I spoke with @LaulPatricia about Marxism:
One is: What’s remarkable is that Marxism has been tried. Now, of course, defenders of Marxism say it hasn’t really been tried anywhere, but certainly the people who implemented it claimed they were implementing Marxism.
And this is a massive experiment—a global experiment—with a very clear outcome. Namely, the Soviet Union was a disaster. The imposition of communism on Eastern Europe was a disaster. The imposition of communism in Venezuela was a disaster. The imposition of communism in Maoist China was a disaster. Disaster in terms of both poverty and oppression and genocide and stupid wars. So the world has told us what happens under communism, and it’s a sign of how out of touch intellectuals can be that there are still people who defend it despite the entire world giving a very clear-cut answer.
One more is: would you rather live in North Korea or South Korea? Would you rather live in the old East Germany or West Germany? We have an experimental group and a matched control group in terms of culture, language, and geography, and the answer is crystal clear. So this is a sign of, I think, the pathology of intellectual life—that Marxism can persist.
The other is, you did call attention to one of the appeals of Marxism, though, and more generally of heavy, strong influence of government guided by intellectuals, which is that there are certain kinds of reforms that you can state as principles. You can articulate them verbally as propositions—like equality, human rights, democracy—but there’s other kinds of progress that take place in massive distributed networks of millions of people, none of whom implements some policy. But collectively, there is an order, an organization that’s beneficial.
So that can happen organically through, for example, the development of a language. No one designed the English language. It’s just hundreds of millions of English speakers. They coin new words. They forget old words. They try to make themselves clear. And we get the English language and the other 5,000 languages spoken on earth.
Likewise, a market economy is something where knowledge is distributed. You don’t have a central planner deciding how many shoes of size 8 will be needed in a particular city, but rather information is conveyed by prices, which are adjusted according to supply and demand. And you’ve got a distributed network of exchange of information that can result in an emergent benefit.
Now, intellectuals tend to hate that. They like rules of language—of correct grammar. They like top-down economic planning. They like cultural change that satisfies particular ideals described by intellectuals. And so rival sources of organization, like commerce, like culture—traditional culture—tend to be downplayed by intellectuals.
And this can be magnified by the fact that many dictatorships give a privileged role to intellectuals, which may be why, over the course of the 20th century, and probably continuing to the present, there has not been a dictator that has not had fans among intellectuals—including the mullahs and ayatollahs of Iran, but also the communist dictators: Mao and Castro, even Stalin in his day. And every other dictator has had, actually, often fawning praise from Western intellectuals.
All Voice of America Full Time Employees Put on Paid Administrative Leave, VOA May Survive But Emerge Much Smaller, Future of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, other USAGM Grantees Uncertain | BREAKING NEWS https://t.co/L9KsOWMpGg via @usagm_watch
ROBINSON How not to cover breaking news: VOA’s embarrassing performance on recent major stories | Washington Times op-ed https://t.co/0T6IWYtbzC via @usagm_watch
Why are US-funded #USAGM Voice of America #VOA journalists defending #Russia, #Iran over the #Hamas massacre of #Jews in #Israel?
– Ted Lipien Op-Ed in The Hill https://t.co/2cv8W8llWD
Voice of America #VOA@VOANews reporters agreed to cuts in their report about a new #censorship scandal at U.S. Agency for Global Media – #USAGM @USAGMgov
https://t.co/GHFoyJLuT8 via @usagm_watch
Estonian-American Leader, Estonian Politician Objects to Voice of America #VOA News Report @VOANews on Putin’s Russia https://t.co/SY9M58uXsU via @usagm_watch
U. S. Agency for Global Media #USAGM @USAGMgov #VOA@VOANews and #Ukraine USAGM still shows a press release about its poll in the Russian-occupied Ukraine. Its faulty and misleading 2014 poll in Crimea helped #Putin#propaganda. https://t.co/qwKfyUXCzs via @usagm_watch
#Ukraine is the area of decision between Russia and the Free World @RFERL Radio Free Europe Fund 1962 – Cold War Radio Museum https://t.co/NfmVfb5X4S
Voice of America #VOA@VOANews and #Ukraine Blinken, at one point, actually addressed comments to the people of Russia. So, these remarks were instantly seen across the globe by anyone watching CNN,BBC But NOT – by the Voice of America.
https://t.co/bGZlpwlqYA via @usagm_watch
Breaking News Failures at Voice of America #VOA@VOANews Still Not in the Past #USAGM @USAGMgov BBC beat VOA on the Bob Dole death story by about 3 hours and had longer reports.
https://t.co/8GNncfVCuv via @usagm_watch
At Voice of America, history repeats itself Mismanagement at USAGM is a bipartisan issue that needs a bipartisan solution based on the VOA Charter #VOA#USAGM@VOANews @USAGMgov
https://t.co/Fgtocv6rMO
Maria Czapska and Józef Czapski – Unknown Censorship of Refugees at Voice of America While Czapska’s brother was censored by #VOA@VOANews in 1950, he and she often spoke in Radio Free Europe programs, which never resorted to this kind of censorship.
https://t.co/8XJRLo3VBQ
Voice of America #VOA@VOANews in the U.S. Agency for Global Media #USAGM @USAGMgov gives a false sense of security to Afghan women https://t.co/XlEdl34SgB
Shameful Voice of America #VOA@VOANews News Reporting Failure in U.S. Agency for Global Media #USAGM @USAGMgov on U.S.-Germany Nord Stream Deal
https://t.co/JlCSrAZADZ via @usagm_watch
#VOA @VOANews was caught recently covering up genocide in #Ethiopia and repeating Ethiopian gov’t #propaganda. In 1940s VOA was covering up Soviet crimes and repeating Stalin’s propaganda lies. Voice of America – 80 Years of Hidden History https://t.co/4VKGGlGrxq