Numerous people have come to this site and complained about its logo because it contains a communist symbol, which according to them, has barely anything to do with socialism, or perhaps nothing at all.

Let’s see indeed what are the differences between socialism and communism…

From the Encyclopedia Britanica’s online entry on communism:

the political and economic doctrine that aims to replace private property and a profit-based economy with public ownership and communal control of at least the major means of production (e.g., mines, mills, and factories) and the natural resources of a society. Communism is thus a form of socialism—a higher and more advanced form, according to its advocates. Exactly how communism differs from socialism has long been a matter of debate, but the distinction rests largely on the communists’ adherence to the revolutionary socialism of Karl Marx.

(I added the bolding.)

Communism is thus a form of socialism, and its distinction rests mostly on its revolutionary tactics.

Let’s see what Britanica has to say about Karl Marx, the father of communism:

revolutionary, sociologist, historian, and economist. He published (with Friedrich Engels) Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei (1848), commonly known as The Communist Manifesto, the most celebrated pamphlet in the history of the socialist movement. He also was the author of the movement’s most important book, Das Kapital. These writings and others by Marx and Engels form the basis of the body of thought and belief known as Marxism.

(Again, I added the bolding.)

So the Communist Manifesto is “the most celebrated pamphlet in the history of the socialist movement.” If communism were only scantly related to socialism, Karl Marx would have pulled off quite an impossible feat writing a pamphlet on communism to become the most celebrated among those who believe something very different.

Modern socialists distance themselves from the revolutionary and dictatorial aspects of communism, but in fact, people who still support communism today do the same, claiming that what happened in the Soviet Union was not true communism.

In terms of implementation, all forms of socialism, communism included, seek to enact (1) strict government control and ownership of industry and (2) redistribution of wealth.

And they all fail due to exactly the same things, (1) their inability to efficiently and properly manage and allocate common resources and (2) their inherent disincentive for achievement.

In conclusion, communism and socialism work toward achieving the same ends. Only their methods of achieving those ends are different. Communism uses revolution, while socialism uses evolution, manipulating the system into accepting it over time.

Some government spending for safety and order does facilitate prosperity, but further spending turns the relationship between the size of government and prosperity around, resulting in more government for less prosperity.

The following video from the The Center for Freedom and Prosperity does a great job explaining this and compares economic performance among Denmark, France, Germany, Sweden and the U.S.A.

To answer this question, let’s first put the size of the healthcare problem in the U.S. into perspective.

Counting the Number of the Uninsured in America

When Obama ran for president, he touted health care reform as a big issue because there were 47 million people uninsured in America.

This figure comes from the Census Bureau. And according to the Census Bureau there were 47 million people without health insurance in the United States in 2006.

But out of those, 9.3 million live in a household with an income of $75,000 a year or more, and also 10.2 million are not citizens of the U.S.

Let’s discount those from the uninsured figure to arrive at a number encompassing people we’d sanely expect to have a claim for receiving government assistance, (which is always funded by money that’s reluctantly taken away from someone else.)

47 – 9.3 – 10.2 = 27.5 million.

However, there may be some who are non-citizens and are in households making more that $75,000 a year, and we don’t want to double subtract those. Since the latter are 1/3 of the population, with no further information, we can expect the double counting to be 3.3 million. So 27.5 + 3.3 = 30.7 million.

So now we’re at a point where the number of the uninsured we’d sanely expect to be given government assistance in the matter is no more than 30.7 million or about 10% of the population in the United States.

But the problem posed by the above figure of 10% is much further diminished by the following fact:

Not Having Health Insurance Does Not Necessarily Mean You Are Sick or Can’t Get Healthcare If You Are!

