Guest Post by John Stossel
People hate America’s big disparities in wealth. It’s a reason why, among young people, socialism is as popular as capitalism.
The Democratic Socialists of America want a country based on “freedom, equality and solidarity.” That sure sounds good.
But does socialism bring that?
My new video debunks several myths about socialism.
One reason for socialism’s continued appeal is linguist Noam Chomsky. For generations, his work has taught students that capitalism is “a grotesque catastrophe.”
I assumed the fall of the Soviet Union would put an end to such misinformation. It did — for about a month.
But since then, the lust for socialism has come back strong. Today, Chomsky says that the Soviet Union “was about as remote from socialism as you could imagine.”
“Absurd!” responds economist Ben Powell, author of “Socialism Sucks: Two Economists Drink Their Way Through the Unfree World.”
When the Soviets made private businesses illegal, says Powell, “that’s about as close as the world ever saw” to pure socialism.
Now that the Soviet Union is gone, MSNBC anchor Ali Velshi says, “there is no true socialist country that exists.”
No? What about Cuba, China, North Korea, Vietnam and Venezuela?
Velshi didn’t respond when we asked him.
Venezuela was once Latin America’s richest country. Now it’s the poorest. Many in the media claim that its fall has “nothing to do with socialism,” just “poor governance.”
John Oliver says, “Chavez’s programs could have been sustainable if he pursued a sound economic policy.”
“Yeah,” laughs Powell. “Sustainable if he had a sound economic policy called capitalism.”
I push back. “Why does it have to be capitalism?” Why not socialism without bad management?
“That’s the nature of socialism!” Powell replies. “Their economic policies fail to adjust to reality because economic reality evolves every day. It’s millions of decentralized entrepreneurs and consumers making fine-tuning adjustments.”
Powell notes that in our capitalist society, when COVID-19 hit, businesses quickly adjusted. Restaurants switched to takeout and delivery. They built outdoor patios with heat lamps. Supermarkets opened early so the elderly could shop with less risk. Alcohol companies started producing hand sanitizer. Ford used its 3D printers to make face masks.
The media whined about “lack of federal direction,” but no central authority could direct all those individual adjustments in thousands of different places. In fact, federal direction would have prevented it.
“In a socialist economy, you get a one-size-fits-all adjustment,” adds Powell. “You miss out on this learning process where entrepreneurs copy others when they see things successful and stop doing it when it’s not.” By contrast, “In a market economy, everybody’s little adjustments get tested, and we get to see what works.”
In America, Blockbuster video was a great success. But then Netflix offered something better — no driving to a store, no late fees. Because Blockbuster didn’t immediately adjust, it went bankrupt.
“In a socialist economy, every adjustment needs to be commanded,” says Powell. “Communicate it down and get everybody to do the right thing. That’s impossible.”
That’s why under socialism, shortages are routine. In Venezuela, there’s so little food for sale that Venezuelans have lost weight.
Yet, “journalists” at Vox produced a video titled, “The Collapse of Venezuela, Explained,” without mentioning socialism even once. Vox’s explanation for Venezuela’s fall: “Oil prices plummeted.”
“The oil price is a complete distraction,” says an exasperated Powell. “There’s plenty of countries that depend on oil revenue. When oil prices went down, people there didn’t start losing weight. That just happened in Venezuela.”
Some claim Venezuela and Cuba’s people struggle mainly because of America’s economic sanctions and embargo.
“They certainly don’t help the people,” says Powell, “but it’s an afterthought as a reason for their suffering.”
The U.S. only sanctioned a few Venezuelan officials and their operations — not the country as a whole.
In Cuba, Powell points out: “They drive around 1950s U.S. cars … but there’s no U.S. Navy destroyers prevent Kia, Fiat and whoever else around the world from sending them cars. The reason for their suffering is they have an economic system that can’t deliver.”
Socialism delivers misery.
Next week, three more myths about socialism.
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While I do not always agree with Stossel, this article hits stupidity outta the park!
As I recall the Nazi’s were democratic socialists. Is that where we’re going?
