One more attack of ignorance and misinformation on Social Democracy

While responding to one of my relatives' circulation of this article that attempts an almost caricatured oversimplification of  socialism and apparently went viral on Facebook, I recommended him to read this well-thought out and reasoned response from another erudite and active blogger Sujai.

My own response was to term that article to be a very poor example and a total misrepresentation of what socialism is and how it works. It is very unfortunate that silly and unreal instances of how things really work in life are demonstrated as practical models and serves as propoganda for foul-mouthing socialistic patterns that are an integral part of the working of society, economics and politics.

I would recommend both the proponents and critics alike of socialist ideas to go thru Sujai's response to this wrong-headed spoof and attack on social democracy:




 Sujai outlines from that article the following major maxims of  the right-wing diatribe against socialism:

1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. 
2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. 
3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. 
4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it! 
5.  When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

Sujai responds emphatically that, there is something grossly wrong with the way that story of the class professor, distorts the reality as we live it.  And there is something dangerously wrong when people seem to get a message out of it.

He then carries on with illuminating these salient features of a progressive social democratic system and how it works in the real world:

• Welfare state is an essential character of a modern nation along with other institutions like democracy, adult franchise, rule of law, independent judiciary and legislature from the executive, the principle of checks and balances, equality of men and women, and secularism.  Each of these institutions and principles has come about after nearly thousand years of human struggles spread over many countries and continents, prominent being the countries in Europe.  
• Most European nations are socialist democracies.  Many of their amenities are provided for by the government at a subsidized rate or for free.  For example, health care or education system in Europe allows for everyone living in those lands to get best health cares or to attend best schools without having to pay much.  Welfare states take care of sick, the old and the unemployed.  They also take care of groups which are considered backward.  Welfare states also take care of crises situations, like responding to earthquakes, famines and floods by allocating more funds or resources.  
• Affirmative action in America is designed to compensate for social and economic handicaps caused by historical wrongs.   Subsidies to farmers and protection of local jobs or local car makers were taken up by the most capitalist nations at critical junctures to help their nations and people.  Though we generally agree that we are progressing towards a global and open competitive world, we realize that even the most capitalist of the countries protect some of their interests from being bought in an open market.
• There has never been completely capitalist society on the planet nor can there be.  That’s because humans, though evolved as animals through the process of natural selection, do not actually practice it in their policies and principles.  That’s what the modern nation is all about.  Not allowing a weak baby to die but instead put her in an incubator, not allowing an ailing person to die but instead give him the medical treatment, not allowing a fellow man die in the cold in the name of ‘survival of the fittest’, or not keeping races for poor people so that only the winner gets the food, are what humans do.  
• Not succumbing to the natural pressures of the nature which forces natural selection on all animals and plants is what makes humans humane.   Our hearts rend looking at a picture of crying and malnourished kid in Africa and it makes us contribute some of our earnings to help that kid though we are not connected to that kid through blood or relation.   As human societies, we believe that there are certain amenities which are considered basic, so basic that all humans should avail it without having to lose out because of lack of money. Those amenities include education, nutrition, shelter, sanitation, medical treatment, and opportunity to work and live a decent life.   

 
As you read the the response, if you keep an open and critical mind, one will notice many fallacies involved in supposing that a totally natural, purely incentive based and almost unregulated system of economics can be made to work in the world.

If we did not have government, institutional controls and affirmative action, we will be at the mercy of the philanthropy of the rich and narrow religion.

We must learn to distinguish between fantasies and practical/pragmatic methods of social and political organization.


There is no way of knowing if a person really deserves what he has. The disparity between the rich, middle class and the poor is very wide. Some inequality is inevitable, but how much of that inequality is tolerable is again is very difficult question.


Socialism is of more recent origins than Capitalism or pre-capitalism (monarchy, feudalism, aristocracy, tribalism). 

So before the advent of socialism, most parts of the world was much more exploitative, unequal and less compassionate towards the poor and the middle class than it is now. 

Therefore it is very odd that people leap at any chance they get to berate socialism, This is the power of misinformation and propaganda, which most of us mistake for information and knowledge.

Radical and reformist thinking and ideals cannot accept widespread and demeaning poverty levels as a given and will always struggle against established systems (which develop and propagate their own versions of orthodoxy). Also the socialism that is evolving in our times is not very radical, if you consider that the spirit of humanism will always  find it very difficult to reconcile itself with the reality of so much social and economic disparity when differences in capability and potential among humans are very marginal.

Genetic science is showing that most human beings do not have wide-ranging differences in their make-up, skills and abilities. This gives a lie to the theory that exceptionally rich possess very unusual or extraordinary talents that can account for their disproportionate share of wealth of the society and/or nation.

The ultra rich are more probably much better opportunists and more adept at exploiting inherent inefficiencies and gaps in the system of political and economic organization.

 
And Marx-bashing  is de riguer of almost any condemnation of socialism. But my relative went one up on that by citing Mark's ignorance of Vedanta and the 'Law of Karma'. The Hindu nationalist has to see the reflection or influence of Vedanta and his pet religious superstitions in every issue 

I was obliged to respond that the legacy and genius of Karl Marx, towers far above the petty and foolish speculations of Vedanta and religiously imposed and propagated superstition of the "Law of Karma"

Also it is unfair to blame Karl Marx for the abuses and atrocities committed by Stalin and his successors, who were neither socialists or Marxists. It takes a lot of effort to read and understand Marx. But it is worth it and more

Criticizing a thinker without even knowing the gist or essence of this thinking, is easy but unhealthy. But to reflect upon and understand issues of social and economic philosophy is a totally different matter