Pure socialism, which we can define as a system in which there are no economic difference between non-Party members, is really the same as feudalism, in that an unelected aristocracy uses its power to bestow favors on those it likes, and to withhold them from those it does not like. If you want to start a business in China or Vietnam, you better know somebody, or do a lot of palm-greasing.
This is, of course, a regression to another age, that of kings. You have no rights. From where you are sitting, if you aren’t part of the system, they may as well be Gods. They just invoke History, rather than the much more tangible presence of God.
I was thinking about it, though: what would be more fair, bestowing favors arbitrarily, or by chance? It is argued that having bad luck in Capitalism is unacceptable, that you have to have a “safety net”, which in reality consists in a pair of handcuffs and a jail cell you are locked in for your own “safety”.
But is a system better in which, say, black people can’t even be considered for some positions, say Party membership? Or white people? Or Muslim Uighurs?
Would it not be more just to offer up Party membership–and all the opportunities for corruption that go with it–on a lottery basis?
When you analyze, really analyze Leftism, it is a species of lunacy. Literal insanity, in the sense of a complete separation of idea from reality, truth from falsehood. If we define schizophrenia as what it is, a complete separation from the capacity for rational analysis, then Communists are schizophrenic. And this includes large swathes of our academic world, and other thought leaders.
Really: how is it possible to be so stupid? My thought is that it results from a crisis of identity that attends metaphysical pessimism, which itself is a result of failing to understand reality.
It’s a mystery, but it’s also the problem of all right-thinking people to do what we can to keep these nuts away from our children, and away from our political and economic lives.