Sweden - Socialist Paradise?

Does Sweden owe its wealth to the Welfare State?

There are two sides to every story. For the Swedish economic model its only one side that gets told in the mainstream, that of a Utopian Socialist Welfare State, one in which the whole world should look at to copy. The reality is somewhat different. Classical Liberalism (free markets and liberty) bestowed the wealth that we see today in Sweeden, not just Sweeden but many other Scandinavian countries. The post war era marked a rapid departure from this with welfare spending rising further, which slowly led to various financial crisis. Through the 19th Century Sweeden came for a modest European country in terms of wealth to one of the top three. It even once had Lower taxes than America. In  recent years Sweeden has begun turning its back on Government spending as the wealth well has dried up. 

Freedom to Create and Prosper

The second part of our educational task - imaging how a market-run world would function - is much more difficult. Murray Rothbard once remarked that if the government were the only producer of shoes, most people would be unable to imagine how the market could possibly produce them. How could the market accommodate all sizes? Wouldn't it be wasteful to produce styles for every taste? What about fraudulent shoes and poor quality producers? And shoes are arguably too important a good to turn over to the vicissitudes of market anarchy.

Published in a recent Article by Llewellyn Rockwell

Most intellectuals claim they have all the answers to so called 'market failures'. Llewellyn Rockwell debunks this belief with a wonderfully written article (link above) which I recommend to read. Larry Page, one of Googles co-founders is quoted as saying, "Always have a healthy disregard for the impossible", which I think sums up human ingenuity throughout history and the spirit of the Entrepreneur. Government Officials meanwhile will promise you the world, but later declare its impossible to deliver on its prior commitments. Central planners and the selfish 'ethical' do-gooders will tell you because of 'market failures' they need to intervene in peoples lives, stealing societies resources. As always, they lack imagination and keep the public believing they can deliver what a free market can't.

The Technology sector is one of the few areas in the global economy with very little Government interference. The prime reason is its recent appearance. When Big Welfare was hatched, computers were the preserve of Governments and large companies; as a percentage of GDP the industry was insignificant. Yet in a short time-frame, technology is now embedded into all of our lives. Only 15 years ago I remember using slow dial up connections, paying for low storage email accounts with minimal content existing in the web.

Since then the range of services that are offered for free has been phenomenal. Ideas and concepts that were deemed 'impossible' back in the past are now a reality. No one could have envisaged the progress that has been made. Multi-language translation, navigation systems in phones, films and music on demand, self driving cars, global consumer marketplaces, computers for $25 (less than a pair of shoes) and many other innovations. The list is endless. One of the most important points I want to make is the cost. Its all either free (paid either through advertising or premium users) or next to nothing. This always benefits the poorest members of society. 

Its tragic that many other sectors are crowded out by Government control. I could pick a number. For sake of example the progress of healthcare has dramatically being curtailed by the socialisation of medicine. We can not speculate what innovations would have occurred if it was run by the free market, but like the technology sector the poorest members of society would have been the main beneficiaries, not the rich. The rich can always afford the best possible healthcare. Costs are so high because of Government intervention.

The great myth is that America has free market healthcare, the reality of course if not the case. Medicare and Medicaid are a form of socialised healthcare, similar to the NHS in Britain, regulations on insurance companies such as no age discrimination or the mandatory cover of doctor checkups, tax breaks for companies offering third party insurance as part of an employees employment contract, Medical organisations that prevent entry thus raising wages and prices; the list goes beyond this and is worthy of another post to do the topic justice. Its sufficient to say socialised medicine is falsely proclaimed by 'liberals' to help the poor, when in fact it is doing the complete opposite. Heathcare is rationed, sometimes available to a lucky few. Spending is out of control and can only be solved by the creativity of a free market, not Politicians.

I, like any other author, can not speculate on what the free market may have done more efficiently. However a common fallacy used to excuse escalating costs in healthcare is the equipment used has become increasingly sophisticated, thus one of the reasons behind rising costs. I pick this example as in contrast the technology sectors equipment has become increasingly sophisticated, yet the cost has at the same time come down dramatically, benefiting the poor. When I got a PC in the nineties very few people had them, due to cost. Now everyone who wants one has a personal computer. In free markets tools always get more sophisticated. In agriculture we use sophisticated machinery that costs tens of thousands of dollars (compared to a primitive plough) yet such nations live in massive calorie surpluses. Its the lack of Regulations, Interference, Selective Monopolisation that enable this to occur.

