Answering the Twelve: The “Socialism Is Evil” Essays Resolved One by One v0.1
Answering the Twelve: The “Socialism Is Evil” Essays Resolved One by One v0.1
Theoretical foundations: Grant C. Sterling (Eastern Illinois University). Analysis and synthesis: Dave Kelly. Prose rendering: Claude (Anthropic). 2026. Sterling’s name stands only on the premises and theorems cited to his texts. Every claim about the essays, their authors, socialism or historical regimes is Dave Kelly’s alone.
The Question
Twelve essays were collected as the case that socialism is evil, with one counterpoint. Each is answered here on its own text, as read on 15 Oct 2026.
The Beginning
Happiness is correct assent, which is correct when it matches the truth about value: only virtue is good. The base is P1–P8 and D1–D10 of Resolving “Socialism Is Evil”: The Claim, Its Critics and the Chain v0.1, ratified 15 Oct 2026.
1. Haskins, “Socialism Is Evil” (The Thinking Conservative, 2017)
Locus. The page is a promotional summary of Haskins’s book, not the book itself.
The argument. The page says socialism’s chief danger lies in its moral problems, notably limits on individual liberty and religious freedom. Haskins calls a full attempt at Marx’s socialism immoral enough to be called evil, while granting that many socialists are kind and well-meaning.
Answer. Liberty is an external, and its loss is not an evil (D6). Religious freedom is the same in its outward exercise. The worship a man assents to cannot be compelled (P8). Calling the system evil after granting its adherents benevolent intent places evil where no will is (D2, D9).
Verdict. Fails at D2. This verdict covers the page only; the book would need its own run.
2. Becker, drawing on Walter Williams, “Why Socialism Is Inherently Evil” (2014)
The argument. Williams imagines a mandate forcing neighbors to mow elderly widows’ lawns. He argues that taxing them so the widows can hire help differs only in mechanism, and that pooling the money through government hides an act otherwise seen as depraved. Becker adds that the stated aim of helping others is a pretext for a lust for power.
Answer. This is the strongest of the set, because Williams puts the defect in an act, confiscation, and acts of will can be vicious (D1). But three things follow.
- The vice, if there is one, belongs to the agent who confiscates, not to “socialism” (D2).
- The neighbor taxed $50 has lost an external (line 12). “Slavery” is false of him in the only freedom that counts: he still chooses whether to pay or bear the penalty (D6, P8).
- Becker’s “lust for power” is imputed without evidence (D10).
Whether a given act of compulsion is an irrational act of will is case work.
Verdict. Partly convergent: it is right to look at the act. It fails at D2 and D6.
3. Harizanov, Tokarev and Tokarev, “Socialism Is Not the Solution” (Independent Institute, 2025)
The argument. The authors deny that socialism fails because of bad people corrupting a noble ideal. They say it is built on an evil idea, violates human nature by denying ownership, and survives only through institutional violence. They hold that it destroys dignity and autonomy, and that the pursuit of happiness means freedom to try, fail and thrive without government deciding who gets what.
Answer.
- Happiness: the decisive error is placing the pursuit of happiness in external freedom. That is contrary to the chain at its first step: complete happiness must lie wholly within control.
- Ideas: an idea is true or false, not evil (D3).
- Autonomy: autonomy of the will cannot be destroyed (D6).
- The implementer defense: they are right that the defense does not save the doctrine. The doctrine’s value propositions are true or false whoever staffs it (D3). But the vice in any regime still lies in the agents (D9).
- Ownership: the corpus holds no theory of ownership rights.
Verdict. Contrary to the chain on where happiness lies. Fails at D2 and D3.
4. Babcock, “Do Socialists Mean Well?” (Libertarianism.org)
The argument. Babcock defines socialism as democratic control of production and calls it evil as a means. Politics, he says, breeds the attitude that we may boss others, and with Webster he holds that the wish to rule is itself a bad intention. He concludes that socialists forfeit any claim to benevolence through the methods they advocate.
