Why are the leftists on the rise again?
It is a strange contradiction:
Bolshevik and communist terror was responsible for around 100 million deaths in the 20th century due to its fanatical ideology. Wherever communist or left-wing socialist ideas prevailed and where they were able to seize government power - mostly by force - the states concerned regularly broke up or ended in oppression and economic chaos: in Russia, in the Eastern Bloc including the GDR, in Cuba, in the Chinese Cultural Revolution, in Vietnam, in North Korea, in Cambodia, in Latin America, in Africa, in Afghanistan. Much calamity also arose from the communist international and the communist parties not in power (1).
The crimes of the NSDAP are not included in this list. Because it is often suppressed that the Nationalsocialist German Workers' Party - despite all hostility to communism -, at least until the war, represented the interests of the workers.
Venezuela is the latest example of the failure of a socialist ideology. And South Africa, once the most modern and best developed state in sub-Saharan Africa, is on its way to becoming the socialist poorhouse that neighboring Zimbabwe (Rhodesia), once the "breadbasket of Africa", has long since reached.
But the socialist ideologues are unwavering, always have new excuses ready and regularly come up with the argument that these, already failed versions of communism or socialism were just not the right ones. The correct form is then recommended by the respective proponents, i.e. leftist propagandists. Whoever should implement this variation in practice can be sure to fail with it as well.
"The problem with socialists is that they always run out of other people's money."
(Internet)
Margret Thatcher
Despite all these terrible experiences, the “left” ideologies - e. B. through the "Frankfurt School" - penetrated into television and radio stations, media, political parties, religions, schools, universities, newspaper offices worldwide, and even established, and even in the USA, which is decried as capitalist, leftist belief is on the advance. “Left” or “socialist” is misunderstood as social, which gives it good obfuscation and camouflage.
"You will not strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
(The named author of this very apt analysis is not certain).
You will not help those who have to earn a living by ruining those who pay them.
You will not create brotherhood by fomenting class hatred.
You will not help the poor by weeding out the rich.
You will surely get into trouble if you spend more than you earn.
You will not arouse interest in public affairs and enthusiasm if you deprive individuals of their initiative and freedom.
You can never help people in the long term if you do for them what they should and could do for themselves.“
Abraham Lincoln
A fundamental error
After the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989 and the subsequent collapse of the USSR, turbo capitalism saw itself as the winner worldwide. Governments loosened legal restrictions on the capital market and allowed themselves a highly questionable financial policy with debts that now exceed the worst fears of a healthy economy. The social market economy once successfully introduced by Ludwig Erhard (1897-1977) under the motto "prosperity for all" has been forgotten. (Cf. Farewell to the (social) market economy)
In the global market, national regulations can often be circumvented, the influence of ethics commissions, trade unions, philosophers, religions and other competent bodies on economic activity is minimal, and the excesses of capitalist managers rightly outrage many. It is not uncommon for this exploitative manipulation to be made possible by irresponsible legislation[1]. The current left-wing thinkers are taking advantage of this unease.
The devil cannot be cast out with Beelzebub!
The curse of property
The Socialism is a philosophically based, apparently logical, intellectual faulty construction that gave hope to people who suffered from social misery that came about through human exploitation.
Surely you know the old GDR joke:
(Internet)
“In capitalism, people are exploited by people. In socialism it is exactly the opposite. "
The Concept of ownership on the other hand - which today's propagandists like to equate with capitalism - has grown historically, indeed "pre-historically", out of practical necessity (see below). It is theoretically and philosophically less secure and therefore questionable for many intellectuals. Slogans such as "property is theft" are well received and have even been heard by a pope.[2]
This is why the communist or socialist delusion regularly leads to expropriation: Through excessive taxation, direct state theft, inflation, cuts in social benefits, over-indebtedness, currency reforms, forced labor, etc. If the economy collapses as a result, the state has to intervene to "help" again, with the help of its bureaucracy, which has not exactly stood out for its far-sighted, entrepreneurial actions. In socialist states, you usually find a number of such poverty- and hardship-inducing measures at the same time. I get the impression that socialist ideologies always end up enforcing "poverty for all".
The leap back to the Neolithic, the New Stone Age about 12,000 years ago, with equal distribution of wealth can of course not work in the differentiated society of modern times, even if it seems so beautifully philosophically justified!
Making the "rich" poor does not make the "poor" rich!
The Concept of ownership is at the very beginning of a higher civilization: hunter-gatherers as well as recent gamekeepers hardly knew our concept of property. They lived in a more or less "communist" society, where much is shared, and the personal property of the individual is limited to his clothes, jewelry and weapons. But property all the same. Shelter, a hut or a cave, had to be shared with the group. Berries, fish, fruits, insects, plants, mushrooms, game or roots belong to everyone and no one. This works for primitive societies among like people with very similar needs.
