Socialism

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Introduction to Notes on Socialism

January 10, 2010 in Socialism by Greg | 6 comments

Part 1 of 11 in the series Notes on Socialism

The following is an introduction to the series of notes on socialism. Its companion series is Socialism vs Capitalism and if possible, should be read together to get an understanding of these two competing political economic theories.

This series began as an investigation into the roots of modern socialism. Many trace its “origins in the French Revolution of 1789 and the changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution.”¹ In fact, the term “socialism” is often “attributed to Pierre Leroux in 1834, who called socialism ‘the doctrine which would not give up any of the principles of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity of the French Revolution of 1789.’”²

The Law of Consecration and Socialism Compared

From a religious perspective, socialism is of interest to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because it bears some similarities with various attempts by the Church to implement the “law of consecration”. For example,

The Lord revealed several purposes for the law of consecration: to bring the Church to stand independent of all other institutions (D&C 78:14); to strengthen Zion, adorning her in beautiful garments, as a bride prepared and worthy of the bridegroom (D&C 33:17; 58:11; 65:3; 82:14, 18; etc.); and to prepare the Saints for a place in the Celestial Kingdom (D&C 78:7).

Commenting on this subject, President John Taylor stated that consecration is a celestial law and, when observed, its adherents become a celestial people (JD 17:177-81). Thus, men and women today can become like as those of Enoch’s day, “of one heart and one mind,…with no poor among them” (Moses 7:18). Orson Pratt, an early apostle, observed that if the Lord’s people aspire to the Celestial Kingdom, they must begin to learn the order of life that is there (JD 2:102-103).³

Since Zion designates both a place of gathering⁴ and an ideal society where “the pure in heart” live in harmony⁵, it bears many resemblances to utopian societies – real and imagined – of the past.⁶

Continuing, John A. Widtsoe, an apostle, explained how the law of consecration was implemented in the early Church:

Introduction to Notes on Socialism »»

“History of Socialism”. Wikipedia. 9 Jan 2009.↩
“Socialism”. Wikipedia. 9 Jan 2009.↩
Hirschi, Frank W. “Law of Consecration”. 1992. Encyclopedia of Mormonism. 9 Jan 2009.↩
See the post the Redemption of Zion.↩
Sorensen, A. Don. “Zion”. 1992. Encyclopedia of Mormonism. 9 Jan 2009.↩
Nibley, Hugh W. “The Utopians.” Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. 9 Jan 2009.↩

First Presidency Letter to U.S. Treasury in 1941

November 20, 2009 in Socialism by Greg | 13 comments

Tonight I came across Connor Boyack’s post that contains the full text of a First Presidency letter to the United States Treasury in 1941. This is one of those rare posts which deserve to be read top to bottom, given its length. Here is how it begins:

For several years I have been citing a quote in various posts, emails, discussions, and other settings, allegedly from the First Presidency in 1941. This quote is both potent and largely unprecedented, and its implications are especially interesting.

The quote is as follows:

The Church as a Church does not believe in war and yet since its organization whenever war has come we have done our part … we do thoroughly believe in building up our home defenses to the maximum extent necessary, but we do not believe that aggression should be carried on in the name and under the false cloak of defense. We therefore look with sorrowing eyes at the present use to which a great part of the funds being raised by taxes and by borrowing is being put … We believe that our real threat comes from within and not from without, and it comes from the underlying spirit common to Naziism, Fascism, and Communism, namely, the spirit which would array class against class, which would set up a socialistic state of some sort, which would rob the people of the liberties which we possess under the Constitution, and would set up such a reign of terror as exists now in many parts of Europe. . . .¹

A must read if you have the time.

Sources:

“A Letter to the Treasury from the LDS First Presidency in 1941”. 16 Nov 2009. Connor’s Conundrums. 19 Nov 2009.↩

American Welfare State

November 14, 2009 in Socialism by Greg | 28 comments

A couple weeks ago, I came across an article written about the effects of the American welfare state.¹ Its provocative title immediately caught my attention since it seemed related to previous posts.²

The article is a review of Edgar K. Browning’s Stealing from Each Other: How the Welfare State Robs Americans of Money and Spirit. Mr. Browning is a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute and Professor of Economics at Texas A&M University. His analysis of the welfare state is based on the economic concept of opportunity cost. First developed by John Stuart Mill, the economic opportunity cost is the value of the next best alternative foregone as the result of making a decision. Accordingly,

What do we give up by the choice to have the federal government engage in widespread income redistribution?

