sides of the border between a Communist and a capitalist country. It’s 8 pm, Johnny’s side is brightly illuminated, a small town in the distance shines like a Christmas tree with all the street lights and buildings and houses. Ivan’s side is dark, being in a constant blackout because of shortages. Johnny cheerfully shouts at Ivan: ‘You all have no electricity!’ Ivan is silent, he doesn’t know what to say, truth is truth, they have no electricity.

“As soon as he is back from his watch, he approaches his commissar and asks, ‘Comrade, I want to be ideologically strong, but I have no answer to that.’ ‘Oh, that’s easy,’ the commissar replies, ‘tell him, you all don’t have socialism.’

“The next day Ivan is on the border for his watch, ready for his ideological battle. Johnny appears and shouts, ‘You all have no electricity!’ Ivan replies, ‘You all don’t have socialism!’ Johnny is quick to answer, ‘Ha! Big deal! We have money, we can buy socialism.’ Forced to find a quick reply, Ivan automatically shouts back: ‘Then you won’t have electricity!’”

That’s what happened to California. It used to be the most capitalist state in the USA. The people made lots of money, then they bought socialism with it, and as a result they didn’t have electricity.

These days the president of Venezuela warned his countrymen not to sing in the shower and wash in three minutes. The reason is power and water shortages in a country that has enormous oil reserves and has a humid tropical climate. “I take shower in three minutes,” he said, “and I don’t stink.”

Maybe he doesn’t stink. What stinks though is socialism. It stinks shortages. Every country that has been affected by socialism in one or other degree has experienced shortages of one or another commodity, or of everything. Soviet Russia, the nation with the largest area of fertile land, managed to have several famines and imported food during all 70 years of its existence. Just five years before the Communist revolution, the “backward peasants” of Tsarist Russia exported more grain than all of Western Europe combined. Nations like Ethiopia or Cuba had the same experience. Sweden, with more land per capita than any European country and stagnant population, manages to have housing shortages. The French healthcare system, the pride of the French governments, experiences severe shortages of qualified physicians. Germany has the same problem with computer specialists. My own home country, Bulgaria, was a net exporter of vegetables and other foods to both Germany and Russia in the interwar years. Under Communism we had to grow our own vegetables— unless we wanted to spend hours waiting for the limited quantities that made it to the grocery stores.

On the other hand, capitalism, like Karl Marx rightly pointed out, has the opposite problem: overproduction, i.e., surpluses of goods. (I’d take surpluses over shortages anytime, thank you very much.)

No matter how carefully you introduce socialism, no matter how “scientifically” you build it, no matter how many educated socialists there are, no matter what natural and human resources a country has, socialism produces shortages every time, in every place. By its nature, socialist ideology makes the woefully unrealistic assumption that production of goods and services remains a constant irrespective of economic and political systems, and therefore all that is needed is distribution and redistribution of the goods and services. And of course, every redistribution of resources has one major consequence: It discourages initiative, industriousness, courage, and long-term planning. The result is decreased production, and shortages. Always.

These are common sense facts and truths, and I shouldn’t have to even write about them, if it wasn’t for so many of our Christian brethren who have fallen prey to lies and deception believing that “Christian” socialism can be better than “non-Christian” socialism, and that the Bible advocates socialism. Supposedly our “Christian duty” to show “love” and “compassion” requires that we engage in a large-scale redistribution of wealth.

What they need to learn is that this country started as an experiment in failed “Christian” socialism. (Read more about it in Gary North, The Puritan Economic Experiments.) And the Puritans’ “Christian” socialism ended as all other socialisms do: It created shortages and famine. And shortages and famine never helped anyone, and certainly never helped the poor and the weak.

Therefore, if you are serious about helping the poor, rally against socialism. Look at what admittedly creates surpluses: Capitalism. Work for capitalism and create surpluses. And then you’ll have enough to feed your poor.

The alternative has proven a failure, every time it has been tried. But if you want to try it yourself, try it on a local level. Get a small group of people, make money and buy socialism. And then see what happens.

[bstedl]

Excellent! In our time of the need for quick bytes of information this article summarizes the cause and effect efficiently.

[alexav123]

Great article (again...)
But how do you know where you were, who you were with, and what you said on Dec 7, 2000?
Alex A

PS: What was the weather doing? And what colour (proper UK English) shoes were you wearing?

[Jeff Swanson]

Great facts. I remember a story I have been told since I was young, about one of my great grandfathers who was a cowboy in Santa Barbra, and how they frequently had oil slicks on the beach from oil that was coming to the surface below the ocean, yet we are told don’t look out there, there is no oil.