Let’s see why:

• 8.5 million of the uninsured live in households of incomes between $50,000 and $74,999. Like those in households making over $75,000 per year, at least some are able to afford insurance, but just choose not to get it. Still others in America, especially those making between $50,000 and $74,999, may also afford to pay for doctor visits and medication out of their own pocket should the need arise, though admittedly probably not for major illnesses.
• 19 million of the uninsured are young adults between the ages of 18-34. I would venture to guess that most won’t encounter anything but a minor illness until they’re older, at which point many would be earning more money and able to afford insurance anyway. And in addition, high deductible health insurance for this demographic is inexpensive… well, at least in states whose government does not interfere and allow such coverage.
• By law, emergency room care has to be provided to anyone walking in. The patient is still liable for the expenses incurred, and often hospitals work out discounts and financing, but good luck to hospitals trying to collect from those who truly can’t afford it.
• There are those who are uninsured and qualify for a government plan (Medicare, Medicaid, etc.), yet have not signed up.
• Many government assistance programs, provide healthcare to the uninsured. Those don’t count as insurance, but still give healthcare in certain instances.

  For example, the Prenatal Care Assistance Program (PCAP) in New York, is a “comprehensive prenatal care program that offers complete pregnancy care and other health services to women and teens who live in New York State.” To qualify, the woman can earn up to 200% of the federal poverty level, which means this is available to many who don’t qualify for Medicare.

  Another example is the HIV Uninsured Care Programs (ADAP), which provides “access to free healthcare (HIV Drugs, Primary Care, Home Care, and APIC) for New York State residents with HIV infection who are uninsured or underinsured.”

• There are clinics across the USA providing free healthcare for the uninsured.

  For example, the New York City Free Health Clinic is a private clinic providing healthcare to uninsured people in NYC.

  Here’s the Web site of Georgia’s free clinic network.

  And here’s the Web site of the National Association of Free Clinics (NAFC), “whose mission is solely focused on the issues and needs of the more than 1,200 free clinics and the people they serve in the United States.”

• There are resources of financial aid for those who are uninsured and fall victim to serious illness.

  For example see the Memorial Solan-Kettering Cancer Center’s financial assistance program.

Therefore, the problems with the healthcare system in the U.S. may be a government actionable “crisis” for a percentage of the population that’s well into the… single digits!

Just looking at the Census Bureau report, it’s not possible to calculate exactly for how many of the 10%, not having insurance is a big problem or a problem at all, but one thing is for sure, all the above factors mean that for quite a large number of the uninsured, not having insurance is NOT a big problem. Therefore, for simplicity, let’s say of the 10%, it’s a problem for half. Maybe a little more, maybe a little less.

Therefore, all the panic, crisis, “people are dying on the streets”, “we should join every other civilized nation”, “in America people have to choose between food and healthcare” rhetoric of the left, in reality is actually referring to about 5% of the population who don’t have access to all the healthcare they need, but they do have access to some!

Reality Check: What This Debate Really Comes Down To

We all know that liberals and socialists demand government intervention in private industry because of their compassion for others, or at least that’s what some of them claim.

And as such, the following sentence comes out the mouths of proponents of national healthcare very frequently: “How can we live in a country where some people don’t have access to basic healthcare?”

First of all, the premise of the question is flawed. As shown above, we’d be hard pressed to find people unable to receive any basic healthcare at all in the U.S. should they seek it.

Is it good that 5% have problems getting full access to healthcare they need? Of course not.

However, and this is key, in countries that have a national healthcare service, a.k.a. single payer systems, people do not get access to all the healthcare they need either! Otherwise, there wouldn’t be a need for private supplemental health insurance in the U.K., and there wouldn’t be a need for average Canadian citizens to seek treatment across the border in the United States at their own expense.

No government healthcare program we can implement is ever going to give all the healthcare anyone needs to everybody. The NHS (National Healthcare Service) in the U.K. doesn’t do it, the Canadian system doesn’t do it, the French don’t do it, and Medicare and Medicaid in the U.S. don’t provide comprehensive healthcare for those who are covered.

