1) His statements are vague and rambling. What I hear him saying is: “everything sucks, so you need me (and people who think like me) to set up a benign dictatorship.” He does not explain WHY things suck. That’s where I can educated him.
2) He speaks from two typical paradigms: profits and business vs. workers, and white vs. black. The first is Marxism the second is cultural Marxism, which, as a Ukrainian, I’m largely immune to :).
Both see not individual human beings but only “classes” — a vague, never-defined term at the center Marxism. There is no solidaridy within any class. Everybody struggles to be the best employer, the best customer, the best worker. Look closely, and his paradigm falls apart.
3) Inequality. Only if you accept the Marxist paradigm of class war, and stop seeing people as individuals can you make inequality a leading issue.
Rallying behind the idea of inequality is dangerous for three reasons: it calls for state-sponsored violence as a equalizing force, it inspires emotions useful to politicians — jealousy and hatred, it is impossible — thus lending it to what Lenin called “permanent revolution.”
No society in the history of the world has ever improved itself by taking money from one “class” of people and giving it to another. Many who’ve tried it turned into gigantic meat grinders. The Cambodian attempts at an agrarian based communist society slaughtered almost 1/3rd of the population.
Don’t believe the leftist claim that they simply didn’t do it right, and that we need to try again.
Inequality is also a very, very small price to pay for liberty and prosperity. Without exception, conditions for poor people have been best in the countries with the free-est economies.
4) He, quickly and loosely, attributes our economic crisis to freedom. Bullshit. The economic crisis was caused by inflating the monetary supply, a long history of bailouts which enouraged recklessness, and laws which **** REQUIRED **** banks to make bad loans. The only regulation that works is the free market regulation of letting people go the hell bankrupt when they’re irresponsible.
5) Quickly and loosely, he says that the people want gov’t insurance and that it’s opposed by big pharma and big insurance companies. I don’t want gov’t insurance. Don’t I count? I’ll remind you that one of the first things Obamacare did was REQUIRE people to buy medical insurance. That’s not exactly sticking it to the insurance industry. And no, finding a better, stronger, kinder, more benevolent dictator will not work. The search for one is called “the road to serfdom.”
6) His faith in democracy is charming. Reminds me of when I was a child.
7) When the hell were intellectuals on the side of free markets? It’s always been a heterodox movement.