Socialism

“a billion people have escaped extreme poverty since 1990, owing to the embrace of free markets. It’s no coincidence that this dramatic decline in poverty occurred as the Soviet Union’s Marxist-Leninist experiment imploded.” - TIFWE

“The emergence of the online sharing economy calls to mind the Socratic desire to abolish ownership with the goal of ending competition and discord. But, as Aristotle reminds us, this is a corrosive vision that would exacerbate rather than mitigate conflict” - Public Discourse

“Socialism requires not only that we overcome the self-interest problem, the incentive problem, and the knowledge problem, but we’re going to give these social planners all this power and say ‘…we’re going to be benevolent.’ This never happens.” - IFWE

“True socialism also entails quite a bit more: ‘…the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole (government)’” - Stephen Rowland

“There are still arrangements like this. They’re called monasteries. Before exploring how monasteries show us how ‘socialism’ can work, let me acknowledge that I’m hesitant to present monasticism as ‘socialism.’ The voluntary profession of monasticism has nothing to do with the state seizing the means of production or the mass terror that inevitably follows in its wake.” - Acton

“How can young Americans distrust the government to take care of their interests and endorse socialism, which entrusts the government with the power to redistribute wealth, direct all economic activity, and control their access to such necessities as healthcare?

“…millions of well-meaning people think it’s a virtual synonym for compassion. But socialists themselves are constantly retreating from their own handiwork. It’s socialism until it doesn’t work, then it was never socialism in the first place.” - IFWE

“Many young Americans sympathetic to socialism mistakenly believe that capitalism is a relatively modern concept, first seriously examined in Karl Marx’s Das Kapital, published in 1867. However… private property—an essential ingredient of capitalism—has been an integral part of Western civilization since ancient Athens, which had ‘a highly developed system of private property.’” - Law & Liberty

“The pontiff said he hopes a UBI will pave the way for the full transformation of society. He called for a ‘humanist and ecological conversion that puts an end to the idolatry of money and places human life and dignity at the center.’” - Acton

“Sanders’ preference for government programs over private philanthropy echoes that of ancient pagan rulers. Sanders, a democratic socialist, has said that private charity should not exist, because it usurps the authority of the government.” - Acton