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Rand Paul's comprehensive and chilling "case" should be required reading on every college campus for professors and students alike. Along with today's progressive politicians, notably Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, some professors at both the high school and college levels tout socialism as an ideology whose time has come in America. Senator Paul vividly and sometimes graphically reminds us why this is a terrible idea. He skillfully weaves the story "of an evil well documented yet still somehow enticing…in all its drab and dreary machinelike destruction of individual thought, creativity, and ambition." A current case in point is Venezuela. Once one of the richest countries in South America due to its vast oil reserves and a pricing system that helped the country prosper, Socialists and their cheerleaders often rail against the rich. Once in power, however, they enrich themselves, their families, and their friends. Chavez, for example, diverted billions of dollars in public funds into secret Swiss bank accounts. Fidel Castro "expressed nothing but love and concern for the proletariat while living like a king." Castro shielded his mansions and private island from oppressed and starving Cuban citizens. Paul writes that "today's socialists don't know what socialism means," using as his examples the widely disseminated but mistaken assertion that Nazi Germany WAS NOT socialist (it was) and that the Scandinavian countries today ARE socialist (they are not). While Hitler adopted most socialist tenets, the Nordic countries don't control their means of production nor do they generally have a government-mandated minimum wage. While they are highly-taxed welfare states, their citizens enjoy private property rights and prosperity based on capitalism. Throughout this well-documented work, Paul quotes numerous knowledgeable sources, including editor and author Marian Tupy who stated: "Say what you will about socialism, it always follows a predictable pattern. In an attempt to make something available to everyone, the socialists ensure that it is not available to anyone (except for the politically well-connected.)" Most sobering are the chapters describing the purges under Josef Stalin, Adolph Hitler, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, and others. These despots often replaced less-than-perfect rulers, promising the "manna of socialism and justice" but ultimately providing even worse authoritarianism and barbarism. Paul points out that "the absence of death camps hardly proves that socialism in any form is benign. The degree of violence necessary depends on the degree of state ownership and control." The Case Against Socialism shows the futility of seeking an egalitarian utopia, as socialist regimes throughout history have tried to do with disastrous results. The author notes that today's socialists long for "positive liberty," i.e., the "freedom" to acquire something concrete, such as a car, a house, food, health care, etc. But this begs the question: "Can man really discover self-worth in the command economy of Venezuela or the autocracy of Cuba?" The answer is "of course not." The question then is whether enough Americans remain to put their faith in individual liberty and responsibility, to resist the temptation of the "free stuff" that socialism offers. Time will tell. Broadside Books, 2019, $28.99 (An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers) |
Venezuela was completely ravaged in less than two decades by government controls, hyperinflation, overspending, and debt. Its socialist leaders, Hugo Chavez followed by Nicolas Maduro, were praised by Hollywood's Sean Penn and other celebrities, even while their citizens were rummaging in garbage cans and eating their pets. An article in the New York Times described how "gloves and soap" had vanished from some hospitals there, and that life-saving drugs were only available on the black market. In contrast, Paul describes how Chile, after abandoning its "flirtation with socialism back in 1973," increased its citizens' incomes "by 228 percent."