In Central and Northern California there are vast forest, that are beautiful, yet we are told don’t look there, there are no trees. Yet most of these trees are second growth planted by the evil owners. Could it be that they took care of them because only a fool would destroy his millstone.

There is a great book that I have mentioned before “The Ultimate Resource 2” by Julian L. Simon that goes against most all of the Environmental tenets, also the Late Michael Crichton produced “States of Fear: Science or Politics?”http://www.independent.org/events/video/crichton.mov http://www.independent.org/store/events/crichton.asp, which also supports these same facts, and shows who private enterprise is already providing for a cleaner and more efficient environment.

America has a lack of jobs because it has decided not to use its resources, without real jobs it is only going to get worse.

Can you believe it when God told us to go out and subdue and not be afraid that the resources would be there? Who would have thunk.

Or you could be an atheist, nihilist, or pagan who believes in shortages and a world that is out to get rid of us like a cold.

[bmarinov]

Great article (again...)
But how do you know where you were, who you were with, and what you said on Dec 7, 2000?
Alex A

PS: What was the weather doing? And what colour (proper UK English) shoes were you wearing?

Oh, that's easy. I know it because I was there. First-hand witness, you know.

The weather was typical Northern Arkansas for December, cold drizzle, turning into ice-storm. In fact, the winter of 2000-2001 Arkansas had one of its worst ice-storms in history; the ice was 3-4 inches thick after it was over. I had spent the month of November with Will and his family in his house in the backwoods in Northern Arkansas, shooting, playing with his children, and inspecting his supplies of drinks. I had two pairs of shoes, my good old black military boots, and a pair of little more civilian brown boots. In the bus station I was wearing my black boots.

Feel free to ask me more questions.

p.s. Don't ask me what I had for dinner last night. I don't remember. They say memory is the second thing to go with age. I have forgotten what the first one was.

[mark dobert]

Does socialism also include a country that steals all it citizen's wealth with a corrupt/satanic money system? Does it also include a country that has socialist security, welfare,medicaid,medicare,foreign aid, corporate welfare,taxes its citizens to the point of slavery,taxes its citizens on their rights to own guns via excise taxes and permit and licensing fees?(No other right is taxed as such!). Does socialism include military incursions all over the world,troops in 153 countries,exporting inflation and stealing other countries' wealth as well? Because if it does then we're long past socialism here in "amerika". We've been lured into the most hedious form of slavery where we don't even know we're slaves!! Fiat money does this without anyone knowing until it's too late. Soon we'll be seeing that the"king has no clothes" and we'll all be left freezing and naked out in the cold while those that did the stealing are sitting warm and cozy inside eating the fruits of our labor!! I guess it won't matter what kind of shoes you were wearing then or are wearing now when the rest of you is starved and frozen to death on the ground!

[JLVaughn]

Alex A,

Great article (again...)
But how do you know where you were, who you were with, and what you said on Dec 7, 2000?
Alex A

PS: What was the weather doing? And what colour (proper UK English) shoes were you wearing?

I've known Bojidar on the Internet since late 2001 or 2002. I knew the Will, Bo speaks of, from 1998 to 2002 also via the internet. And I have a few friends who know both Will and I through face-to-face contact here in California. And I've always suspected I knew Bojidar through pseudonyms even earlier.

Bojidar has written on these issues in the past. To know where he was, what he said, and what he was wearing, only requires him to go back to some of those old articles that date back to 2002 and probably earlier.

You can check on the internet yourself and check the weather and electrical problems as it was.

[Mike Bull]

bmarinov - what a great, succinct article.

would you give me permission to post it on my blog today? - with credit to you of course and a link here or wherever you want.

Mike Bull

[bmarinov]

Yup, Jeff and I are veterans of the old ICE Forum.

Mike, you are welcome to publish it. I know that publishing a link to American Vision won't hurt you a bit so that goes without saying.

[JLVaughn]

Bojidar,

So that was you. Then I've known you on Internet forums since 1998. From there to that website by that other famous "eastern block" escapee, planetpreterist.com, and finally here.

[bmarinov]

Oh, sorry, Jeff, I thought you knew it from my signature. Yes, I was the Freedom JetFighter.

Although, as a side note, I have never been to planetpreterist.com.

[JLVaughn]

Oh, sorry, Jeff, I thought you knew it from my signature. Yes, I was the Freedom JetFighter.

Although, as a side note, I have never been to planetpreterist.com.

I'm confused then, but I certainly remember Freedom Jet Fighter. I guess I just didn't remember from where.

Doesn't matter.

Your articles are good. I've enjoyed them no matter where I've seen them.

Blessings.