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IPFS News Link • Philosophy: Liberalism

Leftist Humor at the Los Angeles Times

• https://www.fff.org, by Jacob G. Hornberger

Mind you, Goldberg didn't intend to be humorous. He was deadly serious. It's just that to a libertarian, his piece comes across as extremely funny.

Goldberg's theme is that American Democrats and "liberals" (or progressives, whichever term one prefers) are not socialists, as Republicans and conservatives love to assert. Oh sure, he says, it's true that "there are social democratic policies the U.S. has embraced for many decades and which are widely popular" but that doesn't make the proponents of such programs socialists. Goldberg specifically refers to "the progressive income tax, Medicare and Social Security" as examples.

So, what's a socialist, according to Goldberg? He says "real socialists want to replace the profit-driven capitalist system with one that favors social ownership and democratic control of the 'means of production' and the economy as a whole."

Of course, he's right. That's the pure meaning of socialism — government ownership of the means of production.

But what he and his leftist cohorts just can't bring themselves to recognize is that a society can be arranged on socialist principles without going all the way to total government ownership of the means of production. That's where socialist programs come into play.


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