The Hidden Dangers of Social Engineering

“Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.”  George Orwell

One of the central purposes of this blog is to expose the progressive machine for what it really is:  Statism.  Socialism and Statism are two distinct political philosophies – Socialism is a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.¹ 

Statism on the other hand is defined as ‘the principle or policy of concentrating extensive economic, political, and related controls in the state at the cost of individual liberty’.²  This definition leads us to the conclusion that all progressives are statists.  Furthermore, all statist policies and programs are funded by legal plunder, as the following example by Leonard Read demonstrates in his essay ‘Accent on the Right’:

Consider the following statement: Government has a positive responsibility in any just society to see to it that each and every one of its citizens acquires all the skills and the opportunities necessary to practice and appreciate the arts to the limit of his natural ability.  Enjoyment of the arts and participation in them are among man's natural rights and essential to his full development as a civilized person.  One of the reasons governments are instituted among men is to make this right a reality.

Read goes on to state that:

It is significant that the author uses the term “its citizens”, the antecedent of "its" being government.  Such a conception is basic to the collectivist philosophy:  We - you and I - belong to the state.  We are "its" wards!  Of course, if one accepts this statist premise, the above position is sensible enough: it has to do with a detail in the state's paternalistic concern for its charges.

In the proposal noted above, the social services advocate appears to be making an enlightened proposition.  The thoughtless citizen would accept the proposal without hesitation – after all, ‘enjoyment of the arts and participation in them are among man’s natural rights’.  Forgetting for the moment the question of who decides what constitutes a ‘natural right’, what’s not to like about the proposal?  Read dissects the proposal, laying bare the flagitious nature of our friendly social advocate’s proposition:

The writer of the above statement does not imply, at least to anyone who cannot read below the surface, any prohibitions.  He dwells only on what he would have the state do for the people.  Where, then, are the prohibitions?  The program he favors would cost X hundred million dollars annually.  From where come these millions?  The state has nothing except that which it takes from the people.  Therefore, this man favors that we be prohibited from using the fruits of our own labor as we choose in order that these fruits be expended as the state chooses.  And take note of the fact that this and all other socialist-designed prohibitions have police force as the method of persuasion.

One phase of socialism is the state ownership and/or control of the results of production.  Our incomes are the results of production.  That portion of our incomes is socialized which the state turns to its use by its prohibition of our use.  It follows, then, that a person would impose prohibitions on the rest of us to the extent that he supports governmental projects which would socialize our income.³

Although the American economic system is still a far cry from socialism, many of the supporters of progressivism are clamoring for just such a thing.  Socialism is completely incompatible with the U.S. Constitution which presumes free markets, individual responsibility, and the right to pursue happiness without oppressive government intervention – i.e., the complete opposite of Statism.  As a consequence, progressives must take incremental approaches to achieving their goals.  Read identifies one such approach in the quote above: the socialization of our incomes.

Using the ‘iron fist’ of the State to enforce the social engineering schemes of the progressives is inherently dangerous to our liberties and is a mortal danger to our Republic.  Although the social engineer has, for now, settled for the occasional legislative gain, liberty and constitutional minded Americans are rightfully fearful of the ‘transformation of America’ currently underway.

My fear is that a day will come, perhaps sooner than any of us might imagine, that the economic situation in the country degenerates to such a degree that a Constitutional Convention will be promoted as a ‘fix’ for our economic problems.  Such a Con-Con would almost certainly be dominated by Statists - our U.S. Constitution would be abandoned, we would all become wards of the State, and our nation, the last bastion of liberty in this world, will cease to exist.

¹www.dictionary.com

²Ibid

³Leonard Read, ‘Accent on the Right,’ Foundation for Economic Education, 1968.