Socialism is in style!
A Pew study stories that greater than a 3rd of American adults view it positively.
How is that this attainable?
Little has introduced extra distress—first within the Soviet Union, then in China, Cuba, Nicaragua, now Venezuela.
One cause younger folks help socialism is as a result of their social media feeds present movies made by in style however economically illiterate folks.
TikTok star Madeline Pendleton has 1.6 million subscribers. My new video reveals her telling them: “Socialism is working higher than capitalism 93 p.c of the time!”
The place does she get 93 p.c?
From a examine revealed in 1986 by self-described Marxists within the Journal of Well being Companies.
The authors conveniently ignore the US and different rich international locations and evaluate socialist economies to “capitalist” international locations like Uganda, Rwanda, and Somalia, a few of which had been at conflict.
It is so silly. However based mostly on that, Pendleton tells her followers, “We’ve all the info displaying that socialism does work.”
She additionally celebrates communism due to its “elevated life expectancy.”
That is nonsense, too. Folks reside longest in capitalist international locations like Japan (85 years) and South Korea (84 years). Even in the US (79 years), the place extra of us die younger as a result of we drive extra (automobile accidents), eat extra, shoot one another extra typically, and check out extra harmful medication, we nonetheless reside longer than folks in China (78 years).
Socialism can be superior, says Pendleton, due to “the 90-One hundred pc house possession charges.”
“A hundred percent,” after all, is simply dumb, however China (for those who consider the celebration’s statistics) does have 90 p.c homeownership.
However not beneath socialism! They achieved that solely after privatizing city housing. Earlier than 1998, when Chinese language housing was nonetheless socialist, simply 20 p.c of Chinese language folks owned houses.
A number of social media stars rave about China. “Socialism labored in China!” says TikToker Dante Munoz. “They lifted over 800 million folks from poverty.”
Once more, it is true that within the final 50 years, China’s gross home product (GDP) went from $156 per capita to greater than $12,000. However that solely occurred after China gave up on actual socialism and began embracing markets. Hong Kong, which adopted precise capitalism, raised per capita GDP to $50,000.
Earlier than China reformed, hundreds of thousands of individuals died of hunger.
One other foolish social media star, J.T. Chapman, tells his virtually 2 million YouTube subscribers: “The central concept that unites all socialists is maximizing freedom…democratization of energy.”
Democratization? In most socialist international locations, there’s just one political celebration.
A preferred TikToker calling himself Rathbone tells his hundred thousand subscribers: “capitalism…prioritizes earnings over folks…[but] socialism…prioritizes folks over earnings.”
Likewise, Chapman says socialism provides the “assured proper to…well being care, meals, and shelter.”
Effectively, after all socialism guarantees these issues and claims to prioritize folks over earnings, however what folks really get is completely different.
As Cuban medical doctors put it on this video, “The Cuban well being care system is destroyed….Persons are dying within the hallways.”
But Chapman claims, “Innovation can flourish even when persons are not motivated by revenue. The USSR gave the world the anthrax vaccine, synthetic satellites, and one of many earliest cell phones.”
That’s true. However nobody makes use of these telephones immediately. Capitalism simply creates far more.
Lastly, Chapman says, “Possession ought to be collective.”
Collective possession does really feel good. “We’ll share every thing!”
However each try at collective possession has failed.
One well-known American instance: 200 years in the past, New Concord, Indiana, abolished personal property, promising a “group of equality.”
The consequence was famine.
When folks realized they might obtain simply as a lot barely working as they might working laborious, many, naturally, labored much less. Inside a 12 months, the commune experiment failed and property was returned to personal fingers.
What do these in style social media stars say after I confront them with these inconvenient truths? Sadly, I do not know. Not one would seem on Stossel TV to debate.
The underside line: Incentives matter. Nobody washes a rental automobile. Few folks care a lot about what belongs to everybody. It is simply human nature.
Capitalism is not excellent, but when we would like a greater future, and freedom, capitalism is the one factor that works.
COPYRIGHT 2025 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS INC.
