‪Socialist, statist autocracies, driven by fascist or communist agendas, always create elitist oligarchies to concentrate power by creating more helplessness and dependency on government, rather than recognizing and encouraging individualism, intellect and creativity.

This narrowing of opportunity and burgeoning dependency over time bleeds the liberty, dignity and individual sovereignty out of a nation’s people, leaving behind only soulless despair, hopelessness and utter perdition. ‬

Such a system manipulates economics, gaming the system in order to consolidate power and redistribute wealth into the hands of a scarce few, rather than trusting the free markets to naturally distribute wealth into the hands of the best, brightest and most creative, who then naturally create industries, jobs and generous charitable organizations, which thrive, employ more people and serve the public.

Capitalism in a free republic under the rule of law is a win-win situation. Contracts and laws are enforced. Freeloading is discouraged. Free markets thrive, and so does capital creation and liquidity. Everyone is lifted by the rising tide of prosperous activity, and people are encouraged to take risks and strive to thrive.

Socialism, on the other hand, is an economic system and ideology where “a few win big, while others suffer and starve”. Corruption and graft are encouraged and rewarded. Risk is discouraged. Investment is eliminated. Individual liberty is stifled. Black markets thrive and people strive to merely survive. Government ultimately isn’t trusted in such a system, and neither are one’s fellow citizens, who are encouraged to spy and inform authorities on each other for personal gain by the inner circle of increasingly paranoid leaders. Venezuela, Cuba, the former Soviet Union, and China are prime examples.

This system of leftist manipulation and corrupt cronyism, described in the examples above, is exactly what Hayek was referring to when he wrote The Road to Serfdom. The negative aspects of socialism are also well represented in the writings of Soviet and Cuban dissidents, many of whom were eventually imprisoned or killed for their honest words and ideas.

The antidote to this corrupt, immoral state-sponsored darkness is pure Enlightenment: the enlightened codification of the primordial, inalienable natural rights of human beings, the establishment of restricted government under a strict rule of law, and a well-armed, awakened and engaged citizen’s militia, not a standing army. That is the basis for a constitutional free republic and the only way it can succeed, for the struggle between liberty and tyranny is truly a battle between good and evil.

Excerpt from “For The New Federalist-Comments On Republicanism”, by Pericles Elytis Nikitaras