Socialism Is The Gospel Of Abundance?

1917 Russia Revolution – Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the Bolshevik Party, addresses a crowd of revolting soldiers, sailors, and workers in Petrograd.
Reading responses to an article on the Christianity Today web site I came across a lady who asked, “Why not free universal healthcare?” Her question reminded me of children who ask simple questions such as “Why is the sun hot?” If you give them the physics of how the sun works, they don’t understand it. So I tell them God made it hot to keep us warm. Of course, then they ask, “Why?”
I gave the woman a brief response from economics and she responded that her Canadian friends were happy with their system so there was no reason for the US not to have something similar. Of course, if we limit our knowledge to just what the woman’s friends in Canada say about their system then without a doubt we should rush to the ballot box and vote for the most socialist Democrat candidates we can find. The problem with her logic is that she assumes her personal experience and those of her Canadian friends are all she needs to solve the problem of healthcare.
When I taught economics, I frequently ran into the same attitude in students. Their personal experience didn’t match the textbook economics world so the textbook must be wrong. Hayek called that kind of thinking pseudo-reason or rationalism in his last book, The Fatal Conceit. Pseudo-reasoning says that for something to be true, the individual must be able to understand it completely and foresee all of the consequences. In other words, personal experience trumps all other knowledge.
People who determine truth only by their personal experiences forget the purpose of education. Why do we go to school, read books or watch the news on TV? We do so to gain knowledge from the personal experiences of others. When we read a book on physics, we get the benefit of the personal experiences of hundreds of physicists. Studying economics gives us the advantage of knowing the personal experiences of millions of people over centuries.
Originally published on Townhall Finance.
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