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Why Socialism Is the Failed Idea That Never Dies
www.intellectualtakeout.org
3 Sep 2020 ~~ By Dr. Rainer Zitelmann
What would you say to an amateur chef who baked a cake following a certain recipe only for everyone who ate a slice to fall ill quickly afterward? Being such an enthusiastic baker, they bake the same cake a second time just a few weeks later, again following the same recipe, but this time with one or two slight adjustments. Unfortunately, the result is the same – everyone who eats the cake soon ends up feeling sick.
The cake baker repeats this more than two dozen times, always modifying the recipe a little, but the basic ingredients remain more or less the same despite the fact that their guests throw up every time. Of course, there’s no way such a thing would happen. The cake baker would soon realize that there is a major problem with the recipe and throw it away.
More Than Two Dozen Failed Experiments
Yet this is exactly what socialists have done:
[Snip]
When the Experiment Fails: “That Was Never True Socialism”
In his thorough historical analysis, Niemietz shows every socialist experiment to date has gone through three phases.
During the first phase, the honeymoon period (p. 56), intellectuals around the world are enthusiastic about the system and praise it to the heavens. This enthusiasm is always followed by a second phase, disillusionment, or as Niemietz calls it, “the excuses-and-whataboutery period.” (p. 57) During this phase, intellectuals still defend the system and its “achievements” but withdraw their uncritical support and begin to admit deficiencies, although these are often presented as the result of capitalist saboteurs, foreign forces, or boycotts by US imperialists.
Finally, the third phase sees intellectuals deny that it was ever truly a form of socialism, the not-real-socialism stage. (p. 57) This is the stage at which intellectuals line up to state that the country in question – for example, the Soviet Union, China, or Venezuela – was never really a socialist country. According to Niemietz, however, this line of argumentation is rarely presented during the first phase of a new socialist experiment and becomes the dominant view only after the socialist experiment has failed.
Nowadays, Western socialists do not even attempt to oppose real-world capitalism with historical examples of socialism. Instead, they put forward arguments based on the vague utopia of a “just” society. Sometimes, they cite “Nordic socialism” – i.e. the variant of socialism that emerged in countries like Sweden – as an example, although they completely forget that the Nordic countries, having learned from their failed socialist experiments of the 1970s, have long since abandoned the socialist path. Today – despite having higher taxes – they are no less capitalist than, for example, the United States.
Socialists who criticize Stalinism and other forms of real-world, historical socialism always fail to analyze the economic reasons for the failures of these systems. (p. 28) Their analyses attack the paucity of democratic rights and freedoms in these systems, but the alternatives they formulate are based on a vague vision of all-encompassing “democratization of the economy” or “worker control.” Niemietz shows that these are the exact same principles that initially underpinned the failed socialist systems in the Soviet Union and other countries.
In his Lectures on the Philosophy of History, the German philosopher Hegel observed,
Comment:
The Marxists say religion is the opiate of the masses but the truth is that socialism, in all its forms, is a far superior opiate for the masses and elites alike.
It gives salvationist zeal and self righteousness with none of that messy repentance guff that so turns off the world.
Marxist Socialism dictates that the people deserve what they didn’t earn and they are due it from the State.
Marxist Socialism tells the elites that they can do as they please as the great and the good, have limitless power to indulge their pride and ego.
It's the modern version of bread and circuses of the Roman era.
Marxist Socialist Communism is a combination of naivete on the part of the followers and something in human nature that makes people long for Utopia here on Earth. Falsely inculcated by unscrupulous people who take advantage of these longings and desires. Finally, It's a lack of education or indoctrination of the young by those who should know better on the evils and shortcomings of Marxist Socialism.
Why Socialism Is the Failed Idea That Never Dies
Socialism has been tried again and again, with varying degrees of failure every time Nobody ever seems to learn
www.intellectualtakeout.org
What would you say to an amateur chef who baked a cake following a certain recipe only for everyone who ate a slice to fall ill quickly afterward? Being such an enthusiastic baker, they bake the same cake a second time just a few weeks later, again following the same recipe, but this time with one or two slight adjustments. Unfortunately, the result is the same – everyone who eats the cake soon ends up feeling sick.
The cake baker repeats this more than two dozen times, always modifying the recipe a little, but the basic ingredients remain more or less the same despite the fact that their guests throw up every time. Of course, there’s no way such a thing would happen. The cake baker would soon realize that there is a major problem with the recipe and throw it away.
