Beta

Password Reset Confirmation

If an account matching the email you entered was found, you will receive an email with a link to reset your password.

Welcome to our Beta

The Advocates of Self-Government is preparing a new experience for our users.

User Not Found

The username/email and password combination you entered was not found. Please try again or contact support.

Skip to main content

Quizzes & Apps

Articles

Tag: democratic socialism

AOC Fans Reject ‘Democratic Socialist’ Label, Keep the Policies

A Siena College poll found that while the majority of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s constituents approve of her politics, they don’t identify as democratic socialists. If anything, this proves that, like their favorite congresswoman, they might not be completely sure of what the term means, despite supporting policies that would essentially put much of our economy in the hands of the state and give bureaucrats even greater powers over people’s private property. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Siena College found that 57% do not agree with Cortez on her opposition to Amazon settling in Queens. And at least 58% said they support Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s efforts to get Amazon to reconsider. Still, 52%  of voters in New York’s 14th congressional district say they approve the freshman congresswoman, making her New York’s most liked politician. But despite their love for the young lawmaker, 70% of voters do not call themselves democratic socialists, a term Cortez often uses to label her politics. Still, 60% support Cortez’s plan to increase taxes on anyone making more than $10 million and about 75% agree that college tuition at public colleges should be “free.” In other words, they support the idea of further property confiscation in order to fund higher education. In addition, three-quarters also want to ban so-called assault weapons, implement Medicare-for-all, and institute a federal jobs guarantee, a policy that would turn having a job into a government-protected right. If implemented, the policy would work on the premise that everyone is entitled to a “good job,” and that bureaucrats are tasked with making sure jobs are are “fitted to people, not the other way around,” as this HuffPost writer puts it. Making long story short, a federal jobs guarantee would be an assault against employers and their property rights, as this policy would strip them of their right to pick employees based on their skills and on whether they are a right fit for their business. It would also hurt employees, as they would not be free to enter a voluntary contract with an employer. Needless to say, Cortez is a vocal supporter of this plan.

Democratic Socialism Is Socialism

Communists and democratic socialists all want the same thing: to create heaven on earth by abolishing private property. But unlike communists, who believe in a revolutionary and immediate change, democratic socialists want to implement gradual reforms. In the end, the goal is the same. And the changes, whether implemented by force through revolution or gradually by a democratically elected congress, all have the same consequences. As soon as the pricing system is severed in a democratic socialist society and entrepreneurs no longer have any incentives to compete in whatever is left of the market, the economy collapses. When that happens, the powers that be take over. In order to keep the order, as starving individuals will end up rebelling against their rulers, central planners will unleash the military against them, forcing citizens to follow their orders or face the wrath of the state. Until then, however, democratic socialists will swear that both material abundance and equality can exist in a socialist society. And that tyranny is what exists when capitalism reigns supreme. As professor Anthony P. Mueller explains, socialism proves that society cannot be centrally planned, much less turned into heaven on earth. In the end, all socialists manage to achieve is the very opposite. Cortez’s supporters may not call themselves democratic socialists, but the policies they defend all lead to the same end result — whether they like it or not.
Bernie Sanders socialism

Swedish Ex-Prime Minister Rebukes Bernie: Socialism Only Destroys

Socialism never stopped enticing young American minds. But the more Democratic Socialists such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez open their mouths, we learn the movement’s most vocal proponents simply ignore socialism’s incompatibility with democracy, as demonstrated by Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises in A Critique of Interventionism. Sen. Bernie Sanders is one of them. With the Vermont senator announcing he’s running for president, his past comments defending socialism and socialist countries notorious for their failures become the type of material critics are eager to dissect. Especially because he still calls himself a Democratic Socialist while using Nordic countries as examples of what he defends. Thankfully, political figures from the very countries the good senator from Vermont calls “socialist” are here to remind him that the ideology is nothing but a trap. Bernie Sanders socialism Prime Minister of Sweden from 1991 to 1994, Carl Bildt, took to Twitter to warn Sanders that socialism is not the key to creating a great society as he and Ocasio-Cortez seem to think. After old footage showing Sanders and his wife, Jane, praising the Soviet Union for its programs targeting the youth went viral online, Bildt responded by saying “Sanders was lucky to be able to get to the Soviet Union in 1988 and praise all its stunning socialist achievements before the entire system and empire collapsed under the weight of its own spectacular failures.” To the former prime minister, the damage socialism can cause is still fresh in his memory. After all, he was the first prime minister in 60 years to not subscribe to the ideology. And thanks to him, Sweden’s capital gains taxes were cut to 30 percent and corporate taxes to 28 percent. Bildt also privatized several state-owned industries, deregulated multiple sectors of the economy, allowed people to invest portions of their pension, and introduced school choice policies, improving the country’s education system. After Bildt, Sweden, which had completely lost its host of entrepreneurs thanks to business taxes that sometimes exceeded the 100 percent mark, once again flourished. Even as Social Democrat successor Ingvar Carlsson took over. Seeing the wonderful changes just a few years worth of reform had done, Carlsson kept Bildt’s policies in place. And business start-ups rose nearly 25 percent as a result. Unfortunately, politicians like Sanders like to use countries like Sweden as examples of how socialism can work. The same politician who, in the late 1980s, praised breadlines and celebrated the Soviet Union for forcing its youth to dedicate their whole lives to communism, now tells Americans that the so-called “Nordic model” of socialism can and will work in America. And yet, he seems clueless to the fact that the policies he pushes don’t mirror those adopted by the countries he celebrates. As explained by Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen in 2015, countries like his Denmark “[are] far from [socialist planned economies].” “Denmark is a market economy,” he added. And as demonstrated by Mises in Economic Policy: Thoughts for Today and Tomorrow, there’s “no western, capitalistic country in which the conditions of the masses have not improved in an unprecedented way.” In other words, to claim the successes of Nordic countries are due to socialism is nothing but a lie. As the Acton Institute pointed out, Sanders’ ideology, the same ideology upheld by Ocasio-Cortez and countless others who are now legislating in Washington, D.C., is about putting statism before freedom. In order to apply the policies they push, we would have to relinquish complete control over our lives, allowing the state to squelch artistic expression, private initiative, and destroy any incentive left compelling people to serve each other better and more efficiently. Is that the world we want to live in?