Michigan is where America’s industrial might was built in the 20th century. It still ranks sixth in the nation for manufacturing.
The state has weathered various government-made disasters from the Great Depression to the Great Recession. It has repeatedly reinvented itself when the odds seemed stacked against it, because it rewards entrepreneurship and hard work over ideology and politics.
Michigan is a “purple” state that has elected presidents George Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump (twice). Our constituents are mostly moderates.
But today, one faction of the political left is digging up the corpse of a German philosopher and stirring class warfare. The Democratic Socialists of America are charting a dystopian future for our people through ideas and plans that have failed always, and everywhere they have been tried.
The question facing Michigan is bigger than one Senate race. It’s much more consequential than Trump’s legislative agenda during the last two years of his presidency. It is about whether one of America’s premier manufacturing states will continue pursuing economic growth through free enterprise or become another textbook disaster of socialist experimentation.
August primaries show how far the Marxists have gone in their hostile takeover of the Democratic Party. Abdul El-Sayed won his Michigan Senate race against an establishment candidate.
He did it despite his absurd policy positions and endorsement of controversial political streamer Hasan Piker, a partnership criticized by both Republicans and fellow Democrats.
The party’s extremists go far beyond Obama’s ideas of government-run health care, higher taxes or expanded federal control of the economy.
The new war is against capitalism itself: abolishing private property in land and housing with free government-provided care from the cradle to the grave. Plus banning fossil fuels, abolishing prisons and police, economic “degrowth,” etc.
This November, Michigan voters would do well to remember all previous attempts to implement socialism. The Soviet Union, Mao Zedong’s China, Kim Il Sung’s North Korea, Fidel Castro’s Cuba and Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela. Governments promised equality and prosperity.
Instead, they produced repression and economic decline. But don’t you worry — this time Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) promised that it will work.
Europe shows that adding the word “democratic” before “socialism” won’t change the outcome. Britain’s economic malaise became synonymous with inflation, strikes and declining competitiveness until Margaret Thatcher’smarket-oriented reforms reversed much of the damage. Sweden suffered the same decay until it liberalized large portions of its economy in the 1990s.
Michigan should remember its own history as well. Detroit was once the envy of the world. Yet decades of leftist policies led to fiscal mismanagement and weak competitiveness. That caused population decline and culminated in the largest municipal bankruptcy in American history.
Sooner or later, socialists run out of other people’s money and their house of cards crumbles.
DSA’s proposals assume that the government possesses unlimited resources, knowledge, goodwill and competence. It has none of it. We’ve heard your promises before. Medicare, housing, college — free for all. Tax billionaires until every social problem disappears. These slogans may be politically effective, but arithmetic eventually has the final vote.
You can’t consume what you don’t produce. The private economy must create wealth before government can redistribute it. Taxation, bureaucratic restrictions and welfare handouts make work and investment less attractive. Entrepreneurs move to states that don’t punish success. Ask Californians and New Yorkers why they escape to Texas and Florida.
Michigan understands this competition better than almost any state. For decades, it has competed with business investment that generates jobs and prosperity. Every employer considering expansion compares tax burdens, regulatory environments, labor costs and energy prices. Capital and workers are mobile. States that ignore those realities pay a steep price.
Some progressives argue that corporations and high-income earners should simply pay more because they can afford it. Shouldn’t Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., give some of his houses to the homeless to set an example? How about the oh-so-progressive Hollywood elites — why don’t they share their bank accounts with the struggling young actors who need those “living wages” and benefits?
Socialist academic ideologues and political hacks make careers from dividing Americans into opposing camps: workers versus employers, renters versus landlords, urban versus rural, rich versus poor, men versus women, Black versus White. Our greatest successes, however, come when labor, management, entrepreneurs and investors all have incentives to build together.
The market is a zero-sum game, as the movie Wall Street claimed 40 years ago and as Abdul El-Sayed assumes today.
The living standard for the consumer rises through profit-seeking acts of the entrepreneur. The economy of Poland crossed the trillion-dollar mark while enriching its neighbors. Elon Musk made billions of people better off on his way to becoming the first trillionaire.
Michigan has long served as America’s political bellwether. We cannot afford to let Marxist candidates become the dominant voice of the Democratic Party in a quintessential swing state. Voters should look beyond slogans and personalities and ask practical questions such as “Which policies are most likely to encourage investment and create jobs?”
America has become a magnet for millions of immigrants because it has consistently combined free enterprise with limited government. That formula — private initiative under the rule of law — has produced the world’s largest economy. It has incentivized unparalleled innovation. It has produced living standards previous generations could scarcely imagine.
Michigan helped build that success story. It should not abandon its principles and demolish its foundations now in pursuit of ideas that history has repeatedly shown to be both evil and stupid. Our children’s future will depend on selecting public servants willing to implement policies grounded in experience, economic reality and an enduring belief in free people and free markets.
Dr. Alex Tokarev is an Associate Professor of Economics at Northwood University. Kristin Tokarev is a Northwood University alumna and writer.
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Will Michigan become the next socialist disaster? | Opinion
Reporting by Alex Tokarev and Kristin Tokarev / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Alex Tokarev and Kristin Tokarev | USA TODAY Network
