The unprecedented violence perpetrated by Antifa and Black Lives Matter embodies two of the Left’s biggest tactics in its quest to fundamentally transform the United States.

One is to force a race war by radicalizing African-Americans to a violent degree. The other involves making mayhem more intimidating by spreading police and firefighters as thinly as possible, thereby limiting their ability to respond quickly.

Manning Johnson, an African-American, spoke about the first tactic from personal experience. Describing himself as a “dedicated ‘comrade’ ” and a “professional revolutionist,” Johnson belonged to the Communist Party USA for 10 years. He served as a union organizer, director of agitation propaganda, and a member of the party’s national committee. Johnson even ran as the party’s candidate for a Congressional seat in New York.

But when the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany concluded their non-aggression pact in 1939 — nine days before Germany invaded Poland and began World War II — Johnson left the party. Following the war, Johnson testified about Communist activities to various legislative committees. In 1958, one year before his death, Johnson wrote about his experiences in Color, Communism and Common Sense.

Why did Johnson become a Communist at 21?

“Like other Negroes, I experienced and saw many injustices and inequities around me based upon color, not ability,” he wrote. “I was told that ‘the decadent capitalist system is responsible,’ that ‘mass pressure’ could force concessions but ‘that just prolongs the life of capitalism;’ that I must unite and work with all those who more or less agree that capitalism must go. 

“To me, the end of capitalism would mark the beginning of an interminable period of plenty, peace, prosperity and universal comradeship. All racial and class differences and conflicts would end forever after the liquidation of the capitalists, their government and their supporters. A world union of Soviet States under the hegemony of Russia would free and lead mankind on to Utopia. 

“Being an idealist, I was sold this ‘bill of goods’ by a Negro graduate of the Lenin Institute in Moscow.”

That graduate probably was Harry Haywood, who joined the Communist Party in 1925 and studied in Moscow soon afterwards. Johnson credited Haywood with playing a major role in convincing Stalin to incorporate blacks into the American Communist leadership during the Communist International’s 1928 meeting in Moscow.

“Stirring up race and class conflict is the basis of all discussion of the Communist Party’s work,” Johnson wrote. “The evil genius, Stalin, and the other megalomaniac leaders in Moscow ordered the use of all racial, economic and social differences, no matter how small or insignificant, to start local fires of discontent, conflict and revolt.

“Black rebellion was what Moscow wanted. Bloody racial conflict would split America. During the confusion, demoralization and panic would set in.” 

Johnson’s own training reflected that strategy. Once he joined the party, Johnson received “two years of practical training in organizing street demonstrations, inciting mob violence, how to fight the police and how to politically ‘throw a brick and hide,'” he wrote. Johnson then attended a school where he studied “red political warfare,” he wrote, in which he “learned to use secret codes, ‘mail drops,’ organize clandestine meetings, ‘shake police shadows'” and grasped “the nature of communist sabotage and espionage.”

Compare Johnson’s descriptions with BLM’s activities, beyond the obvious similarities of arson, looting, assault, harassment — even murder.

“We actually have an ideological frame,” co-founder Patrisse Cullors told a left-wing podcast. “Myself and Alicia in particular, we’re trained organizers. We are trained Marxists. We are super-versed on ideological theories.”

Cullors studied under Eric Mann, a left-wing organizer who worked with the Black Panthers and the Weather Underground in the 1960s. “Alicia” is fellow co-founder Alicia Garza, who also created the Black Futures Lab, a BLM subsidiary that organizes African-Americans and develops policies. The Black Futures Lab, states its website, “is a fiscally sponsored project of the Chinese Progressive Association.”

The CPA dedicates itself to promoting the interests of China’s government and Communist Party in the United States, which include Marxist revolution.

As an organization led by “trained Marxists,” BLM also opposes capitalism, the nuclear family and religion, especially Christianity. BLM agitators burned Bibles in Portland, Ore. and chanted “(Fornicate) your Jesus!” at a black street preacher in Charlotte, N.C.

Regarding the family, BLM stated its position before deleting it from its website:

“We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.”

That position not only restates Karl Marx’s demand to end the nuclear family. It alludes to the alternatives Leon Trotsky advocated.

“Abolition of the family!” Marx wrote. “On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? On capital, on private gain. In its completely developed form, this family exists only among the bourgeoisie.”

Trotsky proposed “a finished system of social care and accommodation: maternity houses, crèches, kindergartens, schools, social dining rooms, social laundries, first-aid stations, hospitals, sanatoria, athletic organizations, moving-picture theaters, etc.” that would bind “all generations in solidarity and mutual aid,” he wrote.

Even the quest to defund the police embraces Marxist ideology. These words Mann wrote in 1999 express attitudes that are all-too-familiar to today’s Americans:

The Black Panthers in particular argued that the prisons and police were colonial instruments, and thus bourgeois concepts of ‘crime’ or ‘innocence and guilt’ could not be used to justify the military occupation of an oppressed community. The demands to free all political prisoners including all black men and women were based on the assumption that the greatest danger to the black community was not black-on-black crime, but police-on-black crime. Armed self-defense groups, community patrols to monitor police behavior and the demands for the most stringent police review boards were efforts to structurally reduce police brutality by placing the police under black civilian authority.

The protesters in this video epitomize Mann’s thinking. Their leader asks, “Who do we protect?” They respond, “Black criminals.”

Garza succinctly summarized BLM’s objectives and ideology at a left-wing conference in 2015:

“It’s not possible for a world to emerge where black lives matter if it’s under capitalism, and it’s not possible to abolish capitalism without a struggle against national oppression and gender oppression.”

BLM and Antifa would have found a kindred spirit in Robert Williams, a black activist in the mid-20th century. In the final third of his career, Williams embraced radical Marxism and history’s worst political mass murderer, Mao Zedong. Williams’ newspaper, The Crusader, advocated “an urban guerrilla war of self-defense” to foment revolution, he wrote in 1964.

Such a war, Williams wrote, would involve violent sabotage on a large-scale. Guerillas would derail trains and fire Molotov cocktails, acid bombs, hand grenades, machine guns, bazookas and rocket launchers from rooftops to kill law enforcement and make streets impassable. Kitchen matches placed in air-conditioning ducts would cause explosions that destroy buildings.

But perhaps Williams’ favorite technique was arson.

“The most aggressive and irrepressible arm of the overall organization would be the fire teams,” he wrote in 1965. “The mission of these thousands of active fire teams would be setting strategic fires. They could render America’s cities and countryside impotent. The fire teams roving in automobiles would find unguarded rural objectives even more accessible. A few teams could start miles and miles of fires from one city to the other.”

