There has been a lot of concern about a resurgence of socialism lately, and understandably so. But there is one aspect of it, and perhaps an important one, that I haven’t seen elsewhere. Here it is.
Some Basics
The socialists, we must admit, have two big things going for them:
- They are excellent at complaining.
- They are able to convince people their system will solve every problem.
What that means, of course, is that they’re selling magic to people who want magic to be real((And for the sake of empathy, please remember that most of us, at one time or another, also wanted magic to be real.)).
Socialism, then, is a religion. And it is operated by a clergy that habitually becomes so disconnected from feeling that it sends its flocks into torture and death.
It should also be noted that the present rise of socialism, particularly among the young, is a stunning condemnation of government schools. That socialism, the deadliest ideology in all of human history, could find such a toe-hold a mere thirty years after it’s fall… In a more honest world, government-operated schools would be consigned to the trash heap of history.
Let’s Get Back To Google
Having made our introductory points, let’s look at how Google can honestly be blamed for this.
I’ve described the surveillance capitalism model of Google and Facebook as parasitic, and I stand behind that description. It’s a dishonest and ultimately destructive model of organization((You may wish to read Life After Google, by George Gilder.)). And its application is leading people to socialism.
To be specific, what leads people to socialism is a belief, based upon observation, that magic works. And Google has clearly taught the young that they can get something for nothing, which is pretty close to a definition of magic.
What Google, Facebook and their acolytes have done is to create the illusion of free stuff. Free email, free search, free storage, free translation and the rest are not really free, but they appear that way.
Google promotes the “free” side of the exchange at the center of the stage under bright lighting. The other side of the exchange, however, takes place behind curtains and in the shadows, just out of view. That’s where they gather oceans of data that are used for personalized manipulation.
We can’t honestly believe that Google takes in well over a hundred billion dollars per year by giving things away, can we? And in fact we know that they manipulate their users and want to manipulate them more: Why else would they make sure you have no choice but to give them so much personal information?
Billions of dollars worth of manipulation aside, the reason Google leads millions toward socialism is because they teach people that the unreal can indeed be real.
There is no such thing as a free service. Someone, somewhere is always paying. But Google has convinced the world that free is real… that magic can be real. And that plays directly into the hands of the socialists.
When Your Hear “Social”…
One of my little sayings is, “When you hear the word ‘social,’ put your hand on your wallet, because it’s even money that someone’s trying to snooker you.” Hearing “social” is a good indication that you’re about to encounter a clever bypass of reality.
Social justice, for example, is payback based upon the assertions of propagandists. There are reasons why we’ve held trials (“trying the facts”) before assigning penalties, but social justice leaps right past them.
Socialized medicine is another example. It involves a belief that economics won’t apply to a large enough group.
I could go on, but there’s no point. All of these revolve around magical imaginings, and while we’d all like things to be easier, socialist dreams end in starvation.
(At this point, those who are unfamiliar may wish to inquire about the millions of people who were knowingly starved or otherwise murdered by Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pot and other sellers of this particular belief in magic.)
The Bottom Line
The “free stuff” providers, Google and Facebook leading the way, have taught the young that free is possible; that magic is real. And after being trained in that – day in and day out over nearly all their conscious lives – should we really be shocked that socialism’s appeals to magic have found new ground in which to grow?
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If you want a deeper understanding of these issues, see:
Paul Rosenberg
www.freemansperspective.com
