A word from Garry Kasparov

Former citizen of the Soviet Union and world chess champion Garry Kasparov tries to remind the voting public of the reality of the “socialism” that Bernie Sanders seeks to make all the rage in “Hey, Bernie, Don’t Lecture Me About Socialism. I Lived Through It.” Acknowledging that Sanders “believes deeply in what he is saying, which is more than what can be said about nearly every other 2016 candidate, or about politicians in general,” Kasparov writes:

A society that relies too heavily on redistributing wealth eventually runs out of wealth to redistribute. The historical record is clear. It’s capitalism that brought billions of people out of poverty in the 20th century. It’s socialism that enslaved them and impoverished them. Of course Senator Sanders does not want to turn America into a totalitarian state like the one I grew up in. But it’s a valuable example of the inevitable failure of a state-run economy and distribution system. (Check in on Venezuela for a more recent example.) Once you give power to the government it is nearly impossible to get it back, and it will be used in ways you cannot expect.

While waiting for the primary results today, readers may want to take a moment to ponder Kasparov’s wisdom.

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