The Greek election earlier this month threw out a governing coalition that had negotiated a EU bailout of that nation’s failed economy. The new parliament failed last week to form a government that satisfied the leftist elements’ need to fully reject any austerity measures, so a new, likely more leftist parliament will be elected shortly. Considering that Greece is broke with no hope of paying its debts, rejecting the terms of a €150 bln bailout seems irrational. Thumbing their collective nose at their final lifeline makes no sense except if Greek voters think like children.
Young children are helpless; everything they own and everything they know are dependent on the adults who care for them. That does not stop children from demanding what they want beyond basic care. While the adults are seemingly in the stronger position, children often win the battle over their wants. When a child makes the transition from ward to self-sufficient adult, the adjustment can be jarring – nobody gives adults things simply because they want them.
Socialists play on their subjects’ inner child by promising to take care of the population and ‘give’ them the things they want – much as a parent cares for a child. Too often, as in the case of Greece, the socialist promises are impossible to fulfill. Greece’s credit card is maxed, it cannot afford the pension and work rule promises it made to its people. Gracefully, the rest of the EU agreed to help Greece transition to a realistic level of social policy with loan haircuts and bailout payments. However, like children, the Greek voters are demanding the loan forgiveness and the bailout payments without the cuts to their welfare state. Beggars cannot be choosers, except in the mind of a child.
There are other examples of socialism reducing adults to children. One theory as to why the North Koreans extravagantly bemoaned the overdue death of their Dictator is that they truly believe that everything they have comes from a benevolent father figure. North Korea’s socialist state prevents its people from seeing the obvious truth of their tyranny. The US is not immune; when Social Security and Medicare inevitably fail, the streets will burn even though any rational adult knows that these programs were false promises from the start.
Adulthood means self-sufficiency and the power to act only voluntarily as one deems best. Socialism, as in Greece, means dependency and a return to a child’s mindset. Capitalism requres adulthood because it is the voluntary meeting of people to create and prosper; it requires rational free will. There is no surprise that when the socialist promises in Greece, Italy, Spain, and elsewhere fail, the response is a childish tantrum of want instead of an adult understanding of realistic possibilities.
When Pres. Obama pushes his tax-the-rich policies and general class warfare, he is tapping into the socialist-child connection. Envy and unrestrained want are socialist tools that reduce adults to children. Only a child would believe that a 2000 page document can ‘give’ people healthcare or that life should be ‘fair’ by punishing the rich. Today’s Greece is tomorrow’s US if such arguments and policies remain unchallenged.