Socialist Realities
The flaws of socialism are somewhat hidden in countries that enacted socialism after they were wealthy, but in countries that instituted it when they were poor, the trends are clear.
With much of the world adopting socialism in some form, it can be difficult to generalize about what socialism actually is. Socialist countries such as Sweden, Sri Lanka, and North Korea are worlds apart, featuring very different climates, cultures, and standards of living. The reason for this illusion of diversity is that the starting point for socialism is so different from one country to the next. Some countries adopt socialism after having amassed a lot of wealth via the free market, while others adopt socialism in the hopes that it will somehow lift them out of longstanding poverty and degraded standards of living. For some, socialism is imposed suddenly and violently, as with Soviet Russia and Communist China. For others, it makes its appearance incrementally, over several generations, corroding wealth and social mores so gradually that many fail to notice its encroachments. Finally, its effects are harder to sort out in countries, such as China, where the culture is predisposed toward collectivism.
Generalizations invite criticism based on the odd exception that humanity, with its endless inventiveness, can always provide. For example, it is widely claimed that socialism, practiced judiciously, can lead to the same standard of living enjoyed by certain northern European countries, such as Sweden and Denmark. But northwestern European countries enjoy an advantage not shared by other parts of the world, namely, that they amassed large amounts of wealth and attained great prosperity as a result of several centuries of comparative liberty and the economic and technological growth that it spurred. And socialism is just as costly in Denmark as in Laos, but the difference is that — for now — Danes have the assets to pay the massive tax rates needed to sustain all of the “free” benefits of socialism.
This author has lived in a number of socialist countries, ranging from democratic socialism in Spain and Peronist socialism in Argentina, to Third World socialism in India and Sri Lanka, and even the communist dictatorship of the People’s Republic of China. Some of these countries have found ways to offset some of the ravages of socialism: Spain enjoys membership in the EU and, like other “Club Med” countries, has received considerable largess from more prosperous countries elsewhere in the bloc, especially Germany. China has encouraged massive foreign investment, has loosened the reins considerably on domestic entrepreneurship, and has learned how to manipulate supplies of foreign currency and balances of trade to gain competitive advantage, all of which have resulted in spectacular growth in recent years. But in all of these cases, the realities of socialism become apparent eventually to those who actually live in such countries.
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