Social Democrats versus Democratic Socialists. Green New Deal. Venezuela and Bolivia. South Africa. The Unsocial Reality Of Socialism. Even a partial dose of democratic socialism seems to be economic poison. When Bernie Sanders talks about socialism, he wants voters to think Scandinavia, not Soviet Russia or Cuba.
For example: When asked back in 2016 to explain what he meant by “democratic socialism,” he responded, “I think we should look to countries like Denmark, like Sweden and Norway and learn what they have accomplished for their working people.” But that’s not quite right. As I recently blogged, “Let’s stop pretending that Bernie Sanders wants to duplicate Scandinavia.” From that piece: Sanders brags that his universal health-care plan eliminates patient cost-sharing. Overall, then, the Nordic nations are “firmly rooted in capitalism and free markets,” wrote Michael Cembalest of JP Morgan Asset Management in a note last summer, one I have previously mentioned. Socialism’s Three-Legged Stool: Envy, Ignorance, and Faith. Transferism, Not Socialism, Is the Drug Americans Are Hooked On. The United States has never had a meaningful socialist tradition or even a semi-serious socialist party.
Socialism in the United States is a fringe movement at best and always has been. This makes the sudden acceptability of socialism all the more surprising. But with one avowed socialist, Bernie Sanders, campaigning for the presidency for a second time, and another, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, rising to national prominence from her post in the House of Representatives, American socialism is more mainstream now than at any point in our history. Were the Nazis Really Socialists? It’s Complicated. It’s not every day a sitting member of Congress quotes Mein Kampf on the House floor, but that’s what Rep.
Mo Brooks of Alabama decided to do on March 25 following Secretary Barr’s briefing on the Mueller Report. In his speech, Brooks then referred to Adolf Hitler as a “socialist,” drawing a connection between the Fuhrer and democratic socialists. Democrats were quick to denounce Brooks’ claims; the Nazis were far-right fascists and thus far removed from socialism—especially democratic socialism. The Three Phases of Socialism. Venezuela is in a state of turmoil.
After 20 years of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela, or PSUV), its economy is collapsing. As Venezuelans have tried to vote the PSUV out of office, its leader, Nicholas Maduro, has responded by creating a rival body to the National Assembly made up exclusively of government supporters and rigging the country’s May 2018 presidential election. Left with no alternative, members of the opposition have taken to the streets where they have been met with merciless brutality by the socialist government’s forces. Venezuela is only the latest country to go through the cycle all socialist countries go through. Jordan Peterson on What Draws Young People to Socialism. Jordan Peterson spoke at a Heritage Foundation event in New York City.
We discussed the rise of socialism in America, the importance of personal responsibility, and why his message is resonating with so many people. Peterson is a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, a clinical psychologist, and author of the book “12 Rules for Life.” An economic lesson worth remembering: Communism was pretty terrible. Much of my writing is about the transformative power of innovative, market capitalism.
But maybe it would be worthwhile to expend a few more words on the alternative. What about the terrible history of centrally planned economies? Apparently the great lessons from those experiences must be relearned. I mean, clearly the message isn’t getting through when some folks — as I’ve seen on Twitter — can look at a chart showing the steep decline in global poverty and view it as an endorsement of the Chinese communist party rather than market reforms and decentralization.
Yet as noted in the new paper “From workers to capitalists in less than two generations” by Li Yang, Filip Novokmet, and Branko Milanovic, China’s economic transformation is “a unique event in world economic history: never have so many people over such a relatively short period of time increased their income so much.” This Mystery YouTuber Will Teach You More about the Soviet Union Than Your Professors.
Your teachers gave you the boring dates and names of long-dead politicians, and all you know about communism is that your conservative uncle uses it to describe every policy he doesn't like.
However, there is an English YouTuber who will open your eyes to the reality of the impact the Soviet Union had on many places in Europe. As YouTube gradually replaced television, its original appeal was in how amateurish it felt and looked. People who barely knew how to hold a camera were uploading footage that seemed as though it had been recorded with a potato.
Following the popularity of Casey Neistat, vlogs have been professionalized to include wide-angle shots, multiple cameras, drone footage, and staged scenes such as walking toward the camera. Weighing Bad Capitalism and Good Socialism. Recently economics professor Walter Block of Loyola University New Orleans wrote a great op-ed for The Wall Street Journal titled “Bad Capitalism and Good Socialism.”
