Jordan Peterson: An Antidote to the Frightening Wave of Socialism

“But, fortunately, there is an antidote to Ocasio-Cortez’s socialist wave and its underlying mindsets: it is the hard work and dedication that Jordan Peterson so importantly describes.”

In the preface of their eleven-volume set of books entitled The Story of Civilization, Will and Ariel Durant make mention of a remarkable pattern that repeats—time and again—throughout all of human history: whenever wealth inequality occurs, the mass finds a way to acquire the wealth held by others by any means necessary, including violence. This is a point that must always be treated with the utmost seriousness, and it is one that has been raised by Jordan Peterson, as well.

Our current debates surrounding income inequality are, of course, very complicated and multifaceted. It requires entire teams of experts to report and analyze the economic concept of inequality, and there are still no easy answers. In the midst of steroid-fueled social media campaigns and surface-level rants by media personalities (all working in for-profit industries disguised as objectively reporting the news), the facts of the issue tangle with emotions and anecdotes, while practical suggestions are few and far between.

Thomas Piketty undertook an extensive study to research the effects and outcomes of capitalism, as compared to European socialism, the latter of which appears to be the inspiration that drives Senator Elizabeth Warren’s economic plans. Although Piketty’s 2013 book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, investigates the root of inequality of outcome in the market economy, he implies throughout that—somehow—capitalism is doomed.

In academia, it is perennially interesting to have these debates and compare economic data. And, in tandem, it would be amazing to have a media climate that actually investigates all of the aspects surrounding the inequality debate. However, there is often a rush to judgement. Take, for example, the study of U.S. politics and the influence of elites, which was conducted in 2014 by Princeton University professor Martin Gilens and Northwestern professor Benjamin I. Page. Many media outlets simply jumped on the findings and suggested that the United States is not a democracy but, rather, an oligarchy. There was little in the way of parsing through the study’s findings and examining it closely.