Michael D. Tanner of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank, writes the following points about government controlled healthcare systems around the world:

• Health insurance does not mean universal access to health care. In practice, many countries promise universal coverage but ration care or have long waiting lists for treatment.
• Rising health care costs are not a uniquely American phenomenon. Although other countries spend considerably less than the United States on health care, both as a percentage of GDP and per capita, costs are rising almost everywhere, leading to budget deficits, tax increases, and benefit reductions.
• In countries weighted heavily toward government control, people are most likely to face waiting lists, rationing, restrictions on physician choice, and other obstacles to care.
• Countries with more effective national health care systems are successful to the degree that they incorporate market mechanisms such as competition, cost sharing, market prices, and consumer choice, and eschew centralized government control.

You can access Tanner’s full analysis of international health systems here on the Cato Institute’s Web site.

You may also read this December 2008 New York Times article about Bruce Hardy, an NHS cancer patient in the United Kingdom, who was deprived of life saving, yet costly, medicine because “at that price, Mr. Hardy’s life is not worth prolonging.”

And you may read this March 2010 Daily Mail article about how thousands of NHS cancer patients are denied life saving drugs:

Last year the Government’s drugs rationing body, NICE, promised to make it easier for patients suffering from rarer cancers to receive life-prolonging drugs on the NHS.

Today, we reveal just how hollow that pledge has proved.

Since it was made, ten drugs – which could have provided as many as 20,000 cancer sufferers with precious extra months or years – have been rejected on the grounds they are too expensive.

I suppose the British government just doesn’t have enough money to pay for everyone’s care after all!

Therefore this debate is really about whether approximately 5% of the population in the United States should receive somewhat more healthcare than they do now. And it’s not whether they would go from no healthcare to complete coverage, just whether they’ll get somewhat more… at the expense of others. No, not the rich “others”, everybody! That includes you and me and all of middle class America.

So What’s Wrong With Providing More Healthcare to Those 5%?

There’s nothing wrong, as long as you can actually do it in a way that doesn’t make things worse overall. And, experience has shown this is extremely difficult or impossible to do so with more government involvement in the health care industry.

I just gave examples of cancer patients in the U.K. being denied care by the NHS. But, as some may say, healthcare is also being denied by the “evil” insurance companies in America. That sometimes happens, however despite that “evil”, cancer treatment outcomes, for example, are better in the United States than anywhere else in the world, even if you count those with no insurance.

The following is from the National Center for Policy Analysis Web site:

According to the survey of cancer survival rates in Europe and the United States, published recently in Lancet Oncology:

• American women have a 63 percent chance of living at least five years after a cancer diagnosis, compared to 56 percent for European women.
• American men have a five-year survival rate of 66 percent — compared to only 47 percent for European men.
• Among European countries, only Sweden has an overall survival rate for men of more than 60 percent.
• For women, only three European countries (Sweden, Belgium and Switzerland) have an overall survival rate of more than 60 percent.

These figures reflect the care available to all Americans, not just those with private health coverage. Great Britain, known for its 50-year-old government-run, universal healthcare system, fares worse than the European average: British men have a five-year survival rate of only 45 percent; women, only 53 percent.

You can find the full article here.

U.S. cancer survival rates are also higher than those in Canada.

So I suppose the “evil” private insurance industry indeed fairs better at providing care than the “benevolent” governments around the world.

And there are concrete reasons for that. Primary among those is that once the health care system is opened up to strong government influence, the decision making process starts running on political merits and not on the merits of science or quality of care.

Obamacare isn’t even in effect and this is already happening! This past week, the vote of Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu from Louisiana (to start debate on the Senate health care bill) was bought off with $300,000,000 of state aid. The following is from a Wall Street Journal article dated November 22, 2009:

Take Louisiana Democrat Mary Landrieu, who claims to have grave concerns about the bill’s cost. Those worries became less pressing when Majority Leader Harry Reid added language on page 432 of the 2,074-page opus that would raise the bill’s cost by increasing federal Medicaid subsidies for “certain states recovering from a major disaster.” Guess which state is the only one that would qualify under that wording?

