Beam Me Up, Scotty!
"What has always made the state a hell on earth has been precisely that man has tried to make it his heaven."
Far too many Americans have been seduced by communism and believe the existence under that system is some sort of Star Trek/Jean-Jacques Rosseau life where one just tells the replicator they want “Tea, Earl Grey, hot” and it appears or they can just lie beneath an apple tree until fruit drops in their mouth.
Hardly.
Back in 2013, former 60 Minutes commentator, Andy Rooney had this to say about communism:
“Communism got to be a terrible word here in the United States, but our attitude toward it may have been unfair. Communism got in with a bad crowd when it was young and never had a fair chance… The Communist ideas of creating a society in which everyone does his best for the good of everyone is appealing and fundamentally a more uplifting idea than capitalism. Communism’s only real weakness seems to be that it doesn’t work.”
Something not working would seem to be a big hill to climb, but Rooney reveals the collectivist fantasy lives on in the mistaken idea that “everyone does his best for the good of everyone is appealing and fundamentally a more uplifting idea than capitalism.”
This is the central fault, the fatal conceit (nod to Hayek), of communist systems because “everyone does his best for the good of everyone” presupposes all will be motivated by focus on some “central good” shared by all - but who determines what that “good” is? Who sets those goals? Who determines the behaviors necessary to achieve that state of “good”? Who organizes the population in pursuit of that “good”?
The answer is that somebody does. Without sufficient order, there would be anarchy and as a result it falls to the government bureaucracy to take on the role of the “decider”. Friedrich Hayek addressed this in his pivotal book, “The Road to Serfdom”, in the chapter titled: “Who, Whom?”:
“I believe it was Lenin himself who introduced to Russia the famous phrase “who, whom?”– during the early years of Soviet rule the byword in which the people summed up the universal problem of a socialist society. Who plans whom, who directs and dominates whom, who assigns to other people their station in life, and who is to have his due allotted by others? These become necessarily the central issues to be decided solely by the supreme power.
More recently an American student of politics has enlarged upon Lenin’s phrase and asserted that the problem of all government is “who gets what, when, and how.” In a way this is not untrue. That all government affects the relative position of different people and that there is under any system scarcely an aspect of our lives which may not be affected by government action is certainly true. In so far as government does anything at all, its action will always have Borne effect on “who gets what, when, and how.”
Perhaps the most accessible modern liberal/progressive myth is the Star Trek franchise – Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space 9, Star Trek: Voyager – and somewhat less so in my favorite of all the genre, Star Trek: Enterprise (with Scott Backula as Captain Jonathan Archer).
In a post from long, long ago and far, far away (2005), blogger The Western Chauvinist offered this analysis:
“Anyone old enough to have seen the original Star Trek series created by Gene Roddenberry might recognize the utopian ideals of today’s liberals in it. Think about it. On any major policy we debate, Star Trek is the fulfilment of the liberal playbook.
Start with environmental policy. No fossil fuels burned in GR’s world. Nope – only dilithium crystals and warped space needed. Isn’t it grand? No CO2 emissions at all – no SUVs, no lawnmowers, no contrails. No mining or drilling, except for those resourceful Neanderthals on some distant planet mining dilithium crystals. And the federation has such a sense of social justice that we end up fighting for their liberty! Awesome.
Next up, how about economic policy? Capitalism or socialism? How primitive. As far as I can tell, no currency ever changes hands. Everyone in the Federation seems to “work” for the Federation (is this the U.N.?). And, of course, they’re perfectly matched to their positions. I mean, Scotty was born an engineer. You get your food from this nifty device called a replicator – no charge! Housing, clothing, transportation, child care, education – all provided by the Federation. Whoopee!
How about health care? Well, Star Trek gives a whole new meaning to “universal healthcare”! I never saw Bones turn away anyone. He could take care of you even if your blood was green. With all the fancy technology at his disposal, he could develop an antidote to anything. What is wrong with our greedy drug companies today! This is the 21st century isn’t it?
And finally, we can wrap up social policy, civil rights, race relations, international relations conveniently in “the prime directive”. This is encompassed by today’s liberal ethics of multiculturalism, political correctness and moral relativism. The policy of “non-interference” in evolving societies is analogous to the liberal’s hands-off who-are-we-to-judge attitude. Of course, Kirk was wont to defy the principle just about every episode, but his phaser was judiciously set to “stun” most of the time.”
Ever notice that the Enterprise was governed as a militaristic, totalitarian state with the word of the captain being the final say in everything – and that the morality of the crew was dictated by the morality the person in command? That changed in TNG, when Picard would convene the politburo to get their opinion, but like a communist regime, the decision of the chairman of the central committee was the last word.
The interesting thing in the Star Trek model is that there are rank differentiations, a command structure and a sort of moral code that could be translated as a religion in Star Fleet (even though creator Gene Roddenberry was a staunch humanist and thoroughly ambivalent about religion).
What about progression in the ranks? Were people motivated to achieve higher rank or did they just settle for whatever role they were assigned? Of course they pursued advancement in rank – from the desire to join Star Fleet and go to the Academy to getting posted on an interplanetary craft, people sought advancement. But why? There was no pay, no need to collect food, clothing, or shelter, so there was no need for capitalism – any civilization that appeared to espouse capitalism in the series was portrayed as backward and/or brutal (remember the Ferengi of Deep Space 9?).
It is because the medium of exchange, the motive force for action and the measure of success in a Star Trek society was/is power, position and status.
Somewhat unsurprisingly, the same goes for a communist society – the greatest goal is a juicy job in the bureaucratic structure where one can wield some degree of power over someone or something. Where competition in a capitalist society is mostly out in the open and score is objectively kept by gains and losses, the competition in a communistic society is far less so. It puts the rights of the individual in direct competition with the needs of the collective and its planners. In capitalism, people seek individual achievement by serving others – by producing services or products other people want, need or desire.
That conflict between the yearning of the individual to be free and the demand of the collective is why communism has never worked and will never work. In the words of Hayek:
“…democratic socialism, the great utopia of the last few generations, is not only unachievable but that to strive for it produces something utterly different – the very destruction of freedom itself. As has been aptly said: ‘What has always made the state a hell on earth has been precisely that man has tried to make it his heaven.’”