I can understand why the un-ambitious, physically frail, intellectually insufficient, culturally lacking and otherwise fearful human beings would be attracted to socialism. Competition is a frightening ideal to those who lack the confidence to advance themselves to a level of performance that is needed to overcome rivals. Such attitudes are what drive capitalism and bring freedom to the lives of everyone in subtle ways, yet the idea that there are winners and losers in life must be accepted. For the characters who wish to be handed victory trophies in life for simply existing—because they fear competition, socialism gives them the ability to feel they are equal to those who are clearly better at some skills and set the bar high for all others to meet. Socialism is more attractive to the weak and feeble masses because it keeps them from having to compete for merit. Socialism will always be appealing to those types of people.
But ironically socialism is not good for the collective society because it removes the merits gained through competition. When competition is missing from any endeavor, performance drops dramatically in every activity attempted under any effort. While socialism protects the individual from collective pressure exerted upon those who fall short in life it destroys the individual merits that a society enjoys because of competition driven by the best and brightest succeeding.
Americans for many generations, particularly since the 1930s have been inundated with socialism imported from the deficient European political theater, and it has harmed the American way of life dramatically. But since socialism was introduced so long ago, many modern Americans do not know life without it. They have socialism in their retirement packages, their collective bargaining agreements, in every aspect of their governments, in their taxation, in their medicine, in virtually every aspect of their lives because a democracy is ruled by the masses and the masses find socialism more appealing than capitalism—that is until they find their freedoms evaporating as a result.
When a football team starts losing because the best quarterback is on the bench because the head coach does not like the individual, or believes that other team quarterbacks deserve a chance but are clearly lacking in ability relative to the better player, the whole team loses and they will begin to embrace methods of capitalism to put the best players on the field so they can win. But such pressure is only introduced if the other teams are actually trying to win the game by putting their best players against other team’s best players. If all teams fail to recognize who the best players are from bad players then the game loses appeal to any audience as chaos and boredom are due to follow. Fans in the stands that pay money to be entertained and watch the game will quickly realize that they could perform at the same hapless level, and will stop attending football games. They’ll just organize their own games. So a level of competence and an attempt at becoming the best is required in such endeavors. Socialism harms this process.
Yet the same rules that make football a great game apply to science, business, education, even gardening—competition drives the level of society higher with quality being better wherever competition is present. The most dramatic example of such competition can be seen in Orlando, Florida. My absolute favorite McDonald’s to eat at in the entire country is the fabulous giant of a restaurant which resides just outside of Universal Studios. It is one of the largest McDonald’s restaurants in the world and is made that way out of a need created by competition. Universal Studios in Florida has two amusement parks just down the road and both are absolutely fantastic. But they became fantastic because they are in competition with the four Disney parks just down the highway at the next exit and all the wonderful entertainment options that connect the two multi-park complexes with International Blvd. And in between these two massive amusement destinations is the Sea World complex which has done so much good for marine wildlife research due to their excessive revenue generating capacity. It is competition and capitalism that make all the fabulous activity in Central Florida work so well. Without competition, Universal Studios could afford to cut corners and present the bare minimum investment needed to bring visitors through their admission gates. But they can’t, because Disney drove the market higher always pushing the other parks to become better, or go out of business. The result to all this dynamic is that an average fast food restaurant like McDonald’s which everyone takes for granted in their home town communities is driven to become better and more spectacular. Whenever I’m in Central Florida, I make a point to visit this McDonald’s so I can relish capitalism displayed in such a fantastic fury. There is no place on earth like Central Florida because capitalism has defined it and made it what it is.
Elsewhere, where socialism injects itself, such as in public education, any unionized effort, or any government position competition is missing. This is why such efforts struggle perpetually to maintain any level of quality—because they are essentially combating nature itself attempting to fight off the effects that destroyed the U.S.S.R and every communist country in the entire world that functions with a socialist foundation. Every village in Africa where starving residents struggle to live from day-to-day is due to the regulatory limits set upon them by their village authority. Those limits may only be religious, political, emotional, or any other variation, but they do not involved competition. Village chiefs do now as they always have, attempted to drive their collective society’s desire for competition into their military so that proof of valor and manhood merit is designated to bravery on the battlefield instead of creativity in manners of business. This is the result of socialism and has been going on since before such a term had a definition.
Socialism is the easy way for the masses to avoid not feeling the pressure of competition. Socialism as we see it today in medicine, in education, and in all government would be equivalent to Universal Studios being allowed to exist without having to compete with Disney World. Another tendency of socialism is to use the power of pull to eliminate competition such as the theoretical circumstance of Universal Studios using politics to apply too many regulations selectively enforced on Disney World to attack the fact that they have a broader revenue base and force Universal Studios to perform at a higher level than they might otherwise do if they didn’t have to compete with Disney. Using politics to sap all the wealth of Disney away into nothing, Universal through socialism could eliminate their competition through regulation. This would mean McDonald’s would only have to build a normal free-standing store since Universal Studios would be the only park around, meaning McDonald’s wouldn’t have to compete with the restaurants that are in business down by Disney World in the absence of such competition, Universal could afford to do the bare minimum of everything driving up costs but dramatically lowering quality.
This is the situation with Social Security, Obama Care, the Post Office, public schools and virtually everything that socialism touches through government. Socialism allows the average to sell their services as “superior” because they have eliminated competition. This is the spirit behind every collective bargaining contract—they are socialist attempts at fairness—but the fairness comes at a cost to quality, and dynamics.
So when it is said that people want to see better things out of government, they have to reject the socialism that they are currently addicted to as a safety net to their own incompetence. It is easy to declare that the entire world should be fair, but the cost of that fairness is terrible, as it pushes society into a black hole where nothing of any good can ever escape. The grand myth by socialism lovers is that if they collectively believe in something through the power of democracy that they can deny the laws of nature, but they can’t. Their beliefs are never realized, and their commitments to socialism destroy the world for everyone instead of just the targeted well-to-dos which they rally against. It is those who are best whether it be richer, stronger, faster, or even more attractive which set the standard for all others to reach up to. Without such goal posts, society just flaps in the wind and recedes backwards. The masses may never achieve the level of greatness that comes from the best. Universal Studios may never be as great as Disney World and McDonald’s may never be a good as The T-Rex Café but it is the attempt through competition which raises the performance of all to achieve heights they otherwise would never accomplish. Before society can every become better at anything it must reject socialism and embrace capitalism—because until they do, there is no reason for the average and mediocre to attempt to be more than they currently are—to strive for greatness, and goodness in a spirit only competition can provide.
Rich Hoffman
“If they attack first………..blast em’!”
The Gunfighter's Guide: 