This political gratuity was quickly reported as costing $100 million, but Senator Landrieu made clear after her floor speech that her vote couldn’t be bought that cheaply. “I will correct something. It’s not $100 million, it’s $300 million, and I’m proud of it and will keep fighting for it,” she told reporters.

Was Senator Landrieu’s vote cast on the health care quality or finance merits of the bill? No! It was cast on the merits of a dollar taken from each and every person in the United States to increase her chances of reelection in Louisiana. So that’s how socialized health care reduces costs! What a plan!

I can already hear liberals saying “but private health care isn’t about quality care either, it’s all about PROFIT!” To that I say that even assuming the motivation is all about profit, there is far more direct connection between profit and quality of product in private industry than between political gain and quality of product in the government sector. And I dare anyone to demonstrate otherwise!

Therefore, instead of legislating government takeovers of an industry, perhaps we should do something else.

To clarify things, I’d first like to look at an analogy. A car doesn’t work if it can’t be driven to go from point A to point B, which is its fundamental purpose. A car cannot be said to not work if it fails to make toasts and coffee for example, and that’s because making toasts and coffee is not the purpose, design nor the intention of a car.

Similarly, “socialism doesn’t work” means that socialism fails to deliver its fundamental purpose as claimed and advertised by those who advocate it. And that’s to fix the ills of capitalism and provide a better standard of living for the non-wealthy while creating a more equal distribution of wealth.

The claim “socialism doesn’t work” does not mean every aspect of a socialist system doesn’t work. It does not mean socialist economies necessarily blow up completely. And it does not mean every aspect of a socialist society grinds into a halt.

Looking at the analogy again we see that the claim “the car doesn’t work” also does not mean every aspect of it is non-operational. A car that does not drive forward, can be said to not work, but its radio might still be operational.

The following arguments or similar are often brought up in support of socialism:

“Socialism works because… the post office works!”

Or, “socialism works because… Scandinavia is going strong!”

Neither the post office, nor Scandinavia are doing all that great. But certainly just because they haven’t been reduced to piles of rubble (yet?), does not mean that socialism works in general to fulfill its purpose.

Some government programs are useful, however, on a wide reaching scale, no, socialism does not work to improve the lives of people living under its rule!

Furthermore, our biggest concern on this Web site is whether more/less socialism would be good or bad for the United States. Therefore, in practical terms, the statement “socialism doesn’t work” means the U.S. must reduce its quotient of socialism to improve its quality of life.

And because of the outrageously voluminous occurrences of crony capitalism in the Obama administration, many staunch supporters of Obama then mistake him for someone who no longer cares for Karl Marx and think he somehow “betrayed” them.

However, crony capitalism has more in common with socialism, than with free market capitalism. And it is actually a symptom of big powerful government, which is always necessary to implement wide reaching socialist policies.

Under socialism, those who are considered “poor” lobby the government for special favors, or have the lobbying done on their behalf. Under crony capitalism, it is the wealthy and well connected who do the same. Unfortunately for the poor, it is easier for the wealthy and well connected to siphon favors from the government than it is for the poor. And once a government becomes powerful enough to “spread the wealth around” in the name of the poor it’s also powerful enough to “spread the wealth around” in favor of the few and wealthy.

So to all those who are in favor of lots of socialism in America… single payer health care, cap and trade, increasing welfare, etc.: What do you expect? For the government to take more control of the economy, be able to redistribute taxpayer’s money as they see fit (“stimulus”) and then for politicians NOT to use that power to help their friends and supporters? For private corporations NOT to apply more effort into channeling increasing government power their way (a.k.a lobbying)?

Socialism and crony capitalism are a package deal. Crony capitalism is a side-effect of socialism. The very thing Michael Moore wants in America (socialism) leads to the very thing he vociferously protests (crony capitalism).

John Stossel’s program about crony capitalism is fantastic and well worth the watch:

Denmark, as you may know, is a country with quite a lot of social programs. And so the argument goes: Denmark has a lot of socialism and is a successful country, therefore socialism is good.