The fact the equipment has become more sophisticated means costs should have come down. X-rays, CT Scans; such equipment is not cheap but it provides rapid diagnosis, freeing up humans to perform other functions. There is no need for specialists to agonise over such medical issues, the machines do that for them in a matter of seconds. All they have to do is fix the issue. Costs go up in healthcare due to Government interference; a classic case of Socialism impoverishing us all, but in-particular the poor. By not allowing prices, freedom and consumer sovereignty to do their job, the poorest among society are the hardest hit.

There is no reason why we need a Government full stop. All goods can be provided efficiently when we allow people the freedom to run such services. Governments however don't want people to use their imaginations and want us to believe free markets can't provide services they have monopolised and interfered in for decades. The quotation above provides such an example that we need not use our imagination for, yet if provided by the Government many could not imagine how a free market could provide such goods. Free markets are smart and creative. Governments are not.

Socialist Utopia

Another generation, another group of people who believe they can take us all to the promised land. A recent article written by Owen Jones, a left wing activist and author, titled "If socialists really did run the show, working people would benefit" displays the usual naivety and/or arrogance that has persisted with each successive generation of state planners who believe they can change the world for the good. Excepts taken from the article, accompanied with my commentary can be read below.

The taxpayer splashes out three times more subsidies on private train companies than they did on publicly owned British Rail.

History reads different. Steam power and Railways were not created by the state but by private initiative and capital. The whole railway network during the 19th Century was funded completely by private money, during which time steam power costs continually came down, allowing people to go on holiday to coastal resorts for the first time and enabling goods and services to be transported to traditionally remote locations at reduced costs. Britain then exported this knowledge to the world. The reason railways got in a mess was from state interference. During the two World Wars the network began to be progressively nationalised, initially for wartime needs, then for the 'Socialist Good'. Private railways began struggling during this period because the state began to subsidise the road network, meanwhile unfairly railways had to upkeep not only the trains but also the rail tracks. Auto-mobiles, in the form of buses and lorries had their infrastructure paid for by the state (a classic case of how destructive state subsidies/interference becomes) so had an unfair advantage. They only had to pay for the auto-mobiles, not the infrastructure. After the Second World War the UKs railway network, as part of mass nationalisation, was put in State hands for around 40 years during which time they became a mess and woefully mismanaged. If as Owen says they just need to be renationalised to fix their ills, then what did the state do for 40 years with the network? The state subsidises the railways because it feels its helping everyone, when in reality all it does is waste resources. Railways only exist due to Capitalism and free markets, so give it all back to its creator rather than the current hybrid state/market system and let prices correct years of Government mess.

Private landlords get away with charging extortionate rents, knowing that the state will pay billions subsidising them through housing benefit.

I'm not sure where to begin with this oxymoron. On the one hand private landlords charge too much rent, but on the other Owen admits that these artificial high prices have been created by the state? Simple, stop subsidising rents a flaw of Socialist policies, not free markets.

Wealthy individuals enjoy tax relief on their pensions worth billions.

So does every tax paying person in the country, which is why we are all told to save into pensions as its very tax effective. Not only do we get tax relief on our salary contributions but also on any earnings/dividends from the savings that are invested. Its not an 'elitist' perk.

Socialism for the rich is thriving while, for everybody else, it is capitalism red in tooth and claw.

I agree, Socialism always benefits the rich and ensures the poor suffer. Cuba, Soviet Russia or China, the party elites enjoyed beneficial health treatment, exotic foods and lavish lifestyles while the majority endured rationing and hardship. Its no different with our political system, just to less extremes. Factional reserve banking, Central Banking, patents, regulation, Government money production and so forth, all enrich the wealthy at the expense of the poor. All instigated by the state. Abolish the state, empower individuals, then the poorest in society will benefit the greatest.

If socialists really were running the show in Britain, they would be building a society run by, and in the interests of, working people. Our banks – propped by the British people – would be taken under genuine democratic control, forcing them to operate in the interests of society as a whole.

How many Statist leaders have said this line before? All of them end up impoverishing the people, taking away individual liberties and freedom, extinguishing any prosperity. A true free market HAS to operate in the interests of society. Organisations that don't become extinct.

