(Guestpost by Drew)
Economists often use analogies to describe socialism. Imagine a group of twenty people traveling to a restaurant. This is a charitable, civic-minded group, and for that reason, they all agree to split the dinner bill evenly. The restaurant they attend has a wide variety of food options, ranging from $5 sallads and sandwiches to $40 steaks. After they sit down at the table, each member looks at the menu. One man named Tom overhears several friends down the table. They are discussing their plans to order the nicest steaks on the menu.
This conversation slightly irks Tom. He was planning to order an inexpensive hamburger, but now he knows he will have to bear the cost of his friends’ exquisite tastes. But then Tom gets an idea: He’ll order the same thing as them. A $40 steak would be really tasty, along with maybe a side salad, and some soup for an appetizer. This will be a nice dinner. After all, Tom deserves it. Besides, the group is paying for it, not him.
Unfortunately, everyone begins to develop the same idea. Finally, they all order and enjoy their food.
When the waitress arrives with a bill, the head of the table is shocked to find that the twenty people have collectively spent over $800. Using their own money, most individuals would have preferred to spent maybe $5-14. Unfortunately, they all felt compelled to utilize the collective pool of money. In the end, each person pays about $40 (plus tax and tip), or three or four times as much as he would have preferred to spend.
That’s the standard economic parable. It describes a dilemma called “the Tragedy of the Commons,” where everyone tries to build himself up by spending the resources of others. When each person robs other people, the entire group suffers. That’s the standard story, but let’s take things a step further, and examine the truly authoritarian outcome.
Imagine that the group thinks ahead. They still want to share the dinner cost, but they realize that the group will suffer unless they limit spending somewhat. An $18 cap on dinner seems fair, they decide. No one can spend more than $18. Of course, this plan has some detractors. For example, one group member named Sally would really prefer just to eat a salad. Nonetheless, under the collective system, she feels compelled to order more food to get her money’s worth. Meanwhile, some of the guys really wanted to buy those expensive steaks, but now they can’t get them at all.
But it’s just one dinner party, and for the good of the group, surely everyone can suck it up for one night
Now imagine it isn’t just one night. Instead, these twenty individuals have to eat dinner together every meal. That means the big macho guys can never order the steak they want, and people like Sally always feel compelled to overeat — and overspend. Over time, complaints build up within the group, as do instances of rule-bending. Eventually, the group decides to appoint a “Dinner Czar,” who will decide how much each person should eat. Over time, Dinner Czar Jim decides that $18 is too much to spend on food. Therefore, he declares that no one may spend more than $14. Eventually, he again lowers the cap to $12, and finally to $8. Lots of people complain about these cuts. At least now, however, the group can avoid bankruptcy. Of course, some light eaters like Sally still complain about subsidizing the eating habits of others.
Fortunately, socialist dinner groups do not exist. Unfortunately, liberals want to implement similar schemes for banking, health care, and just about every industry they can get their hands on.
We conservatives like to focus on the fiscal impossibility of socialist schemes, but we sometimes forget the absolute tyranny involved. Government money means government control. For example, President Obama has already discussed pay caps (and fairly draconian ones) on executive salaries for bailed-out industries. Likewise in China, the government pays for children’s upbringing, so it seems perfectly logical for the government to determine how many children each family can have. Socialism always destroys freedom.
Once the government gives you healthcare, it will decide whether you can smoke, drink alcohol, bungee jump, ride your bicycle without a helmet, loaf around watching television, eat fast food, etc. Oh thank you for saving us from ourselves, Czar Obama!
