Why Socialism Will Never Really Succeed

It's interesting how history is spinning in a circle, or behaves like a perpetuum mobile. Like Postal Services in Europe- which started off as a private service in 1490 in Europe when Kaiser Maximilian the First wanted to establish courier lines to efficiently manage his huge kingdom. He gave this job to a family called Tassis, who established stations = pubs (later called "posts" with big enough stables for horses) - who waited for the king's messages and drove them to the next station with new horses etc. to eventually deliver the message at it's destination. This system was fast (for those days) and also efficient, but too expensive. So the family - which now called itself Taxis (the count Taxis is still around today- represented by his 35 years younger wife hence rockstar and common born- now turned countess - Gloria and her children) got the permission to deliver private messages from other people as well - this was 1505. The only rule the Kaiser gave was: a letter beween Innsbruck (Austria,Tyrol) and Brussels (Belgium) should not take more than 5 days.

Switch to year 2000 - and sometimes a letter from Innsbruck to Brussels takes longer than 5 days - although public postal services "are supposed" to deliver within 48hrs. However - in the 1505 the Postal Service - you may call it public if you like - were born. I'll say the word public with my tongue in the cheek - because it was so expensive then, that only welathy people could afford it.

Let's look past the days when the monopoly which once was held by count Taxis became a public monopoly held by the democratic state in most European countries. Post offices were erected everywhere- even in the smallest village and letters hand-delivered into the last lonely house hidden in the woods. Each post office had at least 3-5 employees- never mind how small it was - it was some kind of job creation machine for the socially unfit - the folk-saying was: if you are too stupid to get through school - you still have a good chance in life- just become a member of the Socialist Party - apply for a job at the post office or railways - and you'll live a fine life. A postman in a small community got a full salary with all perks and was finished with his job by 9,30am- worst case scenario was 11am. Some had another job, some had phantastic hobbies - this is how they lived out their life which did not ask very much from them - certainly no stress..

Through mighty Union Politics- these people doing actually idiotic and meanal jobs got raises every year- their pension fund grew, they could go into pension aged 40 and less - simply when they were unable to or refused to get training for new technology and become fit for the need of today's communication word. These people never actrually "got the sack" - they were sent into pension with monthly checks higher than the average worker earned through hard labour in private economy.

60 years later - which seems a lot, but in history is but a little spittle - we have come to the stage that an economy can no longer "afford" this system. As the Socialist Party leaders - although in the know of this - simply cannot afford to "drop" their clientele of voters - even though most of them are in pension today - because simply - they are still alive and voters!!

Creating the European Union has given those "monopolies" the kick in the butt- and although they had 20 years+ to prepare for "privatisation" - as the European Comminities wants to create a market to competition and fair prices - in fact - the year has come now - for Austria and Germany - to really drop the monopoly - and what happens???

The 1st step to being privatised was the parcel delivery - and it thrived from the beginning. Private companies got huge orders from the catalogue companies and others - employed their workers in part-time jobs for normal wages. They offered longer hours to post parcels, longer hours to deliver parcels after normal working hours, 3 attempts to deliver at the door- The revenue of the statal postal services PLUMMETED - of course. Quickly the socialist govermeent in Germany had an idea to change this: MINIMAL WAGES per hour - no matter how meanial or primitive the job - it had to pay a minimal wage - and "extra" costs for social securities for those workers on minimal wage.

A ridiculous situation alighted: private companies throughout the country closed down - and - those few that survived - because statal postal services had decreased their prices to stand the competition - now the private companies were actually outsourcing their order fulfillment to statal postal services!! Thousands of enterpreneurs who had just bought a new car + been sure to get those parcel delivery orders from private companies now stood bankrupt unless they found other orders- which are hard to find unless you have what it really takes to be an entrepreneur: phantasy and creativity.

Can you imagine???

So - in both coutries - Germany and Austria - we have a coalition government of Socialists and Conservatives set-up - what really happened is - MONEY is scarce - let's save where-ever we can--- fine - a plan is made up - and it shows thousands of small post offices are working at a huge loss- it's better to delegate the postal duties to "private" people like pubs and restaurants or drugstores - whatever - which are happy for the traffic, because once there - people usually buy something and the other.

This model has been introduced quite successfully as a "trial" - but - now when it really came to make the cut and introduce it nationwide - governments draw back again - socialism is preventing this change yet again - it would cost them too many jobs and too many traditional voters.

So the plan is put on hold until the next selection - where either one of the parties will have a real majority and pull through with real innovation. Personally, I think an increasing rise of unemployment - especially of people from the automotive industry - will have less and less "feelings" for those actually "unskilled" workers who never have to fear for their jobs and get all the perks and never need to undergo further education - if they don't want to - they go into pension - no matter how young. BUT - here it comes - new and young people don't get these perky contracts any more - they are employed at completely NEW conditions, similar to those of private industry. How must they feel? They'll be slaving themselves away at the "expense" of the lazy elder colleagues that still have the old contract??? Social unrest is programmed in this field.

I think Norway was one of the leading countries in Europe to revolutionize postal services. They used to transport letters etc. with ships to all those thousand islands - and an Indian outsourcing company gave them the tip: why not introduce "unanimous letter scanning" to deliver these messages - and they did - it was done by fax- then by email - and it was done in a way that privacy could be - to the most extent - be kept very tight. 98% of the population chose this way of delivery of letters in preference to being delivered the "paper" way - simply - it was "fast" - and lets face it - 98% of the letters we get are not really "sensitive" or very private anyway..