Our booming wealthy elite would be forced to pay a fair share of tax (or, in some cases, any tax whatsoever).

How would this exactly happen. Is Owen and his 'apparatchiks' going to hold a gun to this so called 'wealthy elite' and force them to pay? Such people would simply flee along with their capital and talent to places where they wouldn't be persecuted in a wealth witch hunt. Meanwhile this would leave people who stayed in such a country in a poorer state as they would be deprived of such expertise and capital.

Owen, like many on the left, are misguided by the belief that they can generate wealth by simply taxing (taking the means of production, with no form of merit) people more. Owen attempts to make the higher tax argument here (go to 7 minutes, 20 seconds in), however as Andrew Neil points out, when top rate tax rates during the sixties were 98% the top 1% only contributed 5% of total taxation, while now with a top rate of 40%, 30% of income is generated by the top 1% of earners. As Andrew Neil correctly points out - this is Socialism, one of the reasons behind sluggish growth as compared with the sixties. We already tax the rich far too much (for the record I do not qualify for high tax rates, incase you belief I have a vested interest). Michael Moore and others conclude the same misinterpretations, when America had similar high tax rates but conveniently ignores that no one paid their taxes at this rate, or the brackets were so high that only small numbers qualified. People stop paying tax at a certain point and it just pushes wealth away.

After the disastrous failures of market economics, real socialists would be taking our utilities – such as the railways and rip-off energy companies – into social ownership: not old-style, statist nationalisation, but democratically run by workers and consumers.

Market Failures? The technology sector is run with no regulations, no state intervention, no subsidies. Yet it continues to drive down costs and improve quality. The biggest beneficiary's? The poorest among society. The Internet along with many of its high quality services are free for anyone to use. Computers can now be picked up for a couple of hundred pounds once the preserve of large Corporations and Governments, with people now even carrying computers in their pockets. People in third world countries even have access to such sophisticated capital goods. Large flatscreen TVs have become the norm, DVD players cost the same as a single DVD. People can connect with anyone in the globe, at their fingertips is billions of terabytes of information. All thanks to free markets, not elitist state planners.

Railways have been covered above, meanwhile our utility network was driven into the ground by Nationalisation and has only recently started to correct the previous state run ills. However contrary to how it looks utility companies are not run by the free market but state granted regional monopolies, one company for one geographic area. Prices are determined not by supply or demand but at the whim of regulators who determine 'fair' prices, preventing price rises in order to mobilise private capital investment which over the long term would bring down costs and increase supply (again benefiting the poorest in society). Even the Institute of Civil Engineers understand basic economics, supply and demand controlled by prices, reporting that the price of water should rise in order to ensure correct use of the resource for the long term and to increase infrastructure spending. Not rationing (hose pipe bans).

Nationalisation, sorry 'Social Ownership' (obviously Owen realises Nationalisation is a discredited phrase with the public so conjures up another alias), a dogma to arbitrarily align resources to workers and consumers under a 'democratic' system is fairy tale economics. A Socialist never understands we live under constant scarcity. In order to meet our infinite needs with limited productivity we need a system that channels these resources effectively. Free markets do this. Now Social Ownership is the same as any other centralised solution, it sows its seeds to its own demise. Presumably people could vote on if the price was right? So consumers would constantly say "I think the price should be lower". Meanwhile the workers would constantly say "I think I should be paid more". Under a free market increased purchasing power occurs spontaneously, but under Owens system, rationing and hardship would endure, resulting in lower living standards. We all want more for less, but we need a rational system that can deliver such desires.

They would bring down welfare spending, not by kicking people at the bottom, but by building social housing, introducing a living wage, and creating jobs.

If I was a statist I could create jobs. Get half the unemployed to dig some holes, then get the other half to fill them back in. Job done. We could alternatively just regress our capital structure. Why use tractors when we can plow fields by hand, consuming vast amounts of human labour. Creating jobs is easy, creating wealth producing jobs is hard and can only be done by entrepreneurship.

