A little change of pace here, as we could do a piece on virtually every aspect of life that will be affected by socialism. Key of course, is the economic impact, which we're holding til next to last. Likewise the spiritual death that eventually occurs under socialism. And I'm sure you're wondering about the environment impact of socialism (Clue; long term and short term won't jibe.) In fact, look out your window as you drive around town and just ask yourself whether that motel/gas station intersection at the interstate exchange will still be there in 10, 20, and 30 years. Check small businesses at the strip malls. And unless you're over 50, have you ever seen a street car? The picture of life definitely will change. We advise client companies to look up and down the line in their business, both on the supply side and the sales/service side and ask that one simple question: How will socialism affect them, for it will trickle down to us.
     But how it will change life in America will depend on just exactly what the central theme of the new socialist regime is. About the coming regime, we can only guess what their central purpose will be. I've already alluded to two, but "getting even" as a policy goal will not last past the first bureaucratic generation, so we need to look at more substantive ambitions.
     Remember, pure socialism  is a very noble ideal, at least as noble as religion. But it's flaws are both naked and inherent, for not even the most perfect human, let alone any group of human managers of the system, can ever hope to match the perfection of the ideal of socialism for more than say, one day. It begins to fall apart almost as soon as it is instituted, and that is because of inherent human frailty and that cancer we call the bureaucracy. Socialism can't get any bigger than a bridge club without a bureaucracy and that's a fact. It's their deal with the devil, only, unlike private business, they want to make it. You see, they like the idea of having lots and lots of people working for them, even after it is long apparent they they are the real hirelings.
     Standing opposite Socialism-as-God is Religion, which states that the ideal of perfection exists elsewhere, beyond our grasp as a standard of conduct and behavior for us to only try to copy. All religions recognize human frailty and have built-in forgiveness. Socialism on the other hand assumes humanity's mass perfectibility. This is sheer illusion. But as false god, socialism is not evil.
     Standing opposite Socialism-as-Socio-economic System is free market democracy, which, like religion, is also built on the innate frailty of human behavior. This is why we have the Rule of Law, which punishes wrong-doing and rewards honorable conduct. Similarly, free markets reward hard work and merit and punish sloth. It is also why we deify the individual House as the major building block in free society and  free economy. To enslave men to the state, however, is evil.
     Although, I am quite sure there have been little bewhiskered men and women in university offices since the late 1800s who believe, as a religion, this ideal we called socialism, their "movement" is scarcely any larger than their office. I've known several. They make great coffee partners, are usually quite humble, soft-spoken and can become great friends. This is why I have always had a grudging respect for Vladimir Illiych Ulyanov (Lenin), the Old B****d Himself. He was as close to pure Marxist (more so than even Trotsky) as an in-the-cross-hairs leader could be, yet, by 1924, even he had realized it wouldn't work as set out on paper. So, he suddenly died. (Looking over one's shoulder is not a natural attribute of socialism, but it does seem to work out that way, doesn't it? This is why I think socialists are always so unhappy...they're always looking for someone to get the drop on them.)
     Marx himself devised a socialism that was get-even, for Marx was nothing if not defined by the people he hated, who was just about everyone. Lenin out-marx'd Marx in the sense he took Marx's pure ideas and actually tried to turn an agrarian despotic nation into an industrial power house. Industrial might, owned and operated by the state was, from the very beginning, the "theme" of Marxist-Leninism. All the things that just sort of tagged along, anti-religion, a prohibition of private small business, collectivization of the farms, were simply part of the logic of Leninism. Socialism requires the ownership of the means of production, and it follows, that socialism also requires the ownership of the feeding of the masses who do the producing. Follow the logic.
    Then along came Mao, who got in all sorts of hot water with the purists in Moscow, because he redefined the Leninist line toward agrarian reform. Industrial growth came second. In theory he was right. The Russians didn't understand that "sky determines" and the Chinese sky was different than the one over Moscow...on the few days of the year you could find it through the belching smoke.
     At the same time the Euros were conjuring up their own versions of socialism under their own national skies. Their skies were defined  by royal lines and aristocracies unlike the Romanovs. Some were absolute, and some were rather warlike and belligerent. They had a much better developed capital structure, and much broader middle class. In short, they were more advanced than the Roosskies, a fact which infuriates the Russians even to this day. For one, they believed you don't have to own the means of production as long as you can control it. That's more civilized, so sayeth the French.
    Moreover, unlike America, the aristocrats of  Europe were (still are) deathly afraid of the people, both as potential rioters (the French Revolution) and carriers of disease, as when shaking hands. Socialism provided a perfect buffer, especially since the capitalists, and not the royals had to pay for it. The rubes in Calabria got indoor toilets and aristocrats got their peace of mind, and a new emerging state management class got their ten percent to keep the buffer solid. That ten percent is up over 50% now and the whole thing is about to explode, only the management class has all but replaced the royals, who are dying out at a fast clip, in terms of who gets to use the privileges, fast cars, box seats at Monte Carlo and get-out-of-jail-free cards.
    In short (and this is in keeping with several laws of bureaucracies) after about 60 years, the Euros state class has completely bought into the notion that the European manufacturing and production system is a bottomless well, which can be drawn from endlessly.
    It's not for me to say how all that will play itself out, except to say the Europeans have a penchant for trying to assassinate each other every forty years or so. They're overdue.
