I was listening to the Scott Horton Show today on Antiwar Radio, an interview with Bruce Gagnon from space4peace.org.

The guest had a lot to say about the government’s plans to dominate space and its application in warfare, including some interesting information on plans the government would love to realize giving it the capability to kill an individual from space on remote command, anywhere in the world, at any minute. Some of it seemed a bit far fetched, but when it comes to government’s never ending quest to find new and better ways to kill people, I’ve become reluctant to simply write off anything I hear.

Scott refers to himself as a libertarian and an anarchist, and he does a great daily radio show to denounce government and its wars. His guests include antiwar activists and writers from across the political spectrum. I always enjoy listening to their critique of government, but often there comes a turning point in the conversation. It usually starts with: “What we need to do is…”

Mr. Gagnon leveled multiple charges on the Military Industrial Complex and the big multinational corporations that are in control of our government. So far, so good – although, I sensed that he was associating the “big multinational corporations” with capitalism and free markets, but I’ll reserve judgment for the moment. Then the setup line:

“We’ve got to offer an alternative vision for all of this insanity and madness…”

Uh oh, here we go.

“And for me it’s clearly calling for the conversion of the Military Industrial Complex, using our tax dollars, instead of countinually building for this endless war to benefit multinational corporations, using it instead to fund the creation of a new industrial policy.

This is where I’m thinking, here comes the plan. See, socialists can’t understand that central planning doesn’t work. Not only do they not understand that it doesn’t work, they can’t see how anything can possibly be done without a big master plan developed and overseen by a central body of authority. And unsurprisingly, they each have the “right” idea of how everything should be, if everyone would just agree that their way is the right way. Now, we just need to reach consensus.

Mr. Gagnon goes on to suggest that we need a rail system to every corner of America to reduce our consumption of oil, and windmills dotting the landscape.

“The environmental groups have it half right, they’re saying that we need to build solar and rail and wind, but they haven’t come up with a funding source. If they think that the corporations are just going to just do this out of the kindness of their hearts, I’ve got news for you. And in fact, if they think the government is going to be able to pay for it, it doesn’t have the money right now, because of our huge debt.”

And so we see another key trait of socialism: A complete ignorance of economics. Corporations do things because they believe them to be economically feasible, and forecast that they will therefore yield a profit. Profits, of course, are evil to socialists. But if the money won’t come from the corporations, where will “we” get it? It’s ironic that he says the government can’t pay for it because they don’t have the money “right now.” Where does the government get its money? Government creates nothing, it only extracts wealth from the productive element of society – and that includes the corporations that provide jobs. But Mr. Gagnon has an easy solution:

“There is a funding source available, it is the Military Industrial Complex.”

What? Where does the Military Industrial Complex get its money? From government! That’s right, the same government he says doesn’t have any money “right now.” Notwithstanding his glossing over where the money comes from, our distinguished activist wants to convert the MIC into a giant public works program.

“If we took the $12 billion we spent in Iraq last month, and invested it in America, we’d have created a million jobs!”

“Imagine the jobs created building windmills!”

Government jobs for everyone! But where will the money come from? It will need to be expropriated from the productive sector. Yes, it would be great if our government weren’t spending $12 billion a month on war – that is money we don’t have, so it’d probably be a good idea if they didn’t spend it at all.

In wrapping up the interview, Mr. Gagnon says we’re all pitted against one another by the power structure, and that we need to all come together:

“To end this reality in American Politics where we’re fragmented and broken apart from one another, because it is in that fragmentation that the power structure stays in control”

This is the most importantly wrong aspect of socialist idealism. The power structure is the government. The Military Industrial Complex achieves its power from its politically favored position with government. The “big multinational corporations” he speaks of are not products of the free market, but are creations of the government, in the form of corporatism. It is government control and intervention that destroys freedom, destroys jobs, and destroys choice. But to the socialist, there can be no society that is the sum of interactions between individuals, it must be centrally orchestrated. And they believe government is the key. They complain about the outcomes; the wars, the crushing of civil liberties, the corrupt power structures – but they keep wanting to build their centrally planned utopia. Socialist thinking is the enabler. It is how our Republic has devolved into a democracy, and will continue to slide toward totalitarianism.

To be fair, I don’t know if Mr. Gagnon calls himself a socialist. While there are some who will read this who do call themselves socialists, there is a far greater number who don’t consider themselves socialists while following the doctrine. That is because our education system teaches socialism, and most of us are not even aware of it. If we are to have any hope of turning this around and restoring freedom and liberty, we must reeducate ourselves regarding free markets and economic liberty. Socialism is not the answer to our problems, it is the cause of our problems.

When an idea goes unquestioned – when an idea is held so deeply within us that we don’t even realize it because it just seems like common sense, we are not in control of the idea, the idea controls us.