Having been in Southwest Africa (today Namibia) - speak its capital Windhoek- around 1970 - the first thing people told me - you'll have to get your private P.O.Box number to get your letters. I paid for this - and just had to drive to the post office whenever I wanted to collect my letters. If I remember correctly - such post offices were far between in this vast country - so nobody thought a thing about it to drive so and so many miles to collect mail.

To my knowledge -this system is still intact - although they'd need jobs there as much as anything. But then - they rather wait for private investors to create them than to waste good tax money - which is better used to put into the own pockets of politicians.

Why I'm heading this article "death of socialism" is simply the view that - things are moving in circles historically - and it's only a matter of time that we get back to the state of 1505 when only the "rather" wealthy could afford to receive and send mail. You either have a computer and receive your mail - or you don't. And certainly - not "everybody" has one. How do you think count Taxis got his monopoly for the Postal Service? Well - he PAID for it. When the service is privatized - who's to work (=pay) into the politicians pockets and provide them with their director's posts and become members of boards etc??? A small company has no such posts available. They'll pay taxes - all right - but within the wind of competition - those earnings before tax are never as lavish as those operating within a monopoly - let's face it!

What shows me this??? I just got a letter from my bank - and for some reason back many years ago I opened an account there - it's a bank that was once owned by Austrian Unions - today because of a trillion Euro embezzling scandal by their own "socialist" directors - its owned by some financial company - so I got a letter from them, that I can no longer get my "accounts booking slips" on paper by collecting them from the bank (I did this personal collection about once a month- as it was free- whereas sending it by mail to my address was rather high charge ) and if I still wanted to continue to do so - I'd just have to pay €0,60 per printout....this is about a dollar!!!

Now - ladies and gents - this is when I say socialism is killing their own children - I dont mind this - because I'm doing online banking for decades already - and I don't NEED the paper slips - but I still know enough workers who'll be asked those €0,60 per slip mercylessly and wonder where their money goes-(an average person has about 40 slips/=payments a month - so about €24/month in fees ??? If you have no computer to download your bookings and print them out yourself - - you PAY!!

So - let the bank crisis die down - and those sharks - former socialists and Union banks - still having those millions of workers as clients - now turned sharks going for unsuspecting people's money I think the investor Cerberus- bought up the bank - - they will lose clients by the millions - to other - private banks - who know how to deal a fair deal amidst competition and value the customer.But it will take time - and meanwhile our former Union Bank just cash in from unsuspecting clients - since most people don't even READ the letters about fees they get from the bank...

Is anybody speaking about all those Unions people who STOLE trillions of the Unions's money from this bank and why it had to be sold??? Only ONE of those embezzlers is in prison - all the others got by with a slight warning - enjoying their stolen millions and billions of money - which have been deducted in monthly payments of the worker's wages- all their working life long.

So even while the old people feel too tired for change - the young ones will no longer endure this status quo. Socialism was a good thing to get strong and set things right many decades back - but has led itself ad absurdum today.

Why do 50% of the working population who work for the "state" and for "monopolies" carry "no risk" and the other half carry "all the risk"???

Those self-employed - of course - we've always been the milking cows of the nation - and being a minority - had no real lobby. Things promised by our so called "lobbyists" for employers and their working wives 30 years ago have not been made real to THIS DAY - !!

However - will the young Europeans tolerate to pay for all those people refusing to "change"- who are becoming now not only 50 - but 60 and more % of the population? Once 70% of your wages goes away for "social costs" it becomes unintersting to work legally at all - and it's the end of "management" - because how do you motivate people if not with money??? Or will we come to "the end of money" and be forced to motivate our employees with all kind of other perks BUT money - because a raise in money is simply no longer interesting because tax eats 85% of it ??

It will be the end of all those socialist fat cats who have been looking after themselves too much and foremostly - and find themselves now in a dilemma - when there is no money to distribute - will they promise their young voters paradise and how much longer will they- the young people amongst them - believe it in the face of reality??

Socialist fat cats have taken over the role of the former industrialists and "rich" family dynasties in industry and their heirs long ago - 20% of Volkswagen shares belong to the county of Niedersachsen - the socialist fat cats are sitting on the board of directors - and the company is almost bankrupt - just like Opel and GM. No longer can they blame the "capitalists" for the fact that when markets change - you simply have to lay off workers.You have to close down factories.

While Opel Germany is frantically choosing new investors - they all have in common: more lay-offs of workers - and the German Government must take over 3 billion of Euros owed in pension funds.

The new investors simply know they can't carry those ridiculous social burdens of the past and succeed in the market now or in future. So governments are now sitting there holding the banana -:)

And its now only a question of time until the same "reality" will hit the not yet quite privatised postal services. Whenever I hear our "reds" claim in TV "we need more investors, we need more jobs" I feel like screaming back to them: you earn € 500.000 plus a year - why don't YOU found a company and employ 3-10 people?? If each and every one of our water-headed European Community and national parliament egg-heads with their overpaid millions in salary acted in this way - we'd have immediately millions of jobs!!

Will it happen? Not bloody likely! These people talk about the economy - and none of them has ever sold a box of matches on the free market! None of them ran any kind of risk worth talking about in their lives. "Other" people should take risks using their own money and credit to build business and employment- yes - but not THEM !! Where would this get us - my God?