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Pharaoh saw the necessity of protecting his nation’s resources from the prolific Israelites. Three and a half millennia later, fearful and defensive socialists have similar concerns. Bertrand Russell, the British socialist philosopher and mathematician, saw clearly the dilemma of socialism: to produce rising per capita wealth, low-productivity socialism requires zero population growth. Socialism also still requires the imposition of harsh penalties against rival populations that continue to grow, just as it did in ancient Egypt.
He wrote in 1923:
Socialism, especially international socialism, is only possible as a stable system if the population is stationary or nearly so. A slow increase might be coped with by improvements in agricultural methods, but a rapid increase must in the end reduce the whole population to penury, and would be almost certain to cause wars. In view of the fact that the population of France has become stationary, and the birth rate has declined enormously among other white nations, it may be hoped that the white population of the world will soon cease to increase. The Asiatic races will be longer, and the negroes still longer, before their birth-rate falls sufficiently to make their numbers stable without the help of war and pestilence. But it is to be hoped that the religious prejudices which have hitherto hampered the spread of birth control will die out, and that within (say) two hundred years the whole world will learn not to be unduly prolific. Until that happens, the benefits aimed at by socialism can only be partially realized, and the less prolific races will have to defend themselves against the more prolific by methods which are disgusting even if they are necessary. In the meantime, therefore, our socialistic aspirations have to be confined to the white races, perhaps with the inclusion of the Japanese and Chinese at no distant date. [Bertrand Russell, The Prospects of Industrial Civilization, 2nd ed. (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1959), p. 273. First edition: 1923. He did not change his views enough to warrant a revision of this passage.]
.............What bothers Leftists today is this. Their programs of wealth confiscation in the name of the poor have produced the obvious result: single welfare mothers who have numerous children, because they know that they can get state and federal money when they have these children. Welfare mothers are not stupid. They are milking the system. The Leftists are appalled by the outcome of their policies. They find, lo and behold, that when the state subsidizes poverty, we get more poverty. The free market responds to incentives. Will wonders never cease?
So, they are schizophrenic. They have always been schizophrenic. On the one hand, they justify taxing the middle-class to finance the poor. They also make certain that their own tax advantages keep them from being taxed as heavily as the middle class. Then they are trapped. Red ink overwhelms national governments. The politicians need to have workers to support the welfare state, but the bastard adult children of the single mothers, who have grown up under the tender mercies of the welfare state's bureaucracies, don't want to work. They want to stay on the dole. Where are the central planners going to find productive citizens who will be capable of paying the taxes to support the present welfare state recipients? This includes a vast and growing army of old people, who are about to tap into the biggest welfare state operations in the history of mankind. It's tough to be a Leftist.
Pharaoh saw the necessity of protecting his nation’s resources from the prolific Israelites. Three and a half millennia later, fearful and defensive socialists have similar concerns. Bertrand Russell, the British socialist philosopher and mathematician, saw clearly the dilemma of socialism: to produce rising per capita wealth, low-productivity socialism requires zero population growth. Socialism also still requires the imposition of harsh penalties against rival populations that continue to grow, just as it did in ancient Egypt.
He wrote in 1923:
Socialism, especially international socialism, is only possible as a stable system if the population is stationary or nearly so. A slow increase might be coped with by improvements in agricultural methods, but a rapid increase must in the end reduce the whole population to penury, and would be almost certain to cause wars. In view of the fact that the population of France has become stationary, and the birth rate has declined enormously among other white nations, it may be hoped that the white population of the world will soon cease to increase. The Asiatic races will be longer, and the negroes still longer, before their birth-rate falls sufficiently to make their numbers stable without the help of war and pestilence. But it is to be hoped that the religious prejudices which have hitherto hampered the spread of birth control will die out, and that within (say) two hundred years the whole world will learn not to be unduly prolific. Until that happens, the benefits aimed at by socialism can only be partially realized, and the less prolific races will have to defend themselves against the more prolific by methods which are disgusting even if they are necessary. In the meantime, therefore, our socialistic aspirations have to be confined to the white races, perhaps with the inclusion of the Japanese and Chinese at no distant date. [Bertrand Russell, The Prospects of Industrial Civilization, 2nd ed. (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1959), p. 273. First edition: 1923. He did not change his views enough to warrant a revision of this passage.]
.............What bothers Leftists today is this. Their programs of wealth confiscation in the name of the poor have produced the obvious result: single welfare mothers who have numerous children, because they know that they can get state and federal money when they have these children. Welfare mothers are not stupid. They are milking the system. The Leftists are appalled by the outcome of their policies. They find, lo and behold, that when the state subsidizes poverty, we get more poverty. The free market responds to incentives. Will wonders never cease?
So, they are schizophrenic. They have always been schizophrenic. On the one hand, they justify taxing the middle-class to finance the poor. They also make certain that their own tax advantages keep them from being taxed as heavily as the middle class. Then they are trapped. Red ink overwhelms national governments. The politicians need to have workers to support the welfare state, but the bastard adult children of the single mothers, who have grown up under the tender mercies of the welfare state's bureaucracies, don't want to work. They want to stay on the dole. Where are the central planners going to find productive citizens who will be capable of paying the taxes to support the present welfare state recipients? This includes a vast and growing army of old people, who are about to tap into the biggest welfare state operations in the history of mankind. It's tough to be a Leftist.
