Workers Paradise
For most of the last hundred years, a politician labeling himself or herself a socialist was committing the political equivalent of suicide. But times have changed, and how! The hottest ticket on today’s fundraising circuit is the Bernie/Alexandria show. Their socialism is loud and proud. If Hillary/Debbie/Donna hadn’t had their thumbs all over the scale, Bernie might well have been the Democratic nominee in 2016. It is quite possible that the Baby Boom Echo and their offspring may vote socialist. Mostly, they didn’t work to make spending money or put themselves thru college. They like free stuff. What’s not to like about Medicare-For-All, free college and a guaranteed minimum income?
Before casting that vote, it might be useful to look at the history of socialism in action. I realize that the study of history is passe. Colleges no longer require it. There is, however, a lot of non-technical (not too many footnotes) literature that can provide the basics.
Aside from a few small utopian experiments, the first instance of a socialist regime I know of is the Zionist agricultural communities in what was to become Israel. When the nation of Israel was established, socialism was the underlying rationale. In the last 40 years, the socialist ideal has withered. Little of the original ethos remains. Israel is one of the most entrepreneurial and capitalist places on earth.
The first socialist experiment at the nation-state level was Soviet Russia. Lenin began, and Stalin finished, the process of the central government seizing every sector of the economy. In the process, tens of millions were starved, shot, tortured to death, or worked to death in gulags. The whole house of cards collapsed in the 1990s. It was a bankruptcy writ large.
Russia imposed its socialist system on the European nations it occupied in 1945. All of them abandoned the system within minutes of the collapse of the Soviet empire.
China was the next big player. Mao followed Stalin’s footprints, with the same results. He killed even more of his citizens in the process. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the Chinese elite rapidly shifted its system to a mixture of state sponsored capitalism and market capitalism under the watchful eye of the Party. The socialist goal has been set aside in service of a larger goal — survival of the elite. Vietnam, no lover of China, followed almost exactly the same path in the ‘90s.
Today, three Communist regimes remain — Venezuela, North Korea and Cuba. Two are easily summarized. Venezuela is exporting population at a rapid rate and nearing economic collapse. North Korea is a hell hole.
The Cuban propaganda machine has convinced a majority of the world’s great and good that it is a noble experiment. Free medical care for all. No class distinctions. The tourist guides (all of whom are government employees pretending not to be) sell this story relentlessly and effectively. Cuba would be a paradise but for the Ugly American boycott. The reality is quite different. You can see a doctor for nothing; diagnosis and medicine will cost you. There is a vicious class system based on skin color and party membership. Aside from the party elite, everybody has a second job in the underground economy in order to survive. The economy was kept afloat by Russia’s purchase of sugar at artificial prices, then Venezuelan oil, and now gullible tourists.
But . . . I can hear you screaming . . . WHAT ABOUT SCANDINAVIA? Four small nations with homogeneous, well educated and very law abiding populations seem to have achieved the socialist dream — classless societies with cradle to grave support.
About three of them, I know little. Denmark seems to be less socialist than the others. Finland has a major entrepreneurial class and seems to be developing along Israeli lines. Sweden has rather dramatically cut back welfare benefits due to financial constraints, and radically lowered its corporate taxes.
About Norway, I know more. It is, indeed, a successful socialist economy. Cradle to grave support. High quality medical care that is free to all. Hotel cleaners make the equivalent of $20/hr. The down side is that tax rates are very high and the heavily regulated economy produces monopoly profits (which are heavily taxed). The $20 (before taxes) the cleaner earns doesn’t buy much. Twelve years ago, I bought pizza and coke for 8 at Pizza Hut in Oslo. The bill was $150, before gratuity.
The overlooked factor is that everybody over two feet tall in Norway knows that the party is over as soon as the oil runs out. Norway’s state owned oil company produces the revenue that keeps the socialist experiment afloat. It has a massive off-shore platform armada. In an attempt to prepare for the day when the wells run dry, it funds one of the largest sovereign wealth funds on earth. It has also branched out to buy reserves and drill around the world. In a very real sense, Norway is not a country, it is an oil company with a strong balance sheet and generous dividends.
We could make socialism work in the same way in America. If we used public lands aggressively to grow trees for lumber production, drilled everywhere suitable for oil production (including ANWAR and off shore) and dug up all our exploitable minerals, we could fund Medicare-For-All, free college, and maybe even a guaranteed income. I’m not sure that Bernie and Alexandria would want to go that route. Other that that, I can’t think of a way to pay the bill. You can seize the wealth of the one percent, but that only buys you a year or two. Once you seize their money, there is no incentive for them to produce more.
My point being that no socialist system seems to have been able to operate without an external means of support. The math of socialism simply doesn’t work. You can’t give away wealth until you find a way to create it. That is the reason that today’s socialists assiduously avoid talking about how their ideas will be funded.
