When discussing the Queensland election with an acquaintance, I lambasted the transgressions of the Miles Labor government which has since lost the election held on Saturday, October 26, 2024. I argued that economic vandalism contributed to the defeat of Miles’s government. Specifically, I criticised his government’s flat transport fee of 50 cents because it cynically favours one industry at the expense of others, notably the taxi industry, the petrol stations, and the automobile industry, among others. I also discussed Labor’s promise to provide primary school children with free lunches at a projected cost to the taxpayer of $1.4 billion. I described the ‘free lunches’ promise as an abrogation of the principle of parental control, especially the right of parents to decide what their children should be fed. In any event, in ousting the long-serving Labor government, the electorate found it fanciful to believe that these government measures and promises will improve their situation since the cost will inevitably be recovered through the labyrinth-like maze of the taxation system. My acquaintance, looking perplexed, then asked a question that surprised and stumped me. He asked: ‘But what is wrong with socialism?’

With the benefit of hindsight, I should not have been surprised considering that ‘socialism’ connotes being ‘social’ or having a social conscience. I can assume that many people are like him and do not understand the deleterious effects of socialism on personal freedom. Hence, it is appropriate to try to explain how the socialist mind works. My explanation is based on observation and personal experience and does not involve ‘learned’ studies on the topic, the usefulness of which is contestable, in any case.

There are some notable quotes about ‘socialism’. For example, Ronald Reagan reportedly noted that, ‘Socialism only works in two places: heaven where they don’t need it and hell where they already have it.’

Winston Churchill is credited with the following memorable quotes:

‘Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.’

And:

‘The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.’

Churchill’s philippic succinctly describes the destructive role of socialism in the pursuit of political objectives. However, it needs unpacking to appreciate the ‘miseries’ that socialism inflicts on society.

In my experience, a socialist is a person who will always blame someone else for their misadventures. In embracing the victim approach to life, socialists are reluctant to admit that their life’s situation may be a consequence of poor personal choices. In Australia, this victim approach is especially noticeable in the cesspit of race politics.

Consider, for example, the obstinate determination to enshrine the Voice to Parliament in the Constitution. The proponents of this ill-conceived proposal blame the ‘invasion’ of the continent by Captain Arthur Phillip on January 26, 1788, for their misfortunes. They describe the history of Australia as an odious example of ‘colonisation’ by 18th Century invaders, whose descendants are deemed to be guilty of oppression merely because they are white. Socialists typically nurture this backward-looking approach which can never lead to reconciliation because the victim industry will always be able to blame non-Indigenous Australians who have not been discriminated against and may not even be the beneficiary of past discrimination. In this context, it is interesting to note that socialists, to rectify alleged instances of past discrimination, seek to entrench discrimination by institutionalising future discrimination that would permanently result in a divided country, consisting of two tribes, the alleged oppressed and the oppressors.

I recently mentioned to another acquaintance that the Australian Olympic Indigenous Athlete Fund made a payment of $5,000 to eligible Aboriginal athletes who participated in the Paris Olympics – a payment not available to other athletes. I suggested that this is a violation of the principle of political equality or equal citizenship. In response, my acquaintance claimed that the New South Wales police, until recently, had targeted Indigenous Australians for racial profiling, even though there was neither evidence of criminal activity nor suspicion that they had committed crimes or likely to become offenders. Therefore, he concluded, the payment – or any other benefit – is but a small way in which society could compensate for the police’s racial profiling. Obviously, discriminatory profiling is a reprehensible practice, but in making his argument, my converser proposed to introduce new instances of discrimination to compensate for past discrimination. Although the only promising way forward is equal treatment for all regardless of race, ethnicity, sex, religion, the reconciliation mantra has spawned a lucrative industry, and any excoriation of it is characterised as an unwarranted example of racism.