Such arson would have two goals. One would be to overwhelm first responders and the military.

“State forces would be forced to spread their ranks and would not be able to sustain massive troop concentrations in a single community,” Williams wrote. “The heat and smoke generated from the fires would render some of the highways impassable to repressive troop reinforcements. The rural countryside covers vast areas and would require exhaustive man power, equipment and security forces.”

The second goal would be to create mass terror.

“The psychological impact would be tremendous,” Williams wrote. “By day the billowing smoke would be seen for miles. By night the entire sky would reflect reddish flames that would elicit panic and a feeling of impending doom.”

Given Antifa’s popularity in Oregon’s largest city, some members might be implementing Williams’ plan. Despite denials from law enforcement in Portland, numerous Oregonians recorded videos of arsonists caught in the act. One man arrested for arson in Washington even attended anti-police rallies.

Perhaps more incriminating is Antifa’s message to its members: “Be water. Spread fire.” A sheriff’s deputy from Oregon’s Clackamas County even connected Antifa to the state’s wildfires. Those comments got him placed on leave.

Johnson’s epitaph as a “professional revolutionist” resounds with even greater force today:

I saw Communism in all its naked cruelty, ruthlessness and utter contempt of Christian attributes and passions. And, too, I saw the low value placed upon human life, the total lack of respect for the dignity of man, the betrayal of trust, the terror of the Secret Police and the bloody hand of the assassin…

Robert Hippolito, Front Page Magazine

When the Great Depression began, about 18 million elderly, disabled, and single mothers with children already lived at a bare subsistence level in the United States. State and local governments together with private charities helped these people. By 1933, another 13 million Americans had been thrown out of work. Suddenly, state and local governments and charities could no longer provide even minimum assistance for all those in need. Food riots broke out. Desertions by husbands and fathers increased. Homeless families in cities lived in public parks and shanty towns. Desperate times began to put into question the old American notion that if a man worked hard enough, he could always take care of himself and his family.

The effect of the Depression on poor children was particularly severe. Grace Abbott, head of the federal Children’s Bureau, reported that in the spring of 1933, 20 percent of the nation’s school children showed evidence of poor nutrition, housing, and medical care. School budgets were cut and in some cases schools were shut down for lack of money to pay teachers. An estimated 200,000 boys left home to wander the streets and beg because of the poor economic condition of their families.

Most elderly Americans did not have personal savings or retirement pensions to support them in normal times, let alone during a national economic crisis. Those few able to set aside money for retirement often found that their savings and investments had been wiped out by the financial crash in 1929. Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois made this observation in 1936:

The impact of all these forces increasingly convinced the majority of the American people that individuals could not by themselves provide adequately for their old age, and that some form of greater security should be provided by society.

Even skilled workers, business owners, successful farmers, and professionals of all kinds found themselves in severe economic difficulty as one out of four in the labor force lost their jobs. Words like “bewildered,” “shocked,” and “humiliated,” were often used at the time to describe increasing numbers of Americans as the Depression deepened.

Although President Franklin D. Roosevelt focused mainly on creating jobs for the masses of unemployed workers, he also backed the idea of federal aid for poor children and other dependent persons. By 1935, a national welfare system had been established for the first time in American history.

Welfare Before the Depression

A federal welfare system was a radical break from the past. Americans had always prided themselves on having a strong sense of individualism and self-reliance. Many believed that those who couldn’t take care of themselves were to blame for their own misfortunes. During the 19th century, local and state governments as well as charities established institutions such as poorhouses and orphanages for destitute individuals and families. Conditions in these institutions were often deliberately harsh so that only the truly desperate would apply.

Local governments (usually counties) also provided relief in the form of food, fuel, and sometimes cash to poor residents. Those capable were required to work for the town or county, often at hard labor such as chopping wood and maintaining roads. But most on general relief were poor dependent persons not capable of working: widows, children, the elderly, and the disabled. 

Local officials decided who went to the poorhouse or orphanage and who would receive relief at home. Cash relief to the poor depended on local property taxes, which were limited. Also, not only did a general prejudice exist against the poor on relief, but local officials commonly discriminated against individuals applying for aid because of their race, nationality, or religion. Single mothers often found themselves in an impossible situation. If they applied for relief, they were frequently branded as morally unfit by the community. If they worked, they were criticized for neglecting their children.

In 1909, President Theodore Roosevelt called a White House conference on how to best deal with the problem of poor single mothers and their children. The conference declared that preserving the family in the home was preferable to placing the poor in institutions, which were widely criticized as costly failures.

Starting with Illinois in 1911, the “mother’s pension” movement sought to provide state aid for poor fatherless children who would remain in their own homes cared for by their mothers. In effect, poor single mothers would be excused from working outside the home. Welfare reformers argued that the state pensions would also prevent juvenile delinquency since mothers would be able to supervise their children full-time.

By 1933, mother’s pension programs were operating in all but two states. They varied greatly from state to state and even from county to county within a state. In 1934, the average state grant per child was $11 a month. Administered in most cases by state juvenile courts, mother’s pensions mainly benefitted families headed by white widows. These programs excluded large numbers of divorced, deserted, and minority mothers and their children.

Few private and government retirement pensions existed in the United States before the Great Depression. The prevailing view was that individuals should save for their old age or be supported by their children. About 30 states provided some welfare aid to poor elderly persons without any source of income. Local officials generally decided who deserved old-age assistance in their community.

A National Welfare System

The emphasis during the first two years of President Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal” was to provide work relief for the millions of unemployed Americans. Federal money flowed to the states to pay for public works projects, which employed the jobless. Some federal aid also directly assisted needy victims of the Depression. The states, however, remained mainly responsible for taking care of the so-called “unemployables” (widows, poor children, the elderly poor, and the disabled). But states and private charities, too, were unable to keep up the support of these people at a time when tax collections and personal giving were declining steeply.

In his State of the Union Address before Congress on January 4, 1935, President Roosevelt declared, “the time has come for action by the national government” to provide “security against the major hazards and vicissitudes [uncertainties] of life.” He went on to propose the creation of federal unemployment and old-age insurance programs. He also called for guaranteed benefits for poor single mothers and their children along with other dependent persons.

By permanently expanding federal responsibility for the security of all Americans, Roosevelt believed that the necessity for government make-work employment and other forms of Depression relief would disappear. In his address before Congress, Roosevelt argued that the continuation of government relief programs was a bad thing for the country:

The lessons of history, confirmed by the evidence immediately before me, show conclusively that continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit. . . . 

