Socialism

Don’t RIP, Karl

Featured image Via InstaPundit, I learn that Karl Marx died on this day in 1883. I concur with Glenn Reynolds’ suggestion that March 14 should therefore be a holiday: Marx performed the difficult feat of being wrong about everything. Most people are right about some things and wrong about others; the law of averages sets in. But if you are an ideologue, like Marx, and if your ideology is stupid, you can »

How Poor Can Venezuela Get?

Featured image We haven’t checked in on Venezuela for a while. Formerly one of the world’s richest countries, Venezuela has become destitute since it was taken over by socialists Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro. The country has gone downhill in an ever-worsening spiral of poverty and dysfunction. Things have gotten so bad that American liberals no longer hold up Venezuela as an example of “real socialism.” The London Times reports: [T]his is »

Are Our Elites Crazy?

Featured image Pollster Scott Rasmussen conducted two separate surveys, each covering 1,000 “Members of the Elites.” The results are remarkable, not to say shocking. But the starting point is, who was defined as “elite” for purposes of these surveys? The Elites are defined as those having a postgraduate degree, a household income of more than $150,000 annually, and living in a zip code with more than 10,000 people per square mile. Approximately »

Annals of Government Medicine

Featured image Britain’s National Health Service is a product of the socialist wave that overtook the U.K. following World War II. It has long been held up as an exemplar by those who seek to impose socialized medicine in other countries, like ours. But today, the state of the NHS is dire. The Wall Street Journal headlines: “The U.K.’s Government-Run Healthcare Service Is in Crisis.” Now the state-funded service is falling apart. »

Living Without Electricity

Featured image No doubt you have heard the joke: what did socialists use for lighting before candles? Electricity. But it is literal fact if you live in the socialist paradise of Cuba: The communist Castro regime in Cuba aired a new set of propaganda pieces through its media apparatus this week claiming Cuban citizens are “content” with daily power blackouts and offering tips to make the most out of the three hours »

In Cuba, Bread Lines But No Bread

Featured image It has been a while since we checked in on Fidel’s socialist paradise. You might think that an utterly failed and discredited regime would inevitably be overthrown, but that hasn’t happened, at least not yet. (See also Venezuela.) Meanwhile, when you think things can’t get worse, the decline continues. Babalublog reports: “After Milk and Beef, Bread Disappears from the Cuban Table.” From the balcony, Yudineya watched dozens of bread and »

Annals of Government Dentistry

Featured image Socialized medicine has long been a chief goal of the Democratic Party, but it is hard to understand why anyone would voluntarily entrust his family’s health care to the tender mercies of any government, even the most benign. We have tracked the United Kingdom’s experience with socialized medicine in our “Annals of Government Medicine” series, and I wrote here about the current crisis in British dentistry: nine out of ten »

The Evils of Socialized Medicine

Featured image Bernie Sanders wants to bring socialized medicine to the U.S. To be fair to Bernie, though, that is probably the position of nearly every Democrat. As a reminder of why socialized medicine (like socialism generally) is one of the worst ideas in world history, here are two stories that happen to be in the news in the U.K. today. First, former Secretary of Health Jeremy Hunt is blowing the whistle »

The Unbearable Lightness of Bernie

Featured image This is the third in a series of essays by David Horowitz on the progressive mind. The first essay is Understanding the Progressive Mind, the second is Progressivism as Criminal Enterprise. Bernie Sanders is the founder of the Progressive Caucus and most popular figure in the Democrat Party. He is also the Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, and therefore a key player in determining how Washington decides to spend »

Imagine Communism

Featured image The Babylon Bee made this video that parodies one of popular music’s more detestable songs. This version is much better: “Imagine Communism.” Via InstaPundit. »

Socialism and Free Enterprise On Trial

Featured image I didn’t know that there is an election going on in Chile. But there is, and observers say that the Left is favored to retake control of that country, which has seen unprecedented prosperity since it adopted free enterprise policies beginning in the 1980s. Dan Mitchell has the story. Most notable is this animation, which shows the opposite paths taken in recent decades by Chile and Venezuela, formerly one of »

Move Over Julia—Here Comes Linda!

Featured image Anyone remember the Obama Administration’s lugubrious “Life of Julia” slide show video, promoting their cradle-to-grave socialist vision for a single American woman? It seems to have been scrubbed from the internet, but my favorite part was the segment where Julia “decided to have a child,” with no mention then or after of a thing called a “father.” It seemed to be spontaneous procreation! Well, now the Biden Administration has come »

Bread Lines Are Awesome!

Featured image I am so old, I remember when socialists claimed that people would be better off under socialism. What’s weird is not that historical experience has forced socialists to abandon the pretense that socialism is beneficial to anyone outside their ruling elite, but rather, that socialism still exists. A case in point, from a leftist named Carl Beijer: The Left is literally rooting for Biden Breadlines. Also, as someone whose mother »

Venezuela Downsizes the Bolivar. Don’t Tell Bernie

Featured image It has been a while since we have checked in on the socialist disaster of Venezuela. For a while it looked as though Maduro’s criminal gang might be driven from office, but the threat has passed and instead, millions of Venezuelans have simply left. Now that country’s socialist government has announced that it is devaluing its currency by (if my arithmetic is correct) one million times: Venezuela on Friday launched »

Slow Learners on the Left

Featured image It appears even Venezuelan socialists can figure it out sooner or later: Venezuela Backs Away From Price Controls as Citizens Go Hungry CARACAS, Venezuela—President Nicolás Maduro’s government has begun dismantling price controls, a major policy shift that aims to ease widespread unrest by letting shops sell food at market prices but is worsening Venezuela’s already punishing inflation. . . “Before there was nothing; now there’s everything,” said Jesús Barrios, 36, »

Everything Old Is New Again

Featured image As everyone knows, socialism is back big (except in nations that have had it already, like Cuba, Venezuela, California, Seattle, etc). So it is not surprising to see headlines like this: For sustainable finance to work, we will need central planning The holy grail of sustainable finance is figuring out how to distinguish sustainable from unsustainable investments. Get this right, and the public and private sectors have a guide to »

Will Cuba Finally Be Free?

Featured image Earlier today, demonstrations against Cuba’s Communist dictatorship broke out across the island. The New York Times, long an apologist for Castro’s tyranny, acknowledges the current reality: Shouting “Freedom” and other anti-government slogans, hundreds of Cubans took to the streets in cities around the country on Sunday to protest food and medicine shortages, in a remarkable eruption of discontent not seen in nearly 30 years. Heh. Yes, “Freedom” is an anti-government »