If the standard is reason applied to reality, then the central irrationalities of American leftism/liberalism/socialism are denials of identity and causality in the name of feelings, collectivist dogma, and power. Below are the key patterns, the logic behind why they are irrational, and the empirical record that exposes them.
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Evasion of scarcity and incentives (price controls, “free” goods, redistribution): Prices and profits are signals about real scarcity and the costs of production. Suppressing them—via rent control, “anti-price gouging,” minimum wages, or “free” entitlements—severs cause from effect and predictably yields shortages, lower quality, black markets, or unemployment among marginal workers. This is not a moral accident but an economic law; wishing otherwise does not change reality. See George Reisman, Capitalism, on profits/prices as indispensable coordinators of production and the invariable shortages from ceilings and “free” provision; historical cases such as rent-controlled cities and the 1970s gasoline queues fit the pattern exactly [2]. The recurring failure of these controls across times and places is empirical confirmation, not a coincidence [5].
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Willful ignorance of history’s verdict on socialism: From the USSR to Maoist China to Venezuela, abolishing private ownership and market prices destroyed productive incentives, knowledge signals, and capital formation, producing chronic shortages, repression, and collapse. The cause is structural: without private property and profit-and-loss, there is no mechanism to allocate resources rationally. Reisman’s analysis explains why calculation without market prices is impossible; the historical record merely illustrates the principle. Treating these outcomes as “bad luck” evades causality [1]. The evidence of repeated failure is overwhelming; ignoring it is not open-mindedness, it is evasion [4].
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Subjectivism and emotionalism as substitutes for logic: Policy by outrage (“feelings are facts”) treats emotions as tools of cognition. But emotions are consequences of ideas, not validators of truth. When slogans like “people over profit” are used to justify violating contracts, capping prices, or expropriating wealth, the results track the underlying evasion: production shrinks because causes (profit and security of property) have been attacked. The feelings do not alter the causal chain; the consequences—shortages, disinvestment—arrive with regularity [3]. Elevating “lived experience” above data and economic law is a rebranding of subjectivism, not knowledge [6].
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Package-deals and anti-concepts that erase distinctions: “Greed” (a smear for the virtue of productiveness and profit), “social justice” (collectivized guilt and entitlement), “hate speech” (a floating label to justify censorship), and “disinformation” (a catch-all for dissent) are used to collapse crucial differences—e.g., earned vs. unearned, persuasion vs. force—and to launder coercion as morality. Such package-deals short-circuit thought and license the initiation of force under moral cover, which is the essence of statism [2]. Conceptual corruption is not harmless rhetoric; it is the cognitive prelude to policy that violates rights and wrecks production [5].
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Zero-sum economics and the labor-theory error: Treating wealth as a fixed pie, or profit as theft from wages, inverts causality. Capital accumulation, division of labor, and innovation raise real wages and living standards; profit is the reward for organizing production to create more value than is consumed. Reisman demolishes the zero-sum premise and shows why profits, saving, and capital are the drivers of rising prosperity; policies built on the opposite premise (punitive taxation of capital, anti-profit regulation) depress growth and hurt workers most of all. The historical correlation between higher capital per worker and higher wages is robust; denying it is neither moral nor factual [2]. When policy presumes zero-sum, expect stagnation; when it protects accumulation and profit, expect progress [1].
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Altruism-as-morality weaponized into coercion: By redefining “virtue” as sacrifice, statists claim moral license to seize the results of another’s mind. But need is not a claim on another’s life. The attempt to turn charity into a political duty converts compassion into legalized theft, destroys the moral basis of rights, and penalizes the producers on whom everyone depends. The predictable result is less production, more dependency, and a culture of resentment rather than achievement [4]. Rights are principles that bar force; once force is moralized, rights become negotiable and prosperity erodes [6].
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Identity politics and collectivism over individualism: Reducing people to groups (race, sex, class) annihilates the individual mind as the unit of moral and political concern. Quotas, speech codes, and “equity” mandates violate rights and poison merit-based selection. Productivity falls when identity trumps competence, and civil discourse collapses when disagreement is framed as harm. This is social metaphysics—basing truth and value on the tribe rather than reality—resulting in institutionalized injustice and declining performance [3]. Individual rights and objective law are the antidote; collectivism is the disease [5].
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Environmentalism as anti-industrial mysticism: The anti-carbon, anti-nuclear agenda treats human production as original sin and demands “degrowth.” But industrial energy is a life-requirement; dense, reliable power (fossil fuels, nuclear) is what makes modern agriculture, medicine, and safety possible. Reisman shows that wealth creation is the solution to environmental hazards; advancing technology increases human environmental quality. Policies that force unreliable energy, block pipelines, and shut nuclear predictably raise prices, cause shortages and blackouts, and degrade living standards. Trade-offs are inescapable; ignoring them is not morality but evasion. The record of energy crises under anti-fossil, anti-nuclear rules confirms the causal chain [2]. A pro-human environmental policy is pro-capitalism, pro-nuclear, and pro-growth [6].
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Speech control and the primacy of force over reason: Censorship regimes—administrative pressure on platforms, “misinformation” boards, campus speech restrictions—replace persuasion with compulsion. Since reason is the only means of knowledge, coercion is the destroyer of the mind’s function in social life. A society that normalizes silencing in the name of “safety” is announcing its retreat from truth-seeking to power-seeking, with predictable intellectual and economic decline [1]. Objective law protects speech precisely because truth requires free judgment; statism requires the opposite [4].
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Monetary and fiscal delusions (MMT, “costless” deficits): Printing claims on wealth does not create wealth; it redistributes and distorts. Deficit monetization erodes purchasing power, taxes savers, and garbles price signals, misdirecting real resources. When inflation appears, price controls repeat the earlier error and compound the damage. Reisman’s causal analysis—money is not capital; capital derives from saving and production—explains the recurrent inflation-control-shortage spiral seen wherever governments treat money creation as wealth creation [2]. Reality will assert itself in the currency and in living standards; no decree can repeal arithmetic [5].
What to do instead:
- Reassert the primacy of existence: accept scarcity, trade-offs, and the requirements of production as facts to be mastered, not wished away [3].
- Ground policy in rights: no initiation of force; government limited to protecting liberty and property under objective law [4].
- Embrace capitalism: free prices, secure property, profit-and-loss, and free speech are not “corporate favors” but the preconditions of progress and human flourishing, as the best periods of growth and innovation consistently demonstrate [2][5].
- Judge by results aligned with causal laws, not intentions or emotions: if a policy predictably causes shortages, unemployment, or blackout risk, scrap it; reality is the court of final appeal [1][6].
In sum, the leftist/liberal/socialist package is irrational to the extent it subordinates facts to feelings, the individual to the collective, and production to plunder—evading the causal requirements of human life. A morality of rational self-interest and a politics of individual rights are the antidote; they place reason and reality back on the throne where they belong [2][4].
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