Socialistic Fallacies
- Yves Guyot (author)
Guyot wrote sseveral books attacking socialism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Here he provides a brief history of socialist ideas, especially utopian thinking from Plato to Paraguay, and an extensive critique of modern socialist ideas in France (Saint-Simon and Prooudhon) and Germany (Marx). In the tradition of Bastiat, he criticises what he calls “sophisms” and "fallacies” such as the immiseration of the working class, the class war, and the future of socialism under democracy.
Key Quotes
Socialism & Interventionism
Socialist policy is a permanent menace to the liberty and security of citizens, and cannot therefore be the policy of any government, the primary duty of which is to exact respect for internal and external security. If it fail therein, it dissolves and is replaced by anarchy; and inasmuch as…
Class
There will be at least two classes, one consisting of officials to distribute the burdens and the results of labour, the other of the drudges to execute their commands. Such a dispensation would not bring with it social peace, for political would take the place of economic competition.