    Before moving back to America I have to mention that other "ism" of Europe, fascism, which never had a chance to show history how it would have fared, as they both decided to interrupt their progress by making war on everyone, and interestingly, for totally un-socialist reasons.
    So try to imagine how Germany might have fared had Hitler not remilitarized the Rhineland in 1936, or try out any of those other "leibensraum" ideas he had, in Austria, Sudentenland, etc.
    His killing of the Jews was also an un-socialist idea as it didn't quite fit any of the existing Darwinist/eugenics justifications for putting otherwise healthy people to sleep. By comparison, Stalin's starvation of three million in the Ukraine a few years earlier, (for which Walter Duranty of the New York Times got a Pulitzer Prize by saying it didn't happen), was by the book. But what we do know is that had Hitler continued carting off Jews to camps inside Germany (since he hadn't overrun Poland) no one in Europe would have lifted a finger to stop him...just as they were unwilling to do anything about mass murder inside Iraq. In fact, we note that "not doing anything about mass murder" has now become recognized as patriotic and high minded in some elitist circles in America, and was part of the propulsion that fueled this last election and socialism's sudden appearance in America's future. Keep that in mind. It really isn't that hard to put several thousand people to sleep if you put your whole mind to it and vain professionals and the bureaucracy are involved. They can always be relied on to pull the trigger.
    I can say without equivocation that German bureaucracy is just as inept and cancer ridden as Italian, Russian, French, Thai, Persian, Chinese and American bureaucracy. So it would have imploded in its own time had there been no militaristic side to the Third Reich.
    But what is most interesting about German and Italian fascism is that they were both thug regimes only posing as socialists, out to do nothing more than steal all they could, live as lavishly as possible, sate every appetite, and poke every little boy they could scrounge up on Friday night. Socialism was simply their keys to doing it legally.
    It is this aspect of socialism we need to look at closest, for even in the USSR and the Eastern Bloc, the cult of personality and sheer avarice drove their leaders behind gated cities-within-cities and near orgiastic indulgence, each according to the nature of their skies, from Honeker to Ceauscescu to Brezhnev to Zhivkov.
    What we have always been dealing with in America is "socialism as a means to something else", something more craven and puerile... something very personal to the "users" of socialism. America is after all, the greatest jewel in the crown.
    I've already stated that most of the Democrat Party are of this sordid, craven kind of "user-socialist". They are in this line of work because, considering their temperament, it's a good gig, easy work, indoors, short hours, lots of babes, celebrity, the list goes on. They may believe some of that socialist stuff, but much like the Roman Church just before Luther hung that paper, if believing it too hard meant they had to give up even one ruby ring on their pinkie, they wouldn't.
    They don't want to own the means of production if it means that production will be less varied, or less income producing, i.e., generating fewer revenues. Remember the bad days a thousand years ago when most white people were slaves, too? If your little plot didn't produce, his lordship the baron didn't get enough receipts, and if you kept it up, he'd simply kill you and put another wretch in you place. (The world was full of wretches in those days.) Bottom line: Like landed barons, they (Congress) don't want to see their "business" go down. The greatest problem facing their brand of socialism, as we've already stated, is the one enemy they don't see, and the effect that bureaucracy has on the overall economy. In due course, it will sink under the weight of its own shite...and what's worse, Congress won't see it coming. Unlike banks, bureaucracies won't rat themselves out. They will simply keep demanding more and more, even when there is no more to be had. This is already happening in Europe. Remove the power of the people to reform it and it will destroy government. The only question is when.
    If there had still been a communist regime in Moscow when Obama won the election there would have been a sudden, but desperate sigh. Their enemy finally having been vanquished, they would say "What now?" Since 1945, the sole purpose of the USSR was to defeat Amerika, laying aside, indeed, losing the playbook Lenin had originally drafted for that worldwide workers' paradise. Who talks about worker's anymore? Ever hear Obama or Reid or Pelosi mention workers?
    The Democrat fat-cat socialists have pretty much the same problem. With the Republicans vanquished, with constitutional conservatism gone into hiding as any kind of counter force, "What are we fighting for, anymore?" is about all they can ask.
    Our guess is that the Dems will continue to march just as if it were still 2000, in full "take-back Washington" mode. That's all they know, and that's all they know in terms of keeping their plate filled with other people's beef tips.
    We've also stated we think this faction of the socialism party in America, the Swedish Lites, will lose when they run headlong into Obama's brand of socialism, which clearly is leaner and meaner. Though there's plenty of appetite there, too, I have yet to sense any appetite for the high-calorie diets of the pirate wing of his party.
    I just can't say what his theme will be. I know he doesn't want to own the means of production  but alliances in the environmental movement especially will cause his administration to stagger in that direction anyway. The tax base will have to shrink, which means a cheaper kind of gravy on Harry Reid's roast beef. Just watch how it will happen. They will be in control...but won't be in control, if you know what I mean. The bureaucracy will refuse to shrink in size, but will be willing to shrink in income...but only if the private sector "sacrifices" more. So look for that kind of shrinking trade-off.
     Just look for an emerging theme in the coming months as to just what Obama's socialist ideals are. I'll be back to comment every time I spy something of interest. It will be interesting to report on this aspect in another year.
     What a year it will be.
Vassar Bushmills