The Innate Autonomy of the Human Spirit

Will Roche writes at www.marxist.com that volumes could be written about capitalisms inadequacies and attempts to address a number of them in this (http://socialist.org.nz/content/view/87/1/) article.

I offer the following in response.

Unemployment, Mr. Roche contends is “… a permanent feature of capitalism…” he further states that “…every man women and child would be two grand better off if we eliminated unemployment…” how does Mr. Roche suggest we eliminate unemployment? Simple, “the best alternative is for working people to take control over their workplaces, for major industries to be nationalized, and for the economy to be planned by workers’ and community councils, along with a socialist government”.

The result, says Mr. Roche “…full employment with decent wages…”

What?

First of all, what good is an extra two grand if the goal is 100% equality? If we all have 100 dollars or 1 million what is the difference if the government is providing for all needs. Certainly Mr. Roche does not wish to contend that Socialism leaves room for “wants”? For if anyone “wants” then his needs are not being met; which of course would be an admission of the failure of socialism.

Second, how can working people take control over their workplaces if they have surrendered that control to the socialist government?

Third, how can an economy be “planned by workers” if again, those workers have given up all rights to the socialist government?

And finally, if, by taking this course of government, there existed, even the most minuscule possibility of successfully achieving 100% employment, would it not stand to reason that those societies, who have tried socialism in the past, would have not, so miserably, failed?

There are plenty of homeless who choose to be homeless. So in Mr. Roche’s Utopian (albeit Orwellian) society of ZERO unemployment, not only would those who do not, now, choose to work be forced to do so, but the government would decide who works in what positions and how much they make for that work. In other words, there is ZERO incentive to excel; zero freedom.

If the government places me in my employment, what need have I to go to school? And if I do go to school, what need have I to learn; the government will “give” me a job no matter what I do. If there is no incentive to excel, from where will innovation come? What will propel society forward into new areas of science, medicne, art or exploration?

What Mr. Roche, most notably, forgets to take into account is the innate autonomy of the human spirit! Imagine, for just a brief and frightening moment that the entire world had fallen under the control of a single, one world, government that controlled all employment, resources, distribution and price for all goods or services said government deemed necessary. Does Mr. Roche claim to believe that nowhere in the world would there arise, even a single individual who would ask the question “Why can’t I be more?”

The fact is, socialism has been tried, many times in history, and each time it has ended in the same, failed, state of oligarchy; a system run by a few, wealthy, individuals who control everything! This is the very state of existence Mr. Roche claims to want to avoid.

When this central government finally has full control over the entire world economy, do you believe that those who are “in control” will find it “in the best interest of the State” that their salaries be the same as those who have been “chosen” to clean toilets? Will those, “chosen in the best interest of the state” to be fry cooks at fast food restaurants, be paid the same salary as those who will be our doctors? Of course not! But what will keep the one chosen for mediocrity from aspiring to greatness? The answer to that question, each and every time it has been asked of a socialist dictatorship, has been a bullet to the back of the head.

Of this, then, we can be assured, socialism will not prevail as a system of worldwide governance and we rest our hope in the, God given, blessing of the human spirit of freedom!

Jesus said “you will always have the poor with you and you can help them whenever you want to.” Mark 14:7/Matt. 26:11. What did he know? He knew that unemployment is not the result of capitalism or any other form of manmade government; there would always be those who, for whatever reason, could not take care of themselves and that no system of governance would ever change that fact as long as we remain in this fallen world.