July 18, 2025
I write this from Athens, the birthplace of the only democracy that worked to perfection because it was the selective type. Actually I am fifteen kilometers north of the city, in a wooded area where the well-heeled spend their summers to escape the city's heat. It is the place where I was born. And every time I set foot here, Fotis, Kostas, and Stavros come to mind. Kostas and Stavros were my father's chauffeurs, while Fotis was the night watchman of our Athens house. All three were slaughtered during the Communist uprising against the state in December of 1944. The reason for their death was that they worked for a rich capitalist, my old man. Fortunately only Stavros was married, and his wife and daughter remained employed by us for the duration.
Which brings me to the point I wish to make this week: Long before those two non-gentlemen-Marx and Lenin-seduced the public with their lies, the tradition of noblesse oblige reigned supreme. Those with privileges cared about those without. This went on since feudal times, when the lords of the manor took responsibility for those who did not enjoy their advantages. After the bloody Russian revolution, with butchers like Lenin and Stalin at the helm, the principle of relieving poverty by the state became a commitment to removing all wealth inequality, except for those in power, that is.
"Like physical traits such as beauty and strength, we can never be all alike."
My first memories of my father coming home after the war and immediately having to fight the Communist uprising are still very fresh. Old Dad had shut down his factories while Greece was occupied by the Axis powers, but the Commies nevertheless went after them and burned them down because they were capitalist tools. Just as the three young men who were murdered for working for a capitalist were. But the Reds did not get us, because my father fought back, shooting down the raiders with a submachine gun he had brought back from the wars with him. (The three young men were caught outside our house while taking a break.)
Eighty years on, things are much better, as democratic governments have assumed responsibility to protect all citizens from dire poverty. The system means well, but the outcome, especially of late, is counterproductive. The problem is that of the welfare state. It wants total equality-except for those who make the rules, very similar to the Commies back in the bad old days-an impossibility, a mirage, like doing away with physical ugliness, disease, or even death.
This mirage is what has bankrupted France and soon Britain, and has undermined the capitalist creation of wealth. And it persists despite proof of failure, with slogans such as "A fair society means abolishing all inequalities of wealth." This bull, needless to say, does not pass muster in America. Over here one gets out of life what one puts into it, although some of our African-American cousins insist their ancestors worked for nothing, hence they should reap the rewards 200 years later.
In Europe nowadays, being on welfare is preferred over working for a minimum wage, the unemployed numbers swelling every year as thousands of African immigrants arrive by sea at the old continent. The corrupt and dysfunctional European Union has paved the way to Europe's demise with laws such as the above mentioned, but dissenting voices against this most corrupt of bureaucracies are few and far between.
Here's an example of what I'm talking about: A British female by the name of Whitney Ainscough makes more than 500,000 pounds per year through social media posts advising people on how to exploit welfare rules. She relates buzzwords and correct answers to her paying readers on how to be awarded more benefits; 25- to 34-year-olds are the largest group of claimants.
So, abolishing all inequalities of wealth is not only a mirage, it is the biggest con I know of. It makes Madoff's Ponzi scheme a mere bagatelle. The blood-soaked Commies sold this to the unaware, and the socialists persist in conning the public with it. But like physical traits such as beauty and strength, we can never be all alike. The Commies who murdered the three young men who worked for a living have no excuse for living, at least as far as I'm concerned. And the joke as always was on them. My father lived happily to a ripe old age, and so have I. Capitalism does not go down that easy.
This article was originally published on Taki's Magazine.