day no. 16,378: the hope of the better half

"Compromise used to mean that half a loaf was better than no bread. Among modern statesmen it really seems to mean that half a loaf is better than a whole loaf." — G.K. Chesterton, What's Wrong With The World: III. The New Hypocrite

Compromise used to mean getting only some of what you wanted instead of getting all of what you wanted. The word means com = with + promittere = send forth, let go. The word promittere itself meaning pro = before + mittere = going. We get the word "mission" from mittere. So, a promise is something that takes place being the going. The words go before the handshake. The vow proceeds the marriage. Put all together, a compromise then is a departure from one thing in order to obtain some other thing. One gives up singleness to gain a spouse. One surrenders the hope of a whole loaf for the sake of guaranteeing a half of one. This is what a compromise used to mean. 

Socialism, however, is not rooted in giving up, but taking over. Therefore, the compromise they promote is not the getting of less bread, but the getting over wanting more. It doesn't want to rob the person of half a loaf, but the hope of a whole one. It employs envy to do the work of keeping consumption low in order to keep back more for itself. Socialism always deprives the people of its resources. The people, according to Socialist, are everyone except the one speaking. The people should be content with half a loaf of broad and be upset with anyone who wants more. This frees the socialist to have his half of everyone else's loaves and the whole portion of those who buy into their rhetoric entirely by giving up their bread altogether.

The goal of Socialism is the same as that of the whore who stood before Solomon heartlessly demanding her bloody half of a dead baby if only to keep anyone else from the hope of having a whole, living one.