Modern society is plagued by an issue that seems to have an easy solution. Corporate power is over-expansive, the privileged classes gain from the coerced labor of others. The dream of a meritocracy, where all individuals have an equal opportunity to succeed, seems lost amid corporate corruption, political apathy and government abuse.

Born in the Industrial Revolution, socialism has claimed that it will be the solution to these problems, the highest vision of humankind, aspiring to the common good while minimizing the power of the privileged classes for the benefit of the masses.

Socialism, though, for all its vision, lacks true insight into the nuts-and-bolts reality of how society works and is less a design for collective progress than a recipe for failure.

Our nation, as a whole, has great wealth. The logical solution, then, seems to follow that if this wealth were distributed in a reasonable manner according to need, there would be wealth for all; no one would starve and no one would enjoy the undue benefits of ancestral privilege as through the rights of inheritance.

The principal flaw in socialism is not its desire to benefit a nation, but rather its blindness to the dangers of excessive government.

This is the interesting paradox of socialism: It claims to undermine the coercion of the capitalist interests for the benefit of the people, but instead trades this for the coercion of the state at the expense of the people.

Socialists claim society would be better off under socialism; but has our society and world not suffered enough under its holocausts and pogroms? All one has to do is to look at the 10 planks of the Communist Manifesto to realize that our nation has deteriorated since adopting such reforms as the graduated income tax; the centralization of communications, banking and industry; and the growth of federal control over education.

This slow change, from the libertarian principles of the Founding Fathers to the statist principles of the socialists has marked the corrosion of our society which is best summed up in a concept known as the Tragedy of the Commons — “a metaphor used to illustrate the conflict between individual interests and the common good,” according to Wikipedia. As applied to society, do we choose to live in a meritocracy that benefits those who strive and accomplish, or do we squander the resources of the productive few on the needs of the lazy by force of government?

For everything given by government, there must be something taken away from others by force. The best government is that which levels the playing field by setting standards so everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed without falling prey to the socialist paradigm that guarantees an equal outcome for all, in spite of merit.

We have a choice, and in this republic, we still have the power to decide. Do we live in a nation that aspires to the ideals of a meritocracy, or do we devolve into the abyss of state-sponsored coercion, taking from each according to their abilities and giving to each according to their needs?

I believe Gordon Gekko, a character in the movie “Wall Street,” said it best when he said, “… Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.”

Our society was much better off under voluntary selfishness than it is under forced charity. The duty of our government is to protect us from force, not to use force to coerce us to comply with social programs.

I pray we continue the upward surge brought about by the blessings of liberty as espoused by our nation’s founders, but with a mind toward benefiting those less fortunate than us. Not by force, but by individual will.

We do not need the force of government to create a better society. What we need is a revival of the individual spirit that made this nation great in the first place.