A few months later, on August 18, 1935, Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act. It set up a federal retirement program for persons over 65, which was financed by a payroll tax paid jointly by employers and their workers. FDR believed that federal old-age pensions together with employer-paid unemployment insurance (also a part of the Social Security Act) would provide the economic security people needed during both good and bad times.

In addition to old-age pensions and unemployment insurance, the Social Security Act established a national welfare system. The federal government guaranteed one-third of the total amount spent by states for assistance to needy and dependent children under age 16 (but not their mothers). Additional federal welfare aid was provided to destitute old people, the needy blind, and crippled children. Although financed partly by federal tax money, the states could still set their own eligibility requirements and benefit levels. This part of the law was pushed by Southern states so they could control the coverage made available to their African-American population.

This is how welfare began as a federal government responsibility. Roosevelt and the members of Congress who wrote the welfare provisions into the Social Security Act thought that the need for federal aid to dependent children and poor old people would gradually wither away as employment improved and those over 65 began to collect Social Security pensions. But many Americans, such as farm laborers and domestic servants, were never included in the Social Security old-age retirement program. Also, since 1935, increasing divorce and father desertion rates have dramatically multiplied the number of poor single mothers with dependent children.

Since the Great Depression, the national welfare system expanded both in coverage and federal regulations. From its inception, the system drew critics. Some complained that the system did not do enough to get people to work. Others simply believed the federal government should not administer a welfare system. As the system grew, so did criticism of it, especially in the 1980s and ’90s.

In 1992, candidate Bill Clinton, a Democrat, ran for president promising to “end welfare as we know it.” In 1996, a Republican Congress passed and President Clinton signed a reform law that returned most control of welfare back to the states, thus ending 61 years of federal responsibility.

For Discussion and Writing

1. How did needy Americans get help before 1900?

2. Why did most states adopt “mother’s pension” programs after 1910? In what ways were these pensions sometimes administered unfairly?

3. Did President Franklin D. Roosevelt view the Social Security Act’s welfare provisions helping needy children and other dependent persons as permanent or temporary? Explain FDR’s reasoning on this matter.

For Further Reading

Burg, David F. The Great Depression, An Eyewitness History. New York: Facts on File, 1996.

Handler, Joel F. The Moral Construction of Poverty. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1991.
 
 
 

ACTIVITY

Who Should Be Responsible for Welfare?

The debate still continues over who should be responsible for the welfare of destitute old people, disabled persons, and poor single mothers and their children.

1. Divide into small groups to discuss the four different positions on the responsibility for welfare that are listed below.

2. Each group should decide which position is the best and report its conclusions and reasons to the rest of the class.

3. The class should then vote on the four choices.

4. Finally, each student should write an editorial explaining why his or her choice is the most preferable.

Positions

A. Welfare should be a national government responsibility so that needy single mothers of dependent children, elderly, and disabled persons in every part of the country can get support when they meet certain qualifications.

B. Welfare should be a state government responsibility so that each of the 50 states will be free to design its own qualifications and levels of support.

C. Welfare should be the responsibility of charities, churches, and other non-profit groups.

D. There should be no welfare. Individuals should take care of themselves with the help of their families, friends, and neighbors.

Market exchange is not based on the requirement that both parties appraise the goods about to be exchanged at equal value. Instead, market exchange is based on both parties benefiting from a two-way, unequal valuation of the goods to be exchanged.

An example from my youth: During my high school years in the early 1980s, I had purchased a double-live album of the rock group Rush for $15. Teenagers can be a fickle lot and I was no different. My musical tastes changed during my junior year and I morphed from a Rush fan into someone who felt that Fly By Night was simply noise — vulgar noise at that. Not only did I no longer listen to the album, I wanted to get rid of it since I felt that the album reduced the quality of my record collection.

Along comes a fellow student who was fast becoming an ardent Rush fan. We agreed to an exchange: I would trade my album for his $5. Fair enough. Right after the exchange, as I held the $5 and he held the album, the new Rush fan said something along the lines of, “I just ripped you off. I would have paid $10 for that album.” I replied, “No, I just ripped you off since I was about to toss the album into the garbage anyway.”

You see, we both had different valuations for the $5 and the album, which is why we traded. But carefully note the dialogue that occurred between us. To the outside observer, one of us may appear to have been “ripped off” due to a lack of knowledge of the other’s true valuation and, hence, tricked in the exchange by an unfair negotiation. Depending on the observer’s point of reference, he may have locked onto either my claim of profit or my fellow trader’s claim of profit.

Or, and this is where things go wrong, one of us may have actually decided to act on the other’s statement. I could have been offended by the knowledge of the Rush fan’s true valuation of the album, or maybe I was influenced, pushed, or prodded by the observer who believed I got shafted in the exchanged. So, instead of accepting the exchange as agreed, I may have sought a third-party ruling on the fairness of the trade. What sounded good ex ante — before the trade — sounded like unfair negotiations ex post — after the trade. I should have received the $10 since it was a $15 album — I was truly “ripped off.” Wasn’t I?

I probably could have found the sympathetic ear of a government official who felt the tug of omniscience; someone believing in his own capacity to understand true value, someone believing that the state needs to protect those acting in non-coerced exchanges. My fellow trader would have been forced to hand over an additional $5 so that an arbitrated fair exchange occurred. But, why is that any more fair than the exchange we initially agree upon? Well, in fact, it isn’t.

The actions of the sympathetic do not increase fairness, nor do they increase value. Their actions actually decrease wealth as such intrusions in the market leave participants without a guarantee of the final result of a non-coerced exchange. The rule of contract and common law is replaced by the rule of civil law and bureaucracy. As a result, people become less likely to exchange as the rules of the game change with the political winds.

The point: When an elected official or government bureaucrat interferes with a valid, non-coerced exchange, they may appear to be helping one individual when they are actually harming a foundation of modern society; free exchange of goods and services. They tend not to believe that their action can result in harm because power is almost always cloaked by the veil of omniscience.

During this political campaign season, letter writers to local newspapers have been congratulating a local congressman for his willingness to intervene on each writer’s own behalf. What these letter writers forget is that the power to intervene is simply the power to use the hammer of government in order to force individuals and firms to act other than they would have normally chosen; to act outside of already signed contractual agreements. The hammer of government does not create fairness, as the hammer is anathema to the principals of Liberty that founded our country.

I’m not talking about contract or criminal laws being broken, I’m referring to a congressman using government to lean on individuals and companies that have broken no law. Simply because someone was unsatisfied with the result of a contract that they signed under no duress, they chose to get the local power broker to have the contract amended — if the “offending” individuals and firms know what’s best for them, they agree to the amendments. The position to exert such pressure must be quite an aphrodisiac for power seekers.

