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Ben Shapiro Debunks 5 Lies About Socialism — Transcript

by Ben Shapiro · 2,400 words · 379 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00Socialism keeps getting a rebrand decade
0:02after decade. It's the brand new
0:03socialism. The last time that wasn't the
0:05real socialism. This one is so much
0:07better. Why won't socialism just stay
0:10dead? Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela,
0:12North Korea, and now, get ready, New
0:14York City. In 1848, Karl Marx and
0:17Friedrich Engels wrote the Communist
0:18Manifesto in a Parisian cafe over the
0:20span of 6 weeks. They, of course, were
0:22living high on the hog, you know, in
0:25non-communist countries. All of world
0:27history, they said, was a class
0:28struggle. The proletariat, those who'd
0:30be the workers, are exploited by the
0:31bourgeoisie, those who'd be the owners.
0:33So, Marx's solution was state ownership
0:35of the means of production. Marx
0:37believed that capitalism would
0:38inevitably devour itself, and that
0:40socialism would arise naturally. Now, it
0:44turns out that wasn't true at all, but
0:45that's never stopped the socialists. So,
0:48what is socialism and what is not? First
0:49of all, socialism is not wanting to help
0:51poor people. Socialism is, instead,
0:54giving the government complete control
0:56of the economy, and it is a failure
0:58everywhere it is tried. Number of deaths
1:00caused by socialism in the 20th century
1:02alone are staggering.
1:04Low estimates are 20 to 30 million
1:06people, that would be just based on
1:07direct political executions. Mid-range
1:10estimates would be 60 to 70 million
1:12people if you include man-made famines,
1:14and high estimates would include all
1:16excess mortality, civil wars, regime
1:18policy effects. That would be all the
1:20way up to 100 to 148 million people.
1:23China under Chairman Mao saw at least 55
1:25million dead in the Great Leap Forward.
1:27Then, of course, the Soviet Union saw
1:29under Stalin and Lenin 20 million dead
1:31in gulags, Holodomor famine in Ukraine,
1:34the Bolshevik Revolution. Cambodia's Pol
1:35Pot saw 2 million dead due to starvation
1:38and ethnic cleansing. North Korea saw 2
1:39million dead due to state-sponsored
1:41famine, labor camps, executions.
1:43Ethiopia saw 1.7 million dead in the Red
1:45Terror, forced resettlement, and famine.
1:47Eastern Europe saw 1 million dead in
1:49post-World War II purges, labor camps,
1:51and executions. Vietnam saw a million
1:53dead in reeducation camps and purges.
1:55And that's not to mention the tens or
1:57even hundreds of thousands dead who
1:58disappeared in Cuba or Venezuela. Let's
2:01talk about the objections that
2:03socialists will speak on behalf of
2:05socialism against capitalism. Objection
2:07number one, the rich don't pay their
2:08fair share. Utter horse manure.
2:10Leftists today say that our progressive
2:12income tax does not take into account
2:13the fact that billionaires barely have
2:15any salaried income whatsoever and that
2:17the wealthy borrow against their assets.
2:19They say that corporate tax rates should
2:21be hiked as well and they say the
2:22government debt problem isn't real, we
2:23can always just print more money. First
2:25of all, most US tax collections are on
2:27businesses according to the Tax
2:28Foundation. Out of $4.4 trillion
2:30collected by the government in 2017,
2:32only $308 billion was non-business tax
2:35collection or about 7%. As for the
2:38income tax, who pays it? Well, in 2018,
2:40the top 1% of earners paid $616 billion
2:44in federal income tax. That is 40% of
2:46all federal income taxes. The top 1% of
2:49taxpayers account for about 20% of the
2:51nation's income. The top 0.1% of
2:54taxpayers paid a greater share of the
2:56income tax burden than the bottom 75% of
2:59taxpayers combined. We already have a
3:01massively redistributive system, a
3:04massively progressive tax system. And by
3:07the way, none of this includes what
3:08people receive back in tax dollars,
3:10meaning, for example, the earned income
3:12tax credit, which disproportionately
3:14affects low-income households, many of
3:16whom don't pay tax in the first place.
3:17In fact, if you look at net taxes,
3:20meaning the amount you pay in taxes
3:22minus the services you collect from the
3:23government, people in the top quintiles
3:26pay all tax in the United States.
3:28In 2017, households in the bottom three
3:30quintiles collectively received more
3:32than $1 trillion in direct government
3:34benefits than they paid in all federal
3:36taxes that year.
3:37Households in the top 20% pay $1.7
3:40trillion more in taxes than they receive
3:42in direct government benefits. And when
3:44it comes to inequality itself, that too
3:46is a sort of myth. The rise of
3:48pass-through corporations means that
3:50more wealth is reflected on income tax
3:51forms than ever before, which makes it
3:53look like an explosion of personal
3:55income among the top 1%. But, there's an
3:58equivalent decline in business income
3:59and divided income with that rise.
4:01There's an inevitable problem when the
4:03government manages such a large budget.
4:04It doesn't manage it at all. Objection
4:06number two. It's impossible to pull
4:08yourself up by your bootstraps under
4:10capitalism. This is, of course, sheer
4:12nonsense. The myth is that hard work
4:14doesn't bridge the gap of someone
4:15starting with nothing versus another
4:17person starting with wealth. And that
4:19individual responsibility is a way for
4:22rich people to preach to support people,
4:24but it won't actually help poor people.
4:27Well, here is the thing. These
4:28structural barriers that the left says
4:30exist don't actually exist. A Pew study
4:33on the economic advancement of families
4:35compared to income of parents to that of
4:36their children 30 years later, inflation
4:38adjusted. It turns out 93% of children
4:41who grew up in the bottom quintile were
4:42better off than their parents. 86% of
4:45children from the middle 3/5 of the
4:47income quintiles grew up to live with
4:49higher income than their parents. 70% of
4:51children of parents in the top quintile
4:53of income were better off than their
4:54parents. Of the children who grew up in
4:56the middle quintiles of income, 39% rose
4:59to a higher quintile about 30 years
5:00later. 37% fell to a lower one. 62% of
5:03children from the top quintile fell to a
5:05lower quintile. By the same token, 63%
5:08of children who grew up in the bottom
5:10quintile rose to a higher one. Upward
5:13mobility. So, would you like to not be
5:15impoverished in the United States? It
5:16turns out virtually everyone who does
5:18these three things will not be
5:20permanently poor in the United States.
5:22Graduate high school, get married before
5:23you have kids, get a full-time job.
5:25Statistically speaking, you will not be
5:27permanently poor in the United States.
5:28Bottom line is,
5:29personal decision-making is still the
5:31number one factor in success.
5:33Proclaiming victimhood at the hands of a
5:34system or broader system is unlikely to
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6:52Objection number three. Real Marxism and
6:54socialism, they've never been tried. So,
6:56number one, people say socialism has to
6:58be global to succeed. The Karl Marx
7:00wanted a global socialist system versus
7:02Stalin's socialism in just one country.
7:05Well, it turns out that this is just the
7:07no true Scotsman fallacy. Because it
7:09turns out socialism has been tried
7:11pretty much everywhere, and it's failed
7:12miserably over and over and over because
7:15the idea of Marxism is just wrong.
7:17Marxism is a utopian philosophy that
7:20basically suggests the perfectibility of
7:22mankind. That if you change the economic
7:23structures, greed will disappear and
7:25people will become better. They will
7:26transform. It is not true. The reality
7:29is the vast majority of countries that
7:32even socialists call socialist are not
7:34in fact socialist. Denmark is not
7:35socialist, and Norway is not socialist.
7:37These countries are highly capitalist
7:39economies with high taxes and welfare
7:41systems. They're mixed economies. Here
7:43for example is the Prime Minister of
7:45Denmark at the Harvard Kennedy School of
7:46Government in 2019 explaining this.
7:48>> I would like to make one thing clear.
7:52Uh Denmark is far from a socialist
7:55planned economy.
7:56Denmark is a market economy.
7:58The Nordic model
8:00is an expanded welfare state which
8:02provides a high level of security for
8:04its citizens.
8:06But it is also a successful market
8:09economy with much freedom to pursue your
8:12dreams and live your life as you wish.
8:15>> The 2026 Index of Economic Freedom from
8:17the Heritage Foundation shows that
8:18economic freedom advances and prosperity
8:20follows.