Browning’s answer is: a great deal of output. He estimates that U.S. GDP would be at least 25 percent larger if it weren’t for the host of programs and taxes constituting the welfare system. He regards it as a bad tradeoff and makes a powerful case for abolishing federal income transfers and adopting a “just say no” policy toward any suggestions for more of them in the future. (Browning is fine with states’ running whatever welfare programs they want; he respects the Constitution’s federalist plan.) “A non-redistributive federal government,” he writes, “would permit more of the productive potential of the American people to be realized.”

Based on this premise, the welfare system causes the economy to lose output in a number of socially destructive ways. Some of these include:

American Welfare State »»

Leef, George C. “Robbery and the Welfare State”. 28 Oct 2009. The Future of Freedom Foundation. 14 Nov 2009.↩
See for example, the many similarities between Leef’s article and the themes presented in the post on the Gadianton Robbers.↩

Another New Deal

July 16, 2009 in Socialism by Greg | 3 comments

Today I read The Future of Freedom Foundation’s three part series on “The Fallacies of Another New Deal” by William L. Anderson:

A number of people, including economist (and 2008 Nobel Prize-winner) Paul Krugman of Princeton University and a columnist for the New York Times, have called for the installation of another series of government programs akin to the New Deal, a “new” New Deal. For example, William Greider, writing for The Nation, declares,

Let me be clear. The scandal is not that government is acting. The scandal is that government is not acting forcefully enough — using its ultimate emergency powers to take full control of the financial system and impose order on banks, firms and markets.

He adds,

The government, meanwhile, may have to create another emergency agency, something like the New Deal, that lends directly to the real economy — businesses, solvent banks, buyers and sellers in consumer markets. We don’t know how much damage has been done to economic growth or how long the cold spell will last, but I don’t trust the bankers in the meantime to provide investment capital and credit. If necessary, Washington has to fill that role, too.

Because “New Deal” talk is in the air, perhaps we need not only to understand the programs of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, but also to understand why the economic conditions existed that made his series of radical programs politically possible. Fear and economic chaos give politicians an opening they might not otherwise have when times are normal or even good. However, most, if not all, of the time, politicians and government policy-makers are the ones who are responsible either for the crises themselves or for creating the conditions that brought the crises into existence. The events leading up to the Great Depression were no exception, just as the current financial crises have government intervention stamped all over them.¹

This is an excellent series of articles that explain what led up to the Great Depression and why the policies of the New Deal exacerbated the situation. A good read if you are concerned about Monetary and Economic Freedom.

Sources:

Anderson, William L. “The Fallacies of Another New Deal”. 10 July 2009. The Future of Freedom Foundation. 16 July 2009.↩

We Are All Keynesians and Socialists Now

February 15, 2009 in Socialism by Greg | 20 comments

Did anyone notice two recent news magazine cover stories recently proclaim that “we all really do seem to be Keynesians now”¹ and “we are all socialists now”?² The great irony that these two stories illustrate is the idea that government intervention in the economy ala Keynesian economics is now making socialists out of United States citizens.

Why is this supremely ironic? For the simple reason that Keynesian economics has consistently been pawned as the savior of capitalism.³ In 1965 a Time magazine article proclaimed “We Are All Keynesians Now” and contained the following with a quote from Lord Keynes’ book as the lead-in:

The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. – The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

Concluding his most important book with those words in 1935, John Maynard Keynes was confident that he had laid down a philosophy that would move and change men’s affairs. Today, some 20 years after his death, his theories are a prime influence on the world’s free economies, especially on America’s, the richest and most expansionist. In Washington the men who formulate the nation’s economic policies have used Keynesian principles not only to avoid the violent cycles of prewar days but to produce a phenomenal economic growth and to achieve remarkably stable prices. In 1965 they skillfully applied Keynes’s ideas—together with a number of their own invention—to lift the nation through the fifth, and best, consecutive year of the most sizable, prolonged and widely distributed prosperity in history.⁴

Read the rest of this entry »

Grunwald, Michael. “How to Spend a Trillion Dollars”. 15 January 2009. Time. 15 February 2009.↩
Meacham, Jon and Evan Thomas. “We Are All Socialists Now”. Newsweek. 15 February 2009.↩
For example, see the many posts on this blog tagged John Maynard Keynes.↩
“We Are All Keynesians Now”. 31 December 1965. Time. 15 February 2009.↩