The ability to influence, to put the pressure on someone, cuts both ways. This time it benefits you, the next time it hurts you. When a congressman implicitly uses the power of government to change contracts and events, he has moved from the realm of the citizen-statesman to that of the political don who controls Third World politics. He’s the Soviet apparatchik trading his ability to threaten for a bottle of vodka, or a front-page story and supportive letter to the editor. Why depend on contracts and the court system when your congressman can get the job done.

Neither I nor the new Rush fan should have sought the intrusive power of government after our exchange. We agreed to the price and we both profited. Sure one of us could have negotiated a better price but our lack of a Trumpian sense for the art of the deal does not warrant government interference. We both profited from our unequal valuations of cash and music. Had we sought compensation due to a perceived excess profit obtained by our fellow trader, the end result would have been that he and I would not have continued engaging in mutual exchanges of goods or services. And, that would have been a loss to both of us, and society in general.Author:

Jim Fedako

Jim Fedako, a business analyst and homeschooling father of seven, lives in the wilds of suburban Columbus. Send him mail.

California is a mess; no secret there.  But the degree of decline that befalls it, and the quickness with which that decline is moving, seems to be largely ignored, particularly by Californians themselves.  The nation’s most populous state, and arguably its most naturally beautiful, is falling apart virtually everywhere we look.  Yet state and local governments not only insist on moving forward with leftist policies, but continually double down by moving even farther left, and the state’s voters return them to office with ever-increasing electoral margins.  California’s current approach to virtually all aspects of society — the economy, environment, legal system and culture — is unsustainable, and the time for reckoning is rapidly approaching.

The current crisis in California that is getting the most national attention is the plague of wildfires throughout much of the northern part of the state.  Such fires have ravaged the area for millennia, long before the presence of any European settlers, but that has not stopped California leftists and their media from pointing fingers at climate change and President Trump.  Avoiding responsibility for a crisis by blaming anyone and anything with even a remote chance of culpability is the California way — which leads to a failure to develop real solutions.  None of California’s leaders, least of all Democratic governor Gavin Newsom, have accepted any responsibility for the government’s role in the fires.  Evidence clearly shows that the decision by the state to revive “fire suppression” efforts, a practice that essentially delays the inevitable and results in even larger wildfires (and was mostly discontinued in the 1960s), has been a major contributor to the magnitude of this year’s fires.  But has the government of California even paused to reconsider the strategy?  Sadly, no.

Wildfires, unfortunately, are among the least of California’s woes.  Homelessness in the state has become a major problem, and one that is having a significant impact on the quality of life for taxpayers.  According to a San Francisco Chronicle article published last December, “[w]hile the latest counts compiled by the federal government show that America’s homeless population is growing again after more than a decade of declines, the entire national increase and more can be attributed to California alone.”  In other words, homelessness continues to be on the decline in the U.S. if we exclude California.  So how does California plan on addressing the problem?  A bill passed by the state’s Legislature earlier this month will empower Governor Newsom to appoint a “Homelessness Czar.”  Government actions, including regulations which aggressively target landlords and programs that provide handouts enticing the homeless to settle in the state, have perpetuated the homeless situation, but more taxpayer dollars and government interference is always the solution for California.  Got a problem?  Throw money at it, and let the government make it worse.

With increasing homelessness, a soft approach to criminal prosecution, and the ongoing embracing of illegal immigration, violent crimes are increasing after having seen a reduction the past few years.  According to The Trace, “homicides are sharply up this year” in California as a whole, and cities such as Oakland, with a 26% increase, have seen a significant increase in the number of murders.  With the jump in violent crimes, what steps has California’s government taken to reduce certain crimes?  They recently passed the controversial bill S.B. 145, which will ultimately end up reducing accountability and sentences for adults who sexually assault children as young as 14.  What a brilliant idea.  Apparently, California’s leadership believes that the pedophile community had been treated unfairly.  

In spite of an abundance of bad news items hitting California on a regular basis, the most ominous challenge is undoubtedly the fiscal time bomb that looms, and whose ticking grows louder by the day.  Already one of the highest taxed states in the U.S., California had a reported government debt of over $1.5 trillion as of 2017 — long before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and an amount that has surely increased dramatically since.  Undeterred, on September 2, state lawmakers sent a budget to Governor Newsom calling for $600 million in spending increases and a reduction in state revenue with the extension of earned income tax credits for immigrants and illegal aliens.  Balance sheet be damned, California must cater to illegal aliens.https://lockerdome.com/lad/9371484590420070?pubid=ld-8832-1542&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.americanthinker.com&rid=www.americanthinker.com&width=692

Increasing spending and decreasing revenue is a lousy recipe for getting one’s fiscal house in order — particularly one that is already a disaster.  The state government appears to be counting on an eventual federal bailout from its financial predicament, but that help is not going to happen, nor should it.

California industries have recognized the signals and are taking action.  High-profile companies and leaders have announced their plans to leave the state or have openly proclaimed their considerations for the idea.  Media outlet The Daily Wire, with co-owner Ben Shapiro, recently announced its plan to move to Nashville; podcast giant Joe Rogan is taking his ball and moving to Texas; and Elon Musk is moving Tesla’s headquarters out-of-state, and possibly manufacturing operations as well.   Other businesses will surely follow, as the hostility toward industry through taxes and oppressive regulations continues unimpeded.  State lawmakers are not intimidated by the idea of losing millions of dollars in revenue and have recently taken the bold step of adding a layer of government regulations to existing and would-be businesses.  Another bill recently passed by the state legislature will “mandate ethnic, racial or LGBT diversity on corporate boards” — more government intervention in the private sector in the name of virtue and another assault on the philosophy of meritocracy.

California has some of the most appealing weather in the world, but pleasant weather goes only so far.  Residents enjoy the state’s natural wonders such as the lovely Napa Valley, Yosemite National Park, and the glorious pacific coast highway, but they have been choosing to leave anyway at an increasing rate in a phenomenon that is being called “The California Exodus.”  The state population decreased by almost 200,000 in 2018, and over 28,000 left the San Francisco Bay area alone in a single quarter last year.  Inevitably, the question that Californians have to consider is this: while it may be bad now, is there a chance it is going to get better?

