In November, the U.S. has its “midterm” election, which features voting for some Senate seats, some governorships and all the seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.
It’s a “midterm” because it comes halfway through the first term of President Donald Trump.
There are a number of interesting angles to this election, but the one that fascinates me the most is the rise of the “far-left socialists” within the Democratic Party.
Since its founding, the U.S. has been a free enterprise, capitalist economy, and this economic philosophy has paid huge rewards of wealth to the American nation.
However, a number of Democratic candidates have adopted a socialistic platform, and are running as “democratic socialists.” While older Democrats are still capitalists, many younger Democratic candidates are singing from the socialist song sheet.
Any study of socialism needs to begin with an explanation of the policy by former British prime minister Winston Churchill, who explained the differences in this quote: “Capitalism is the unequal sharing of wealth; socialism is the equal sharing of poverty.”
Of course, socialism is not a new theory – it’s been around for centuries, and has been tried in countless nations, including Russia, China, most of Eastern Europe, and virtually every nation in Africa. In every case, the socialistic experiment ended up being a disaster, and every nation we study shows that socialism eventually collapsed.
In turn, the socialist leadership was replaced by capitalistic leaders, or political tyrants, or even the odd powerful theocracy (religious leadership). When we rank overall productivity, the highest ranked socialistic state only reaches position 38 on the national chart – 37 capitalistic economies beat them out.
While some will argue that China has been a success, the reality is that China has totally converted to a free enterprise model – while still maintaining the “aura” of being a communist nation. Recent examples of socialistic failures include Venezuela, North Korea, and, apparently, California.
For years, California was ranked as the wealthiest state in the United States, but since adopting a socialist mindset under Gov. Jerry Brown, California is now rated as the poorest state in the Union, eclipsing such perennial losers like Mississippi, Arkansas, West Virginia and Louisiana. Yet, despite a track record of having 72 nations try socialism, and 72 national failures, the democratic socialists would have us all believe that “their” socialism will work just fine. It won’t work, and California proved the argument, and in record time.
Of course, as Canadians, we are very familiar with socialism, as we have had decades of NDP propaganda mixed in with socialistic drivel from the federal Liberals.
Each year, more socialistic rules and laws get enforced in Canada. As Canada’s overall wealth, productivity and employee satisfaction has been declining for decades, it should be surprising that so many of our political leaders still think the solution lies in imposing more socialistic hogwash. On the other hand, no one has ever suggested that our political leaders are smart.
Brian McLeod is a St. Albert resident.