There are two main problems with this argument:
1. Is socialism the cause of Denmark’s relative success? Or are there other more significant contributing factors? (Answer: Yes there are.)
2. Is Denmark really such a smashing success? (Answer: No, it’s not.)

Let’s look at problem #1:

Denmark’s population consists of no more than two guys named Bjorn for crying out loud! Yet people are so ready to use it as a general example with comparisons to the U.S.

Thought Experiment: Let’s just try Denmark’s policies in the U.S. and see how it all works out… will it work out the same way?

Denmark is a tiny country with a homogeneous society, which has been settled in the same place for many generations. It’s of a specific European culture and ethnicity, and has a uniform mindset with strong collectivist tendencies that look down upon extraordinary success.

Now, *WITH SARCASM* I can’t possibly imagine why similar collectivist welfare policies won’t work the same in the U.S.?

The United States, in contrast to Denmark, is a huge country with an extremely diverse population. It has very large population segments originating from very poor 3rd world countries, and a much more individualistic mindset. Therefore, any socialist program implemented in the U.S. has a much greater potential of becoming an unsustainable burden on (the productive part of) society.

Comparing Denmark to the U.S. is essentially equivalent to cherry-picking the best working tiny part of European socialism and facing it off with the whole U.S. This is like taking stats for just American Jews, for example, and comparing those to stats of Europe as a whole. Who do you think is going to come out ahead?

And now for problem #2:

Is Denmark really that successful? Despite its clear cultural advantages over the U.S. (from the perspective of making socialist policies work), and its “cherry picked” tiny size, it’s far from being a clear winner in standard of living and economics… to say the least!

The arguably most successful part of European socialism isn’t as great as many make it out to be.

Here are some stats:

The average (2007) full time wage in Denmark is $39,143. In the U.S. it’s $49,483. 26% more. (Source: Wikipedia)

It is also true that in the U.S. the average worker works 25% more hours than in Denmark. (Source: Wikipedia) So one may argue that most of the increase in earnings is due to more work and hence less free time. However, it’s also indicative of greater opportunity for full employment or more work if one should choose to. And furthermore, the total household income in the U.S. is more than that of Denmark’s over and above the 25% increase in working hours…

The average (2004) household income in Denmark is $22,524. In the U.S. it’s $32,195. 43% more. (Source: Wikipedia)

In Denmark people receive more services and assistance from the government than they do in the U.S., however, they also pay WAY more taxes, and material things are WAY more expensive.

The income tax in Denmark goes up to 63%, the highest rate in the world. (Source: Wikipedia) And don’t think that it’s only a few rich people who pay that tax rate. The highest tax bracket in Denmark starts at 347,200 DKK (2009), which is about $66,000 per year. (Source: TaxInDenmark.com)

Denmark has a value added tax (a.k.a VAT, which is similar to sales tax) of 25%, again the highest in the world. By comparison, the highest sales tax levied in the U.S. is about 10%. (Source: Wikipedia) But it doesn’t end there. In addition to the general VAT, citizens are required to part with more of their money for special things the government targets for extra taxation. Cars, for example, are taxed at around a 200% level, making 2/3 of the cost of a car in Denmark go to taxes. This is effectively like paying for a luxury car and getting a compact.

So first the major portion of your income is taken away, and then to add insult to injury, the government makes sure that whatever you can buy with the measly remnants of your money is much more expensive.

Now, with all that in mind, I think it’s instructive to watch Oprah’s profile of “wonderful” Denmark. Notice how when Oprah visits a “typical” Danish family’s apartment, she keeps repeating stuff like, “this is your whole bedroom?”, “that’s your whole refrigerator?”, “this is the whole bathroom?”, “this is the bed?”, etc. Oprah is shocked at how small and spartan everything is. And that apartment is actually rather upscale as far as Copenhagen apartments go.

Here is a link to the video of Oprah’s Danish apartment tour on her Web site.

In addition to the austere, but supposedly happy lifestyle of its people, Denmark is facing long term problems.