California, the bluest of blue states, has rising crime and homelessness.  California has fearsome wildfires and rolling electrical blackouts due to government mismanagement of its forests and energy systems.  California has an ever-increasing budget deficit with no end in sight.  Yet California’s tone-deaf politicians continue to enjoy immense support from their oblivious electorate.  Many residents cherish the song lyric that laments, “Going to California with an aching in my heart.”  Unfortunately, the time has come for many to recognize reality, and to leave California with a similar aching.  California is decaying before our eyes, and it is not going to get better.

P.F. Whalen is a conservative blogger at TheBlueStateConservative.com.  His work has appeared in multiple publications, including American Thinker, the Western Journal, and Human Events. Follow him on Twitter at @pf_whalen.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared that multiculturalism has “utterly failed,” adding that it was an illusion to think Germans and foreign workers could “live happily side by side.” The failure of multiculturalism is also seen in Denmark, Sweden, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium and other European countries. Immigrants coming from Africa and the Middle East refuse to assimilate and instead seek to import the failed cultures they fled.

Leftist diversity advocates and multiculturalists are right to argue that people of all races, religions and cultures should be equal in the eyes of the law. But their argument borders on idiocy when they argue that one set of cultural values cannot be judged superior to another and that to do so is Eurocentrism.

That’s unbridled nonsense. Ask a diversity/multiculturalism advocate: Is forcible female genital mutilation, as practiced in nearly 30 sub-Saharan African and Middle Eastern countries, a morally equivalent cultural value? Slavery is practiced in northern Sudan. In most of the Middle East, there are numerous limits placed on women, such as prohibitions on driving, employment and education. Under Islamic law, in some countries, female adulterers face death by stoning, and thieves are punished by having their hand severed. In some African and Middle Eastern countries, homosexuality is a crime, in some cases punishable by death. Are all these cultural values morally equivalent to those of the West?https://16112885f7b1d808143b3781f9bacd73.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html

The vital achievement of the West was the concept of individual rights, which saw its birth with the Magna Carta in 1215. The idea emerged that individuals have certain inalienable rights. Individuals do not exist to serve government; governments exist to protect their rights. But it was not until the 19th century that ideas of liberty received broad recognition. In the West, it was mostly through the works of British philosophers, such as John Locke, David Hume, Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill.

Personal liberty implies toleration of differences among people, whether those differences are racial, sexual, ideological or political. Liberty also implies a willingness to permit others who disagree with you to go their separate ways. This is not the vision of the new immigrants. In some parts of Britain, Christians are threatened with violence for merely handing out Bibles. Trying to convert Muslims to Christianity is seen as a hate crime. Women are accosted by Muslim men for “improper” dress. Many women are sexually assaulted. In many European countries, “no-go zones” — where civil authorities will not enter — in which Shariah is practiced have been established. According to the Express, “London, Paris, Stockholm and Berlin are among the major European cities that feature on a bombshell list of 900 lawless zones with large immigrant populations” (http://tinyurl.com/hubbxuw).https://16112885f7b1d808143b3781f9bacd73.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html

Both in Europe and in the U.S., multiculturalism is a leftist elitist vision with its roots in academia. The intellectual elite, courts and government agencies push an agenda that is anything but a defense of individual rights, freedom from conformity and a live-and-let-live philosophy. Instead, multiculturalism/diversity is an agenda for all kinds of conformity — conformity in ideas, actions and speech. It calls for re-education programs where diversity managers indoctrinate students, faculty members, employees, managers and executives on what’s politically correct thinking. Part of that lesson is nonjudgmentalism, where one is taught that one lifestyle is just as worthy as another and all cultures and their values are morally equivalent.

Western values are superior to all others. But one need not be a Westerner to hold Western values. A person can be Chinese, Japanese, Jewish, African or Arab and hold Western values. By the way, it is no accident that Western values of reason and individual rights have produced unprecedented health, life expectancy, wealth and comfort for the ordinary person. There’s an indisputable positive relationship between liberty and standards of living. There is also indisputable evidence that we in the West are unwilling to defend ourselves from barbarians. Just look at our response to the recent Orlando massacre, in which we’ve focused our energies on guns rather than on terrorists.https://16112885f7b1d808143b3781f9bacd73.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html

Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at http://www.creators.com.

Ayn Rand said that “the United States of America is the greatest, the noblest and, in its original founding principles, the only moral country in the history of the world.”  Why did she say “moral”?  Because the original system of the United States was capitalism, “a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.”  One of those individual rights is the right to pursue one’s own happiness.  But many people think acting in one’s self-interest conflicts with acting morally.

Evonomics.com, a progressive website biased against capitalism, has a discussion in an article about the role of morality in a capitalist economy.  Peter Turchin states, “The main question is whether economic agents, most importantly businessmen (including both corporation officers and business owners), should be motivated solely by self-interest, or should they also be motivated by personal ethics.” 

There is no dichotomy between being motivated by personal ethics or a rational self-interest.  It is always in one’s best self-interest to be ethical.  It may seem to some as though being deceptive in order to get something is in one’s self-interest, but one always has to consider the long-range consequences of one’s actions.  If someone cheats at a game in order to win, he knows that he didn’t really win.  If someone lies in order to gain sales for his product, he knows that he doesn’t deserve the sales.  Gaining, or trying to gain, what is not deserved is self-destructive.  It harms one’s self-worth because deep down one knows the truth — that one is not worthy of the win. This does not bode well for inner self-confidence and happiness.  How is being unethical in one’s best self-interest?

What about the people who do not act in their rational self-interest and are unethical?  It is the system of capitalism that corrects corruption due to actions of a free market that offers other choices. Once it is discovered that a businessman is dishonest, he loses business because the customers go elsewhere. Anyone who harms the individual rights of others through the use of force or fraud can be taken to a court of law for restitution or some form of justice.  But with socialism, the government controls all economic activity, so citizens are stuck with the corruption.  Actually, corruption grows and becomes the standard within socialism, as well as in a mixed economy, because decisions are taken out of the marketplace and reside solely within the political realm.

It may seem as if it is in one’s self-interest to buy off politicians in order to get laws passed that give one an edge over one’s competition, but this is not moral, nor is it rational.  People who do this are not really businessmen, they are swindlers.  Swindlers know that they cheated and that they have attained what they don’t deserve.  They have essentially committed a form of theft against their competitors and customers, and they have the constant stress that someone else could do the same thing to them.  Another negative result is that swindlers become dependent on politicians to keep the game going — they become dependent on politicians to grant them additional favors so they can stay in business.  A solution for this problem is to get rid of the mixed economy.  In a truly laissez-faire capitalistic society, a full separation between economics and state would predominantly prevent swindlers from using money to seek power by manipulating politics.