In the "Neolithic Revolution", the transition to agriculture, that had to change:
A Nomad must know his animals, can no longer share everything with everyone. Also, new competitive situations arise in the dispute over pastures and watering places.
For a Farmers ownership of buildings, tools, cultivated fields, seeds, livestock, the harvest, etc. is essential for survival. It is shared with one's own family. This property as "working capital" must be protected and defended if necessary.[3]
Then followed the Division of labor: Farmers, fishermen, traders, craftsmen, healers, shepherds, hunters, priests, shamans, etc.
This "new" agrarian society inevitably fanned out: Their respective property was distributed in increasingly complex ways over the long term. People are also no longer all very similar or the same - if they ever were. They have different skills (professions), there are unselfish and selfish, successful and unsuccessful, happy and unhappy, healthy and sick. As people become increasingly unequal, their needs also diverge and their different wishes and needs must be taken into account with understanding. Forced equalization breaks up or destroys a differentiated society. (Cf. "The Violent Man - Victim of his Development?")
In societies that were not very highly developed, the socially disadvantaged were usually picked up by their clan; but the first questions about the now much-cited "justice gap" emerged.
Religions initially provided explanations for this, more or less succeeding in ordering coexistence through religious commandments and, until modern times, reassuring the majority of people with promises of the afterlife and threats to such an extent that traditional, monarchist, dictatorial forms of rule were able to survive into the 18th century and beyond to the present day.
Enlightenment philosophy challenged much of this; but their "categorical imperative"[3] could not establish itself as an ethical basis and could not replace the religious teachings that were losing influence.
A new paradigm
The unpleasant development of modern capitalism can probably also be attributed to fiat money [5].
Is it possible, as far as money is concerned, perhaps better with gold backing or with other legally binding restrictions on the currently almost limitless "increase in money" by printing bills?
In no case can our society and our economy without a generally recognized, obligatory Ethics permanent function.
In itself this has long been known! But well-intentioned attempts by the UN to formulate the ethical foundations for a peaceful, humane, democratic, ecological world order with the “Project Global Ethic” (2) or the “Earth Charter” had to fail because of the egoism of the states and their leaders which quite a few seem to relapse to the power politics of the princes of the baroque age.
The “modern man” will hardly allow himself to be dissuaded from his greed, his ruthless exploitation of people and nature by religious commandments, the threat of eternal damnation, philosophical guidelines or appeals from the UN.
So it seems inevitable to enforce the most important requirements through laws. But that can only be a questionable partial solution. Because laws are never perfect, they reflect daily opinion, cannot take future developments into account and can be challenged, interpreted and circumvented.
The right - currently still utopian - way would be for the large majority to come to the conclusion through their own insight that a lasting, harmonious and peaceful society can only emerge in ethically justifiable ways and that each individual must actively contribute to this ethic.
The personal responsibility of each individual and each office holder for all their decisions is of the utmost importance.
No amount of hiding behind paragraphs or internal morality can release us from this personal responsibility - both earthly and spiritual!
This conviction that everyone is committed to a universal ethic and is personally responsible for all their decisions must be deeply rooted in every human being and based on the belief in a divine world order!
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Read also:
Under "Economic and Social" the contributions "Work to Survive"; „Mission statements put to the test "; "Economic Crisis and World Conspiracy", „The equity gap„.
Literature:
(1) Courtois Stephane et al. "Das Schwarzbuch des Kommunismus", Piper, Munich, 1997.
(2) "Bridges for the Future", Manifesto for the United Nations, Fischer, Frankfurt, 2001.
(3) https://philippantonmende.com/2018/09/23/der-kreuzzug-der-linken/
Endnotes:
[1] Cf.Everything was better in the past", endnote [ii], Deregulation, under "Economic and Social Affairs".
[2] Pope Francis: "Not to share one's goods with the poor is to steal from them. The goods we possess do not belong to us, but to them." (Quoted from Thilo Sarrazin "Wunschdenken", DVA, 2016, p. 430). So says the head of what is probably the richest organization in the world!
[3] In the article "The Violent Man" this development is described in more detail.
[4] "Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a common good". (Immanuel Kant, 1724-1804).
[5] Fiat money has no reference to goods (e.g. gold), but is prescribed by the state as legal tender. It is widely accepted and adopted by the state for taxes and duties
Addendum:
Quotes from the Austrian school of National Economics (https://coinfinity.co/blog/die-top-10-zitate-der-osterreichischen-schule):
1. "If socialists understood economics, they wouldn't be socialists." -
Friedrich August von Hayek
The quote comes from Friedrich August von Hayek (1899-1992), one of the most influential economists of the 20th century and winner of the Nobel Prize in 1974. It was written in the 1970s, a time of intense debate between supporters of the free market economy and advocates of socialist economic planning. Hayek argued that a system of voluntary market transactions was the most efficient form of economic organization. Price formation through supply and demand enables optimal coordination of economic activities and an efficient allocation of resources. With this quote, Hayek expresses his conviction that insight into economic relationships inevitably leads to the rejection of planned economic systems.
