Dennis Prager on the Damage Socialism does

Dennis Prager is one of my favorites. He is bright and articulate; great to hear on the radio.

Today he looks at why socialism is so damaging. Socialism is a lousy economic system, because it kills the incentive that makes people want to produce more. Since less is produced the government has to decide how to share the misery equally.

But it is much worse than that. Socialism drags people down, instead of building them up. It is a moral failure. Dennis's column Wednesday at World Net Daily.

Socialism teaches its citizens to expect everything, even if they contribute nothing.

Socialism teaches its citizens that they have a plethora of rights and few corresponding obligations – except to be taxed.

And that is why the citizens of less socialist – and more religious – America give more charity per capita and per income than do citizens of socialist countries. That is why Americans volunteer time for the needy so much more than citizens of socialist countries do. That is why citizens of conservative states in America give more charity than citizens of liberal states do. The more left one identifies oneself on the political spectrum, the more that person is likely to believe that the state, not fellow citizens, should take care of the poor and the needy.

Under socialism, one is not only liberated from having to take care of oneself; one is also liberated from having to take care of others. The state will take care of me and everybody else.

Leading to:

The socialist idea sounded altruistic to those who began it, and it sounds altruistic to the naive who believe in it today. In practice, however, it creates self-centered individuals and a narcissistic society. So while it may have begun as a way to help others, it has come to mean a way of evading responsibility for oneself and for others.

And he analyzes the high-income students in France denying the unemployed to get jobs, ending with:

That is why France is so frightened of the utterly rational idea that a young person should have a two-year trial period at work before being granted a lifetime job. Such an innovation in France would mean that young people would have to work hard and earn the right to lifetime employment. But if socialism means anything, it means that one shouldn't have to earn anything. One merely has to breathe.