A recent Fox News article reports that Millennials and Gen Z-ers are becoming increasingly comfortable with socialism. This is according to the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC), an organization that conducts a poll gauging Americans' attitudes toward socialism. The article revealed, “More young Americans are unaware that some 100 million people have been killed by communist parties in power over the last century, and many are unaware that the Chinese Communist Party is responsible for more deaths than Nazi Germany, according to the VOC.” The article mentions how Venezuela has turned from a market economy -- and a very prosperous economy at that -- into a humanitarian disaster through democratic socialism.
In their new book “Socialism Sucks, Two Economists Drink Their Way Through the Unfree World” authors Robert Lawson and Benjamin Powell detail their recent visit to Venezuela. They also toured Cuba, Sweden (not socialism), China, and ventured close to the border of North Korea.
Lawson is an economics professor at Southern Methodist University (SMU) and Powell is a professor of economics at Texas Tech University. These two friends contend that “Most people seem somehow to have missed Economics 101 and don’t understand that socialism isn't a nice, cuddly government that takes care of everything for you so that you can remain an adolescent forever. No, we’ve seen it tried over and over again with catastrophic consequences.”
To prove their point, Lawson and Powell decided to visit countries that practice socialism and write a “truthful accounting of our travels, and [include] our excessive drinking.” They also wrote the book because “too many people seem to be dangerously ignorant of what socialism is, how it functions, and its historical track record.”
One common experience the authors share is how hard it is to find good beer—or sometimes any beer at all—in socialist countries. One of their most vivid trips was to socialist Venezuela. They do an admirable job of explaining how the country went from being the toast of liberals everywhere to being just toast. Sadly, their visit to this once-prosperous country introduced them to desperate Venezuela women who sell their hair for about $20, enough to provide food on the table for a month.
They also witnessed middle-class and upper-class Venezuelans toting suitcases stuffed full of cash into Columbia, only to return home with scant supplies including car tires, diapers and sugar. Inflation is so bad in Venezuela that the authors exchanged a $20 bill (US) for a foot-high stack of large denomination Venezuelan currency.
Lawson and Powell say the collapse of the economy in Venezuela is largely due to attempts at price control, seizure of private property by the government, and strict controls on imports and exports. They also report that beer is mostly unavailable in Venezuela because the government won’t let brewers import essential ingredients.
The authors then tour Cuba, where there are some restaurants, but menus are essentially identical and bland (no spices, seasonings, thanks to government embargos). The government-run hotels are worse than most low-budget motels in the US. They say the beer is bland and of very low quality. And, automobiles are expensive, even for moderately functional units from the 1950’s.
This is an excellent read, though some of the language is PG-13. Socialism Sucks is a brilliant approach to get some people, especially American socialists who have no idea what socialism really is, to understand why socialism really isn’t a good thing for anyone except those at the center of power.
Sources Cited
Millennials, Gen Z increasingly comfortable with socialism, Marxism, activists say
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/millenials-gen-z-socialism-marxism
Socialism Sucks, Two Economists Drink Their Way Through the Unfree World
by Robert Lawson and Benjamin Powell, Regnery Publishing, Washington, CD, 2019
