UPSIDE / FLIP SIDE: LOOKING FROM BOTH SIDES – THE TERM SOCIALIST

 Upside

It is nice to have all these wonderful talking points. One of my favorite things to be called for being liberal is socialist. The idea behind the word is that government will make sure that the economy is stable. The practice is associated with our worst enemies. The definition, according to Merriam Webster is, “Socialism: 1: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods” http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism.

See the thing about talking points is that they allow a political candidate to say what is close to his constituencies’ hearts. Talking points allow a politician to run on the assumption that his constituency will believe his talking points without looking into them. Talking points give voters the confidence they need to endorse a candidate whom they know virtually nothing about. It is time to take the talking point, “socialist” to task.

In 1996, the 104th congressional session passed the Sustainable Fisheries Act. This session was controlled by a Republican majority under the administration of a Democrat. The bill authorizes a federal takeover. A federal takeover of private industry known as a, “buyout.” This is a socialist bill. There are an equal number of Republicans and Democrats named in it.

Now, in 2002 there was a 50/50 split in the Senate with a Republican Vice President. The House was Republican. The President was Republican. The Farm Security and Rural Investment Act passed. This authorized more subsidies to farmers. The thing is that in 1996 the government was trying to wean farmers off of federal aid programs, or what I term “Agribusiness Welfare.” This idea met some resistance. In 2002 the bill passed gave much more aid to large farms. One reason argued for it is to reduce low costs for the consumer. Over production had been lowering prices on the market. By curtailing production and increasing subsidies, government essentially decided the level of production, not the free market. So is this socialism?

Next, in 2004 with a Republican majority in the House, the Senate, and a Republican in the White House we got the Fair and Equitable Tobacco Reform Act. Rather than going through the argument again, suffice it to say that this is very socialist in its “buyout” components.

Now the point of this is not to call Republicans socialists. That is what they have publicly done to my party while privately pursuing these policies. The point to make here is that there are problems in the idea of free market that politicians on both sides of the aisle have to address. The issue most commonly taken up is that prices must remain stable or increase. Overproduction decreases prices. This is good for consumers, bad for business. Allowing agribusiness to take over forced “Joe the Farmer” out of his job. The lack of education in rural sectors leaves these guys without many options. However, Republican and Democratic leaders constantly vote to support putting “Joe the Farmer, Plumber, Factory Worker, etc.” out in the cold.

The biggest problem is that we categorize everything. It makes it easier for us. There is less knowledge needed to label. We do have problems, and what we say is evil actually works sometimes. Stifling free market helped to stabilize the fisheries, farms, and tobacco producers. What is more important; a stable economy, or calling people socialists?

FLIP SIDE

Socialism, regardless of its democratic or republican forms, is bad. Bad for the consumer, bad for the poor, bad for the economy as a whole, and bad for Joe the Farmer. The best example of this is the government subsidization of agriculture.

The world governments are subsidizing their large scale fleets in a myriad number of ways. This causes overcapitalization of the fishing fleets, meaning there are more boats than would otherwise exist in a market without government intervention.

The situtuation is far from stable, more like on the brink of disaster. Trawlers drag massive nets across the delicate ocean ecosystem turning coral and bio-diverse habitats to rubble. Longliners, which spread massive lines with thousands of hooks, kill millions of unintended sea creature producing bycatch. Bycatch produces no economic value as the dead or dieing creatures are thrown overboard.

Fish all around the world are being over fished because of this sole problem. Fuel subsidies are allowing large scale fishing to occur in a deep ocean outside of any governmental jurisdiction. The normal fish life in the deep sea is longer than coastal species, meaning deep-sea fishing has a greater risk of species collapse.

These actions are pushing many fish species to the brink of extinction, driving up fish prices and exasperating poverty. Removing these subsidies would reduce overcapacity and move towards more responsible stewardship of the oceans. Oceana has stated that removing subsidies to fisheries is the greatest signal action that can be done to help the world’s oceans. No regulatory measure will help without dealing with the core problem: government encouraged overproduction which is draining of the oceans dry.

These subsidies do not help the poor. Foreign access subsidies allow OCED fishing fleets to gain access and out compete small scale fisherfolk in the developing world. Daniel Pauly, Director of the UBC Fisheries Centre, points out that our best hope at sustainable fisheries is small scale fisheries which use more passive fishing gear than the government subsidized methods of trawling and longlining. Without subsidies these destructive uneconomical fishing practices would disappear, the free market would work, and fish stocks would rebound.

Search deep enough you will find disasters on this scale in every industry the government subsidizes. Take U.S. subsidization of biofuels production. The government thought it new best, they knew better than the free market, they thought that the free market could be planned and they provided incentives to farmers to increase output.

There was no increased stability or benefit to the world economy. The result was the complete opposite of stability: food shortages and starvation. Mitchell Donald, Lead Economist at the Development Prospects Group, World Bank, pointed out that land use was converted from food production to biofuels in response to U.S. government planning started in 2004. He cites 70-75 percent of the increase cost of food this year was caused by government support of biofuels.

Without government medaling, without government socialism, this would have never happened. The farm land would have been used for food production and prices would not have shot up.

When will we learn? Neither any elected official, Abdul Khan, any group of the smartest economist, or I knows enough to plan an economy. This is the stable of the market economy. Only the free market with millions of player can coordinate production effectively.

Socialism must fail everywhere it is tried. This debate should be over. From the USSR to current agriculture policy, socialism will fail to achieve its stated goals and will increase misery. But sure you can ignore this simple truth, you can ignore history and keep making the same mistakes; it’s your world.