So why the current mess with unemployment? As with anything there are many contributing factors, however they all have their root in the state. Unemployment will always exist within a society as people opt to take breaks, or find themselves between jobs. However the persistent high levels of unemployment we see is a direct product of State arbitration. Governments have created a class of people, due to failed state education and a benefits culture, who are unemployable. Minimum wage laws makes it increasing hard for such people to find jobs as their productivity level is priced out of the market place (read here for a detailed discussion). Rigid labour laws prevent prospective employers from easily hiring people. Its no coincidence that Spain has some of the highest unemployment levels caused by some of the most backward labour laws in the Western world. The credit crunch, created by Government economic mismanagement has created a serious mis-allocation of economic resources, preventing employment lines from recovering. And social housing has been a disaster, effectively creating ghettos on both sides of the Atlantic. 

And they would be reversing the scandalous lack of rights that workers have in the workplace, which is what ensured that wages were declining for many before the crash had even happened.

We have too much workers rights in the workplace not too little! We want to make it easy for companies to fire people because it makes it easier for them to hire the unemployed. Its not in the interests for companies to fire people at will. Getting new labour is expensive, time consuming and you can end up with people who are not as effective as the original person you fired. If employees want to goof around and then wonder why they got fired well maybe they should have been fulfilling their employment contract. If the working conditions were too harsh then walk and get a job elsewhere. If you felt you were unfairly dismissed then the company that let you go won't stay in business long, and you would find it easy to get work elsewhere, as the competitors can take on these people with ease due to easy hiring laws.


Wages have risen in real terms as when I was a child a VCR and a computer was a luxury item. Now we watch TV on demand and all have access to multiple computers. All consumer goods supplied by free markets have become more accessible to the poorest in society.

There are more fallacies in the article, I have only highlighted a select few. The comments section also distorts facts just as bad. One of the comments claims that because China is run under a Communist party that somehow their growth can be attributed to Socialism. So I guess the millions who died under Mao were not victims of Socialism? The impoverishment only ended when Deng Xiaoping took over after Mao's death and as history quite clearly showed Deng embraced capitalism. He allowed foreign capital, expertise and entrepreneurship room to create prosperity. The Communist party is nothing but a legacy, the real engine of growth for the country now is capitalism. Millionaires  and Entrepreneurs are now celebrated in China, whilst in the past under Mao they were persecuted.

The whole article is history regurgitated, another generation of Socialists who believe they have the means and knowledge to deliver a fair, just and equal society for all. I share those ideals but I'm not naive or arrogant enough to believe that I and a few select people can deliver on such promises. Instead I believe that people should be given freedom to achieve these goals under their own free will. We don't need a third party to interfere with our lives, such as the state. Let people run their own affairs. The world will work under its own accord.

Growth vs Austerity

The battle between Growth and Austerity continues as economies have become stagnant with no end in sight for the current crisis. In one camp the solution is to grow our way out of trouble by increasing public spending, therefore trying to shrink the debt as the economies size increases. The other school states, we need to reduce spending and remodel the economy away from the old borrow and spend mentality. It's hard to know who to believe. On the one hand economies got into this mess because they spent beyond their means, increasing their GDPs to artificial levels therefore one could conclude that the logical outcome is to reduce spending, to set right these imbalances. However many nations have adopted Austerity, growth has flatlinned, even gone into reverse, and created higher unemployment with incomes being continually squeezed. 

Do our main political parties really offer options? In the UK the pro growth Labour Party claims we need to increase spending, while the Conservatives, the pro austerity party, claim we need to cut spending. Despite all the rhetoric the difference between cuts actually implemented by the Government and the cuts that would have been proposed by the opposition under Alistair Darling results in only a £9B difference, small in comparison with an economy estimated to be in that value of £1.5T.

The problem with both camps is that neither really offer solutions to the problems at hand. Greece has attempted to implement austerity but has not really addressed the core issue. That core issue is the fact that the country is bankrupt, and when something is bankrupt it needs to default and restructure. Without a default and restructure the debate on growth or austerity is irrelevant, Greece will never be able to get out of its current mess. The same goes for many nations facing similar issues, primarily spiralling Government spending with income from taxation not keeping pace.

The schools of thought can be summarised as follows.

Austerity

In order to solve deficits austerity proponents state that spending has got out of control, therefore Government spending must be cut. A lot of the cuts are half measures, cuts made on the fringes of the welfare system that don't amount to much and don't affect the majority of the people. 

Interest rates are still held exceptionally low, printing money is still deemed as austere and emergency loans from the ECB/IMF are considered to be tackling the spending crisis.

