Neither group sees it, but DSA and MAGA have a lot in common.
The Same Dangerous Flaw
CATO accurately comments: Democratic socialists of America (DSA) and MAGA nationalists both want sweeping government control of the economy.
History shows where that road leads, and how it undermines prosperity and democracy itself.
Please consider: Democratic Socialists and MAGA Share a Dangerous Flaw
Democratic socialism is a terrible ideology. If implemented, its agenda would cause grave harm and imperil democracy itself. And in seeking massive state control of the economy, today’s socialists ironically have much in common with the MAGA nationalists they claim to oppose.
Both promote government control over the economy, and both paths undermine liberty, prosperity and democracy. Socialists do not control the Democratic Party in the way MAGA largely dominates the Republicans. But their influence is growing.
What’s the DSA’s Agenda? Let’s Look at the Socialist Wish List.
The democratic socialist agenda goes far beyond a marginal increase in economic regulation or welfare spending. It amounts to sweeping government control of the economy and society, on a scale that invites comparison to Cuba, North Korea and the old Soviet Union.The platform of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), America’s most prominent socialist organization, states the goal plainly: a system in which “food, education, energy, medicine, and transportation aren’t for-profit businesses; they are common goods” – which is to say, a complete government takeover of those industries.
The DSA also envisions a society with no debt, no mortgages and no landlords, which would require government control of most housing, plus extensive rent control and a $20 an hour or higher minimum wage on whatever remains in private hands.
Economists across the political spectrum agree that this kind of wage floor would price millions of workers out of the labor market, and that rent control would greatly shrink the housing supply.
All told, the DSA agenda would add $71 trillion to $212 trillion in new federal spending over the next decade – at least doubling, and possibly tripling, today’s $7.4 trillion in annual federal outlays, which are already unsustainable on their own. And there’s no way to cover it by taxing “the wealthy” alone: Confiscating the entire net worth of the 400 richest Americans would cover, at most, 9% of the low-end estimate.
Democratic Socialists are MAGA’s Mirror Image
Ironically, democratic socialists have more in common with MAGA nationalists than either likely wants to admit. President Donald Trump has pursued his own version of economic central planning: ruinous tariffs, severely restrictive immigration policy and government equity stakes in Intel, U.S. Steel and roughly 30 other companies.
Tariffs and immigration restrictions are both major forms of government control over the economy. Immigration restrictions, in particular, curtail economic freedom more than any other current U.S. policy.
MAGA nationalists are also fiscally reckless much like socialists – Trump’s signature spending bill is projected to add $3.4 trillion to the deficit over the next decade, with no serious effort to reform the entitlement programs that drive most federal spending.
Socialists promote an egalitarian ideology, while nationalists generally believe that government should promote the interests of the ethnic and cultural majority in a society. But, despite different rhetoric, they have similar economics and similar flaws.
The fiscal cost is far from the worst of it. A century of socialist experiments prove that.
How Socialism Becomes Authoritarianism
When government takes over most of the economy, it destroys the incentive to produce. In a market economy, producers compete on price and quality to win customers. Under state control, those incentives vanish, and industries become government monopolies immune to competition. The result, time and again, is waste and shoddy goods.As an old Soviet joke put it: “We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us.”
Even enterprises that want to produce quality goods are generally unable to do so under socialism. As Nobel Prize-winning economist F.A. Hayek showed in a classic article, in market economies the price system sends producers useful signals about what consumers want. Higher prices signal strong demand that producers are incentivized to respond to. Government control of production largely eliminates these price signals, leaving even well-intentioned planners without good information on how to allocate resources.
I Was a Refugee from Soviet Communism. I know Socialism Doesn’t Work.
Today’s socialists say they will avoid this fate because they champion “democratic” socialism, not the authoritarian kind. But near-total state control of the economy has never coexisted with democracy for long. A government that controls the economy can starve opposition parties of resources and weaponize control of basic goods to crush dissent.That’s exactly what happened in Venezuela, where a democratically elected socialist government became a dictatorship.
Right-wing nationalist regimes have followed a similar path, in Germany, Italy, Spain and many Latin American nations.
Many of today’s socialists even admire authoritarian socialist regimes and hope to emulate them:
- The DSA praises Cuban communist dictator Fidel Castro, who turned that country into a totalitarian state.
- Prominent socialist “influencer” Hasan Piker praised Mao – the biggest mass murderer of all time – as “one of the great leaders of this world.”
- Sen. Sanders has a long history of praising communist despots.
I know firsthand: I was a refugee from Soviet communism myself. If socialism worked as advertised, people would be fleeing market economies to live under it, not the other way around. Right-wing nationalist regimes have produced their own refugee outflows. Refugees from Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, for instance, helped build American science, including the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb.
The choices of people voting with their feet are the most powerful verdict on both these ideologies.
Mirror Image Meets at Control
Both parties want complete control and want to drive out anyone who disagrees.
They have the same cancel culture mentality.
Republicans criticize Democrats who cozy up with socialist despots like Castro and Mao, but themselves cozy up to Putin and Kim Jong Un.
Democratic socialists and MAGA nationalists both want sweeping government control of the economy.
The difference is the Right cozies up to the powerful while the Left cozies up to the weak.
The similarity is total control. The MAGA and the DSA cults have the same goal: to eliminate the other and everyone else who disagrees on anything.
Neither is capable of seeing how similar, and dangerously so, they are to each other.
Democrats Propose Free Money for Stay-at-Home Parents.
On September 6, I asked Democrats Propose Free Money for Stay-at-Home Parents. Are You For It?
Sorry, I meant to say this socialistic proposal is by Republicans, not AOC.
Please read that post for more on how DSA and MAGA are alike. It’s also a mirror image of sorts.
In this case, Republicans want to take money earmarked for single moms and give it to stay-at-home moms.
The result would be the same. Eventually it would be more money and more deficit spending for both.
An Accurate Assessment
Motivations differ, but the shared preference for state over decentralized allocation is clear.
Article posted with permission from Mish Shedlock