But aren’t businessmen greedy and isn’t greed immoral? Money is a medium of exchange, provides security, and there is nothing wrong with a desire to honestly earn more of it.  Who is it that determines if someone has excessive greed? Why is the person who works honestly for his money and wants more considered greedy, but the politician who demands money from him not considered greedy?

Whether greed is good or bad depends on the context.  If someone is greedy for something negative like drinking alcohol to excess, the result will most likely be negative.  He could become an alcoholic or abusive.  If someone is greedy for something positive such as the spouse of his dreams, the result will most likely be positive.  He could have a happy marriage.  Any successful entrepreneur is consumed with greed, but his greed is for his work.  He is primarily motivated by doing a good job; the money is secondary. 

Morality and a rational self-interest are not incompatible.  In order to survive, human beings need the freedom to work and keep the fruits of their labor.  True capitalism (i.e. without government interference such as bailouts, regulations, favors, and backroom deals) provides the freedom for businessmen to produce, but they have to do it honestly, otherwise they will not be successful.  If successful, the capitalist earns material wealth.  Production leads to prosperity and everyone benefits from prosperity — a hallmark of capitalism.

Charlotte Cushman is a Montessori educator and authored Montessori: Why It Matters for Your Child’s Success and Happiness, Effective Discipline the Montessori Way, and Your Life Belongs to You.  She has been involved in the study of Ayn Rand’s philosophy since 1970.

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Since 2015, George Soros has been executing a plan to reshape the country through local district attorney elections by pumping unprecedented amounts of money into races that typically only see candidates spend in the low five figures.

Here’s why he has an interest in these local races. Soros is exploiting the reality that all politics are local in some way. To transform America, you have to transform the way towns and cities operate.

A recent exchange on Fox News involving former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Fox News host Harris Faulkner, Democrat commentator Marie Harf, and Fox commentator Melissa A. Francis made the hair on my arms stand up because I realized how many people were either unaware of what Soros is doing or have been silenced by the idea that it’s somehow antisemitic to criticize Soros’s political activity.

Criticizing People’s Political Actions Isn’t Racist

Before we dive into what Soros has done, we need to put the antisemitism argument to bed. Criticizing how an enormously wealthy individual uses his money to change a nation is not in any way related to criticism of that person’s ethnicity or religious beliefs. It’s simply an exercise of civic engagement, which is essential for any self-governing people.

The left’s assumption that questioning someone’s political spending is equivalent to questioning his dignity as a person is itself a deeply bigoted assumption, designed solely to silence dissent and shut down debate.

In the segment I referred to earlier, Gingrich brought up the indisputable fact that Soros has been spending what can only be described as unprecedented amounts of money on local races in recent years, with a goal of flipping DA races to far-left “progressive” candidates who will implement soft-on-crime policies that inevitably result in skyrocketing crime rates and violent criminals walking free.

In response, Harf and Francis objected: “George Soros doesn’t need to be a part of this conversation.” Harf went so far as to deny that Soros is buying these races, and Faulkner did not step in to correct her. The segment ends in awkward silence as a disappointed Gingrich remarks that it’s apparently “verboten” to speak about Soros on Fox News.

Buying Prosecutors Who Are Soft on Crime

Since 2015, Soros has pumped tens of millions of dollars into local races in Texas, Colorado, California, Oregon, Washington, Florida, and New York, as well as swing states such as Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Arizona. In 2016, Soros spent $2,000,000 on a single sheriff race in Maricopa County, Arizona, helping the leftist candidate, Paul Penzone, win.

In Philadelphia, Soros spent an insane $1,700,000 to elect Larry Krasner DA. Soros has also given millions of dollars in grants to candidates in other states. These enormous contributions have had a correspondingly enormous impact.

Although his efforts haven’t been universally successful, the vast majority of Soros-backed candidates have won with Soros donations pushing them across the finish line. Here are just a few examples:

• $2,000,000 to fund Kim Foxx in her Cook County (Chicago, Ill.) re-election bid.
• $1,400,000 to fund Aramis Ayala’s campaign to become state’s attorney of Orlando, Fla.
• $1,150,000 to fund Jake Lilly’s run to become DA of Jefferson and Gilpin County (Denver) in Colorado.
• $958,000 to fund Joe Gonzales’s run to become DA of Bexar County (San Antonio, Texas).
• $650,000 to fund Jose Garza in his Travis County (Austin, Texas) re-election bid.
• $750,000 to fund Joe Kimok in his Broward County, Fla. state’s attorney race.
• $583,000 to fund Kim Ogg’s run to become Harris County (Houston, Texas) DA.
• $583,000 to fund Parisa Dehghani-Tafti in her race to be Arlington County (Va.) commonwealth’s attorney.
• $500,000 to fund Jody Owen’s run to become Hinds County, Miss. (Jackson) DA.
• $406,000 to fund James E. Stewart’s run to become Caddo Parish, La. (Shreveport) DA.
• $392,000 to fund Steve T. Descano’s bid to become Fairfax County (Va.) commonwealth’s attorney.
• $275,000 to fund Diana Becton’s bid to remain as Contra Costa County, Calif. DA.
• $147,000 to fund Darius Pattillo in his run to become Harris County, Ga. DA.
• $116,000 to fund Kim Gardner’s re-election bid as St. Louis circuit attorney.
• $107,000 to fund Raul Torrez bid to become Benalillo County (Albuquerque, N.M.) DA.
• $89,000 to fund Scott Colom’s bid to become DA of Lowndes County, Miss.

That’s just a partial list, but it surely corroborates Gingrich’s point that Soros “paid for” the outcomes of those elections, notwithstanding Harf’s unsubstantiated denial. In 2018 The Los Angeles Times reported that Soros spent $2,700,000 on California DA races alone, and another $16 million on 17 DA races in other states.

Look How Crazy These DAs Are

San Francisco’s new DA, Chesa Boudin, is a perfect example of the ideological temperament of the candidates Soros has been backing. Boudin is a former translator for the late Venezuelan socialist dictator Hugo Chavez.

He’s also the son of two Weather Underground domestic terrorists who were convicted of murder for their roles in a Brink’s armored car robbery that resulted in the killings of three people. Due to the incarceration of his parents, Boudin was raised by former Weather Underground leader Bill Ayers.

Huge contributions from the deep-pocketed Soros have made it nearly impossible for anyone to compete against his chosen candidates because DA elections rarely involve campaign war chests in excess of a few tens of thousands of dollars. Soros’s millions allow his candidates to bombard voters with propaganda, including commercials that smear Republicans as racists for fighting crime.

