The Fascism of Socialism
Saturday, January 01, 2000
Socialism has wonderful ultimate goals, and I can understand why so many people believed in it. A world of caring and sharing must be the dream of every good person. It is certainly mine. I was a socialist during my student years, as were most of my friends.
Why have I changed? Well, I have worked here for more than 15 years to achieve better schooling, and have suffered at the hands of several bureaucracies under increasing socialist regulation.
Life is not fair, and many injustices need righting. The socialist plan was for government to take control of human affairs. By means of a benevolent elite and a huge dedicated bureaucracy the world would be set right. There is a gaping fault in this reasoning, and I am amazed that we did not see it earlier.
The new socialist aristocracy and its army of bureaucrats are of the very same species we were setting out to control and reform. Inevitably, the new ruling class became as self-centred as the old. Bureaucracies are notoriously uncaring. They build empires and maintain a style of regulation that often does more harm than good to the population they allegedly exist to serve.
The point is, human nature does not change. No one can be trusted with all that power and no accountability. There is no point to hating bureaucrats as people, even though we have suffered. It’s the system that is wrong.
The world has now learned from experience that bureaucracy unrestrained turns malignant. Politicians must refrain from “solving” society’s problems by merely adding to the already overwhelming body of bureaucratic regulation. The art of the legislator is to draft elegantly lean controls that will bring out the best in people.
It’s time for a higher standard of democracy, where people regulate themselves through accountability: consumer choice, freedom of information, secret ballots, independent media, parent-chosen schooling, open tenders. As the population, through freedom of expression, becomes more enlightened, democracy enables reform to be realised, as with equal rights for women and protection of the environment.
So often a faceless elite tries to take over society, pretends to be the author of past advances, assumes itself wiser, more kind and less corruptible than the people, and tries to impose its ideology using the organs of government. When that happens you get a bloated, arrogant and self-serving club that will ride the state into the ground.
Philip O'Carroll