Posted on 10/05/2020 5:46:17 AM PDT by SJackson
A new book paints a sobering picture of the future for young fans of socialism.
Socialism is all the rage among young Americans these days. Not the kind of socialism that has never worked anywhere in history. Not the kind that drove Venezuela from South America’s most prosperous economy into a failed state in a mere two decades. Not the kind that wreaked essentially the same havoc upon once-thriving Cuba. Not those real-world examples, but the new-and-improved, democratic socialism, which, as MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle recently assured viewers, is “a lot different” from those other forms of socialism.
Those young Americans who are enamored of such icons of democratic socialism as lifelong communist Sen. Bernie Sanders and economics-challenged, radical Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez desperately need to read Paul H. Rubin’s short but vital book A Student’s Guide to Socialism: How It Will Trash Your Lives, a joint publication of the David Horowitz Freedom Center and Bombardier Books, an imprint of Post Hill Press.
As the title indicates, the book is aimed at young readers and is thus a quick, easy read, tailored to their tragically short attention spans and tenuous grasp of economics. Its purpose is not simply to rehash abstract, theoretical points of contrast between socialism and capitalism, but to explain to those uninformed (or misinformed) young people exactly how socialism would impact them and affect their future if it were actually to be adopted here in the United States, as polls indicate an alarming percentage of young people would prefer. Put simply, it answers the question, “What will my life be like if I live under socialism?”
Mr. Rubin is Emeritus Dobbs Professor of Economics at Emory University and a former economic advisor in D.C., including for the Reagan administration as Senior Economist at the Council of Economic Advisers. The author of a dozen books and dozens of Wall St. Journal op-eds, Rubin not only knows whereof he speaks but knows how to communicate economic ideas in clear, jargon-free, unbiased language – a skill that eludes most academics and economists. In A Student’s Guide to Socialism, Rubin shrewdly chose not to speak down to, or talk over the heads of, the audience who most needs to absorb his message that life under socialism will not be the egalitarian utopia its adherents fantasize. On the contrary, as the book’s own subtitle bluntly tells readers, “it will trash your lives.”
Rubin divides the book into two parts – the applied part, wherein he lays out what one’s future would be like under socialism (“If you only read this part, the book will have fulfilled its purpose”) and Part II, which gives some background on socialism and compares it with capitalism. “If you are still curious after reading Part I, then Part II is for you,” he writes. Part I offers up a dozen short chapters and – for those students whose social media-diminished minds can’t handle even that much – concludes with a three-page summary. Part II consists of three more brief chapters and another short summary.
Citing real-world evidence to debunk any notion that socialism will eradicate the “unfair” extremes of poverty and wealth, Rubin picks a few worst-case studies that would leap immediately to mind for older readers but not the history-challenged students in his target audience: pre-Berlin Wall Germany, for example. “Capitalist West Germany was vastly more successful and richer than Communist East Germany,” he notes, so much so that the East Germans had to erect a wall between the two – and it wasn’t to keep out a flood of West Berliners from enjoying the utopian prosperity and freedom of their socialist counterpart. In fact, he points out, preventing citizens from leaving is standard procedure in communist countries. Needless to say, that’s a pretty good indication that socialistic societies are more dystopian than utopian.
(Rubin is careful to clarify that socialism doesn’t have the same track record as communism, and he’s not claiming that Bernie Sanders’ form of socialism will lead to the kinds of astronomic numbers of deaths under communism; nevertheless, socialism moves in the same direction and it is important to highlight the danger.)
Rubin also addresses the European examples of “democratic socialism” that its fans so often point to as models to emulate. “It is not correct to call these countries socialist,” he states, “and it is still true that no socialist country has been an economic success.” Indeed, the only so-called “democratic socialist” countries have actually “used the democratic part of ‘democratic socialism’ to eliminate the socialism part.”
To sum up his arguments, Rubin demonstrates that socialism will reduce his readers’ lifetime earnings; it will lead to reduced choice in the marketplace; it will lead to higher taxes and reduced risk-taking in terms of technological innovation; and perhaps most significantly, it will reduce their freedom, because “free markets are the source of most of our freedom; government generally restricts freedom, and socialism increases the power of government.” He also emphasizes that wherever and whenever socialism has been tried, it has failed, usually spectacularly. This latter point may not convince aspiring young socialists who always fall back on the old cliché, “this time we’ll do socialism right,” but the book’s overall truth is compelling and undeniable, and will be eye-opening for the naïve and uneducated.
Paul Rubin’s highly readable A Student’s Guide to Socialism should be as ubiquitous in high schools and colleges around the country as Howard Zinn’s subversive, mendacious People’s History of the United States – but it won’t be, of course, because as we all know, American education is hopelessly in the grip of Progressive radicals. All the more reason it is vital to get the word out about this book. Regular FrontPage Mag readers may not need to be educated about the failures and dangers of socialism, but this book is instructive nonetheless in how to clearly, logically, and calmly enlighten those who desperately need to get wise to the seductive but empty promises of socialism. Get it for yourself, to help you clarify and simplify your own arguments, but more crucially, get it for young friends, neighbors, and relatives who won’t hear this message otherwise.
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If this were required reading in public schools we wouldn’t have any of the nonsense going on today but of course, that’s the whole point.
Instead “White Privilege” is the featured reading material. And revisionist history books by Howard Zinn.
Under capitalism some people are poor.
Under socialism everyone is poor.
It would be nice if the execrable 1619 Project were replaced with Rubin's book.
I am AntiCom
Take away their cell phones and see if they like Socialism.
And there isn’t anything “artisanal” or “organic” in socialist countries
He should, because one way or another, it would.
Met a leftist at a nightclub before “shutdown”. She wanted our country to be socialist, “Like Norway!”. Setting aside the inaccuracy of her claim, I asked if she knew where the money for its social programs (esp. medical) came from. She advised the answer was “Whaling.” Not North Sea Oil, but Whaling. Good Lord. She was a professor at our local university...
Necessary learning. However, the title is going to repel a lot of students. You’d get more eyeballs if you titled it, “Listen, Stupid.” Such is the state of the millennial American mind.
socialized medicine:
YOUNG PATIENTS: become foolish dependent parasites, who increase overall costs by demanding too much, but because of doctor shortages, get less quantity of care per individual and lower quality care
OLD PATIENTS: are deemed worthless and useless, and so are denied care by death panels to cut costs, and become helpless sacrificial victims
DOCTORS: get more and more government controls to cut costs, and because of increased shortages of doctors, they become overworked and underpaid useful idiot slaves.Under these conditions, a doctor shortage occurs because a career in medicine becomes unacceptable to any normal rational person with high self esteem,. who refuses to be a slave.
GOVERNMENT: increases overall costs by increasing the size of the socialized medicine bureaucracy, and so government must cut costs by controlling doctors' fees, and doctors' treatments, and so becomes an uncaring, cruel, tyrannical monopoly. This causes a doctor shortage by making a medical career unacceptable to a normal rational person with high self esteem. To cut costs, government also must increase spending, increase budget deficits, increase national debt, increase taxes, and increase government borrowing. All of these are harmful to the economy in the long run, which harms the standard of living of the average worker. Government also must increase creation of money out of thin air, which increases aggregate demand, which increases prices,which decreases average real wage rates, which decreases the standard of living of the average worker.
They indeed will "Pack the Supreme Court", add D.C. and P.R. as new states with 4 new Dem Senators, to maintain permanent control.
They will also decimate the 1st and 2nd Amendments.
They will destroy Medicare by adding millions of illegal immigrants to the rolls.
Will Americans just sit by, or will there be a CWII?
Socialism works well for the political class and its hangers-on, especially with regard to positional goods. The advocates of socialism in the U.S. today are all implicitly assuming that they will be members of, at least, the Outer Party. Most of them will be disappointed, but they won’t discover that until after the revolution.
Superb summary for low attention span millennials and others of similar ilk. There is ample data to support every statement.
Taxes on EVERYONE will go up 20%. And the masses really need to be told ‘when Government controls your healthcare, denial of care is the standard’. Cancer patients in Britain are dying because they haven’t been able to get treatment since the Covid outbreak. DYING DUE TO DENIAL OF CARE.
Leftists are such evil liars.
The advocates of socialism in the U.S. today are all implicitly assuming that they will be members of, at least, the Outer Party...
That includes the MSM.
Ever heard of a rich powerful member of the Venezuelan media?
Public school kids should be taught the history of the last 30 years of Venezuela.
Easy to understand cause and effect.
Professor in Dentistry ?
Shoulda told her they got the money from clubbing... baby seals.
(I just ordered it.)
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