Counterpoint- Socialism Ruins Countries

As a counterpoint to my last post, I am not saying politics don’t matter.  They do.  Read this heartbreaking story of the collapse of Venezuela.  And it is socialism that has killed them.

But politics is always downstream from other things.  The good of the society will always depend more on the way people as a whole think and act.  Venezuela stole people’s property back in the ’70s, and kept doing it for years.  People thought they could get something for nothing.  Now they are paying the price, and how.  And it would be nothing but racism to think that such a thing could never happen here.  We’re going down the very same road.

Sweden Proves Socialism Cannot Work in the Long Run Even Under Optimal Conditions

This report by an American living in Sweden (seen first on Ace of Spades) well supports my thesis that socialism can work for a time, if the population is small, homogenous and hard-working.  If people are naturally industrious and minded to look out for each other, then the free-rider problem isn’t so severe.  But the problem is, socialism works to undermine the very characteristics that make it work in the first place- it attracts malingerers, discourages thrift and responsibility, and causes its own collapse.  Immigrants come in to take advantage of the free welfare, or if immigration is somehow restricted, their own children grow up not learning the value of hard work.  Ultimately group loyalty becomes completely undermined, more and more people free-ride, and eventually math wins, as it always does.