With the above, austerity is not really being implemented instead many countries are just postponing spending into the future.

Growth

The followers of pro-growth believe the false Socialist Keynesian fallacy that we need to increase Government spending in order to haul our economies out of this mess. They believe that Growth can come from the Government and this will alleviate the debt crisis. Its a simple solution, although fatally flawed and over the long term would have the complete opposite effect. The level of bankruptcy within the country would intensify over time, with peoples living standards eroded further.

As spending increases, so do deficits. Governments over the long term can never create growth by arbitrary spending. Over time, taxes are raised to try and cover the gap caused by increased spending, undermining potential future growth further. Genuine capital for investment begins fleeing along with income from taxation as individuals stop paying taxes. The Government is put under further pressure and prints money to cover the shortfall. Inflation rises, living standards decrease, Entrepreneurship dwindles. In other words it becomes a vicious cycle where the Government finds themselves back at square one, however now in a more dire state of affairs. The Growth camp can only intensify the crisis further.

Default and Roll back of state

The other camp that remains out of the debate is one of default along with a roll back of what functions the state should perform. As Governments can not pay on the majority of their spending commitments they need to default on bond holders. If Greek debt stands at over 100% of GDP then the best way to reduce this is to default on much of it and liquidate capital, similar to private entities and companies. Billions of Dollars are liquidated all the time, either through share price falls or outright bankruptcy, yet the system is incredibly efficient and re-mobilises economic resources producing genuine long term future economic growth. 

The solution also involves rolling back the state and allowing free enterprise further reign in society to improve productivity and reduce costs. Healthcare, Schools, Government Pensions - the costs continue to rise while productivity falls. Private capital would solve many of these issues.

Default is politically unpopular and a banishment of the state is a banishment of politics. Many people still believe that state systems are "free" and that they benefit from them i.e. they take more from them then what they put into such systems, convincing many members of public that we need welfare. To default on loans is a political parties nightmare as this tarnishes the incumbent Government, despite helping to solve the spending problems by freeing up wasted lines of production. It is important to distinguish that a default will not solve the issue on its own, the Government has to take the correct action after the event, that's why a roll back of the state needs to occur with moves towards greater individual freedom and a smaller state.

In our current system only until market forces deem the situation so dire does bankruptcy come about. Currently the market is lenient as it realises debt can be monetised by Governments and inflation is historically low. It also realises that Governments control the rules and consequently can lend to itself or other Governments (as its been doing). Without the recent QE and low interest rates the market would have already started forcing bankruptcy upon many nations, fixing the ills we see. When Governments have such extraordinary control economic problems get out of hand, in comparison private companies go bust very quickly if they can't control expenditure versus income. Governments merely take or adjust the rules in play to avoid this scenario, thus continuing to put economic resources to bad use.

Default comes about when inflation gets out of control or Governments struggle to monetise the debts, then the markets deliver the killer blow  instigating a default. Britain went Bankrupt in 1976 because inflation was out of control meaning printing money would have been unacceptable to the public and markets refused to lend to a Government who couldn't control spending. The IMF bailed the UK out but it didn't fix anything, it just pushed the problems into the future. We should have just defaulted and rolled back the state. Of course the Government can still ignore these signals under a dictatorship and just print more money et al Robert Mugabe, leading to a world of misery. 

From a global point of view, the current fractional reserve system can deal with the odd small country defaulting, say Iceland, but when it comes to larger entities such as Italy, Spain, France, UK and so forth, then the true naked state of the system is shown. The interconnectedness of the current fractional reserve banking system comes down like a house of cards, calling into the question its very existence. People would then ask questions such as why do Governments have free reign on interest rates, money and permit fractional reserve banking? Why do we need Central Banks? Why do we need Governments? The ultimate solution is to remove all central powers, instead  empowering individuals with the freedom to run their own lives, free from third party interference.

Current state of affairs

So we find ourselves in the current predicament, no one really wants to do the right thing therefore the crisis is prolonged. Governments have great power through the monopoly they have in money so rather than accepting the situation they opt instead to push problems into the future. Bankruptcy and failure is nothing to fear or to avoid, it happens all the time in the free market and is an outcome of discovering prosperity. Until people are educated and aware in such matters then we will always have Government debt crisis throughout history on a regular basis. Austerity or Growth, both solutions do not fundamental solve the problems baked into the system. 

