Wasn’t Rolling Stone once a clever and trendy magazine? Now it’s descended into history’s dustbin to publish a listicle showing just how low it can go. Jesse Myerson’s “Five Economic Reforms Millennials Should Be Fighting For” scrapes the bottom of the memetic barrel, almost all the way down to Communism.
- Public Works über alles. Can’t find a job? Work for the government, thus fulfilling the notion of “Guaranteed work for everybody . . . who wants to” sit around and look busy.
- Guarantee an income, or “Social Security for All.” Hoary. But the higher that guaranteed level is, the more it would nullify the make-work schemes of proposal no. 1, above. That’s only the most obvious problem.
- Seize the land. Yup, land communism. How 19th century. Because landlords, we’re informed, “don’t really do anything to earn their money.” For some reason, the author of this ignorant list of proposals doesn’t mention the most obvious problem with this old tradition: the tragedy of the commons. If mass poverty won’t convince you, what about environmental degradation?
- State Socialism, pure and simple, advertised as “Make Everything Owned by Everybody.” Yes, a major American magazine has now endorsed the very system that was tried by the worst totalitarian regimes in the modern world, the Soviet Union, Communist China, etc. No mention of Ludwig von Mises’ explanation as to why this cannot work.
At least Myerson’s fifth “reform” isn’t to eradicate money. It’s to
- Set up state banks.
Not as goofy as the other ideas, but hey: in a world where the government owns all the land and all the capital, and people don’t have to work — but can earn extra bucks in government “jobs” — what, exactly, will his beloved state banks be loaning us to accomplish?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.