The citizens of Denmark are reportedly among the happiest in the world. They are so happy, in fact, that young educated people who have a shot at earning a good salary are leaving Denmark in large numbers to work and earn elsewhere.

They get a government paid education in Denmark, and then leave to work where taxes are lower. How can this possibly be sustainable? This New York Times article describes the ramifications of the problem, which include a skilled labor shortage.

1. Government Service X works, and that’s socialism, therefore socialism works/is great.

2. You wouldn’t want to not have Government Service X? No you wouldn’t! And Government Service X is socialist, therefore, you can’t say you don’t want socialism.

3. Conservatives, if you really hate socialism, I demand you immediately call for all services of type Government Service X to be abolished because they’re socialist.

Where in the above, Government Service X is one or more basic safety, infrastructure, or a limited government service, such as police, fire department or road construction.

These arguments are completely moot, i.e. have no practical significance. To see why, let me agree with those arguments for a moment:

Fine, Government Service X (read police, departments fire, road construction, etc.) works great, we have to have it, and it’s socialist.

However, it’s interesting how those services like Government Service X that are most frequently pointed to as paragons of socialism in this context, are those which are limited in scope, have little effect on the citizens’ personal choices and freedoms, and are mostly run by local governments. This should give us a STRONG hint where government does its best and where it fails. A fantastic in-depth treatment of this theme appears in this article.

So in fact, Government Service X is so great, let’s have socialism only like that! Let’s limit our government services to basic safety and infrastructure. (After all, we’re not advocating no government here, just limited government. Any suggestion to the contrary is a straw man argument.)

But if we do that, we’ll have a whole lot less socialism here and maybe even less than anywhere else in the world. Clearly that’s not what proponents of socialism have in mind! (Socialists, let me know if I’m wrong here.) So if socialism is to be a whole lot more than the likes of Government Service X, then Government Service X is irrelevant in support of what socialist really want.

If socialism were about limited infrastructure programs, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. This may change the day we hear people say “Denmark sure has a lot of socialism, just look at all their police, fire departments and roads,” but until then, socialism means something else.

And we’re done! Thank you and good night everybody.

Here is an example of the above, where Government Service X is the government’s development of the early Internet. This discussion transpired in the Facebook page of “Socialism Does’t Work”:

Some Proponent of Socialism:

Socialism DOES work folks–you’re using the Internet developed by the US gov. However, two cups and a string are non-gov. Use them as you see fit.

Me:

Of course, that the government developed the Internet is proof socialism is great. Why didn’t I think of that before? Everybody, as of tomorrow I’m changing the name of this page to “Socialism Does Work”. Oh, and it wasn’t until the government opened the Internet for private use that pretty much everything people think of as the “Internet” today really happened.

Some Proponent of Socialism:

Perhaps the groups name should be “Socialism, like the Free Market, has its Strengths and Weaknesses.”
As to the last few sentences, the private sector would never have taken the colossal risk to build it. Same for the highway system, the Louisiana Purchase, government range lands, and the land to build the early railroads . Government builds the slate and the private sector then writes on it. The private sector cannot exist without government, and vice versa.

Me:

I repeat, it wasn’t until the government opened the Internet for private use that pretty much everything people think of as the “Internet” today really happened.

If your example of the Internet, where the government took a relatively small initiative and then stood out of the way of the private sector to see huge growth over and beyond government control, is what you call “socialism” then I’m all for it! Why don’t we try that with health care? But I think those who want more socialism in the US will strongly object to that characterization of it.

And that was the end of it.

In general, government programs, whether we call them socialist or not, whether they’re necessary or not, will exhibit certain negative side-effects. And that’s why government does not scale. Have a little bit of it, and you’ve got a well running society. Have more, and the negative side-effects overtake any intended benefits.

Regardless of whether letting a brutal dictator, who was actively shooting at US Air Force planes (there to prevent a genocide), paying money for suicide bombers, violating UN resolutions, preventing UN inspectors form doing their job, and has killed hundreds of thousands of people in the past, get away scot-free is a good idea or not (and it’s okay which ever way you think here because any war has a cost)…

The war in Iraq is not the reason we’re not spending money on your precious program or cause!