What Soros’s DAs Have Done In Office

Now let’s talk about what happens after Election Day, when the Soros-backed candidates start wielding their newfound power. Many of the following names will likely be familiar.

Foxx is well known as the DA who let actor Jussie Smollett escape prosecution after he hoaxed the nation by pretending he was beaten up by two men who allegedly shouted “This is MAGA country” in deep-blue Chicago, Illinois. A special prosecutor assigned to examine Foxx’s conduct in the case said there was “substantial abuses of discretion and operational failures” and determined she was guilty of “making false and/or misleading statements to the public.”

A recent report from the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, moreover, found a 13 percent decline in guilty pleas or verdicts in felony cases and a 39 percent increase in dropped or lost cases after Foxx took office.

If you’ve had the misfortune of hearing Kim Gardner’s name, it’s probably because she’s trying to throw Mark and Patricia McCloskey in jail for defending their home by exercising their right to bear arms when they were threatened by rioters. Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner, along with Baltimore DA Maryln Mosby, threatened in an op-ed to have federal officers arrested if these prosecutors feel they overstep their authority in his district.

Boudin is one of the DAs on this list who refuses to prosecute what he calls “quality-of-life crimes” such as camping in the streets, offering or soliciting sex, public urination, and more. He also recently questioned whether spending money on law enforcement is “the most effective” use of tax dollars. He has also said that policing and incarceration “are tremendously expensive and are failed responses to what we are trying to deal with.”

Diane Becton of Contra Costa County, Calif. filed hate crime charges against David Nelson and Nichole Anderson for painting over a Black Lives Matter mural. Suffolk County, Mass. DA Rachael Rollins, along with Krasner and Boudin, is part of the also-Soros-backed “Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation Commissions” that team up with far-left activist Shaun King’s “Grassroots Law Project” to advocate for defunding the police. Yes, that’s the same Shaun King who recently called for people to destroy statues and stained glass windows that depict Jesus as white.

Before going on his spending spree in DA races, Soros also made a $50 million donation to the American Civil Liberties Union’s “Campaign to End Mass Incarceration” through his Open Society Foundation in 2014. Much of this money trickled down to local progressive groups who back these types of radical candidates as well.

Without Law and Order, You Don’t Have a Country

After watching the Fox News exchange involving Gingrich, Francis, Harf, and Faulkner, I wondered how anyone who works in the news business could be so uninformed about what Soros has been up to. The left-wing billionaire’s plan clearly operates on the understanding that all politics are local and takes advantage of small-ball local DA races to remake the American justice system — and, by extension, remake all of America into the far-left world of his dreams.

That leap from remaking our justice system to remaking America may seem like a long jump to some, but law and order is the core of America’s existence. Without law and order, you don’t have a country.

If you want to know what the next step is for Soros, it’s a continued expansion of funding for DA races, but also so much more. His recent pledge of $1 billion to endow a network of universities across the nation is part and parcel with his broader effort to promote his far-left ideology among impressionable young people.

Soros calls this initiative “the most important project of my life.” That should deeply concern ordinary Americans everywhere, and perhaps even inspire a backlash of small-dollar donations to fight Soros’s pernicious influence.

I believe that maintaining our freedoms and preserving the Constitution are two pillars of keeping America great, along with upholding the rule of law and properly educating our youth. Soros has a plan to systematically tear down those pillars, and we’re not supposed to talk about it. But we must, and we will.

Robby Starbuck is a Cuban-American producer and director. Robby was nominated for Best Rock Video and Best Indie Video at the Much Music Video Awards (MMVAs), won the YouTube Play award, won the Kerrang! Video of the Year award and Best Video With A Message at the MTV VMAs. His work has been viewed over 5 Billion times worldwide.

Brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who are accused of setting the bombs that exploded at the Boston Marathon, attended the University of Massachusetts. Maybe they hated our nation before college, but if you want lessons on hating America, college attendance might be a good start. Let’s look at it.

“We need to think very, very clearly about who the enemy is. The enemy is the United States of America and everyone who supports it.” That’s taught to University of Hawaii students by Professor Haunani-Kay Trask. Richard Falk, professor emeritus at Princeton University and the U.N. Human Rights Council’s Palestine monitor, explained the Boston bombings by saying, “The American global domination project is bound to generate all kinds of resistance in the post-colonial world.” Professor Falk has also stated that President George W. Bush ordered the destruction of the twin towers.

University of Southern California professor Darry Sragow preaches hate to his students in his regulation of elections and political finance class, recently telling them that Republicans are stupid, racist losers and that they are angry old white people. A few years ago, Rod Swanson, a UCLA economics professor, told his class, “The United States of America, backed by facts, is the greediest and most selfish country in the world.” Penn State University professor Matt Jordan compared supporters of the voter ID laws to the Ku Klux Klan. Professor Sharon Sweet, an algebra teacher at Brevard Community College, told her students to sign a pledge that read, “I pledge to vote for President Obama and Democrats up and down the ticket.” Fortunately, the college’s trustees fired her.null

University of Rhode Island history professor Erik Loomis tweeted, “I want (National Rifle Association executive vice president) Wayne LaPierre’s head on a stick.” He asked, “Can (we) define NRA membership as dues contributing to a terrorist organization?” Here’s a sample of how Professor Loomis frequently expresses himself: “Motherf—ing f—heads f—ing f—.” Then there’s Georgetown law professor Louis Michael Seidman, who explained our national problems by saying, “But almost no one blames the culprit: our insistence on obedience to the Constitution, with all its archaic, idiosyncratic and downright evil provisions.” Professor Seidman worked for The Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia. When he was sworn in as an officer of the court, I wonder what constitution he swore to uphold and defend.

Parents don’t have to wait for college admission for their youngsters to receive America-hating lessons. Scott Compton, an English teacher at Chapin High School in Chapin, S.C., was put on administrative leave after he allegedly threw an American flag on the floor and stomped on it in front of his students. He has chosen to resign.Recommended For You

An Advanced Placement world geography teacher at Lumberton High School in Texas encouraged students to dress in Islamic clothing and instructed them to refer to the 9/11 hijackers not as terrorists but as “freedom fighters.” They were also told to stop referring to the Holocaust as genocide. John Valastro, the superintendent of the Lumberton Independent School District, told Fox News that the teacher did absolutely nothing wrong.

In McAllen, Texas, teachers tried to force a teenager to sing the Mexican national anthem and recite Mexico’s pledge of allegiance. The teen refused, saying it was against her beliefs as an American. She was thrown out of the class and given a failing grade for that day’s assignment. Her father has filed a lawsuit on behalf of his daughter against the McAllen Independent School District.

