by Rand Paul
The socialists argue that they’ll leave just enough merit pay to incentivize the entrepreneurs. No harm, no foul. Perhaps, but I’m guessing that no one really knows how much incentive must remain to encourage the great breakthroughs of history. Shouldn’t we at least worry that if enough “income inequality” is destroyed, perhaps the next Steve Jobs chooses to devote his time to surfing instead of entrepreneurship?
Selwyn Duke paints a scenario where, absent sufficient financial incentives, someone like Bill Gates never creates Microsoft: “[N]ot only would the 118,000 Microsoft jobs not have been created, but we wouldn’t enjoy the more significant ancillary benefits: Countless millions of people use the company’s products to help realize countless billions in increased productivity.”16
Part II
Capitalism Makes Scandinavia Great
Chapter 9
Bernie’s Socialism Also Includes Praise for Dictators
Bernie, for all his sincerity, also shows an abundance of misplaced admiration for states that ultimately no one supported, not even hardened socialists. Once upon a time, Bernie even had good things to say about Cuban, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan socialism, until their failures became too glaring to overlook.
In 1985, Bernie praised Castro: “Everybody was totally convinced that Castro was the worst guy in the world . . . all the Cuban people were going to rise up in rebellion against Fidel Castro. They forgot that he educated their kids, gave them healthcare, totally transformed the society.”1
Bernie famously honeymooned in Moscow under Soviet communism and had many good things to say about a host of communist regimes, from Nicaragua to El Salvador to Cuba.2
When Nicaraguan socialist Daniel Ortega came to the United States, he made sure to have time for a seventy-five-minute one-on-one visit with the mayor of Burlington, Vermont, Bernie Sanders.
David Unsworth reports that “so close was the relationship with Nicaragua that Sanders enthusiastically accepted an invitation by Daniel Ortega’s Sandinista government in July 1985. The visit was financed by the Nicaraguan government, except the airfare, which Sanders paid for.”3
Even Bernie’s rhetoric once sounded like a good Marxist. Decades ago, Bernie was quoted as saying “the basic truth of politics is primarily class struggle” and that “democracy means public ownership of the major means of production.” It doesn’t get much more orthodox Marx than that.
When the Sandinistas used violence to come to power in Nicaragua, Bernie was their most prominent American supporter. Michael Moynihan at the Daily Beast quotes a Sanders biographer as saying Sanders “probably has done more than any other elected politician in the country to actively support the Sandinistas and their revolution.”4
Sanders himself describes with pride his visit to Nicaragua shortly after Ortega seized power, saying, “[B]elieve it or not, [I was] the highest ranking American official” at an event feting the Sandinista takeover.
Moynihan describes how Sanders, in 1985, “traveled to New York City to meet with Ortega just weeks after Nicaragua imposed a ‘state of emergency’ that resulted in mass arrests of regime critics and the shuttering of opposition newspapers and magazines.” Sanders tried to deflect when asked if he supported Ortega’s censorship. But, according to Moynihan, Sanders did finally acknowledge that “the Sandinistas’ brutal crackdown ‘makes sense to me.’”5
In 1988, Ortega was asked about his government’s economic policy. “Apparently it is not yet understood that we Sandinistas are socialist, that Nicaragua has been socialist since July 19, 1979.” When Ortega was asked about censoring the press, he responded: “They are more concerned when we temporarily close the newspaper La Prensa or Radio Catolica, or that we imprison those who break the law. This matters more to them than the life of a Nicaraguan child.”6
To justify his support for Ortega’s closing down opposition newspapers, Sanders responded: “If we look at our own history, I would ask American citizens to go back to World War II. Does anyone seriously think that President Roosevelt or the United States government [would have] allowed the American Nazi Party the right to demonstrate, or to get on radio and to say this is the way you should go about killing American citizens?”7 Actually, what makes America unique is that our belief in freedom of speech is so strong that we tolerate even disturbing and hateful speech.
Now, to give Bernie his due, the Sandinistas got rid of Somoza, a U.S.-supported dictator. Like Castro, who overthrew Batista, another U.S.-supported dictator. Like the Ayatollah Khomeini, who overthrew the last shah of Iran, another U.S.-supported dictator. I get it. I sympathize with any nation that wants to throw off the yoke of any superpower arrogant enough to invoke its pleasure on a subjugated people. But time and time again, the revolutionaries end up just as bad as the folks they conspired to overthrow.
I sympathize to a degree with Bernie supporting self-determination for Nicaragua, but I can’t abide a willful ignorance of the people’s republic of socialism that the peasants installed. I lose my patience when Bernie insists on supporting the calamity and dysfunction of socialism.
Perhaps the most entertaining Bernie-ism that Moynihan uncovered was Bernie’s response when asked about food lines in Ortega’s Nicaragua: “Sanders claimed that bread lines were a sign of a healthy economy, suggesting an equitable distribution of wealth: ‘It’s funny, sometimes American journalists talk about how bad a country is, that people are lining up for food. That is a good thing! In other countries people don’t line up for food: the rich get the food and the poor starve to death.’”8 Wonder if Bernie has stood in any food lines in Venezuela lately?