In the decade from 1998 to 2008, annual Federal spending went from 2.1 to 2.8 trillion dollars, in 2008 inflation adjusted dollars. This means an average increase of 0.07 trillion or $70 billion per year over and above inflation. See federal spending chart here.

The total cost of the war in Iraq from March 2001 through August 2009, roughly an 8.5 year span, is $674 billion, or a yearly average of $79 billion. Source: costofwar.com.

This means that every year in the past decade we spent the equivalent of a little less than another Iraq war’s annual budget more than the previous. Quitting Iraq the next day would get us right back where we started in a year and change.

That was the situation until this year. For 2009, Federal spending is due to increase from 2.9 trillion dollars in 2008 to 3.9 trillion! That’s an in crease of one trillion, and is the equivalent of 1.5 times the expenditure on the ENTIRE war in Iraq since 2001, or the equivalent of 12.7 times the average annual spending on the war.

So quit b****ing about the war in Iraq taking away money from *YOUR FAVORITE SOCIAL SPENDING ITEM*. It’s not exactly preventing the government from spending more money, and not spending on the war is not going to balance any Federal budgets any time soon either

I stumbled across that post because it shares a Google search results page for the term “why socialism doesn’t work” with this Web site. Here are some excerpts:

I am sick and tired of reading ignorant people who’ve never read anything Marx or Engels wrote (except possibly the Communist Manifesto) baselessly claim that ’socialism doesn’t work’.

My simple response to people who spout this empty rhetoric is to ask: how do you know?

… and…

So, to those of you on the right wing: okay, fine, keep hating socialism, that’s alright. But if you’re going to be honest and actually read what Marx wrote and then read any history of the Soviet Union, you should all realize that we cannot know that socialism doesn’t work since it’s never been tried in the industrialized world.

Yes, I do have a strong basis for the claim that socialism doesn’t work!

Saying that socialism has never been tried before is like saying that jumping off a 300 foot cliff in the morning, whilst flapping your arms for a soft landing, getting up and heading over for breakfast, has never been tried before.

It’ll be the best breakfast you can ever have. A sublime experience! You should try it! Oh, it’s impossible, it doesn’t work you say? Well, how do you know? Have you ever tried having breakfast after jumping off a 300 foot cliff, whilst flapping your arms for a soft landing?

Similarly, the socialists’ desired notion of a great society based on socialist principles cannot be tried, because it cannot be implemented. Just like death is an outcome of the cliff/breakfast stunt, a brutal regime with a failed economy is the outcome of the attempt of socialism in the Soviet Union.

Any attempt to implement socialism, especially on a grand scale, will run into basic facts of human nature that will prevent it from working out as planned. And then the socialist would say things such as, “it would have totally worked if only people behaved like we told them to.” But people just do not behave like the socialists want them to! They cannot. People work in favor of their own self interest. Even the socialists do! And that’s why, given the power, socialist governments become merely corrupt in some cases and also brutal murderous regimes in others.

To those who say that socialism has never been tried, the notion of socialism that has been “tried” is socialism whose goals have been achieved. And in this respect, they are right. Socialism has never been “tried”. And that’s because socialism is a dead end well before its goals are achieved.

A favorite liberal tactic is to ignore the economic cycle and compare times of recession to an economic pique of the past. This chart from a 1997 Heritage Foundation article illustrates this point about the Reagan years:

We are currently in a recession and families are struggling, but let’s not pretend this is some sort of fundamental failure of capitalism since socialist policies have NEVER abolished the economic cycle anywhere in the world. Oh, wait, that’s not true, under Soviet communism it was like a depression all the time, so not much of an economic cycle there. When the economy is back on the upswing, the middle class will be getting ahead once more, unless Barack Obama manages to do more damage to the free market system that is.

In the following video Drew Carey discusses the tremendous gains in standard of living the middle class has experienced over the past few years and decades: