Socialism Is Not the Solution. It Is the Problem.
Two out of five people view socialism positively. In 2025. In America! It’s as if the twentieth century never happened. The Holodomor? The Great Leap Forward? The Cultural Revolution? More than a hundred million victims in less than a hundred years? Gone from our collective memory. We’re told, again, that socialism is the answer to all the frustrations of our lives.
Inequality? Raise the taxes on the rich. Poverty? Add more welfare. Housing? Impose rent controls. Inflation? Use price controls. Crime? Defund the police. Education? Outlaw homeschooling. Global warming? Ban fossil fuels. Healthcare? Get that booster shot. Girls don’t like you? Nationalize the economy. And don’t forget to put on your Antifa mask.
From Bernie Sanders, who fell in love with socialism while Stalin was exterminating the politically incorrect Soviet citizens in Siberia’s concentration camps, to AOC, who was born while the Berlin Wall was collapsing, to Zohran Mamdani, who wants to turn New York City into Caracas—all kinds of hucksters are trying to treat your allergies by giving you cancer.
Take inequality. It is real. The top one percent of Americans hold about a third of all wealth. The bottom fifty percent? They own just one fiftieth. That’s a huge gap. So what? If I drive to work in an eight-year-old Ford Escape, should it bother me that Bezos has a fleet of private jets? If you live in your mom’s basement, why are you upset that Taylor Swift owns a mansion on the beach?
That inequality didn’t come from “exploitation” or some evil Wall Street cabal. It came from growth. It is a natural outcome of a system that has lifted more people out of poverty than all government programs and charitable activities combined. Capitalism—free enterprise, not cronyism—created all innovations that make your life so easy compared to your ancestors.
From the automobile, the airplane, and the AC to Uber, 3D printing, and SpaceX – all marvels of modern civilization came from the pursuit of profit, not government planning. Even the iPhones, the Internet service, and the platforms that clueless activists use to promote leftist ideologies, candidates, and policies were built by capitalists. And yet, socialism is making a comeback.
Why? Because it’s easy. It costs you nothing to promise free stuff. It takes no effort to get applause by saying, “Eat the rich,” “Cancel student debt,” or “Health care is a human right.” But ask them this question: If socialism works so well, why are people always trying to escape from it? Why do people cross deserts, climb walls, and risk drowning to get to America and not Cuba?
Why does socialism always fail? It’s not because of bad people who pervert a great ideal. The socialist system is not just inefficient, it’s inhumane. Because it’s built on an evil idea. It takes away the incentives to produce because it violates human nature by denying the right to ownership and business initiative. Socialism can only be maintained by institutional violence.
Those who are unfamiliar with history often imagine socialism as a voluntary, communal sharing. It sounds kind and generous. What it feels like in practice is nothing but. Socialism disrespects our dignity, destroys our autonomy, and puts power in the hands of incompetent and uncaring bureaucrats. And when that happens, what follows is abuse, corruption, waste, misery, and hopelessness.
Talk to those of us who survived socialism. Ask the Eastern Europeans why they wagered their lives in attempts to escape their socialist countries after WWII. Why do the North Koreans pay smugglers to sneak them out of Kim’s paradise, risking torture and execution? Find out what the Venezuelans think of socialism while waiting in line for hours just to buy toilet paper.
For over a century, people who tried socialism have always voted with their feet against it. They build boats out of garbage to move their families from Cuba to Florida. No one is running from capitalism. Because it gives us freedom and opportunities to pursue a good life. Socialism may sound good in campus speeches and TikTok clips, but it always ends in poverty and repression.
Capitalism has its blemishes because it evolves organically from market interactions of flawed human beings. And that’s precisely why socialism is not the solution. The Founders got it right. The “pursuit of happiness” means the freedom to try, to fail, to learn, and to thrive—without a government deciding who gets what. It is our moral duty to secure that legacy for our children.
This piece originally was posted by the Independent Institute.