Investor’s Business Daily ran a story that shows student indoctrination is official union policy: “A New Low From The California Federation Of Teachers: Urine Indoctrination” (12/5/12). The union’s website has a cartoon narrated by leftist Hollywood actor Ed Asner. In tones used when reading to children, Asner says: “(Rich people) love their money more than anything in the whole world. … Over time, rich people decided they weren’t rich enough, so they came up with ways to get richer.” The cartoon finishes its class warfare message by graphically depicting “the rich” urinating on the poor.

These people running our education system are destroying the minds and values of our young people, and we allow them to do it.

Washington Examiner Columnist Walter E. Williams is nationally syndicated by Creators Syndicate.

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SAN FRANCISCO, CA—In a landmark ruling, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In a close decision, the judges on the court have ruled RBG’s death unconstitutional and will block Trump from nominating a replacement.

Kim McLane Wardlaw, the judge who issued the ruling, said in a statement: “Justice Ginsburg’s death was an affront to the constitution as well as our God-given right to abort as many babies as possible and sell their body parts for research. Death, at its core, is a construct designed to subvert the rule of law by taking pro-choice liberal judges away from us too soon. We cannot allow Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death to stand. By law, she will now be considered alive and well.”

Trump slammed the ruling as “idiotic” and called the court judges “a bunch of morons.” Republicans pounced on this ruling like tigers that pounce on their prey before ruthlessly tearing it to pieces with their razor-sharp claws. “This is a terrible ruling because we’re racist and we hate women,” said a bunch of Republicans, according to anonymous sources. 

Judge Wardlaw followed up on her ruling, saying: “We hereby rule any attempt by President Trump to appoint a replacement to be unconstitutional. We will block any attempt until we figure out a way to resurrect her or maybe clone her and restore her to her already ‘legally alive’ state. We’re still figuring that part out.”

Babylon Bee

Eric Schansberg is Assistant Professor of Economics at Indiana University-Southeast.

When posed as a general question, most people are inclined to support free markets and capitalism rather than government control and socialism. They have seen the fruits of “free market” economies and the failures of socialism. They support freedom as a principle and generally dislike the intrusions and bureaucracy of government.

Yet when it comes to specific government programs, the public is frequently enthusiastic about them. And whenever the economy is not running smoothly, the public demands action from the President and the Congress to “do something.” By giving explicit or tacit approval to such programs, people reveal that they think government can solve problems better than the market. Thus, people support free markets in general, but support government intervention on particular issues. The free market is difficult to defend against calls for government activism.

The Visible and Invisible Hands

Many people would agree that socialism is a less productive system than capitalism. But socialism has one advantage. To the extent it does work, one can see exactly how its success was achieved. As a pure economic system, every step between the inputs into production and the final product is controlled by a central planner the “visible hand” at work. In other words, one can precisely point to how the loaf of bread got to the consumer’s table.

Under a free market system, the “invisible hand” is just that—invisible. People pursuing their own interests are guided by the invisible hand of relative prices and inadvertently promote the well-being of society. Few people, if any, are able to enumerate exactly how the market is able to provide consumers with any particular good.

One of the contributions of public choice economics has been to note that costs and benefits are perceived in a similar manner in microeconomic settings. The benefits of individual government programs are as visible as the (albeit limited) successes of socialism as a macroeconomic system. When government creates new jobs through increased spending or preserves existing jobs through some form of protectionism, the additional employment is easy to see and is quickly attributed to government.

In addition, the costs of government activism are difficult to see. With programs that entail additional spending, government may choose to pay for the program with higher taxes now, higher taxes later (deficit financing), an inflation tax or some combination of the above. The visibility of these “payment plans” differs but all are more obscure than the benefits they bring. The costs of higher current taxes are the easiest to see (and thus the least politically popular) but even they are subtle. Note that a one-billion-dollar program costs only four dollars per capita; for a family of four with a single wage-earner, taxes increase by only $1.33 per month. Who would notice another dollar being taken out of his paycheck each month? Further, who will hold government accountable for the jobs that are lost as a result of taxpayers having less disposable income? The one billion dollar loss to consumers will destroy a few jobs in many industries since that money will no longer be spent on dry cleaning and appliances, or invested in new businesses. (See Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson [1946]. In Mr. Hazlitt’s words, “the art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists of looking at the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.”)

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Another way for the costs of a program to be hidden is for government to mandate that firms be responsible for providing it. A government program that subsidizes parents or firms to encourage or allow the parents to stay home with newborns would involve some direct expense. But if parental leave were to become a “worker’s legal right,” the benefits would still be easy to see and the costs would be nearly invisible. Who would attribute the subsequent long-term impact—some combination of greater unemployment, lower compensation for workers (in terms of other fringe benefits and wages), and higher product prices—to government’s activism? These costs are extremely subtle.

The benefits of government programs are easy to see and their costs are difficult to see. In contrast, the benefits of less government involvement—a move toward freer markets—are subtle and its costs are quite visible. Thus it is not surprising that governmental activism is relatively popular.

How Incentives Differ

Economics provides another important explanation for the paradox of why government activism often “wins the day.” It turns out that those who receive the relatively large and easy-to-see benefits have incentives different from those who bear the relatively small and difficult-to- see costs.

Suppose that the benefits of the one billion dollar program cited above are split equally by 1,000 people; each will receive one million dollars. Remember that this will cost every citizen four dollars. It is unlikely that they will notice. But even if they did, it is improbable that they would want to devote significant resources either to obtaining information or to fighting the proposal. On the other hand, those receiving a million dollars will go to great lengths to obtain their favor from government. At the very least, they will have an incentive to present eloquently and forcefully the merits of the program (but not its costs). At the other extreme, they might provide disinformation to “rationally ignorant” voters or (at least implicitly) bribe legislators.

Further, the bureaucrats who administer the programs passed by the legislative and executive branches have an incentive to see their programs’ scopes and budgets enlarged. They have the same incentive structure as the other “winners.”

In sum, there are at least two plausible explanations for the paradox of why people support free markets in general and government activism in specific areas. The visible benefits of government activism are easier to explain than the more abundant but more diffuse benefits of free markets. And due to the different incentives that winners and losers face for any given proposal, the benefits of government programs are more forcefully argued since their proponents will (out of ignorance or deceit) discuss the program only in its most favorable light.

Government programs may be bad economics, but why they are bad economics may be difficult to explain. That is why an effective defense of the free market must be based on moral principle.

Dr. Eric Schansberg, Foundation for Economic Education