2. "If printing money would end poverty, printing diplomas would end stupidity." -
Javier Milei
With this analogy, Milei, who has been President of Argentina since 2023, criticizes the idea that complex economic problems can be solved by simply increasing the money supply. Simply increasing the money supply does not create real prosperity, but instead leads to a redistribution of purchasing power. Just as a diploma is worthless without the underlying education, additional money cannot bring about a sustainable improvement in living standards without corresponding value creation.
3. "People complain about inflation, but they enthusiastically support policies that can only be implemented through inflation." -
Ludwig von Mises
The quote illustrates a central contradiction: many government programs and social benefits can only be financed through additional money creation, as direct tax increases are politically more difficult to implement. With this observation, Mises, the Austrian economist (1881-1973) and one of the most influential representatives of the Austrian School, describes a recurring mechanism of democratic systems. People support these programs without thinking about the inflationary consequences. However, it is precisely this inflation that they complain about at the same time.
4. "The natural tendency of the state is inflation." -
Murray Rothbard
This short quote describes the state's systemic dependence on inflation. In today's monetary system, the state can finance its expenditure by creating money. With this analysis, Rothbard, American economist (1926-1995) and one of the most important representatives of libertarianism, hits a central point: in a system with a limited money supply such as Bitcoin, this would not be possible - the state would have to limit itself to taxes or would become insolvent as soon as it could no longer withstand competition. Inflation is therefore not a random phenomenon, but a necessary condition for the continued existence of the modern state in its current form.
5. "I don't think we'll ever have good money again until we take it out of the hands of the state." -
Friedrich August von Hayek
The quote reflects Hayek's conviction that state control of money inevitably leads to its degradation. As long as the state has a monopoly on money creation, it will misuse money for its own purposes. Hayek argued that only a decoupling of money from state influence could restore the quality of money as a store of value and means of payment. Today, this prediction is celebrated as visionary, especially in the Bitcoin community, as Bitcoin is the first monetary system to actually realize a complete absence of the state in monetary policy.
6. "The art of management consists in seeing not only the immediate but also the long-term effects of each measure; it also consists in considering the consequences of each action not only for one group but for all groups." -
Henry Hazlitt
The quote comes from Hazlitt's influential work "Economics in One Lesson" and addresses a core problem of economic policy decisions. The American economic journalist (1894-1993), who made the ideas of the Austrian School accessible to a wide audience, criticizes the tendency to only consider short-term effects or impacts on certain interest groups. This often leads to wrong decisions, as long-term negative consequences or effects on other market participants are overlooked. Hazlitt advocates a holistic economic analysis that must be comprehensive both in terms of time and the groups affected.
7. "It is not because a good has cost labor that it has value, but because it has value that labor is expended on it." -
Carl Menger
With this central quote, Menger, the Austrian economist (1840-1921) and founder of the Austrian School, turns against the classical labor theory of value. The value of a good is not created by the labor time invested, but by the demand on the market. An illustrative example: ten hours of work with a hammer on wood creates no value if the result is not in demand. This is why resources and labor are usually only invested in the production of a good if there is a corresponding demand and therefore a value.
8. "The market is not an invention of capitalism. It has existed for centuries. It is an invention of civilization." -
Ludwig von Mises
The quote shows that markets are a fundamental element of human interaction. Long before the emergence of "modern" capitalism, markets existed as a natural order of exchange between individuals. Wherever people offer and demand goods or services, a market automatically arises. This decentralized form of coordination has emerged as a fundamental feature of the development of civilization, independent of specific economic systems.
9. "A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems; it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society." -
Ludwig von Mises
The quote addresses the fundamental differences between free market systems and planned economy approaches. In free markets, prices coordinate social needs and resources in a decentralized manner. Historical examples such as the Soviet Union and the GDR show how state intervention in this price mechanism has led to misallocations and supply bottlenecks. Mises argues that only voluntary market transactions enable an efficient distribution of resources according to people's actual needs.
10. "The economy has no other purpose than the satisfaction of human needs." -
Carl Menger
The quote illustrates the basic mechanism of economic activity: the primary driving force behind all economic activity is the satisfaction of one's own needs. In a market economy, however, you can only satisfy your own needs by serving the needs of others. Every profit and every income is based on the supply of goods or services that are considered valuable by others. This link between self-interest and the interest of others is the essential mechanism of economic exchange.