Two Quotes On Socialist Idiots

To call yourself a Socialist in the year 2015 is to be an idiot. Socialism fails. Everywhere. Billions of people have been lifted out of poverty, not by Socialism but by the Free Enterprise System.-Dennis Prager

I have long been a strong critic of what I call (adopting Charlotte Twight's coinage) participatory fascism. But when I see young people, often in the company of older people who ought to know better, protesting what they call capitalism and demanding socialism in whole or in part, I must simply shake my head in sadness. Participatory fascism (now often called crony capitalism and long called mercantilism) is a bad form of economic order and an even worse form of political order in many ways, but it is infinitely superior to socialism, which is a perfect recipe for poverty and totalitarianism. Under crony capitalism the masses enjoy a high standard of living in the economically advanced countries and a rising standard of living even in many of the poorer countries. Under socialism, people enjoyed mass starvation in China and the USSR (as nowadays in North Korea) along with political dictatorship by a tiny party elite. Socialism now yields the abominations of Venezuela, a once thriving country turned into one with no toilet paper and scarcely anything else in the stores, growing poorer by the day. Under crony capitalism, the young protesters in the USA and Europe enjoy smart phones and $5.00 cups of the coffee concoction of their choice. The yearning for socialism is truly a poison fruit of deep, deep ignorance not only of economic theory, but also of modern history and current affairs.-Robert Higgs