Socialism is all the rage among leftists these days. Bernie Sanders is always talking about how he wants democratic socialism, which I guess is the type of socialism in which you vote to steal someone else’s property. Also, you have heard how socialism always fails, and the likes of Venezuela is trotted out with a video of persons digging in the back of a garbage truck looking for food. Why does socialism always fail? It’s not as difficult to understand as you might think. You don’t need an economics degree to understand economics. You don’t need a degree of any kind actually. All you need is an understanding of human behavior.
Socialism is anti-freedom and always fails for two primary reasons. First, is that it doesn’t respect personal property in all its forms which destroys personal initiative. Personal property exists in many forms. This includes, but is not limited to tangible, financial, intellectual, and physical labor. Whatever it is that you call yours, is your personal property. Put more specifically, it destroys the desire to create wealth, because If there are no guarantees that what you have created is yours to keep, then what’s the point?
Second, it destroys personal responsibility. If you know the government is going to take care of you, you will have absolutely no motivation to work to take care of yourself. Not being a burden to others is one of the most moral things you can do, but just waiting on that check provided with someone else’s blood, sweat and tears is much easier.
Prosperity doesn’t grow on trees, nor does it spontaneously erupt from nothing. Prosperous societies are created with the free exchange of excess personal property that is created with personal initiative and responsibility, and this improves the lives of everyone. Socialism fails because it halts the free trade of personal property, because there is very little personal property to trade. When free trade stops, prosperity stops. When everything belongs to everybody, nobody is responsible for anything. A society prospers when every person possible is working tirelessly to improve their situation to the maximum degree possible, which will in turn improve the situation of others. It’s just that simple.