My son asked me that question a few days ago, and this was more or less what I told him.

The idea behind socialism is actually rather attractive. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." It sounds fair and compassionate, almost utopian. Everyone contributes, and everyone gets everything they need to be content. Right? Let's take a closer look.

First, in a capitalist system, if I am a baker then the bread I produce in my bakery is mine, and I can sell it to anyone who is willing to pay for it. To make more money for my bread, I can raise prices and sell the same number of loaves, or I can increase my production somehow and sell more loaves at the same price. If I can find a way to reduce costs and increase production, then I can sell more loaves at a lower price to make even more money.

The point here is that in a capitalist system, I own the bakery, I own the product, and I get to benefit from my labors. If I do a good job, I get more benefit than if I do a bad job. Under a capitalist system, I have a powerful motivation to always do a better job than I did before.

In a socialist system, I do not own either the bakery or the bread. Those belong to society. Under socialism, the theory is that I should produce as much bread as I can, of the best quality I can produce, and then I just turn it over to be distributed to everyone who needs bread. In turn, I get a place to sleep, a ration of food, clothes, and whatever else the distributors agree that I need.

If I increase production, reduce costs, or both, I do not get anything more as compensation, because it is my socialist duty to do these things. Remember, the concept is "From each according to his ability." So, if I am able to produce more, it is only expected that I should do so. I still only need my ration of food, shelter, clothing, and whatever, and that ration will not be changed because I work harder, or smarter.

It won't be long before I realize that I get no benefit from working harder and producing more, so I will begin to produce less. After all, "To each according to his need." I still need my ration of food, clothing, shelter and whatever, even though I am producing less. I have no motivation to produce more. Why should I work harder than necessary if that work is not going to result in some sort of reward?

Over time, more and more people will see that hard work is not rewarded any differently than laziness. Quality will suffer, production will go down, and shortages will appear because people just do not see any reason why they should work hard, if at all. The socialist system will quickly collapse.

To keep the system going, you now need communism, the government-enforced flavor of socialism. With communism, you have a central committee that decides what everyone needs, and what everyone is able to produce. They have the power to set quotas for each person to produce, and to punish those who do not meet their quotas.

Now, under communism, I have a motivation to work hard again. That motivation is simply the fear of punishment for failing to work hard. I still have no reason to expect a reward for working harder, but I know that I will be punished for not working hard enough. Now, what is another name for a system where people are forced to work but are not allowed to benefit from that work?

If you said, "Slavery," give yourself a gold star.

Socialism is a system where people are forced to work but are not allowed to own or benefit from the products of that work. Slavery is a system where people are forced to work but are not allowed to own or benefit from the products of that work. Socialism is slavery, pure and simple.

The only people who like socialism are the ones who think it will give them the products of other people's labor for free. In other words, anybody who likes socialism really wants to be a slave owner, and those people should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

As discussed in Part 1, there are many obstacles to making oneself the unquestioned master of a free people. The obstacles described can not be overwhelmed in a single cataclysmic event, but they can be eroded over time. We will now begin to describe the tools and techniques that will be required to prepare the populace to actually participate willingly in its own subjugation.

The process will require at least four generations, if successful. This time span is dictated by the need to wait for a majority of the initial happy, certain, productive and successful people to die off. You must change attitudes slowly, generation by generation, until the necessary climate of fear, distrust and general dissatisfaction is achieved.

Activist Propaganda

The heart of the plot is a steady, implacable, and consistent program of propaganda. To spread this propaganda, it will be necessary to recruit a significant number of people who will faithfully repeat the "ideals" that the cunning Evil Genius will provide.

The people used in this manner should be a group that is generally dissatisfied with its lot in the current system, but is only vaguely aware, if at all, of the reasons for that dissatisfaction. Candidate groups include unpopular religious groups (including atheists,) marginalized ethnic groups, people with lower than average income, the poorly educated, the lazy, the overly educated, and others. If possible, more than one of these groups should be cultivated to spread slightly different versions of the main theme.

The group or groups selected should be able to identify with one another in a manner that will promote a sense of unity among themselves. At the same time, the groups' sense of community with the population at large should be as tenuous as possible, so they can more easily be alienated from the social mainstream. Because their purpose is to slowly alter the thinking of the mainstream population, the selected groups must not be too much at variance with the common culture. The selected victim group will be used over a long time to generate sympathy and agreement in the mainstream culture, while maintaining a separation from that culture.

Initially, the message to be propagated should be some variation of "Unfair! Equal Rights for All!" The precise content can be adjusted to fit the malcontents for which it is intended, but the primary focus must be kept on the "unfair" part of the message. Once the message has been introduced, it will appeal to the greed and envy of the subject group, and they will claim the message for their own.

