Socialism persists in spite of the successes of free enterprise
History has repeatedly demonstrated the failures of socialism, yet many continue to defend and promote it. What's going on?
Yesterday was May Day, also known as International Workers' Day and a time for "workers of the world" to unite. The day’s historical roots are deeply intertwined with socialist ideology.
The team at Collapse Life received an email blast from Bill Gray, Hillsdale College’s Vice President for Institutional Advancement. In it, he pointed out that May Day is a good moment to reflect critically on why the allure of socialism, despite its repeated historical failures, persists in certain circles, and why it's crucial to champion the principles of freedom and free enterprise instead.
I don’t know about you, but it’s wild to me that people still celebrate an ideology that’s cost millions of lives with gulags, show trials, and famines.
Even here in America, you and I have seen the rise of mass redistribution programs. These programs treat you like a blank check while the national debt explodes.
And yet, so many continue to defend and promote this dangerous and destructive ideology.
History has shown that socialism is hardly a “blessing.” It’s been fatal to liberty, ending in human misery and poverty whenever it’s been tried.
Some days, it’s hard for me to believe that the truth has not sunk in.
As more young Americans claim that the “Soviet Union wasn’t real communism” and that we just need to try, try, try again—our work together becomes more urgent.
Legacy media, like NPR, says “Red May” is celebrated by “reading Marxist literature.” You and I can respond by promoting liberty and free markets.
Socialism, as an ideology and a practice, has often promised equality and security but has delivered scarcity and authoritarianism. History is replete with examples where socialist policies have led to disastrous outcomes — Stalin's Great Purge, Mao's Great Famine, and the economic collapse of Venezuela are but a few stark reminders.
Socialism’s fundamental flaw is its wanton disregard for individual incentives, which are crucial for economic productivity and innovation. Theoretically, socialism seeks to abolish private property and redistribute wealth, in the interest of eliminating class distinctions. In practice, however the result is often the concentration of power in the hands of a few, leaving the vast majority not only impoverished, but without the motivation or avenue to advance their lot in life.
On the flip side, free enterprise has proven to be a great engine of economic growth and personal freedom. Individuals can act in their own interest, leading to job creation, innovation, and increased wealth. This, in turn, leads to better health, better education, and improved quality of life.
Unlike socialism, which relies on redistribution, free enterprise promotes wealth creation. It respects individual property rights, incentivizing people to work harder knowing they can reap the benefits of their labor. Moreover, free markets have lifted millions out of poverty worldwide by encouraging foreign investment, competitive wages, and consumer choice.
Of course, it’s crucial to recognize that economic disparities do exist and need addressing. And increasingly, we are seeing wealth concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. But the solution is not redistributing wealth and removing personal incentives. Collapse Life would argue that the free market should be allowed to do what the free market does, unfettered by the practice that has become all too common today: crony capitalism and fascism. Under the guise of “you fill in the blank emergency,” perverse government incentives — we’ve seen them in their most acute form recently in the transportation (electric vehicles) and power generation (wind and solar) arenas, for example — skew the markets and actually transfer wealth and productivity in very contradictory ways.
Even early Marxists like Eduard Bernstein recognized that capitalism brought rising living standards. He wrote:
If the collapse of modern society depends on the disappearance of the middle ranks between the apex and the base of the social pyramid, if it is dependent upon the absorption of these middle classes by the extremes above and below them, then its realisation is no nearer in England, France, and Germany today than at any earlier time in the nineteenth century.
Still, he didn't abandon his socialist ideals. Let’s not make the same mistake.
As Hillsdale’s Bill Gray reminded us on May Day, we can all ensure history does not repeat its failures by championing the value of innovation, prosperity, and individual freedom, a framework that can truly improve life for everyone.
The allure of Marxism that keeps people chasing it is that it provides a convenient way to present a villain as the cause of people's problems. As soon as you can convert people to being the "others" you have a perfect scapegoat that is instantly dehumanized. In the case of Marxism, the villain is "the rich." It is perfectly nebulous. It just means anyone who has more than you is the cause of the problem. The other insidious allure is that it takes away all personal responsibility for everything that is wrong. Your condition does not arise from a fault in you. You are just the victim of the evil of the "others".
The reason that it doesn't really work is that you very quickly run out of the obvious rich and everyone that has less that you sees you as the next target. Society takes the form of ouroboros and it consumes itself. More succinctly, it is great to target the rich until you run out of people that are richer and YOU become the rich that is targeted.
There is nothing wrong with socialism, *per se*. That is just an accounting system. It is just people working together for the common good rather than profit. We have many systems that are socialist that are great. Credit unions, public libraries, and employee owned companies are perfect examples. They go against the tenets of Marxism because Marx saw wealth as a zero sum game and labor as a commodity that was all of equal value. New wealth can be created and not all labor has the same value.
The one flaw with socialism is that it doesn't scale well. As soon as you combine the resources of those who contribute, it creates an over sized consolidation of wealth that needs to be managed and without strict safeguards, becomes too tempting. Even discounting those who will pilfer from it for personal gain, it is too tempting to try to infinitely expand things to encompass doing even "more good." Look what happened to Social Security. It was originally designed as obligating people to set aside a portion of money that they worked for to take care of them when they got old. They quickly decided to expand that to help people who had never contributed and turned it into a ponzi scheme.