Answer. This text locates the defect in the will, and on the error it names it converges with the corpus. A desire to rule rests on the judgment that command over others’ bodies and goods is good, which is false (P3, D10). But Babcock reads each socialist’s will off the policy he supports. A man may aim at others’ welfare as an appropriate object (P4) without valuing rule at all. That is reading the will from a label (D10). “Socialism as a means is evil” again assigns evil to a system (D2).
Verdict. Convergent on the error type, wrong on its bearer.
5. Lehr, review of Haskins (American Thinker, 2018)
The argument. Lehr reports that Haskins defines evil by the dictionary sense of morally reprehensible. Haskins holds it immoral to threaten peaceful people into activities they morally oppose, and argues that competitiveness is innate in human nature. Lehr quotes him that people value personal freedom more than many economic concerns.
Answer.
- Definition: “Morally reprehensible” names no bearer, whereas the corpus defines evil by its bearer (P2).
- Threats: threatening is an act of will, and whether it is vicious is case work (D1). The threatened man’s opposition is untouched: compelled conduct is not assent (P8).
- Ranking: ranking freedom above economic concerns ranks one external over another (D5).
- Competitiveness: the claim that it is innate is empirical and outside the corpus. The wish to be better than another at something is a desire for an external standing (P3), not a moral ground.
Verdict. Fails at D2 and D5.
6. Allison, “Make the Moral Case for Capitalism” (Cato, 2019)
The argument. Allison argues that the case must rest on ethics, since economics is downstream of it, and that collectivism violates individual rights by compulsion. He holds that free markets let people earn self-esteem and eudaimonic happiness, which must be achieved through self-examination and struggle, and that capitalism is most conducive to it.
Answer. The order is right: ethics before economics (D8). But Allison makes eudaimonia depend on a system that is “conducive” to it. Happiness that depends on a system is not wholly within control, so it fails the chain’s first step. He defines self-esteem as confidence of success. That collapses aim into achievement: the aim is the agent’s, and the achievement belongs to the world.
Verdict. Right order, wrong location of happiness. Fails at D5.
7. Birzer on Otteson, “How Socialism Fails” (The American Conservative, 2015)
The argument. Birzer reports Otteson’s view that socialism is malicious in its ethics even when its adherents believe themselves humane, and that socialist-inclined persons prize equality as the highest good. Otteson grounds dignity in autonomy: people are the authors and owners of their own lives.
Answer. “Equality as the highest good” is exactly D4, and the corpus agrees that the proposition is false. This is the most convergent text in the set. The error is extending authorship from acts to lives. I am the author of my acts (C2, origination). My life is an appropriate object of aim, not something I control (P4, Th26). “Malicious,” said of adherents generally, imputes wills (D10).
Verdict. Convergent at D4. It overreaches from the will to the life.
8. Rothbard, “The Myth of Democratic Socialism” (1977)
The argument. Rothbard holds that socialism is neither workable nor moral. Because it is state control of production backed by a monopoly of violence, he argues that Hitler, Stalin and Mao were not betrayers of socialism but its fulfillment. He supports this with the claims that whoever is given power will use it, and that the worst rise to the top.
Answer. “Fulfillment” makes atrocities effects of the system. That denies that the commandant’s assent was his own. It is the old inheritance in political dress: assent follows necessarily from what came before (Fate and Determinism: One Inheritance, R1). It is contrary to C2: what an agent does is his own doing. A system can tempt or select agents; it cannot assent for them. The guilt is the commandant’s (D9). “Power will be used” is a forecast about other wills, outside control and outside demonstration. The voluntary exchange he contrasts with socialism is an exchange of externals (D5).
Verdict. Contrary to the chain at C2. Fails at D2.
9. Rothbard, “On Resisting Evil” (1993)
The argument. Rothbard calls collectivism, socialism, egalitarianism and nihilism a flood of evil and says there is a compelling moral obligation to fight it, even if the cause is lost. He says it is fun to annoy the enemy, and that we hate the evil because we love the good. Against those who retreat into inner freedom, he insists that man deserves more than the prisoner’s inner freedom, raising the cry of liberty and property.
Answer. This essay rejects the Stoic position by name, so it is the most direct confrontation in the set. The prisoner’s inner freedom is not a consolation prize. It is the whole domain of good and evil (P1, P2; line 12; Epictetus, Discourses 1.1). Several further points follow.
