See the Socialistic Future

May 5, 2011 05:06


There is no other social organization that has been so destructive and lethal. Arguments have destroyed it both theoretically and empirically, yet like a vampire, it seems impossible to kill.

From Monty Pelerin’s World

Socialism lives and continues to grow. Now you can see its future (and yours) as clearly as one gentleman did in 1893!

There is no other social organization that has been so destructive and lethal. Arguments have destroyed it both theoretically and empirically, yet like a vampire, it seems impossible to kill. Its appeal is so strong that people willingly abandon both logic and history to flock to its false premises and promises. Remarkably, it has never worked anywhere.

The formula for Socialism is simple and virtually always the same. So are the results. As expressed by Art Carden at Mises.org:

Socialists have generally tried to do two things: dethrone and kill God so that The People or The State might be exalted, and repeal the laws of economics. They seized the opportunity in the 20th century, denouncing God as the “opiate of the masses” and denouncing the laws of economics as peculiar and historically unique artifacts of the particular conditions of production under capitalism. They denounced both as the inventions of flunky apologists for the bourgeoisie. In the 20th century, socialists (and statists of less extreme varieties) got a chance to implement their vision and left a pile of corpses some 260 million bodies deep.

Its rise to prominence as a social organization served to make the 20th Century the bloodiest, by far, in history. The US, once arguably the paradigm of freedom and prosperity, has now fallen for this vampire’s siren song and moves down this path to ruin. Freedom and prosperity have already been seriously compromised with much worse to come if America’s course is not reversed.

The death and impoverishment that results from Socialism was seen long before its mass implementation. A remarkable book was written in 1893 entitled Pictures of the Socialistic Future. Its author, Eugene Richter, foresaw with great clarity the outcomes that would result.

In his review of the book, Carden describes it thusly:

Pictures of the Socialistic Future is presented as a diary by a supporter of the socialist revolution in Germany who eventually comes to see the horrors he has wrought. He is arrogant from the beginning, applauding expropriation, approving of the use of force to prevent emigration, assenting to the reassignment of people to new tasks, and assuring doubters that paradise is just around the corner. Society declines along a series of predictable margins as shortages develop, the remaining wealth from capitalist civilization erodes, and both the military and the police force grow ominously from chapter to chapter.

You might want to read Carden’s review, or better yet, the book itself. It is available free on-line or from Mises.org.



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