Once the message has been adopted by the selected victim group, ever more strident repetition will bring the message to the awareness of the social mainstream. Anger and resentment within the victim group should be promoted if it does not spontaneously appear. Limited incidents of violence may be helpful, as long as tensions do not reach the point of actual civil war.

At this point, intellectual and political leaders should be cultivated or created to give the message greater credibility and importance. Initially, these leaders can position themselves as voices of reason, using real or imagined authority to promote a sense of guilt in the mainstream society with public speeches and legal and scholarly publications. When the time is right, they can propose changes in law that provide special privileges to the victim group in the interest of fair play and equal rights. Of course, these laws will foster anger and resentment in the mainstream against the victim group, and will do nothing to promote real social equity.

As the movement succeeds, other victim groups will surface not under your direct control. This is not a problem, as long as these groups continue to maintain their victim mentality. Some of these groups may in fact succeed in integrating themselves into the social mainstream, thus achieving actual equality of opportunity for success. This is a major problem, since such groups will acquire an interest in maintaining the existing system.

Fortunately, should any victim group appear to be in danger of acceptance and integration, it will be a simple matter to magnify individual failures and isolated disputes to demonstrate a continuing pattern of oppression. The silliness and insignificance of these trivial incidents is irrelevant. The important thing is to project the illusion of unrelenting oppression to play upon the guilt of the social mainstream, and the paranoia and isolation of the victim group.

As progress toward equal treatment is made, it will be useful to occasionally call for reparations in redress of past injustices. These calls will only rarely meet with any success, and are intended only to promote confusion and make the "social injustices" seem more intractable.

Over time, with surprisingly little guidance, this strategy will result in a fragmented society consisting of fragmented subcultures divided by mutual suspicion. By referring to each of these subcultures by a unique name in news reports and other public discussions, the separation can be maintained and amplified indefinitely. Eventually, the once unified society will become a shattered mosaic of mutually exclusive camps, each group constantly alert for opportunities to promote its own welfare at the expense of the others.

To Be Continued....

Like at least several dozen Americans, I have been following the recent Presidential campaign, the economic news, and the political news since the elections with some interest and attention. The general pattern puzzles me.

What the heck is our new President really up to? First he campaigns on the idea that the previous administration is irresponsible because they ran up a $5 trillion debt over an eight year period. Then, to fix the cash shortage, he insists that hundreds of billions of dollars be spent in such a mad rush that nobody even knows what the money is being spent for. Then he introduces a new era of financial responsibility with a proposed budget that makes the most profligate spenders in history look like a bunch of tightwads. This from a man who wants direct control over the salaries of people who actually work for a living because he thinks it is unreasonable that they should be paid at all.

At the same time, he preaches the need to reduce America's dependence on foreign oil, but refuses to permit development of massive domestic oil resources. While sitting on an energy cornucopia that could guarantee cheap energy for the next couple of hundred years, he demands that only the most expensive and least practical energy sources be actively developed. He is pushing for a thinly disguised punitive energy tax that will double, or perhaps triple the cost of energy from existing sources. This, at a time when any cost increase will put more people out of work.

Meanwhile, he is pushing for government control of the entire health care system. That may be great if you have a cold, and all you need is plenty of fluids and some aspirin, but what happens when something is really wrong? I for one do not relish the prospect of waiting for three months or more to have my inflamed appendix removed because surgery requires two specialist opinions and operating rooms are booked for weeks in advance.

Not neglecting foreign affairs, he sends hundreds of millions of dollars to Hamas to buy more weapons for their terrorist activities, tells the radical Moslem world that he will do nothing to inhibit their quest for nuclear weapons, and informs North Korea that they may test intercontinental missile systems at will. Unsatisifed with his progress in destabilizing the Middle East and the Pacific Rim, he tries to sell out our Eastern European allies for diplomatic favors from a belligerent Russia. He also offers several pointed insults to the British Prime Minister, of all people, during a traditional state visit. Even now, he is busily exhorting the governments of the rest of the world to join him in trashing their currencies in order to prevent their economies from outperforming the one he is trying to impoverish as fast as possible.

Ever the patriot, he has authorized the deployment of half the troops required to do more than hold the line in Afghanistan. Nobody can figure out what his policy toward Pakistan will be, but we can be sure that neither the Pakistani people nor their government will like it. The Malignant and Evil Bush plan to withdraw from Iraq has now become the Wise and Benevolent Obama withdrawal plan, which is obviously a completely different thing. And, those poor unfortunates whose only crime was to plot destruction against the United States and her allies are being released as quickly as possible. We all may rejoice that they will no longer be subjected to the intolerable abuse of three square meals a day, relatively comfortable sleeping quarters, and constant media attention at Guantanamo Bay.

So you tell me. Is Barack Obama the most carefully stupid anthropological specimen ever to walk the earth, or is he the most dangerous enemy the free world has ever faced? I honestly do not know, but I don't see a lot of room for middle ground here.