When I lived in L.A. after college, I got the opportunity to learn about cultures and countries I knew nothing about. I worked with a guy, who was from a former Soviet Union satellite country. His country did win their independence, but not before he experienced pure Russian communism. As I learned more about the culture and journey to their most recent independence, we had a very enlightening discussion. He explained the 2 most fatal flaws of communism.
The first flaw, as he explained, were the people who would decide to do the minimum. In order for communism to work effectively, everyone would need to be on board and giving their full effort. However, it’s unrealistic to expect all the people to contribute. There will be those who are actually unable to, which wouldn’t be a huge issue. But there will be those who try to cheat the system, essentially always sick. Or even people who are reluctant to do a job, which would cripple their possible productivity and bog down the system. Then there will be those who would be productive, but see they can do less and still receive the same compensation. Of course there will be some that enjoy their jobs, but those tend to be the people who are a little higher up the food chain.
The second flaw was the top of the government, which would never equally distribute good amongst all people. I, in fact, believe this to be a flaw found in almost every form of broad government. We can easily see this in countries like North Korea. The people live in a very strict communist rule. People starve while there are cardboard storefronts being paid for with government funds. Their “glorious” leader, as well as their previous one, lived in endless luxury. Kim Jong Un imported 1 million dollars worth of alcohol for himself in 2016 and has a 6 million dollar luxury yacht (1). But we don’t even need to look that far to see overpaid leaders called “Public Servants”. Members on the House and Senate have a base pay of 174,000 per year (2). This wage does not include health care and retirement, not to mention the very limited number of days they are actually at work. However the median household income of Americans from 2012-2016 was about $55,000, according to the US Census Bureau (3). While this is a far cry from North Korea’s waste, it still shows that those on top will always keep more for themselves and give less to everyone else. As you climb higher within the government, there are more opportunities for massive waste. The pentagon can’t account for 800 million dollars of taxpayer money, but that isn’t as bad as their $700 Billion budget to police the world (4).
The only way to eliminate this waste is to vastly limit the federal government. The US Constitution would have never allowed the US to get to this point. But with steady corrosion by corrupt politicians, who helped disturb the free market on behalf of their friends and moneybags, they have managed to destroy our more perfect union. The only person I hear calling for decentralization, that I can actually believe based on his actions, is Adam Kokesh. I’ve been reading his book ‘FREEDOM!’, which is very succinct yet covers many topics. He certainly believes in breaking up this monopoly called the US Federal Government. You can grab a copy online for free on the Freedom Line website- https://thefreedomline.com/freedom/
I think its time to stop paying politicians to waste our money and take our freedoms. Let them get jobs from their friends in the business world, but what use is a politician if they can’t control the people? But we can just let them see how cold the world is when you don’t have power over it.
Sources
(1) Business Insider - A look inside the daily life of Kim Jong Un, the North Korean dictator who's as secretive as he is dangerous - http://www.businessinsider.com/kim-jong-un-daily-life-2017-6
(2) ThoughtCo - Salaries and Benefits of US Congress Members: The Truth
https://www.thoughtco.com/salaries-and-benefits-of-congress-members-3322282
(3) US Census Bureau
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/INC110216#viewtop
(4) Newsweek- Pentagon Can't Account For $800 Million, Report Shows
http://www.newsweek.com/pentagon-800-million-799740
FREEDOM! By Adam Kokesh
https://thefreedomline.com/freedom/