There’s a lot of talk of socialism these days. Unfortunately, it’s not limited to classrooms where children should learn about the many horrors suffered thanks to socialism’s numerous and consistent failures. And for those who don’t know their history, such failure is even still on display in Venezuela and North Korea today, among other self-inflicted humanitarian disaster areas.
Despite its unmatched record of human suffering, socialism is the hot new thing for many on the left. Illustrating how popular socialism has become within the Democratic Party, former Colorado Gov. and presidential candidate John Hickenlooper was booed by activists at the California Democratic Party convention when he dared to warn that “socialism is not the answer” for electoral success. The boos came even though he was making a largely strategic point, rather than an ideological one.
Just how bad is the problem? A recent Gallup poll found 43% of Americans, including a whopping 58% of 18-34 year-olds, think socialism would be a good thing for the country. That’s an 18 percentage point increase since 1942. Alarming!
They really need to read a recent report from David Burton called Comparing Free Enterprise and Socialism. It shows in extensive detail how socialism fails, why free enterprise is better, and why even “socialism lite” makes people worse off.
There is a silver lining, however. In the same poll, respondents showed a preference for the free market over the government on most issues. The reason for this apparent contradiction is that most people have only a vague conception of socialism, and their identification may be more symbolic (treating it as a signifier of compassion or support for equality) than substantive.
But even superficial preferences for socialism are troubling because they can help enable die-hard socialists to rise to power and wreak havoc on the economy.
The only antidote is education. Free market advocates can never stop educating the public and filling in the gaps in historical knowledge left by the government education system. Otherwise, the scourge of socialism is sure to return and inflict as many horrors on the 21st Century as it did the 20th.
