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Way back in 1977 when I entered graduate school in political science a popular theory going around then was “convergence theory” which held that industrial socialites and capitalist and socialist societies were converging to become more and more alike and that at some point all societies would metastasize into modern welfare states as liberalization came to the communist countries and capitalist western countries became more socialist in nature. These people have never gone away.

A great myth prepetrated by conservatives in the west is that Reagan, Thatcher and the Pope led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. The reality is that internal changes in the USSR were already ongoing. What really collapsed the “apparatchik party” Soviet Union during the August 1991 putsch was in reality due to those unknown KGB troops who refused to fire on fellow Muscovites. A lesson closely watched by leaders in Beijing who would learn from that experience when their turn came in Tienanmen square and thus imported troops who would gladly fire on Chinese before they cracked down. It was quirks of incidence that collapsed the Soviet Union rather than a concerted effort of the west. Some regimes garnered lessons from it such as China, some did not.

All that occurred in Russia is that the same people who were essentially in charge the day before, were still in charge the day after. What had actually occurred in August of 1991 was simply a change of management The corporation remained the same with new logos and new flags. Socialism was not and will never be defeated as long as there are ignorant saps that believe in the drivel f equality pushed by the “intellectual vanguard”. the great contradiction of collectivist movements is that they require the sacrifice of everyone towards some collective it is always led by individualists.

We need to kill the idea. The mistake of the right is that they have done little to export ideals of liberty or to proselytize them. We must combat the left who expand their movement by converting people to their religion by doing conversions of our own.

That is absolutely true. We should have continued to evangelize liberty. After the Wall fell, there was no specter of Eastern Bloc communism to scare the West back to sanity. Perspective was lost, and 'democracy' is held up as some fundamentally just incorruptible form of government with no potential for tyranny. The concepts of moral authority and constitutional limitation got lost in the shuffle as the demos cheered on centralization of power. Huge red flags should have gone up when GWB started spouting off about the 'kinder, gentler nation' followed by the Clintons with their '3rd Way' nonsense. Instead, the 'social justice' dogma became the guiding principle of western government. Even more sinister is the tendency now toward supranational governing bodies.

The scariest thing is not how tyrannical and rigid the 'Third Way' has become, but just how politically stable it is. As a tool for preserving order at any cost, perpetuating privilege, and stifling dissent it seems unsurpassed.

The worst have indeed gotten on top. If they don't overreach and start killing people by the millions, they look to be there for quite some time. So long as we have bread and circuses, the masses seem prepared to suffer the inevitable slide in personal affluence and liberty that must accompany this form of government.

As for Russia - not Communist anymore. The bottle may still read 'Coke', but the formula has been changed. Authoritarian? Yes. But that power is no longer being thrown around in the name of Marx. More of a 'trains run on time' brand of fascism if anything. Hayek considered this the logical product of a disillusioned collectivist state.