Fast Buck Economics

"We must challenge irresponsible, predatory practices wherever we find them"

Ed Miliband, Labour party conference

Politicians have always been opportunists. New labour was in power for over a decade and when times were good they were best of friends with business. Now stagflation has hit due to successive Government policies and its time to blame the free market, predatory business methods, the so called 'fast buck society'. The war is now on between the private sector versus the so called public sector. Yet public and private sectors are widely misunderstood by the majority of the population. Contrary to popular opinion, public sector entities are in fact not run by the people and are controlled by the few. The private sector are the organisations in the hands of society.

When the details are examined it is clear to see that companies run on the principle of individual demands. If we first examine big multinational companies, the sort of companies conspiracy theories label as 'corpocracies', so big they dictate the way we live. In reality you and I will probably own a part of the company. Companies start small. Once they get bigger with a more mature business model they go public, offering to sell a part of the business to raise capital. Many multinationals are in fact owned by the people. Part of your pension fund. Your saving funds. Your employment contract or bonus scheme. We all own bits of these companies. They are generally owned by the people. They also exist to serve our needs, if not they go bust. All multinationals start like this, with very little assets or capital but grew by doing something right, by selling products people wanted. 

These companies are run by these very shareholders who are usually represented by a board. Their aim is to grow the business, to increase the share price and increase profits so as to maximise the yield on your shares. 'Its all about the money', yes that's how complex societies perform economic calculation. Money is meaningless. Its used as a medium for exchange in a complex society such as our own. So 'profit' or 'maximise returns' may be taught under a negative banner but in reality under an objective view it means 'satisfying consumer demand' and 'ensuring effective use of societies scare resources', in order to provide us all with a better standard of living.

The great thing about big companies is they start small. Big companies always fear the little guy. Their business models are always under constant threat from new ideas, the innovation of small startups, the new ideas they bring. They break old conventions, create new markets by removing the old established ones. This is the true public sector. Anyone regardless of skin colour, background or origin can meet the needs of society. 

Contrast this with the public sector run by monopolistic entities. They have no pressure to use societies resources effectively, in fact usually the opposite happens as Governments believe they should protect jobs, those old industries that other people in the private sector found we could automate. They try to meet consumer demand based on centralised planning objectives, not on consumer demand. They take resources from society at will. Pay your taxes or go to jail. That tax money, as has always been proven, could be far better utilised by the private sector. With the supply and demand dynamics driven by price signals of the free market, resources could be far more effectively utilised. Economics isn't rocket science. Prices, supply and demand - that's all you need to know. Those mathematical models are broken by the fact that human innovation can't be modelled. There is no science into how new markets are created or how many people want flat screen TV's. Only prices can direct all this activity on a micro scale. The innovators always break these neat mathematical or central planned models. 

I still await for the public sector to offer me something that is truly free. Sure we get the 'free' schools, hospitals, libraries and so on, but its not free, lets not kid ourselves. Taxes are huge these days due to fiscal drag and inflation over the years. Meanwhile the free market does give freebies. Regardless of income we all have access to online encyclopedias with millions of articles, free videos on youtube, free email with 8Gb storage, free document software in the cloud. Between ten and fifteen years ago you had to pay for this. Now its all free to anyone inclined to use it. I can access millions of songs for a flat subscription fee and my whole music library follows me on any device. I used to dream of tools like this as child, now it has become reality for only $9 a month. That's the private sector, driving down costs and increasing the quality of its products. 

During the same period council tax bills have kept increasing. NHS treatments have been further rationed where people can't get urgent operations for months. General VAT has risen. No more free dental care, but we still have the taxes. State pensions are shrinking and are moved further back with many asked to put more money into the schemes. University used to involve no fees, now youngsters have to pay up to £9,000 a year. Costs go up, product quality goes down, the complete opposite of the private sector. 

So what about these predatory businesses? 'Excessive profit' is always my favourite misunderstood slogan. There is no such thing as excessive profit, if there is why doesn't everyone buy shares in the company and we can all be rich! The media mumbles when such companies make a loss six months later or when some even go bust. Even then this becomes a crime despite the fact that it releases societies scarce resources for others to use in a more effective manner. 