More Than Two Dozen Failed Experiments
Yet this is exactly what socialists have done:
Over the past hundred years, there have been more than two dozen attempts to build a socialist society. It has been tried in the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Albania, Poland, Vietnam, Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia, North Korea, Hungary, China, East Germany, Cuba, Tanzania, Benin, Laos, Algeria, South Yemen, Somalia, the Congo, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Mozambique, Angola, Nicaragua and Venezuela, among others. All of these attempts have ended in varying degrees of failure. How can an idea, which has failed so many times, in so many different variants and so many radically different settings, still be so popular? (p. 21)
This is the central question asked by this extremely important book from economist Kristian Niemietz, who works at the London Institute for Economic Affairs. He manages to provide the answer to his question in one sentence: It is because socialists have successfully managed to distance themselves from those examples. (p. 55)
As soon as you confront socialists with examples of failed experiments, they always offer the following response: “These examples don’t prove anything at all! In fact, none of these are true socialist models.” During the “heyday” of most of these socialist experiments, however, intellectuals held quite a different view, as Niemietz illustrates with many examples.[Snip]
When the Experiment Fails: “That Was Never True Socialism”
In his thorough historical analysis, Niemietz shows every socialist experiment to date has gone through three phases.
During the first phase, the honeymoon period (p. 56), intellectuals around the world are enthusiastic about the system and praise it to the heavens. This enthusiasm is always followed by a second phase, disillusionment, or as Niemietz calls it, “the excuses-and-whataboutery period.” (p. 57) During this phase, intellectuals still defend the system and its “achievements” but withdraw their uncritical support and begin to admit deficiencies, although these are often presented as the result of capitalist saboteurs, foreign forces, or boycotts by US imperialists.
Finally, the third phase sees intellectuals deny that it was ever truly a form of socialism, the not-real-socialism stage. (p. 57) This is the stage at which intellectuals line up to state that the country in question – for example, the Soviet Union, China, or Venezuela – was never really a socialist country. According to Niemietz, however, this line of argumentation is rarely presented during the first phase of a new socialist experiment and becomes the dominant view only after the socialist experiment has failed.
Nowadays, Western socialists do not even attempt to oppose real-world capitalism with historical examples of socialism. Instead, they put forward arguments based on the vague utopia of a “just” society. Sometimes, they cite “Nordic socialism” – i.e. the variant of socialism that emerged in countries like Sweden – as an example, although they completely forget that the Nordic countries, having learned from their failed socialist experiments of the 1970s, have long since abandoned the socialist path. Today – despite having higher taxes – they are no less capitalist than, for example, the United States.
Socialists who criticize Stalinism and other forms of real-world, historical socialism always fail to analyze the economic reasons for the failures of these systems. (p. 28) Their analyses attack the paucity of democratic rights and freedoms in these systems, but the alternatives they formulate are based on a vague vision of all-encompassing “democratization of the economy” or “worker control.” Niemietz shows that these are the exact same principles that initially underpinned the failed socialist systems in the Soviet Union and other countries.
When contemporary socialists talk about a non-autocratic, non-authoritarian, participatory and humanitarian version of socialism, they are not as original as they think they are. That was always the idea. This is what socialists have always said. It is not for a lack of trying that it has never turned out that way. (p. 42)
[Snip]In his Lectures on the Philosophy of History, the German philosopher Hegel observed,
But what experience and history teach is this, – that peoples and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.
It could well be that Hegel’s verdict is too harsh. Nevertheless, it does seem that the majority of people are unable to abstract and draw general conclusions from historical experience. Despite the numerous examples of capitalist economic policies leading to greater prosperity – and the failure of every single variant of socialism that has ever been tested under real-world conditions – many people still seem incapable of learning the most obvious lessons.Comment:
The Marxists say religion is the opiate of the masses but the truth is that socialism, in all its forms, is a far superior opiate for the masses and elites alike.
It gives salvationist zeal and self righteousness with none of that messy repentance guff that so turns off the world.
Marxist Socialism dictates that the people deserve what they didn’t earn and they are due it from the State.
Marxist Socialism tells the elites that they can do as they please as the great and the good, have limitless power to indulge their pride and ego.
It's the modern version of bread and circuses of the Roman era.
Marxist Socialist Communism is a combination of naivete on the part of the followers and something in human nature that makes people long for Utopia here on Earth. Falsely inculcated by unscrupulous people who take advantage of these longings and desires. Finally, It's a lack of education or indoctrination of the young by those who should know better on the evils and shortcomings of Marxist Socialism.
