Quote

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."  --- C.S. Lewis

Socialism is an attractive sounding social-economic theory, but in practice it's unproductive and finally goes broke. Its proponents respond that, yes, but it would work very nicely if only human beings were better in various ways: if they were less competitive, less hierarchical, and above all less selfish. The problem is not the socialist model, the problem is people who can't or won't live up to it.

Part of the socialist program, therefore, must always be to improve people -- to create societies filled with people who will naturally act in ways that make the socialist model work. This improved model human is sometimes referred to as the "New Socialist Man."  (It's obvious why the Left has always rejected any notion of a biologically determined human nature, insisting that we are entirely products of our environment and therefore we are moldable in whatever new direction socialism requires.)

There are two general ways to accomplish this restocking of society. One is the Nanny State, which in its full flowering is literally that, since many plans for the socialist utopia involve children being reared in specialized child development centers, away from the bad influences of the parent generation. (The Israeli kibbutz is often pointed to as the model.) The other approach is through selection: to murder or exile the wrong-thinking, leaving as survivors those best fitted to the new society. That's the model provided by the 1930's Soviet Union and China under Mao.)

In either case morality is not seen as problematic, because it's all in the longer-term service of a far greater moral ideal. As the Lewis quote says, it's done "with the approval of their own conscience."  Or as Lenin expressed it, "You can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs."

Raw capitalism is not sustainable, either. The trick is to find social arrangements that combine a satisfactory level of capitalist productivity with a decent level of socialist concern for individuals.  The U.S. has had a long-term movement away from the raw capitalism of the 19th century toward more socialist concern for individuals. Scandinavian countries have lately been moving in the opposite direction, away from a suffocating nanny state socialism toward more capitalistic production arrangements. These are highly interesting experiments. If there is an optimal middle to be found, both of these should end up in approximately the same place.

Byron