With the public sector and socialism there is no such thing as individual liberty. Why don't the socialist do good'ers set up the peoples oil company or the peoples software house? Its because they can't be bothered, its much easier for them to expropriate others hard earned wealth, the producers, for them to waste. Public sector entities will never be run in the interests of society, they will be run on short term whims of politicians seeking to gain short term affection from the public or by idealists who believe society has unlimited resources and promise everyone a Utopian world. Private companies are created by the people, they compete for societies scarce resources and meet all our demands. Fast Buck Economics? More like opportunistic Socialist Economics.

Two to Tango

"I'm not going to condemn him (Gadhafi) ... I'd be a coward to condemn someone who has been my friend."

Hugo Chavez on recent events in Libya

Socialism has always held an emotive appeal for people. Rational thought is never used, instead phrases such as 'Progressive', 'its the right thing to do', 'justice' and 'equality' are spoke of in order to emotionally blackmail large segments of society. Throughout my life I have seeked rational answers be it through science or history. Socialism never made sense to me. History taught me this initially, then through economic theory and reasoning I was able to see the flaws in placing ultimate power to a centralised state. I would like to add that I am not rich and never have been. I went to state schools. I have predominately 'working class' relatives, with only my father, myself and my brother attending University. Yet I know Socialism impoverishes all members of society, from all types of backgrounds.  

Western nations who run true democracies have no place for it. It is dead. Any so called Socialist movements in Europe are just as free market orientated as the 'right wing parties'. To be honest I can barely tell the difference between Labour and the Conservatives here in Britain. They are both as free market orientated as one another, with each one having similar ideas of what should be done by the state. The only way Socialism, in its true form can exist is as a dictatorship. The left conveniently ignore all this. They use their emotive language ignoring lessons of history.

Generations of Western Socialists have supported terrible regimes across the globe. It may be hard to think now but Stalin's rule during the 1920's and 30's was supported by many left wing thinkers at the time. History showed it to be of great suffering to the Russian people, millions died and tortured, oppression from the state, no freedom for peoples rights. But back then Socialists were more than happy to support Stalin. From Mao, Castro, Mugabe and Chavez - all have endured popular support from Socialist leaders in the West. All have proved to be tyrants, degrading peoples living standards. Now we have revolution in the Middle East, with another iconic leader who was endorsed by many Socialists, Gaddafi, now in trouble.

Gaddafi was held up by the left as a role model. He opposed the West on many fronts (until recently) and was seen to give the ordinary person in Libya a better standard of living. Roll forward to now and subsequent generations of Socialists are condemning his actions against his people. They conveniently ignore that for decades he was an enemy of the West and that they supported his rule.  

On the contrary the left pervert current events in the way they have throughout the previous century. All of this is not a failure in central planning or Statism - no its a failure of Capitalism. The very system that such thinkers live under with far better living standards than the Socialist dictatorships they endorse. A failure of 'neo-liberal' policies. Neo-Liberal? What is that? Its a trendy word the left use to label other forms of Socialism, forms they disagree with. If they were appointed to dictate the people it would be different - they would do the 'right' thing. When others do it, its Neo-liberalism. To keep it simple all political parties, States, Governments they all amount to the same thing. Loss of individual freedoms and liberties. There is no debate. 

When all these revolutions occur, how do the people of these countries get their message out? The Internet. Wasn't that a platform that the free market adopted to be used by anyone? Wasn't Facebook, Twitter, Wikileaks and Youtube all creations from the evil capitalist system. The system that creates the tools that didn't exist 10 years ago to shake out the tyranny around the world and to oust various governments for what they are.

The left has collective amnesia of such facts, tweeting on their microblogs or uploading their videos to youtube - for free, with open access to all. Quick to blame and throw their toys out the pram, but never ones to offer solutions. I, like most people, want hard, rational solutions to problems. Free markets and individual liberty enables economic problems to be solved and provides answers. Socialism just creates chaos and further problems for everyone. It takes two to tango. Fortunately people aren't dancing with Socialism any more as seen by the decline of the left all around the West for the past few decades. In short bursts maybe. But over the long run, the 21st Century will mark greater freedoms for everyone. Gaddafi is the same as Chavez, Castro, Mugabe, Mao or Stalin, each to his own but all grab power and abuse it. Abolish this, and everyone across the globe can have access to true equality - freedom. Money is not freedom.  True wealth comes from the freedom a person is given.