'I shall reveal unto you a mystery'

And the latest in my 'I shall reveal unto you a mystery' series is as follows: I spent a great deal of my career as a quality resource and lean consultant diligently looking for ways to reduce waste, cost and variation. Why? Because to service the customer better private industry must produce component 'X' at ever higher quality at increasingly lower cost. If you hope to understand why bureaucracy is failing the reason lies there. Instead of creating a culture of energetic hunters of waste they diligently set about creating a culture where fewer and poorer services are provided at ever increasing cost. Thus, bureaucracy grows. It then also follows that bureaucrats will often support those political parties most willing to continue to increase funding to them thereby entrenching ever greater wastefulness. If you take this same paradigm and apply it to the private sector it would equate to managers reducing the shareholders' dividends as well as losing market share due to their products and/or services, no longer remaining competitive in an open market. Of course, such a manager would be fired if they were foolish enough to pursue such a course. In the public sector, however, managers who pursue this course of action (inaction) are rewarded for 'sector loyalty'. This is also why they are dead set against permitting the government from offering solutions in the private sector since bureaucracies cannot compete in an open market.

And the second assertion in 'I shall reveal unto you a mystery' today is this: This explains why socialism will always fail to provide what it has promised. Equality of opportunity to compete is replaced with equality of outcome. Let me cite a few examples; Obama increased the cost of American healthcare under Obamacare hence the new administration looking for more cost-effective options to better serve Americans to ensure they have access to affordable and superb health care. Yet, social progressives are behaving as though the new administration wishes to rob Americans of affordable health care instead of helping them obtain it at a lower cost. You see, progressives loathe the very idea of competition and choice. It precludes Big Sister from doing their thinking for them and in the progressive mind free market capitalism is anathema. The same also applies to the incredible and inexplicable increase in cost of K-12 education here in Ontario. The entrenched and gross inefficiency in Ontario's education system serves the government's agenda while absolutely destroying our children's future thereby making them ever more beholden to and indoctrinated by Big Sister. https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/education-spending-in-canada-whats-actually-happening.pdf

And my third and final assertion in today’s, 'I shall reveal unto you a mystery': “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” - Winston Churchill. I quote Winston in this regard as it reminds us, albeit in simplistic terms, the real mojo which lies behind socialism and modern social progressivism. Yesterday I asserted that progressive doctrine is dependant on self-pity, self-loathing, and self-righteousness, for they lie at the heart of the illness, but let us examine the illness’s symptoms beginning with envy. To define this, I will borrow an idea with which I am lamentably all too familiar having lived in Scandinavia; ‘Janteloven’, otherwise known as ‘The Law of Jante’. If I were to attempt to define it, I would say that it's a principle placing importance on equality and egalitarianism while disparaging individuality and personal achievements or otherwise challenging the status quo. Here are its ten principles:

1.   You're not to think you are anything special.

2.   You're not to think you are as good as we are.

3.   You're not to think you are smarter than we are.

4.   You're not to convince yourself that you are better than we are.

5.   You're not to think you know more than we do.

6.   You're not to think you are more important than we are.

7.   You're not to think you are good at anything.

8.   You're not to laugh at us.

9.   You're not to think anyone cares about you.

10. You're not to think you can teach us anything.

I believe that I can make a very good argument supporting that this is the overwhelming consensus of thought behind social progressivism. It is no wonder that it has taken hold so well in Scandinavia since the cultural framework which would support social progressivism already pre-existed socialism. Also since laissez-faire capitalism is completely dependant on individualism and the honouring of individual achievement, it follows that Scandinavia was the perfect place where socialism would take hold. In Norway, the Scandinavian country with which I am most familiar, there are only two areas where personal achievements are lauded: arts and sports, since both may be used to further the state’s socialist agenda. This trait is also common to all socialist states. I certainly see the same situation here in Canada where virtually all the artists whom I know, and I know a great many personally, are social progressives. I hope I have challenged a few of you to think and perhaps offended more who cannot abide free thinking, it was my intention to do so.