His statement is false to the point of absurdity. In the United States, with all of our income inequality, the poorest segment of our population is the most overweight. Ironically our problem is too much inexpensive food. The left, of course, has an answer for that—if only poor people had more access to fresh fruits and vegetables, we could lower our obesity rates, they say. Federal and state government programs, championed by Michelle Obama, were instituted to remedy “food deserts” so people could make better choices. Seven years and hundreds of millions of dollars later, the USDA’s report in its publication Amber Waves acknowledged the fact that being closer to grocery stores “has a limited impact on food choices” and “households and neighborhood resources, education and taste preferences may be more important determinants of food choice than store proximity.” In other words, the veggies are rotting on the shelves, but the Coke and Doritos are still flying out the door.9
But back to Bernie. It wasn’t just the Sandinistas in Nicaragua that drew Sanders’s support. Moynihan reports that “in 1989 Sanders traveled to Cuba on a trip organized by the Center for Cuban Studies, a pro-Castro group based in New York, hoping to come away with a ‘balanced’ picture of the communist dictatorship. The late, legendary Vermont journalist Peter Freyne sighed that Sanders ‘came back singing the praises of Fidel Castro.’”10
In 1985, Sanders complimented Castro because he “provided their children education, gave them health care, and totally transformed their society.”11
Socialism, however, didn’t work out for the Cubans or the Nicaraguans. By the late 1980s, Nicaragua’s GDP per capita declined to nearly one-third its 1977 level. Even today nearly a third of Nicaraguans live in extreme poverty.12
Moynihan reports that Sanders told the Burlington Free Press:
“I think there is tremendous ignorance in this country as to what is going on in Cuba.” [. . .] It’s a country with “deficiencies,” he acknowledged, but one that has made “enormous progress” in “improving the lives of poor people and working people.” When he returned to Burlington, Sanders excitedly reported that Cuba had “solved some very important problems” like hunger and homelessness. “I did not see a hungry child. I did not see any homeless people,” he told the Free Press. “Cuba today not only has free healthcare but very high quality healthcare.”13
I know many Cuban Americans who have seen the horrors of
Cuban socialism firsthand and they find Bernie’s words utterly repugnant. One of them, who did not want to be named for fear of repercussions to family members remaining in Cuba, becomes emotional when talking about today’s socialists and their misplaced admiration for Castro.
When I hear of Bernie Sanders praising Castro, or see young people admiring Che Guevara, it makes me so angry. I think, how can you admire these criminals who killed thousands of people? People today are so uninformed about the horrors of socialism. I woke up one morning and the beautiful country I had known and loved was gone. The government had taken over all of the American and Cuban companies. Farmers were given twenty-four hours to leave their land.
You have to be Cuban to know the truth. My family members still live in Cuba today and without the dollars I send they would not have enough to eat. Every week the Cuban people are given a ration book that tells them how much food and what type of food they can get. The ration coupons usually run out by Wednesday. There is no meat or fish available right now, only chicken. With dollars you can buy just about anything, but with Cuban money there is very little available.
You might get a “free” education, but you have to study what the government tells you to study. And even then there is no money to be made. Doctors make between $25 and $50 a month. There are many professionals who drive taxis in Cuba because they are tipped more in dollars from tourists than they can make at their professional job. The last time I visited Cuba our taxi driver was educated as a mechanical engineer.
The Cubans who do not have relatives that send dollars have a terrible time. And free health care? That is a joke! I know people in Cuba who have died from conditions that are completely treatable here in the United States. There is very little medicine available to the Cuban people so I send my family their prescription medications, even simple things like Band-Aids.
The idea that there is equality in Cuba is a lie—the people struggle for their basic needs while the government officials and those in the armed services live like kings! No ration books for them!
The infrastructure is crumbling and the streets are filled with potholes—except in the tourist areas. The government makes sure to present an attractive face to the rest of the world, but the regular neighborhoods are in terrible shape.
On every block, there is a house with people who spy and report back to the government—they know who visits you, how much money you have, everything. The government controls everything and there is no freedom of speech or opinion. The Cuban people don’t know what is going on in Venezuela. They know only what the government wants them to know. Even the laws change from day to day, and something you can do today you might not be able to do tomorrow.
Chapter 10
Today’s American Socialists Don’t Know What Socialism Means
Rashida Tlaib won an upset Democrat primary in Michigan and then won in November 2018 to become one of the first two Muslim women to serve in Congress. Tlaib gained instant notoriety with her foul-mouthed call to impeach Trump: “We need to impeach the mother-f***er.” So much for civility on the left. I’m sure CNN, though, likely blames Trump for Tlaib’s profanity.
