Why has socialism become so prevalent in the world? If you ascribe to Marx you probably believe it’s because socialism is inevitable, it’s the next stage of human evolution. If you ascribe to material written by people of intelligence you likely believe there is another reason afoot. Part of the reason is the fact libertarians are rather poor at explaining their positions. The socialists know how to use language to their advantage and language is the weapon of choice in any ideological battle:
A wag in my high school said “Words are the tools of the English language.”
It was supposed to be a parody of deep-sounding but vacuous pronouncements. But the joke turns out to be on him: since words *are* the tools of language, they are the tools of thought. That means you must resist unto death using the terminology of your enemy. The side that controls language controls thought.
Anti-capitalists are onto this fact. Pro-capitalists need to catch up–especially since the mainstream media are dominated by anti-capitalists, who insinuate their distorted terms into what would otherwise seem to be open debate.
As libertarians we have a major task at hand. Not only do we have to explain our views but we must also reverse a century of collectivist dogma. We must use our pens to direct the swords away from individualism. This doesn’t mean screaming “Taxation is theft!” This means explaining why taxation is theft. We must also explain why collectivism is incorrect, which requires knowing the enemy as well as we know ourselves.
Again I urge my readers to study up on libertarian philosophy and socialist philosophy. Read works by Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Vladimir Lenin. Without understanding the philosophies of collectivism you can’t hope to relate to collectivists and a majority of people in the world currently subscribe to collectivist ideals because that’s what they’ve been taught almost exclusively.
No single swordsman can hope to stand up to an army of swordsmen. Learn to use the pen and with it you can guide the army of swordsmen.