On socialism and the limits of government
Yesterday, Florida Democrats nominated a member of the Democratic Socialists of America for the U.S. Senate. It’s another reminder that the debate over socialism and the proper limits of government is becoming much less abstract.
I won’t rehash the video below, but encourage readers to watch it. The clip makes the deeper case that freedom depends on recognizing limits to political power and acknowledging moral authorities and human purposes higher than the state. This is exactly what the drive toward collectivism inevitably destroys.
Probably my favorite economist is Wilhelm Röpke. Thank you, Sam Gregg, for introducing me to him decades ago. Röpke understood that the danger of socialism was not simply that it weakened markets or produced bad economic outcomes. It threatened the character of society itself.
Röpke articulated so well the idea that freedom depends on institutions that stand between the individual and the state, primarily civil society and especially churches. Socialism pulls power in the opposite direction, concentrating authority and responsibility in the highest levels of government while weakening those smaller institutions. Eventually local control and principles like federalism become decimated.
As I’ve mentioned before, so much of the Democratic Socialist of America (DSA) agenda is mainly cut-and-paste policies regardless of location.
As Röpke warned, “The drab single-toned dreariness which socialism would bring into our lives and the happiness it would take away, are immeasurable.” His answer was not radical individualism, but a society rooted in localism, responsibility and strong institutions beyond the reach of the centralized planners.
—Ray Nothstine
— The Federalism Beat