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Socialism: Why World’s Worst Idea Won’t Die | National Review
I'm convinced that every wave of youth goes through a phase where they see socialism-communism as the path forward. I believe it's due in part to the realization that as they transition from childhood to young adulthood, that they'll need to develop a work ethic, behave within a legal framework, take fiscal responsibility of their income, and live within their means.
It's an open rebellion to growing up; a childish tantrum wrapped in political nonsense.
Two decades of Hot Pockets and Toaster Strudels.
All those participation ribbons that mom saved, and told you that you were special.
I do not expect to write another book on socialism, but I have been reading some. There are some horrifyingly relevant books out now and on the way. One is Iain Murray’s excellent, just-published The Socialist Temptation — I will be discussing it with him on Thursday, if you’d like to watch — in which Murray addresses some of the eternal lies (“Real socialism has never been tried!”) and abominable clichés of socialism. He emphasizes that historically, socialism has consistently delivered the opposite of its promises: more economic and political inequality, not less; more poverty, not less; more ruthless social domination of the poor and the marginalized, not less; more environmental degradation, not less.
Murray makes in part a consequentialist case for economic freedom: “Study after study has found that countries with high levels of economic freedom are wealthier, healthier, take better care of the environment, and are just generally better places to live than countries with low levels of economic freedom. At the bottom of all these indices are two sorts of countries — failed states like Afghanistan, and nations like Venezuela, which have sauntered down the road to serfdom by enacting Marxist socialist policies with abandon.” But I wonder if our young self-proclaimed socialists are equipped to hear that argument or likely to respond to it. In the past ten years, the partisans of free enterprise have had a hard-enough time defending economic liberty against the Right, never mind the socialists. Murray understands this, too, crediting the socialists with arguing from values while the partisans of liberty argue from history and economics.
I'm convinced that every wave of youth goes through a phase where they see socialism-communism as the path forward. I believe it's due in part to the realization that as they transition from childhood to young adulthood, that they'll need to develop a work ethic, behave within a legal framework, take fiscal responsibility of their income, and live within their means.
It's an open rebellion to growing up; a childish tantrum wrapped in political nonsense.
Two decades of Hot Pockets and Toaster Strudels.
All those participation ribbons that mom saved, and told you that you were special.