The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) endorsed Tlaib, but how does Tlaib define her ideology? Tlaib explains: “I’m a member of a lot of organizations; for me I’ve always pushed back on these socialist labels.” Doesn’t sound very definitive, does it?1
She continues: “Socialism, to me, means ensuring that our government policy puts human needs before corporate greed and that we build communities where everyone has a chance to thrive.” Specific policy items include “a living wage for all people, abolishing ICE and securing universal health care.” Sounds not too dissimilar to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.2
Congress’s newest and youngest socialist, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, tweeted her regret that “the restaurant I used to work at is closing its doors. I swung by today to say hi one last time, and kid around with friends like old times.”
The restaurant in question, the Coffee Shop in Union Square, is where the women of Sex and the City frequently met. After twenty-eight years in business, owner Charles Milite announced that he was closing because “rents are very high and now the minimum wage is going up.”
What AOC failed to acknowledge to her followers is that her 150 former coworkers didn’t lose their jobs because of a failure in capitalism, but because of excessive government intervention.
An increased minimum wage is a big part of the democratic socialists’ platform. The most discussed component of their platform is not promoting state ownership of the means of production, but rather a fifteen-dollars-per-hour minimum wage. Kshama Sawant, a democratic socialist, won a seat on the Seattle City Council with a fifteen-dollars-per-hour minimum wage as a main campaign theme.3
According to Fox News reporter Lukas Mikelionis, “Seattle is a troubling case, as research from the University of Washington’s School of Public Policy and Governance found that the higher minimum wage led to significant job declines and actually left the poorest worst off in the city, the Washington Post reported.”4
No wonder that despite Bernie’s love for Scandinavian “socialism,” Nordic countries generally don’t have state-enforced minimum wages.
Not only are the Scandinavian countries largely free of consumer price controls, but they also largely lack governmental control of minimum wages. Those on America’s left who clamor for fifteen-dollars-an-hour federal minimum wage laws might be somewhat embarrassed to discover that Scandinavian “socialism” has no minimum wage and yet workers seem to thrive.5
Scandinavian countries typically do have sky-high individual income tax rates on the middle class, but their corporate taxes have long been lower than American rates. Yet today’s American socialists, who are enamored with Scandinavian “socialism,” clamor for punitive taxes on “greedy” corporations.
Sawant, the Seattle City Council socialist, fought for a $48 million special tax on large corporations, which was apparently too much even for Jeff Bezos’s Amazon to swallow and was ultimately rejected.
So, which is it? Is “socialism” a cry for hiking taxes on corporations or for emulating Scandinavia with its low taxation on corporations?6
Geoff Dembicki, at Vice, points out the disconnect between self-described socialists and historical socialism: “though ‘socialism’ is gaining in popularity, nobody can seem to agree on what it means.”7
If you ask the new democratic socialists directly about socialism, you get gelatinous words intended to soothe and not scare unwitting youths. So, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) claim they “do not want to create an all-powerful government bureaucracy” . . . but they do “believe that the workers and consumers who are affected by economic institutions should own and control them.”
Interesting. So, they seem to intuit big government’s history of disastrous economic results, but they still want “worker ownership” of industry through cooperatives while also favoring “as much decentralization as possible.” They do admit that some big industries like steel and the utilities may have to be owned and run by the central government but “that the whole economy should [not] be centrally planned.” Of course, “major social investments like mass transit, housing, and energy” will need government planning. So, in other words, the new socialists are both for and against government owning the means of production. And to be clear, the new socialists are also both for and against central planning.8
Democratic Socialists of America weren’t even a footnote in elections until Bernie came along. The DSA organized in 1982 and their membership was constant at a few thousand until recently, when membership jumped to over fifty thousand. Are they just excited progressives? Progressives, yes, but progressives on steroids. DSA’s national director, Maria Svart, explains that the socialists she represents don’t “see capitalism as compatible with freedom or justice or democracy.”9
What separates these new socialists from traditional prog
ressives is, according to Dembicki, that “they are less compromising, their rhetoric is more stark, and their demands are often more sweeping.”10
Central to these young socialists is a generalized criticism of capitalism as an economic system or a culture. In socialist fashion, they do ultimately want to get rid of private ownership of corporations, but they seem happy, initially, to band together for a national minimum wage and other common progressive policies such as rejecting corporate donations. Refusing corporate donations or superPAC money is quickly becoming the new litmus test not just for uncloseted, proud socialists but also for progressives in general.
Income inequality and fairness are never far from the surface, though. Some analysts, like Dembicki, see the roots of these new socialists in the historical socialism of Eugene Debs. Debs received 6 percent of the vote in 1912, the high-water mark for socialists in American elections. Some DSA members point to the Occupy Wall Street movement as a recent momentum builder, but the new socialists are almost entirely an outgrowth of Bernie’s presidential campaign.11
Ever since Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s upset victory over Democrat leader Joe Crowley, conservatives have been pointing out her inconsistencies. But in our postmodern world facts are not what they used to be. Historical definitions or examples of socialism are immaterial to this new generation. To them it seems to be enough to stand up and proclaim, “I am a socialist!” And if asked to define its meaning, you will get some drivel about “I’m for fairness.”