Socialism depends on three all-too-human factors: ignorance, naiveté and duplicity. The first is common if not disastrously ubiquitous, affecting large strata of any given population. The latter two pertain, in extreme measure and without the tendency to conscious self-correction, to the various ranges of the leftist elite, whom Yugoslavian dissident Milovan Djilas in his must-read The New Class called “the managerial class” -- the caste that dominates and exploits the political landscape under the pretense of far-sighted and compassionate stewardship. Obviously, no one is exempt from these character defects, but here it is a question of degree, of intensity and persistence.  Let us consider these three factors in turn. Ignorance A few years ago students in my home province of Quebec went on strike and closed down the colleges and universities on the assumption that they were owed free tuition, free textbooks, free transportation and in many cases free...(Read Full Article)