FEE’s Richard M. Ebeling writes, “The idea of communism — the common sharing of productive property and its resulting output — is as old as the ancient Greeks and Plato’s conception of the ideal Republic in which the guardians all live and work in common under the presumption that a radical change in the social institutional setting will transform men from self-interested beings into altruistic servers to some defined needs of society as a whole.

Dr. Eberling is right: socialism seeks to change man’s nature which invariably requires violence. (See also p. 170 of The Case Against Socialism)

Socialism Requires a Dictator – Foundation for Economic Education https://t.co/KEMQCsy9go

— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) November 12, 2021

This highlights a fundamental difference in the conception of man in the classical liberal versus socialist worldviews. Does man have a basic and invariant human nature that may be multi-sided and complex, but no less fixed in certain qualities and characteristics? Or is human nature a malleable substance that can be remolded like clay in the sculptor’s hands by placing human beings into radically different social arrangements and settings?

Classical liberals have argued for the former, that human beings are basically what they are: fairly reasonable, self-interested beings, guided by goals of personal improvement and betterment as the individual comes to define those for himself. The social dilemma for a humane, just, and widely prosperous society is how to foster a political and economic institutional order to harness that invariant quality in human nature so that it advances human betterment in general rather than becoming a tool of plunder. The classical liberal answer is basically Adam Smith’s system of natural liberty with its open, competitive, free-market order.”

Read the entire column.

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FEE’s Brad Polumbo writes, “Most of the politicians in Washington, DC are focused on a push to spend trillions of more taxpayer dollars on President Biden’s agenda. But Senator Rand Paul is raising the alarm about all the money the federal government has already spent—that it doesn’t have.

Money doesn’t grow on trees… money’s got to come from somewhere. https://t.co/Z0G7fsVLor

— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) October 9, 2021

‘We’re rapidly approaching a milestone in our country, and it’s not a good one: $30 trillion in debt,’ Paul noted in a fiery Senate speech on Thursday. He said that the federal government is accumulating ‘$2 million per minute’ in new debt.”

Read the entire column.

The post Rand Paul slams national debt, inflation and socialism on Senate floor appeared first on Liberty Tree.

FEE’s Hannah Cox writes, “So to summarize, Ocasio-Cortez is selling sweatshirts that say ‘tax the rich’ at a price most poor or working class people could not reasonably afford. She’s making money off of her merchandise that attacks the creation of wealth. And her excuse for all of this hypocrisy is that it costs more to buy from whole-sellers who pay a “living wage” and use American labor. There’s a lot to unpack here.

Whether she’s selling expensive “tax the rich” sweatshirts, or wearing expensive “tax the rich” gowns at expensive events, #AOC‘s hypocrisy knows no bounds.https://t.co/tCJCNYbzrX

— Hannah Cox (@HannahDCox) September 14, 2021

While Ocasio-Cortez clearly thinks her choice to employ operations that pay a “living wage” (presumably at least $15 an hour) is virtuous, it actually perfectly portrays how her economic ideas hurt people—especially the poor.”

Read the entire column.

The post AOC’s $58 ‘Tax the Rich’ shirt shows how her ideas hurt the poor appeared first on Liberty Tree.