By Dr. Harold A. Black
blackh@knoxfocus.com
I was going to include a joke about socialism, but I realized that was redundant.
Most of the opposition voiced over the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion spending bill has been its size. However, the bill should be opposed because of its contents, regardless of the amount. It was written by Bernie Sanders and his gang. Sanders wanted a $6.5 trillion bill but “compromised” and he and apparently all the other Democrats save two will vote for $3.5 trillion. The New York Times said the bill provides handouts from “conception to old age”. Oops. That was changed to from “cradle to grave” for obvious reasons. It provides a leftist wish list of “free” stuff. It penalizes fossil fuels, subsidizes renewable energy and electric vehicles. It provides amnesty for illegal aliens. By the way, If the administration can ship millions of doses of the COVID vaccines to developing countries, why can’t it vaccinate the illegals at the border? The bill has cash transfers while eliminating work requirements and means tests. Paid family leave, free pre-K, free community college and child care subsidies are only a few of the goodies in the bill. The objective is that everyone gets a check and is on the government dole. Once instituted, the handouts become permanent regardless of what is written in the original bill.
The bill implements what I call American Socialism. Socialism is defined as the government owning the means of production, individuals owning their personal property, and goods and services are allocated by the government, not by the market. In American Socialism, the means of production remain in private hands. The government determines winners and losers through subsidization and taxation. The government does not say “do not produce cars with internal combustion engines.” Rather it taxes those vehicles heavily, increases taxes on fossil fuels while subsidizing “renewables” and electric vehicles. Consequently, by changing the prices of goods and services, demand from consumers shift from the type of product made more expensive through taxation to the product made artificially cheaper through subsidies.
Since the means of production are still in private hands, American socialism requires a partnership between big government and big business, big media, big tech, big pharma and big retail. American Socialism manifested itself under Trump’s reaction to COVID. The first panicked response was to lock down the economy except for big business. Over 600,000 small businesses failed for no reason other than the government deemed them nonessential. Big businesses stayed open and had fewer competitors. Moreover, instead of authorizing research on already available inexpensive medicines to fight the disease such as Quercetin, vitamin C, zinc, vitamin D, melatonin, Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine all research dollars went to big pharma to produce experimental vaccines. Don’t misunderstand. The vaccines could have been produced in conjunction with the OTC medicines which instead were either deliberately ignored or ridiculed. The Biden Administration has continued its partnership with big pharma and is trying to send even more money its way through mandates and the push for boosters.
It is no coincidence that the biggest businesses support Biden’s mandates while the small ones are opposed. The mandates are aimed at small businesses by starting at 100 or more employees. Small businesses are usually defined as those employing 1,500 or less with revenues of $40 million or less. Large businesses also support the Biden administration’s push for an increase in the minimum wage because they know it will damage their smaller competitors.
It does not matter that small business is the growth engine of the economy. They employ over 50 million people. They are the cradle of innovation – most -American billionaires are self-made. Small businesses create more new jobs than do larger firms. They are responsible for higher levels of economic growth than larger firms. What matters is control and it is harder to control the millions of small businesses than it is the Fortune 500. So the government is motivated to minimize the number of small businesses in order to more easily impose its policies upon the public. American Socialism will result in a poorer economy, less wealth creation and fewer people moving out of poverty. But none of this matters to the left. What matters is control. American Socialism is a marriage of big government and big business to the detriment of individual freedom and small business.
