Why Socialism Always Fails

Socialism. It's created some of the worst tyrannies known to the history of man. The USSR. North Korea. China. Cuba. Vietnam. Hundreds of millions of human beings dead, all in the name of an ideology which claims to value the common man.

When one points this out to liberals, they invariably whine that socialism in itself is a good idea and that the governments in question weren't/aren't not socialist. Such is an example of what's known as the "No True Scotsman" Fallacy. The individuals who founded the governments in questions believed in socialist principles in every way. I actually believe that they meant well and were honest in their overall intentions. Unfortunately, the path to hell is paved with good intentions.

Lenin was an honest man. Stalin was probably an honest man. Mao and Ho Chi Mihn were probably honest men. They believed in what they were preaching. The fact of the matter is that what they preached simply didn't and couldn't ever work. The totalitarianism found in traditionally socialist societies was the direct result of trying to address the problems that arose as a direct result of socialism.

Socialism is borne out of egalitarianism. It strives to make everyone equal. The fundamental problem is that everyone isn't equal -- some of us are better than others. Some people are willing to put in serious effort while others play. It's the old fable of the ant and the grasshopper.

Individuals with the drive to get things done are somewhat rare. Given the option, most people would prefer to kick back and relax. It's individuals who get things done who motivate those people to actually make something of themselves. When everyone is made equal and the fruits of motivated labor are simply given to those that don't work, stagnancy will inevitably set in.

Socialism prevents people from having that hustling drive. There is no benefit in doing so; your reward is exactly the same as the person who doesn't hustle. More importantly, however, those with hustle aren't permitted to leverage the talents of those who don't hustle. You wind up with those whom are willing to work supporting those who don't want to work. It doesn't work.

A purely socialist society attaches no benefit to leveraging other people. Sure, your talents enable more to be accomplished within a certain period of time, but you're not compensated for this. Instead, you're expected to accept it as your reward that you simply fulfilled your social duty. That doesn't mesh with human nature. The result is that individuals with the talent for leveraging others do not apply that talent. There's simply no reward for doing so.

Thus nothing gets done. Now, you have to understand that the socialist revolutionaries, whatever you might believe about them, had hustle. They had beliefs. They risked themselves as leaders of men who organized themselves around those beliefs. Where others talked, they acted. They applied the concepts of leverage in order to use the talents of others to bring the greatest successes. Their biggest mistake was that they were wrong.

That's where totalitarianism arose. Socialist policies completely ruined the societies in which they were applied. In order to salvage things, socialist leaders applied far more leverage than should ever be applied by any human being. It's not a surprise that they did -- they had no competition that could stop them in any meaningful manner. So they leveraged their people, expecting out of them more talent than they could ever hope to display given the circumstances. The people who were supposed to benefit most from the revolutions suffered the hardest.

This is why socialism always fails wherever it is tried and why, in revolutionary societies, it leads to totalitarian dictatorship. When policies do not work and the alternative is dire suffering, people sometimes impose the harshest measures to get the results they see as necessary. Some men are better at this than others -- revolutions build men who can hustle and apply leverage better than anything else. Give them an awful situation where there situation is ruined beyond all belief, however, and they will go overboard trying to fix the situation.