Socialism & Affordability
U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D–MA) claims that “progressive socialism” creates “affordability for working families.”
IN FACT, socialism creates unaffordability and deprivation for working families through the following mechanisms:
- Money printing to fund social programs causes inflation and raises the wealth of the richest people while making assets less affordable for low- and middle-income workers.
- Social programs punish work and reward idleness.
- Social programs hinder workers from saving.
- Socializing the costs of education, housing, and healthcare inflates their prices.
- Price controls create scarcity.
- Nations with socialized medicine ration healthcare through “waiting lists, gatekeeping, and limiting individuals’ choices.”
- Green energy mandates inflate the costs of energy and virtually everything else.
- Aggressive government regulations raise the costs of products and services and make it hard for small businesses to compete with major corporations.
- Mass unionization raises taxes and consumer prices.
No country is purely socialistic or capitalistic, and association does not prove causation, but there is a pattern of lower living standards with increasing socialism.
