from the book: Shadow Dancing on the Grave of Hope:
Academics and School Teachers Love Marx
“Years ago, I used the one textbook that consisted of primarily Great Books authors for my research paper course and saw that in the edition I started using contained selections from Adam Smith and Karl Marx but when the next edition came out Adam Smith had been removed and Karl Marx retained. I wrote the textbook author and asked him why he removed the author who has proven historically true and retained the one that has been historically discredited. He wrote back that he had to consider sales and that meant considering what his market wanted and since his market was academics and school teachers he had to omit Adam Smith and keep Karl Marx.” Bruce Gans.
Central Planning is like the bumblebee: Theoretically it can’t work, but, unlike the bumblebee, it never does.
“…that which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it.", Aristotle.
Socialism uses coercion to make only one thing possible and then justifies the outcome as necessary. For example, Ontario, Canada was once served by private suppliers of electricity until Adam Beck, a socialist with government backing, used every coercive trick to put them out of business. While this was being accomplished, he proceeded to create a “public utility” which did what all public utilities do. It hid costs, incurred huge debt and become a model of inefficiency. This public utility had many consultant engineers in spite of having hundreds of engineers on payroll. One engineer of my acquaintance got many consulting contracts which gave him several chances to visit “The Sea of Elbows”. He would go to a large room with dozens of cubicles separated by partitions which were three feet high, each cubicle with an engineer. There he would observe the “Sea of Elbows” as the high priced help leaned back in their comfortable office chairs and contemplated their situation with their hands clasped behind their heads. Apparently the creation of this ridiculous and expensive enterprise met with royal approval because the ruthless pursuer of public good became Sir Adam Beck.
The bill from this utility is more than passing strange. It has charges as “debt retirement”, “regulation charges”, and “delivery charges”, all of which are much more than “electricity charges”. With any government utility, the amusement is unintended, but it ain’t free.
Cheerio and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
Cui Bono–Cherchez les Contingencies