It helps clarify some confusion about the relative merits of different economic systems and the ostensible aspects of capitalism and socialism that people most often object to. At the Competitive Enterprise Institute, we generally think capitalism is a pretty good thing. Voluntary exchange—coupled with a legal system that protects everyone’s rights—is the best system for producing prosperity and opportunity. But that system doesn’t work as it should when the government gives certain market players an unearned advantage, or saddles them with an unjust penalty.
“That Wasn't Real Socialism”: A Better Way to Respond to the Claim. Why You Never Hear Anyone Say "That Wasn't Real Capitalism" "Der heimliche Aufmarsch" (“The Secret Deployment”) is an old socialist revolutionary song from the Weimar Republic.
It calls upon the workers and peasants to arm themselves, rise up, and smash the system. Socialism is Not Built on Compassion. It's Built on Dehumanizing Others. Some claim capitalism dehumanizes individuals. Others claim Horatio Alger stories are a myth, believing individuals have little social or economic mobility under capitalism and cannot rise above the circumstances into which they are born. If you believe capitalism does a worse job than socialism on social and economic mobility and that socialism treats people more humanely, please spend time in a collectivist country such as North Korea and report back. A Breakdown Down of the Opportunity Costs of "Soft Socialism"
Democratic socialism is on the rise in America, inspired by Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential run and recent midterm victories by outspoken advocates such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib.
But while the movement emphasizes “popular” vs. “state” control, glazing socialist rhetoric with democratic and communitarian vocabulary, how different is the movement from socialist manifestations of the past? What might it portend for the future of the American economy and broader society? In a new report, The Opportunity Costs of Socialism, the Trump administration’s Council of Economic Advisors explores these questions, assessing the economic implications and opportunity costs of socialism, whether in its more extreme manifestations (e.g.
Venezuela) or “softer” market-based variations (e.g. Socialism, Like Dracula, Rises Again from the Grave. Communism as political blood-letting. Starting in 1917 communism did more harm than good whenever tried My Times column on the year that marks the centenary of the Russian revolution: Human beings can be remarkably dense. The practice of bloodletting, as a medical treatment, persisted despite centuries of abundant evidence that it did more harm than good. The practice of communism, or political bloodletting as it should perhaps be known, whose centenary in the Bolshevik revolution is reached this year, likewise needs no more tests. Socialism's Sexist Origins. Happy International Women’s Day! You may have heard that today is, as The Guardian once put it, “an important day in the socialist calendar,” its history intertwined with that of the Soviet Union.
Today, socialist feminism enjoys a surprising popularity in many universities’ Women’s Studies departments. Self-identifying socialist feminists hope to fight what they call a “capitalist culture of male supremacy.” Rendering Unto Caesar: Was Jesus A Socialist? Marxism is ignorant of the Pareto principle. Quotation of the day on differences as ‘inequities’ and achievements as ‘privilege’…. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's $3,500 Suit Fits a Longstanding Tradition of Well-Heeled Socialists. Few observers missed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ interview and photoshoot last week in which the rising, avowedly-socialist N.Y. congressional candidate wore a $3500 suit and shoes while hobnobbing with construction workers.
(Such are the perils of outspoken class warfare; a thing like that tends to be noticed.) Her opponents lambasted her as just another in a long line of collectivist hypocrites, while Ocasio-Cortez’s supporters dismissed the criticism as petty. She noted herself that the outfit she wore was not, in fact, hers and had to be returned after the shoot. I Spent the Summer Reading About Socialism—and It’s Even More Disturbing than I Thought. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Won't Be the One to Finally Make Socialism Work. I receive near-daily emails from The Nation, the hard-left publication that has never acknowledged a communist atrocity nor recognized any socialist failure. Can You Name a Single Nation That Became Rich with Collectivist Policies? Why Socialism Failed: A 2018 Update, Part I: An Overview. In 1995, I wrote an article titled “Why Socialism Failed” and it appeared in The Freeman, the flagship publication of the Foundation for Economic Education.
Why Socialism Failed: A 2018 Update, Part II: Prices. Why Socialism Failed: A 2018 Update, Part III: Profits and Losses, and Private Property Rights. Why Socialism Failed: A 2018 Update, Part IV: Incentives Matter. Here is Part IV and the final section of my updated essay “Why Socialism Failed,” see Part I here, Part II here, and Part III here. Why Socialism Failed: A 2018 Update, Part IV: Incentives Matter.