Winston Churchill said democracy is the worst form of government—except for all the others. He added that the inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings, while the virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.
There are profound differences between capitalism and socialism. Capitalism stands for private ownership and uses the law to protect it. Socialism doesn’t. Anti-capitalists believe government should own and/or control a nation’s assets, including its natural and economic resources. That could even include ownership or control over things like wheat, oil, land, etc.
Interestingly, the world’s wealthiest and most advanced nations protect property rights, while the poorest countries have anti-capitalist economies that show little if any regard for property rights.
A Canadian example of anti-capitalist and anti-property rights thinking can be seen in the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB), a former federal agency. The CWB made it illegal for an Alberta farmer to grow wheat and then sell it outside the country, or even to sell it to a Canadian bakery. The farmer had to obtain permission first, and then pay a huge CWB transaction fee amounting to several dollars per bushel.
I was reminded of the CWB this past week as events unfolded in the legislature. It seems that NDP Cabinet Minister Shannon Phillips played a key role in the editing and producing of An Action a Day Keeps Global Capitalism Away, a book that’s designed to fight capitalism.
The book’s author, Mike Hudema, is also an outspoken opponent of the oilsands. He said the book would not have been possible without Phillips. He wrote in the preface that, “She [now Cabinet Minister Phillips] pushed me to write it, edited my work, and contributed to its content.”
The book teaches activists how to organize public disturbances, engage in stunts, and commit acts of vandalism in order to hinder private investment and stop development from occurring. It suggests that activists can fill balloons and old light bulbs with paint, and then throw them at commercial billboards. It suggests that commercial billboards can even be chopped down. It gives tips on how to use false stories to undermine or mislead the media.
One Calgary writer referred to the book’s tone as designed to teach people how to topple the rich, shut down the oilsands, and harass politicians.
In the legislature last week, when someone asked Cabinet Minister Phillips whether an individual with her anti-capitalist perspective could function as a credible Alberta Cabinet Minister, NDP House Leader Brian Mason answered the question by pointing at me.
Knowing I was one of thirteen Alberta farmers who had exported their own grain to the United States, and then willingly gone to jail for our “crime” of disobeying the CWB (I later received a Prime Ministerial pardon), Mason insisted that there is absolutely no difference between the actions of a lone farmer protecting and defending his own personal property, and those of a recently appointed NDP Cabinet Minister who involved herself in a project that advocates the denial or abolition of property rights, counsels people to deliberately mislead the media, and calls for the deliberate destruction of property that belongs to other people.
As your MLA, this is just one of the issues that I find myself having to explain, and debate, in our legislature. The truth be told, I think all Albertans should find it worrisome that some in the legislature can’t tell the difference between these two very different sets of circumstances.