THE GREED OF SOCIALISM
Australian John Ray writes a fascinating blog called Dissecting Leftism. John is a professor, so his blog is an academic journal of thoughts and ideas the he pulls together to be published as academic papers. I previously linked to one of his papers that was posted on Frontpage Magazine.
Anyway, John's most recent postings are a product of our e-mail discussions. John has made entries before on his blog after having an e-mail discussion with me, and I have to admit it is flattering that some of my thought on socialism and socialists could end up in an academic paper.
My friends and family may recognize my "Socialism is Greed" argument in the second paragraph of John's first posting. I've always been amazed at the absurdity of the "Capitalism is Greed" and "Corporate Greed" accusations by the left and their media friends, when the fundamental principle of socialism is greed. Calls for "sharing the wealth," expanding the welfare state, and progressive taxes are simply demands for stealing what others have earned. It is greed, pure and simple. Using the coercive power of the state to confiscate others' property and wealth does not legitimize these gross principles and ideology; it makes it worse.
Union workers going on strike over wages is no different. Striking workers holding "Stop Corporate Greed" are really the ultimate in hypocrisy. Union workers are already getting wages above the market rate of labor. Yet when they strike, they are demanding an even larger difference between their wages and the market rate. They attack executives for high compensation, but they are demanding the same thing. They attack the "greed" of corporate profits, yet demanding higher wages is the equivolent of higher profit on their labor. So who's greedy?
When you read John's blog, note that I never would have said or written, "Is it not greed to use the coercive power of unions to receive an unfair wage, often at the expense of other less-unionized workers?" The greed of unions is at the expense of capitalists and stockholders who have taken responsibility for themselves and risked their own capital--the type of responsibility and risk that union workers refuse to take--not at the expense of other workers.
I'll be commenting on some of John's ideas regarding the left-wing infestation of mainstream churches in the very near future.
