The God of Welfare

Common for all modern believers regardless of whether they are conservatives, nationalists, socialists or Islamists, is the view towards the State, as being a central tool to reach some goal, concerned with "shaping" or "directing" the populace in just the "right way".

In this regard Socialism, or Statism, has for a long time been a belief-system, ranking on line with other major religions.

The new tendency in Denmark towards, what you might call "Halal Socialism" (or Islamo-Socialism), is in no way different in having belief - and not knowledge - at the center stage.

The crucial thing for Islamists, Socialists and all other kinds of collectivists is first and foremost: that we learn how to fall in rank, and march to the same drum, ideally: even to say the same things. In other word "homogenization" or "leveling" is the main thing.

Hence in the beginning of any collectivist political project, there is to a certain extent room for compromise and making alliances, albeit with other collectivists.

Later, once some part of a band of collectivists have gained firm control, you will see the beginning of more heated arguments - internally among the mystics - regarding precisely what kind of tune the "masses" are going to be forced to dance to. Thus: first power and control and then the specifics of the constraints.

It should therefore come as no surprise that one of the thing that all collectivists, no matter their orientation, have in common is the creation of a strong state, that will serve as a forceful disciplinary “power tool”. To ensure success of their project all collectivists will focus on the central areas that insure mass control. Therefore collectivists will nationalize education as well as seek control of the infrastructure - with the core areas of transportation and energy. These are common features of all collectivist projects.

However education and infrastructure are not the sole areas that collectivists seek to control. The other key areas to ensuring regulatory power as well as influence are Health and the Media. But if education has been successfully nationalized and collectivized; then direct control of the media is less important. The journalists in the media will have “guidance” from higher education, and hence there is sufficient indirect control. Nevertheless television remains an important media since it is particularly well suited to rapidly affect emotions and create opportune moments, - in which more power can be handed over to those urging for it; and hence ensure a further weakening of whatever there might be left of independent judgment and individualism within a given population.

As opposed to this, the specific quality of what collectivists offer holds no greater importance (particularly for those who are the targets of these differing experiments). As long as control is realized, and therefore clients of the state are multiplied, it is not particularly relevant for political decision makers whether the clients, who are in this case also members of the press or educators - have some degree of autonomy, just as long as these groups also to some extent have a dependency relationship with the state and with the flow of taxes. Taxes, and "support" because of taxes, plus education, are thus vital to ensure state loyalty.

To sum up: Political alliances among collectivists will in most cases have to be seen as the common first goal of creating a state suitable for state dirigisme and to insure general restraints on the freedom of people, but not as a sign that there is an immediate interest in moving society in any particular direction, other than one that is more state-centered. Because once in power, even mistakes and general poverty can be taught to be “necessary”, and/or a part of some broader scheme, that leads to some millennium utopia.

Because of this, it is extremely important for all sorts of collectivists to de-emphasize and minimize any reference to dichotomies such as: voluntarism vs. force; free speech vs. censorship and self-censorship; freedom vs. dictatorship; private property vs. state property; public vs. private, etc. And the lack of interest in these conflicting concepts is precisely insured by the low grade education, managed by the political clients within the nationalized schools. (Who cares about private? We got this for free!)

The question that now faces us is the following: Does any of the established non-socialist parties in power today offer anything, that separates these parties from this totalitarian and imposed kind of a state centered community, that we have been moving towards for decades? In other word can the non-socialist establishment defend personal liberties and the civil society against an ever growing and more paternalistic state?

The obvious answer, considering the tendency of the right to encroach on various new Leftist projects (including going green, then more green and then preaching unbridled sacrifice on behalf of every thing but human welfare), must clearly be a firm: No - not in the long run.

The best case scenario for the time being is the same kind of perspective that you get with center-left lobbyists working for private corporations. Here the result of any lobbying efforts usually ends with some sort of surrender, and with a political process that always leads to a further loss on the part of free enterprise and more demands and directives flowing from state officials.

Compromise and pragmatism is therefore the order of the day; and these are obviously not tools to do anything but to make attempts of stalling and buying time, - before finally surrendering completely.

The non-socialists in power simply do not seem to have either the will or the ability to prevent further growth in the public sector, and therefore the private sector will at the same time continue to be reduced as well.

In Denmark the socialist "investment" in higher education in the 1970's evidently paid off quite well. Denmark now has the highest amount of taxes in the free world, and one of the largest public sectors.

But due to the current government we just may have bought us some 10-15 years extra before a genuine Halal-socialistic compromise is served up in the shape of a centre-left government - and maybe even with a conservative prime minister as head of it: Among conservatives, there has been a rather long - and not very glorious - tradition of uniting the apparent opposites. These conservatives themselves call it creating "coherence" (you could also call it giving in or simply surrendering)

The conservative philosopher Hegel called this unification of opposites (or surrendering of your previous values) - dialectics. And curiously enough: socialists, with some variance in the meaning of the concept, use the exact same word - which for the moment allows them to make alliances with traditional religionists. (But hey don't worry Karl Marx: this alliance with Islamism is all in the process of creating a new synthesis in accordance with dialectics!)

Nevertheless: - back in the 19th Century, closer to the era of the Enlightenment, these kinds of mysticism, that the unbridled state worship also belongs to, were simply called - religion.