There has never been a successful socialist government. Despite the arguments of its advocates, socialism is indisputably the worst economic method there is. Frankly, socialism is a vehicle governments or individuals use to implement their most extreme forms of control over citizens. In the past, millions of their own citizens have died because of their failed policies. More people have died under these governments than in both world wars.
Perhaps the most famous reactionaries, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, argued that capitalism exploited the average worker amid the Industrial Revolution. They believed that capitalism was, in fact, productive, but that the rearrangement of societal relationships, resulting from the increased prosperity, squeezed everything out of the laborers toiling in the sweatshops.
Astonishingly, for all their alleged intellectual competence, their proposed solution to the problem was irrefutably worse. Instead of implementing the more libertarian and individualistic approach that is widely used today, they proposed a socialist collectivism. This would in turn lead to a communist utopia, the results of which would eventually kill over 200 million souls unfortunate enough to live in socialist Russia, former Yugoslavia, Poland, Ukraine, China, North Korea, and Vietnam, to name a few.
Why did the governments take measures to keep their people from leaving these states? If this barbaric system were successful, wouldn’t people have flocked to those places? Instead no one came and many tried – and are still trying – desperately to leave, some being shot to death before reaching freedom. Not to mention the millions murdered for simple, unwitting disobedience.
Marx and Engels never seemed to consider their brainstorming would result in so much death, yet it is excruciatingly obvious that total bureaucratic control quickly leads to sheer tyranny. A prison in which those who fail to worship the sovereign are deemed enemies of the state and disposed of, and the yearning escapees are mercilessly hunted to death.
Communists either choose not to understand this, or they do not care, assuming the right to govern the lives of others from the top of the totalitarian hierarchy. The disturbing part is that this means the people who subscribe to this ideology are one of two things: ignorant idealists with a narcissistic superiority complex, or greedy statists, who, above all else, desire power. Both of which will hide their true intentions under the guise of serving the masses, for “the greater good.”
Market regulation, an arrow in the socialist quiver, is not all bad. Would you drive a car without working brakes? Ironically, the current high quality of vehicular breaks is mainly due to the very market competition that disappears when communism is implemented.
So too is modern capitalism. It is a free market with rules and competition between various related parties. allowing the best to succeed within guidelines for profit. It encourages competition and innovation, while ensuring labor standards and workers’ rights. Of course, governments have an important say in regulation and in most cases, they must agree to international standards if they want to engage in trade.
But what happens when a small elite intelligentsia convince the voters that a regulated welfare state produces more wealth and higher quality of life than a global trade market? Who benefits in a world where people do not succeed or fail based on merit but instead bound in subjugation?
When a population is lured in with promises of money falling from the sky, and a life free from toil, they have become lazy. Scoffing at any advancement through the sweat of their brow, they would rather sit at home and spend hours on Netflix, unaware that if they vote for free things today, they or their children will undoubtedly pay for it tomorrow.
Weak people create hard times, and maybe that time is here again. Our last decades of prosperity have produced children who covet success without the arduous but necessary work. This world is addicted to the very technological wonders spawned from capitalism, which is now under attack. Like everything, it is imperfect, but right now, it is the best we have. Young people care more about their smartphones and social media profiles than for real relationships with other people. Many have swallowed the blue pill and chosen a comforting matrix over a harsh reality. Consequentially, in the end we may all suffer.
Sophia Leis is the associate editor at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. She is a third-year university student majoring in political science. She is passionate about Canadian indigenous issues, economics, and Western cultural influence.