- Aiming: a man may aim at justice as an appropriate object (P4) without desiring that the outcome come about. Desiring victory is irrational (lines 9, 13).
- Passions: hatred, and pleasure in an enemy’s annoyance, are passions from false value judgments (P3).
- Retreat: the corpus is not the retreatism he attacks, because it keeps the aim. It is not his activism either, because it drops the desire.
Verdict. Contrary to the chain at its root.
10. Roche, “The Road to Freedom” (Imprimis, 1993)
The argument. Roche holds that communism died of spiritual failure and that capitalism’s triumph is a spiritual victory, its structure as ethical as it is efficient. He calls involuntary transfer stealing, including taxes, and calls imposing ideas by law an act of contempt and pride. He closes that it was false belief, not barbed wire, that enslaved.
Answer. His closing line is the chain’s own claim: bondage is in judgment, not in wire (P3, P8). But the essay calls capitalism morally good, which fails at D2 and D5. Its rewards for those who “do the most for humanity” are rewards in externals. Whether a tax is theft is case work.
Verdict. Convergent in its last line, contrary in its thesis.
11. Haskins, “Conservatives’ Strategy for Fighting Socialism Is Broken” (Washington Examiner, 2026)
Locus. The article is paywalled. Only its opening and summary line were readable.
The argument. Haskins concedes that the historical and economic case against socialism is true but no longer enough, and the summary calls socialism authoritarian by design and a reprehensible ideology.
Answer. Moving from economics to morals agrees with D8. “Authoritarian by design” and “reprehensible” assign moral character to a system (D2). The “immoral even if it works” thesis that the reading list attributes to this article could not be checked.
Verdict. Fails at D2, on the readable text only.
12. Robinson, “Is Socialism Evil?” (Current Affairs, 2020)
The argument. Robinson argues that D’Souza’s claim that markets give people their just deserts assumes its conclusion, and that distribution by productivity would leave the sick, the elderly and children in poverty. He holds that people should receive according to need, and cites a chief executive who chose to cut his own pay.
Answer. He is right that D’Souza’s argument begs the question. The corpus goes further: no distribution of externals is good or evil (line 12), so desert in externals is not the moral question at all.
But Robinson’s own standard treats poverty as monstrous. Poverty is dispreferred, not evil (D4). His example of the executive’s pay cut places the moral question in choice, which converges with D1. On his own question, whether he is evil for being a socialist: the label carries no verdict on any man (D10). The error, wherever it is held, is the false value proposition.
Verdict. Right against D’Souza. Fails at D4 in his own standard.
Resolution
None of the twelve establishes that socialism is evil, because none can: evil has no bearer but a will (D2). Their strongest moves converge on the corpus where they look at the act or the will. That is Williams on confiscation, Babcock on the desire to rule, Otteson on equality as the highest good, and Roche on false belief. Their common error is the one they charge to socialism: calling an external good. Rothbard’s “On Resisting Evil” states the contrary position outright.
What This Document Does Not Claim
- It makes no claim about any author’s character.
- It rules on no policy, tax or regime.
- Each verdict covers only the text read on 15 Oct 2026. Haskins’s book and the paywalled 2026 article remain unread.
- It does not rule that any act of coercion is or is not vicious.
Sources
- Core Stoicism (Sterling)
- Haskins, “Socialism Is Evil” (book summary page)
- Becker and Williams, “Why Socialism Is Inherently Evil”
- Harizanov, Tokarev and Tokarev, “Socialism Is Not the Solution. It Is the Problem.”
- Babcock, “Do Socialists Mean Well?”
- Lehr, review of Haskins
- Allison, “Make the Moral Case for Capitalism”
- Birzer, “How Socialism Fails”
- Rothbard, “The Myth of Democratic Socialism”
- Rothbard, “On Resisting Evil”
- Roche, “The Road to Freedom”
- Haskins, “Conservatives’ Strategy for Fighting Socialism Is Broken”
- Robinson, “Is Socialism Evil?”
Version Note: v0.1 is the first version, ratified 15 Oct 2026.