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Socialism is tribal economics. – Guy Herbert
At a "White Dudes for Harris" Zoom call Tim Walz stated, "One person's socialism is another person's neighborliness."
He has been excoriated for saying that with many (rightly) pointing out "socialism is a forced economic system under which the government usurps total control of a nation’s means of production, distribution, and exchange" while "neighborliness involves the voluntary cooperation of individuals freely helping one another without an expectation of economic benefit."
Yet if you look at socialism through Herbert's lens that it is tribal economics, Walz's statement has merit. Socialism is neighborliness within the context of a tribe. The tribe consists of your neighbors, and in most tribes, those outside the tribe are not fully human. Within the tribe, because its members are truly special people, it is share the wealth. Taking what wealth is needed from those outside the tribe — the Untermenschen.
Some protest that resources within the tribe are not shared equally. Some live better than others. That is the nature of tribes. While the tribe members are special people, it takes very special people to guide the tribe. Those leaders, the chiefs and shamans (or central committee members and party intellectuals in socialist terms) have great responsibilities and deserve commensurately greater rewards. It's only right.
Socialism at its core is updated feudalism. Feudalism at its core is updated Stone Age tribalism. All three benefit the tribe members, the neighbors. Those outside that circle can pound sand. That is Walz's neighborliness.
Discussion (19)
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Socialism benefits those running the tribe. Redistribution is a negate-sum game. The slices of the pie are more evenly distributed, but the size of the pie is less. Capitalism is better, because it allows for those people that are best at creating prosperity to control the limited resources. All these lessons are in the Bible.
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Unfortunately very few people read the bible anymore.
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When Obama said something like you've got to spread the wealth around, it did not occur to me then that he meant to members of his tribe.
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Who else?
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I like Mark Steyn's reply. Something along the lines of I spread the wealth around every time I buy a pair of shoes or a loaf of bread.
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