8:21The countries at the top of the list by
8:23the way might surprise you. One,
8:24Singapore. Two, Switzerland. Three,
8:26Ireland. Four, Australia. And five,
8:28Taiwan. Those Nordic countries, the
8:30northern European countries, Denmark,
8:31Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, all
8:33top 20. US ranked number 22. How about
8:36the socialist countries? Well, China's
8:38154 and North Korea's 176. By the way,
8:41that freedom index is measured using
8:42four pillars. Rule of law, government
8:45size, regulatory efficiency, and open
8:46markets. Since the Trump administration
8:48changed a bunch of Biden policy, that
8:502026 index shows the United States
8:52moving up in the rankings. How about
8:53those big socialist systems in the
8:55United States? Well, pretty much all are
8:56subsidized by of course the market
8:58economy.
8:59Those systems are essentially draws on
9:02capitalism. They cannot exist separate
9:05from the supportive network of
9:07capitalism that generates all the
9:09revenue and all the services upon which
9:11they leech. Objection number four, we
9:13already have socialism here in America.
9:14Well, no. We actually have some
9:16socialized systems, kind of, sort of,
9:18like Medicare. Some people try to
9:20pretend that for example the police
9:22department is a socialized system. Nope,
9:23this is just called a public good.
9:25Public goods exist in every system.
9:27These would be non-rivalrous and
9:28non-excludable goods, meaning my use of
9:31the system does not burden your use of
9:32the system. So, a great example of this.
9:35We all pay into the military, the
9:36military defends all of us equivalently.
9:38Therefore, it is not a socialist system.
9:40It is called a public good. I could not
9:42pay for it myself. We all pay for it
9:43together and we all benefit from it.
9:45That is not the same as a socialized
9:47system like Medicare, for example, with
9:48an individual recipient of benefits.
9:51Objection number five, a just society
9:53should produce equal outcomes, not just
9:54equal opportunity. This is the big
9:56philosophical objection to capitalism.
9:58The idea here is that capitalism is
10:00fundamentally unfair and that we ought
10:02to correct all of the terrible
10:05injustices of living on this planet with
10:07the power of government. On a moral
10:09level, this is wrong. Inequality of
10:11outcome will always exist because humans
10:13are not the same. In fact, your level of
10:16wealth today is not the same as your
10:18level of wealth in 40 years. Does that
10:20mean that you are inferior now to the
10:23person you will be 40 years from now? Of
10:25course not. The fact is this, true
10:27justice is that equals are treated
10:29equally and unequals unequally, as
10:31Aristotle suggested. Thomas Sowell
10:33observed in his 1999 book, The Quest for
10:36Cosmic Justice, justice is a process,
10:37not an outcome. We're not God that we
10:39can simply say let there be equality or
10:41let there be justice. We must begin with
10:43a universe that we were born into and
10:45weigh the costs of making any specific
10:46change in it to achieve a specific end.
10:49Inequality is not inherently inequity
10:51and disparity is not inherently
10:53injustice. Also, from a utilitarian
10:55angle, this is just wrong. Socialism may
10:57create more equality, but only in
10:59poverty. Capitalism, meanwhile, may
11:01create more inequality, but mainly
11:03because everybody is richer. If I make a
11:05million dollars and Bill Gates makes 10
11:06million dollars, we have more inequality
11:08than if we both made zero dollars.
11:10Socialism thinks the latter is better.
11:12In 1820, 80 to 90% of the world lived in
11:15extreme poverty. By 2026, 10% of the
11:18world lives in extreme poverty. That is
11:20free markets, not socialism.
11:22Socialism, government ownership of the
11:24means of production, eliminates the
11:25mechanism by which producers know what
11:27to make and how much to make of it.
11:29Without markets, get shortages. This is
11:31why people die of starvation in
11:32socialist countries. Inequality under
11:34capitalism is a byproduct of the
11:36generation of wealth. Inequality under
11:37socialism is a byproduct of power
11:39consolidation. It's why Stalin owned a
11:41really nice dacha even presiding over a
11:43communist country.
11:45So, is there anything socialist get
11:47right? I mean, only that inequality
11:49exists and that poverty exists. But what
11:51socialist get wrong is the idea that
11:53poverty can be alleviated by focusing on
11:55rich people. The problem with poverty is
11:57not that there are rich people. The
11:58problem with poverty is that we need to
12:00help poor people get richer.
12:02Centralizing economic power in the state
12:04kills all the price signals you need to
12:06actually generate functioning markets.
12:08It destroys incentives. It destroys
12:09individual freedom. It hands a ton of
12:11power to whoever is in control of the
12:13state. Well, I'm sure there will be a
12:15thousand videos attempting to debunk
12:17what I'm saying here. So, have at it and
12:18tell me why I'm wrong.

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