Doug, you left out the Nationalist part. Commies and so-socialists are not nationalists. The Nationalist part is why the Second Reich wasn’t accepted by the Soviets.
The theme song for international commies is The International.
The Russian USSR wasn’t nationalist? Tell that to Eastern Europe and all those non Russian autonomous Soviet republics.
The NAZIs were indeed nationalists. They enacted domestic policies beneficial to the German working people. They upheld the traditional family and European enlightenment values. Germany was their nation.
The Russians, or rather the Russian elites, claimed to be internationalists. They adhered to a government philosophy that each individual would unselfishly contribute to the general pot (community) and take from the pot only that which they needed. When this, at some future time, was properly ingrained into society, a “Communist Man” would become the norm and government itself would ‘whither and disappear.’
To address your correct observation that the Russians were colonists, it was the duty of all true commies to spread their system universally. There could be no other system anywhere. Certainly not in their direct sphere of influence.
Of course there were some bumps on the road to Utopia. Kulaks were prospering in the manner of HSF by taking great care of their own personal fiefdom without guidance from the far off, and closed to new membership, Central Committee. The greedy, profit taking, self improving Kulaks would need to be dealt with. Such people could not be allowed to derail the march to a world without inequalities.
EDIT TO ADD: I’m not a Nazi apologist per se. Their racist attitude toward the “untermenchen” Slavs to the East, provided the philosophical justification to pursue “Liebenstrom” by conquest, was far more pernicious than their mostly justified rejection of Jewish parasitism.
As an American boy, raised in a midwestern steel mill town, I accepted the standard narrative that the Nazis and the Germans who were Nazis were absolutely irredeemably evil and the Allied Powers who opposed them were absolutely virtuous and moral. Due to the wonders of the internet I’ve come to learn that that history is not at all so cut and dried. Our leaders were war criminals too.
I type too slow, so my thoughts do not flow with conversational ease. Sorry.
Socialism appeals to greed and envy. Since Man is apt to feed his base instincts without a moral/ideological anchor (Natural Law, Individualism…The Book), Socialism is always there tempting humanity. Socialism/Communism (The concept) wasn’t invented by Marx/Engels or the Bolsheviks; what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine has always been a central theme of the human condition. The Plymouth Colony surely (According to Governor Bradford’s diary) tried Communism that first almost fatal year.
That’s funny. Know what else appeals to greed and envy? Capitalism! These are ideological mind traps for the weak.
Free enterprise, voluntary associations will ferret out most abuses, absent gov’t control. Greed and envy are core human frailties; Thou Shall Not Covet…. for starters.
I stayed in Holland for a summer. The people were nice but owned very little. if a small apartment with a TV and a stereo is what you’re ok with achieving in life? I met several strangers who admitted to milking the system and didn’t work much. They developed a reaccuring injury. The Dutch let in a lot of folks from Africa and Dutchman pointed out that they didn’t work much and hung out on street corners. They pointed them out as we drove. Food was expensive. Fuel was expensive. The topless women at the beaches and somewhat legal weed were attractive. Drug problems were considered a medical issue and you could go to treatment centers for free. Employers were triple fined if they made you work over 40 hours a week.
This was in 1989. I bet it’s a better place now. (much laughing)
Sounds an awful lot like the US of A.
Huma Mahmood Abedin certainly liked Holland, she got to stick her finger in a big, ugly dyke.
Socialism is a contradiction in terms.
In order to eliminate a hierarchical system, one must enforce its edicts with the force of an omnipotent State.
Which is rigidly hierarchical, hence retarded.
I listened to The Communist Manifesto while I was making beef jerky today, pretty funny book actually. I’m not surprised that the current regime uses it as a blueprint for the establishment of their new hierarchy as it’s written for the low information crowd.
It’s retarded literature for dumbasses.
How about dropping the isms and call it what it is, totalitarian government control over all aspects of your life. Too long, how about TGC.
Socialism is the Philosophy of failure, the Creed of ignorance and the Gospel of envy. Winston Churchill