My observations reveal that socialists cannot distinguish between a ‘privilege’ and a ‘right’. A right is a positive entitlement, for example, the right to the sanctity of life, since it comes with membership in humanity – call it a natural right – or has its source in the common law as developed throughout the centuries. By contrast, a privilege is a short-term benefit bestowed on people by the legislator, for example, a subsidy granted to a struggling business. However, just try to take away the subsidy and the beneficiaries of subsidies will complain bitterly. This is especially evident in the social welfare sphere that, in doling out easy money, makes people dependent on the Nanny state.

In my experience, socialists sometimes display an unwillingness to work. Recently, I was told the story of an employee, who inconsolably scolded his employer who required him to work on a Friday afternoon to deal with a customer’s problem. As the employee had wanted to go home, he became so unhinged that he dumped his company car and its key at the customer’s house. The employer had to collect the car and its keys and complete the job to the satisfaction of the customer and the advertised exacting standards of the service provider. This story should not surprise us because it is not unusual for uncommitted employees to deceptively claim to be sick on Mondays and/or Fridays. This truancy costs millions in lost productivity.

Moreover, in my experience, socialists glorify people who do not work and do not want to work. They typically expect the government to look after them, even if they choose not to work. If this story resonates with readers, they might conclude that such an attitude to work is a loathsome example of parasitic behaviour at its worst and discloses the existence in our society of welfare scroungers.

The Covid era has taught us that socialists unquestionably believe in the ‘science-is-settled’ mantra, including modelling, which justifies the suppression of free speech, freedom of association, and the free exercise of religion. We now know that there is incontrovertible evidence that the policies of mandatory vaccination, so aggressively promoted by governments and their corporate collaborators, have injured many people. The ‘science-is-settled’ approach is also pushed by proponents of the climate change religion, which embraces the (now discredited) claim that carbon dioxide (CO2) is the cause of increased temperatures. For socialists, the climate change mantra is an irrefutable truth, criticism of which is suppressed.

Considering the proliferation of Woke policies and practices, abetted by politicians, it has become abundantly clear that socialists endeavour to impose dreadful social engineering legislation on people. Such legislation often discloses the absence of common sense, which confirms the validity of the aphorism that common sense is uncommon. We see this absence of common sense in the absurd claim that people can achieve Net Zero emissions by 2050 to control the Earth’s temperature. We can also see it in the claim that a person’s gender is a social construct, enabling them to change their sex at will, while disallowing sensible and therapeutically responsible conversion practices. Other examples include the practice of allowing babies born alive after an abortion to die, and the promotion of end-of-life legislation, instead of improving palliative care. In doing so, socialists behave as if they can replace God with humans.

Concurrently, Woke-ism has spawned the rise of quasi-religious practices which are elevated to the status of a state religion, such as the Welcome to Country and smoking rituals, all of which are effectively imposed on society, or eagerly adopted by most corporations and universities. Socialists snub those who still believe in the salutary purposes of religion – a beacon of hope – and describe religion as superstition. They also demonise religion by seeking to remove exemptions from religiously affiliated schools to deprive them of the right to appoint staff members who will respect, and promote, the values and ethos of these institutions. These laws have the effect of muzzling those who have a different opinion to the present policymakers and trendsetters and involve the arrogation of God-like powers to humans – powers they simply do not possess. In this context, socialists should consider the wisdom of King Cnut the Great who, in the 12th Century, apocryphally told his courtiers about the futility of trying to stop the tide.

But it is the socialists’ subservience to, and fear of, the government, the unstinted belief in their moral superiority, the oppression of speech incompatible with their Woke ideas – the cancel culture practice, the affirmative action programs, implementation of which have destroyed the legitimate expectations of scores of diligent and excellent professionals, and the peddling of climate catastrophism – that have transformed society for the worse.

One surely needs another long essay to satisfactorily describe the socialist mind that is poisoning and smothering Australia. Indeed, this opinion piece does not even deal with the economic malaise, destructive industrial relations, and the supine submission to global interests, the imposition of disinformation and misinformation laws capable of destroying free speech in Australia, among other issues.

For now, it suffices to remind readers of the fact that socialists seek to finance their follies by taking money from hard-working people, something that has been acknowledged by Margaret Thatcher, who said: ‘The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.’ How true.