Some have defined socialism as government ownership of the means of production. That definition is too narrow. While that is one form socialism can take, there are many others. We can describe it more accurately if we start from the goals of socialists. They want to control the distribution of production. Their ideal is not equal opportunity, but equal economic results. To that end, they want to take earnings from the more productive and give those earnings to the less productive, or to the nonproductive. This idea used to be called, "leveling." More modern usage calls it the "welfare state," or "spreading the wealth," or "redistribution of income."

The first immediate result of socialism is to destroy the incentive and initiative of the productive. If they cannot have that which they earn, why bother? Socialism generally brings economic failure. On the other hand, the Reagan tax cuts brought strong and long lasting economic growth. The same thing happened in Ireland when they cut taxes from among the highest in Europe, to among the lowest. America has long been the economic wonder of the world, because she has been the freest country in the world.

Socialism's basis is what Lincoln called, "the same spirit that says, 'you toil and work and earn bread, and I'll eat it.'" It comes from a desire for power, and to control other people's lives and the fruit of other people's labor.  (See our page on Lincoln.)

Supreme Court Justice George Sutherland said it well: "the individual--the man--has three great rights, equally sacred from arbitrary interference; the RIGHT TO HIS LIFE, the RIGHT TO HIS LIBERTY, and the RIGHT TO HIS PROPERTY. The three rights are so bound together as to be essentially ONE right. To give a man his life, but deny him his liberty, is to take from him all that makes life worth living. To give him liberty but take from him the property which is the fruit and badge of his liberty, is to still leave him a slave."

Socialism destroys freedom.