Socialism with a Smile

“Jim, this sounds like something straight from an Ayn Rand novel!” That was one of the many messages I received on New Year’s Day, all with similar sentiment, regarding one of the standout quotes from New York City’s newly elected Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Having woken somewhat later than usual that morning as a result of an amazing New Year’s Eve reverie at the Walt Disney Concert Hall for a performance by musical group The Roots, I turned on the TV from my hotel room at the iconic Bonaventure Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles. Then, I heard, in real time, the words that everyone would later tell me had been spoken…

“We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.”

If you are a fan of Ayn Rand’s novels, and you know that I am, it’s easy to see one of her many smiley-faced, unctuous and duplicitous villains giving a speech with this style of verbiage. You see, the idea here is that individualism, and indeed the individual himself, is cold, uncaring, mean, cruel and selfish. Meanwhile, it’s only the group that’s cozy, caring, kind and selfless, and merely there to give comfort to their fellow man.

Yet, operating beneath the surface of these words, spoken, of course, with a collegial smile straight out of central casting, is one of the most-destructive political ideas in human history.

In his article, “The ‘Warmth of Collectivism’ Is a Dangerous Fantasy,” American Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Samuel J. Abrams puts the smiling socialist’s comments in their proper context:

“That sentence is not merely misguided. It is historically illiterate, morally reckless and deeply un-American.

Collectivism is not a metaphor. It is a governing philosophy with a long and bloody record. In the twentieth century alone, regimes organized around collectivist principles — whether socialist, communist or their hybrids — were responsible for the deaths of at least one hundred million people. That figure is not polemics; it is the consensus of serious historians. Mao’s China, Stalin’s Soviet Union, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, Castro’s Cuba, Kim’s North Korea, Chávez and Maduro’s Venezuela — the list is not obscure, and the outcomes are not ambiguous.”

I wonder how “warm” prisoners were at Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago?

Or how “warm” people felt before they were sent to the Killing Fields of Cambodia?

Or how “warm” things felt for Yeonmi Park in North Korea?

I wonder if Mayor Mamdani is aware of collectivism’s “warm” history? If not, perhaps he should read the books listed above, as their power of persuasion should right the mind of even the most sympathetic collectivist.

But alas, facts and history aren’t at the heart of collectivist ideas. What’s really at the heart of collectivism is the subordination of the individual, and individual rights, in favor of the group, a group that demands the surrender of individual rights for the sake of the collective. Of course, forget the logical inconsistency that a group is just made up of individuals. Somehow, you see, the collective is given sovereignty over a sole person.

Now, who decides what’s in the group’s interest? Well, of course, it’s the smiling, unctuous leaders who claim to know what’s best for everyone — and who are willing to enforce what’s best for everyone, even if that enforcement requires a gun.

As Abrams writes, “The individual is treated not as a moral agent, but as raw material for a collective project. This is not abstract theory. It is the lived experience of societies that have subordinated the person to the collective in the name of justice or equality.”

But Jim, what about Scandinavian countries, aren’t they socialist/collectivist, and don’t they demonstrate that collectivism doesn’t have to end in bloodshed?

Here, Abrams does a great job of answering this objection: “Nordic countries are not collectivist societies in the ideological sense Mamdani invokes. They are market economies with strong property rights, high levels of social trust, robust civil society and cultural norms that long predate their welfare states. They succeed not because they rejected individualism, but because they rely on it — tempered by social cohesion that cannot be legislated into existence.”

If America is to retain the spark of her founding premises, that all men are created equal, and that we have inalienable rights, I think it is incumbent upon each individual to do his/her part in rejecting the “warmth” of collectivism — especially if that collectivism comes with a smile.

As this 250th year of America unfolds, I will be doing my part to reject bad ideas, be they from the left, the right or, in this case, from the heart of Manhattan.

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