A nation with a socialized economy is aptly called a “nanny state.” Like an overly protective mother, it stifles self-reliance, individual initiative, and ultimately liberty itself. The Leviathan that socialism creates invariably infantilizes us. We are to forsake our status as citizens to become subjects, under the aegis of various ministers, or czars, who administer to our needs.
As our dependency on government increases, we become, in effect, wards of the state. Yes, governmental “smother love” is a pernicious thing, which leads one to wonder: why would anyone crave the degraded, ignominious form of existence wrought by socialism? Here lies a mystery!
Socialism Versus Capitalism
Consider, by way of contrast, capitalism. It financially rewards hard work, ingenuity, risk taking, and individual achievement. The downside is that we are must pay the price for our errors. But accepting responsibility for our actions is intrinsic to being a mature adult. Socialism, on the other hand, promises to protect us from the negative consequences of our actions. For example, if we fail to save money for a rainy day and disaster strikes, the state steps in to protect us. It does so by robbing, i.e., taxing, Peter to pay Paul for his poor judgment. In that sense, the lure of socialism is a regressive wish to forsake the burdens of adulthood.
Socialism also appeals to the longing for equality. Socialists contend that any distribution of goods, based on achievement, is intrinsically unfair. The implication is that life is a zero-sum game, and that one person’s gain is another person’s loss. As a solution, Karl Marx advocated the philosophy — and the call to action — that lies at the heart of communism: “From each according to his abilities to each according to his needs.” Implicit here is the view of the state is a large family, with only so much food to go around. If some of the family members have large portions, then the rest of the family will have less. Of course, this metaphor is absurd, for the world is not a large family, even if many Utopian socialists believe it to be so. (Nor is it a village, as Hillary Clinton implied in her book “It Takes a Village.”)
We have mentioned two of the appeals of socialism, the wish not to have to take responsibility for one’s errors and the craving for equality. There is a third appeal of socialism, one that is never stated, perhaps because it initially seems counterintuitive. It is to create a world where one no longer needs to be charitable towards other people. This may sound rather surprising. After all, those on the political left pride themselves on their compassion. Alas, their compassion really consists in forcing those who are affluent to give to those who have less. Apropos is Aristotle’s reason for rejecting socialism. He contended that charity is good for the soul, and under socialism there is no need to be charitable, for the state gives us all that we need.
There exists, then, on the part of the socialist the desire to create a world where no one need ever be charitable. And so why the desire to create such a world? It is because the socialist knows that to give to others contradicts that desire that is at the heart of socialism, the wish to stay to be given and not have to give, i.e., the wish to stay as a child. In such a world, the soul withers and dies.
Pa is to Blame for Everything
Let us consider socialism and capitalism in terms of Jungian archetypes. The mother does not require that her children accomplish anything to receive a piece of the pie. They all receive an equal portion. This matriarchal mode of distribution is the ideal of socialism. Now consider the father, in his many archetypal forms — including one’s personal father, God, one’s pastor, one’s teachers, and anyone else in authority. Unlike the mother who, out of unconditional love, makes no demands, the father divvies up the pie based on individual merit.
Socialists rail against the father’s manner of distribution, accusing him of favoritism and bias, of lacking compassion, of being altogether unfair. Their accusations towards the father cloak their true animus: socialists hate and resent the father for requiring that they become responsible adults. They similarly hate that the father’s love is conditional, in that respect. In the language of Freud, they hate the father for forcing them to renounce the pleasure principle and to accept the reality principle. For in truth, socialism, like all Utopian creeds, is a flight from reality.
Certainly there are injustices in the world, but most often the accusation of unfairness is a puerile protest against the demands of adulthood, a protest that is often darkened by a baleful dose of envy of those who have more. They claim that if it wasn’t for the father, everyone could have an equal piece of the pie. The revolution that socialists wish to foment is one that would kill the father, and put the “mother” in charge of the world.
This patricide can take many forms, from a contempt for culture and tradition to anti-Americanism, from atheism to antisemitism. In regard to the latter, the Jewish people have always embodied the morality of God, the father. Even if particular Jews embrace socialism, and even if particular Jews renounce morality, the Jewish people as a whole are forever branded those, among the nations, who have chosen God, the father.
Socialism and the Oedipus Complex
All cultures have an incest taboo. They realize that a violation of this taboo can have grave results, for the individual and for society. Freud referred to the dynamic, by which the child’s incestuous longings are punished, as the Oedipus Complex. As we have been suggesting, socialism is essentially a longing for the mother. In other words, socialism is the creation of those who — despite the guilt engendered by the Oedipus Complex — have refused to renounce their longings for the mother. (The consequence of ignoring one’s Oedipal guilt is a diminished sense of self, but that is another story for another essay.)
The original version of the film, The Manchurian Candidate (1962) evokes this noxious connection between communism, i.e., socialism taken to its logical conclusion, and the mother. In that nightmarish story, a POW, named Raymond Shaw, is brainwashed and turned into a political assassin, by the Chinese communists, during the Korean War. The film suggests that Raymond has an incestuous relation with his domineering mother. (The book, by the same title went much further down that road.) A casual remark by the protagonist of the film, Major Marko, suggests a parallel between Raymond’s relation to his mother and difficulties that Orestes had with his mother, Clytemnestra.
Raymond’s mother — although apparently a virulent anti-communist, right-winger — is really in league with the communists, who have brainwashed her son. What triggers the hypnotized Raymond to obey a command is the site of a certain playing card, the queen of hearts. That card, of course, represents his mother. In any case, we mention this film because it evokes the connection between socialism in its final form, i.e., communism, and an unresolved Oedipus complex.
Marx famously wrote: “A specter is haunting Europe — the specter of communism.” Were Marx psychologically astute, he would have realized that the real specter haunting Europe, the US, and the rest of the world, is the mother archetype, or what the Jungian Erich Neumann called “the Great Mother.”
The Swinging of the Pendulum
As Hegel’s dialectic reveals, when the pendulum of history swings to one extreme, it will invariably swing to the opposite extreme. What, then, lies on the opposite extreme of socialism? The other end of the pendulum’s arc is radical Islam. It is concomitantly a fanatical faith in the father (Allah) and a violent rejection of the mother.
Islamists perceive that both the socialistic and the capitalistic nations…
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