One criticism is that socialists always deny that socialist governments are “true socialism.” Ironically, that’s what Robinson does. Referring to critics using Venezuela to discredit socialism, Robinson denies Venezuela is a case of “true socialism.” He dismisses North Korea being called socialist simply because it isn’t democratic (245). So does he believe North Korea is capitalist? Heh. He chides others who treat socialism as synonymous with the Soviet Union for being selective in their presentation of history. Yet he is very selective about what he considers “true socialism.” “The socialist left has a great heritage, both in the United States and everywhere else.” “To be a socialist is to take part in a tradition that is intelligent, humane and honorable” (162). An even blacker pot calls the kettle black.
While most socialists are advocates of government control of the economy, Robinson tries to “sweep it under the rug” by saying there are a few socialists who “loathe the government.” This tactic is quite ironic. He calls himself a libertarian socialist, yet several times he says the left needs more political power and better organization. He also strongly endorses Bernie Sanders, an advocate of much more government power and putting chains on private sector businesses. By the way, Bernie Sanders calls himself a Democratic Socialist, but more accurately he is a fascist. Like described here fascism permits some private ownership of the means of production, but subject to extensive controls by government: "As an economic system, fascism is socialism with a capitalist veneer." "Under fascism, the state, through official cartels, controlled all aspects of manufacturing, commerce, finance, and agriculture. Planning boards set product lines, production levels, prices, wages, working conditions, and the size of firms." State control is paramount. This captures Sanders’ proposal for health insurance. He wants to eliminate private health insurance by the U.S. federal government taking over all health insurance, like Josef Stalin took over agriculture in the Soviet Union. More recently he has advocated government takeover of electrical power producers.
Robinson’s praise of socialism is based mostly on wishful thinking inspired by moral outrage. He gives no realistic causal mechanism of how socialism will work in practice. His “theory” boils down to:
- dreaming of utopias,
- moral outrage,
- lecturing by a self-appointed moral authority,
- nobody will need to work at an unpleasant job, e.g. garbageman or roofer (my opinion), or due to a boss, or a boring job, but somehow the work will get done anyway,
- nobody will be poor regardless of whatever else they do or don’t do,
- lots of “free stuff” paid for by others, expropriated,
- who produces what, how, where, and how much of a large, ever-changing, wide variety of goods and services in a society of millions of people with dispersed, yet localized, knowledge is no concern to Robinson. It will happen just fine; no causal explanation needed.
The End
Edit (2/17):
I tried to put a book review of Why You Should Be a Socialist on Amazon and met a barrier that was new to me.
"We apologize but this account has not met the minimum eligibility requirements to write a review. If you would like to learn more about our eligibility requirements, please see our community guidelines." The guidelines say to post a review you must have spent at least $50 on Amazon.com in the past 12 months. I did spend more than $50 in the past 12 months. However, part was with a gift card, and my net spent was less than $50. 🙂
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