#socialism

Generations ago we traded our ability to support ourselves off the land for the coordinated, collective action known as The State

Generations ago we traded our ability to support ourselves off the land for the coordinated, collective action known as The State

"There should be a clear distinction in public policy between the requirement for essential activities to survive and the continued existence of particular companies engaged in their provision."

"Anyhow, I want to see him today, before the socialism."

For her part, Sarah Palin, who has lately taken to calling Obama “Barack the Wealth Spreader,” seems to be something of a suspect character herself. She is, at the very least, a fellow-traveller of what might be called socialism with an Alaskan face. The state that she governs has no income or sales tax. Instead, it imposes huge levies on the oil companies that lease its oil fields. The proceeds finance the government’s activities and enable it to issue a four-figure annual check to every man, woman, and child in the state. One of the reasons Palin has been a popular governor is that she added an extra twelve hundred dollars to this year’s check, bringing the per-person total to $3,269. A few weeks before she was nominated for Vice-President, she told a visiting journalist—Philip Gourevitch, of this magazine—that “we’re set up, unlike other states in the union, where it’s collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs.”