#Socialists Against Big Government Part II

Part I proved what should be obvious: That governments are composed of groups of people and that socialist and communist governments are groups of people who collectively and directly own or regulate the means of production. Thus, the Leftist talking point that failed socialist and communist regimes of the past and present weren’t really socialist and communist has been shown to be a lie.
In this part we will demonstrate that the practical implications of this deception are dysfunctional in the extreme because their programme can only be implemented by force of arms and governments never give up power voluntarily. 

 It can be shown via the logic of the dictionary definitions that governments are merely groups of people with the authority to govern a particular region, state or nation. And that socialist and communist governments are merely groups of people who collectively own or regulate the means of production.

One is supposed to ignore the obvious and instead pretend that a group of people collectively and directly owning or regulating the means of production is some other vague entity – but not a government. The socialists will also insist that these reality defying facts absolve them of any responsibility for the mass murder and repression of the people collectively and directly owning or regulating the means of production. And why would they try to deceive the world over something like that?

How are the Socialist’s grandiose plans for a “Worker’s Paradise” supposed to function without a government?

Instead of the aforementioned ruling entity, the whole socialist edifice is supposed to be based on ‘Worker Co-ops’ after the state has ‘Withered away’ and other vague abstractions. One would expect that this extremely important part of the Marxist programme would have been fleshed out over the many centuries of its existence. And yet this does not seem to be the case. Marxists, Socialists and Communists the world over expended barrelfuls of ink over discussions on class warfare and their disdain for economic freedom [capitalism] but precious little on this allegedly vital aspect of their base ideology.

This glaring omission on the part of the National and International socialists has not gone unnoticed by many: Chomsky's Economics

So, if the state isn't going to own income-producing property, and private concerns are not going to own it, who is going to own it? Apparently, and this all very fuzzy, the means of production will somehow be collectively owned by the workers themselves, wherein we arrive at the silly concept of anarcho-syndicalism. Instead of greedy capitalists owning the corporation, the workers themselves will own it. But it will not be ownership in the form of individual shares that can be sold. That's capitalism.

No, he favors a vague and ill-defined form of collective ownership that the workers will figure out as they bumble and stumble along towards bankruptcy. As Mises writes in Socialism, "as an aim, Syndicalism is so absurd, that speaking generally, it has not found any advocates who dared to write openly and clearly in its favor."

We’re supposed to trust them that they will do it correctly THIS TIME despite the myriad times in the past that National and International socialists have failed to accomplish the very same task. Socialists only want to take over the world, and only afterwards will they work out the pesky details of how ‘The people collectively and directly owning or regulating the means of production’ WON’T really be a government later on… but everyone can trust them to do it correctly this time around. We have to let freedom pass from memory before we can see what’s in their plans. If this song and dance sounds a bit familiar it’s because it is. The terms have just been altered to oppress the innocent.

Socialism can only be implemented via government force.

The basic premise of socialism is epitomized by the infamous phrase:

"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." Karl Marx

In all of their grandiose explanations of class warfare and the dictatorship of the proletariat the socialists are a bit vague on how one is supposed to spread the wealth around without the central authority to accomplish this goal. In general, most people do not want their hard earned property to be taken from them and given to others. But in the fanciful world of the socialists, everyone will gladly hand over their property to everyone else while unicorns prance about under rainbows and showers of gold. It will also have to be a continuous process of people letting others take their money for ‘the children’.

Yes, business owners the world over will only be too happy to hand over factories and corporate facilities they have invested in sweat and toil for years simply because a few blokes show up on their doorstep on some bright and sunny morn. Who can forget this oft recurring meme in many a movie or Broadway production?

The fact is in most cases the threat of force will have to be utilized in the taking ‘From each according to his abilities’. This is commonly known as theft and most people will not voluntarily let this happen to them. Thus there has to be a group of people with the authority and the firepower to take other people’s money. Leftists themselves offer the best illustration of why this is pure rubbish: How many of them hand over their property to others on a continuous basis?

Has a government ever voluntarily written itself out of existence?

So we have proven that in the storied centuries of socialism’s existence, most of a nation’s left have been quite vague in it’s supposed to work in one key aspect. Second, we have shown that governmental force would be required to implement the Socialist - left’s grandiose plans. The question then becomes, do groups of people in the form of a government ever wither away? This is answered by a very relevant quote from Lord Acton: Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely

That aphorism that succinctly answers that question with a resounding no. If history has taught us anything, it is that governments only tend to crave more expansive powers. Governments rarely, if ever devolve power and ‘withered away’. This happens with about the same frequency of unicorns prancing about under showers of gold.

And yet we’re supposed to believe the fiction that a group of people brought in under vague pretenses that attains tremendous power will somehow dissipate itself.

The fact is this little dodge from the socialist is nothing more than a fallacy wrapped in a lie. Governments are composed of groups of people, but somehow the socialists will tell you that there is a distinction there based on their criteria. And that lie just by coincidence absolves their bloody ideology of all of it’s past crimes against humanity. But don’t expect the socialists to come out and explain how that system is supposed to work, they haven’t had time in the past few hundred years to figure it out. Besides that fact that their ideology REQUIRES the use of government force of arms, and it never seems to disband itself.

In Part III we will examine the implications of taking the word of the socialist-Left seriously.