This is partially by design as the impoverished and dependant masses are easier to control than the middle class. You can get away with much more when people are desperate.
While some of the rich may also be impoverished, there will still be those who are the elite and powerful with all the worldly privileges available, the faces may change and often with that change comes reduced choice and more limited freedoms.

 

These are dangerous time, we must educate and we must collaborate within our communities, building consensus, to create the change this country needs, which includes exposing corruption wherever it lies. There is nothing progressive about Socialism. It has been tried and has failed many times before.

When government takes care of its citizens, beyond the critical safety net for some, it also makes more and more decisions for its citizens. As more and more decisions are made, more and more control is exercised. What once belonged to individual citizens now belongs to the government and is controlled by an elite few. Resources once available to everyone can now only be accessed by the elite few. Even decisions that seem to be made by the whole group are made and manipulated by the few. Products and services become more expensive, supply and even choices diminish.

Places that were once accessible to almost anyone are now severely restricted and are only accessible to those with money or resources. Many products have so many regulations and added on expenses they are priced out of range for the poor and even many in the middle class. The masses do the bidding of the elite few through voting and activism, in exchange for their meager handout.

 

So how do we build the requisite collaboration to overcome the media and overwhelming organization of the extreme left and the overwhelming ignorance of the already dependent?

By its nature, socialism rewards incompetence. In a well functioning free market society, if a company is not doing well, it may close. Stronger, more competitive companies will acquire the resources and hire the workers. The workers, after learning better methods and skills may leave and start another new company. In a socialist society, the poor company remains a poor company subsidized by the more competent. While there must be limits and boundaries in a free market society, such as appropriate anti trust laws and strict laws against graft and corruption, in general it rewards the most competent and efficient and trains, with lesser rewards, the rest. There must be, of course, appropriate safety nets in any moral society; however, those safety nets need to draw the best, the greatest capacity, and highest possible level of self-sufficiency from everyone.  Self-Sufficiency ennobles.

 

Socialism is the height of arrogance. It assumes that a few people are intelligent and perhaps even clairvoyant enough to understand all the consequences of their actions and controls. It rarely takes responsibility for unintended consequences and is quick to blame “they just didn’t do it right.” Unfortunately it also makes an assumption of goodness; that it will provide for the greater good while deciding what the greater good is.
While democracy and a free market is imperfect, allowed to act, within reasonable safety limits, it will make mistakes; but more quickly adjust to those mistakes and take ultimate responsibility.
If we were all good enough and if we were all smart enough, socialism would be the better way. Unfortunately it has been tried and failed too many times in both large and small scales.

 

 

For true democracy in action, see Open Agenda Conferences.