HUNGRY, HUNGRY GOVERNMENT

"when you spread the wealth around it's good for everybody"
-President Obama

The Soviet Union and its satellite states were meant to be Communist nations. The founder of Soviet Communism, Vladimir Lenin, adapted Karl Marx' theories and tried to apply them to Russia in a form known as Leninism. However, before true Communism could take place, there was a transition period that Marx wrote about.

Karl Marx stated that a nation could not immediately become communist because the people had to be re-educated to break them away from the bourgeois mindset they had been living under, particularly those who were in power before the revolution. In order to accomplish this, the government had to be absolute so that it had the power to destroy the old system and build the new one. For the first stage of this transformation, the people had to be ordered around and the new society built from the top down, including many taken to special camps to teach them the new society, or in the case of some, simply killing them because they could not be taught.

The second stage is more pure socialism. While the society adapts to the new plan and is educated (particularly the youth) the government has to control the economy, restructuring things to the point where Communism naturally takes over with ever man doing his part for his fellow man and no one in charge. This intermediary stage is best described as Socialism.

I want to be clear here, few Socialists actually are aiming at creating a classless, Marxist society, they merely want to borrow portions of what they like and adapt it to fit their country. Most Socialists would reject pure Communism, although many admire it in theory. However, pure Communism uses Socialism as a transition stage.

Ideally when the Socialist stage is complete, the nation becomes purely Communist, with the ruling body merely made up of representatives of the people, everyone owning all things in common and sharing what they produce freely, and no one in charge or ordering anything as all work in a mutually beneficial and productive economy. In practice, no Communist nation ever gets to this stage. In fact, most of them eventually head into Capitalism in varying degrees rather than Communism such as Vietnam, China, and Russia.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it still was a Socialist totalitarian nation, with the government in absolute control and the economy totally controlled from that central all powerful government. In Hungary, for example, the state accounted for 60% of the nation's economy: more than half of the economy was actually government activity. This was considered a total socialist nation with a small black market and small local markets selling food and goods.

By comparison, in the United States government accounts for 28% of the national economy (in 2007 at least), but subjects of the crown in Great Britain might be dismayed to learn some of the numbers in a recent article by Abul Taher at the London Times:

In the northeast of England the state is expected to be responsible for 66.4% of the economy this year, up from 58.7% when a similar study was carried out four years ago. When Labour came to power, the figure was 53.8%.

The CEBR reached its estimates for 2008-9 by applying the 6.68% state spending increase announced in November’s prebudget report evenly across the country, although in practice some regions will receive more than others.

Across the whole of the UK, 49% of the economy will consist of state spending, while in Wales, the figure will be 71.6% – up from 59% in 2004-5. Nowhere in mainland Britain, however, comes close to Northern Ireland, where the state is responsible for 77.6% of spending, despite the supposed resurgence of the economy after the end of the Troubles.

Even in southern England, the government’s share of spending is growing relentlessly. In the southeast, it has gone up from 33% to 36% of the economy in four years.

As the ravenous federal governments of various western countries take over industry after industry, such as Iceland's banking department. As the government takes over more of the private sector, they pass through Soviet territory, into realms of socialism even the communists never achieved.

As the economic bad times deepen, countries decide that bigger, more invasive, and more expansive government must be the answer. So a greater chunk of the economy is seized for the good of all and never before has this been so true as this last year. Whether driven by panic, opportunism, or confusion, socialist spending and government takeover of the economies of the west is on the rise. Given the successes of such governments in the past, one has to sit back and wonder how anyone could possibly think this is a good idea.

Yet the culture of the west practically demands it. In years past, a recession was met with frustration, fear, and perhaps anger, but also determination. They come and go, this one will pass as well. The depression was met with a drive to get through it and fend for one's self. Hardships were seen as challenges and an inevitable part of life.

Modern western culture rejects hardships, considers challenges offensive, and extols personal comfort and happiness far above personal responsibility, fortitude, and the honor of facing difficulty with virtue and integrity. In short: economic hard times are something the west flees from and tries to ignore, crying for big government to fix everything so we can just get back to the good times again. So big government responds and we see the kind of explosive, unprecedented spending that has happened in the last year, with far, far more planned.

We'll get through this all regardless of how badly well-meaning socialists mess with the economy, but it might take a while. The last time we had people in government doing this kind of thing, the entire world plunged into a depression that lasted more than a decade.