With big-government socialism in the mainstream (especially among young people), it's becoming ever more important to remember the historical facts about federal takeover of private industry.
In a word: it doesn't work.
As the Daily Signal points out in a recent op-ed, there are many reasons to believe that socialism would be a disaster in the United States.
First, there has never been a successful truly socialist state.
Socialism has never succeeded anywhere, including the Marxism-Leninism of the Soviet Union, the National Socialism of Nazi Germany, the Maoism of Communist China, the Chavez-Maduro socialism of Venezuela. It has never come close to anywhere near Marx’s ideal of a classless society.
Second, the intellectual leader of socialism, Karl Marx, turned out to be a terrible predictor of future economic trends. Why would we try the system dreamed up by a man who was so wrong about so many things?
Marx has been wrong about nearly everything he predicted. The nation-state has not withered away. Capitalism didn’t break down as a result of the Industrial Revolution. Workers haven’t become revolutionaries but capitalists. The middle class hasn’t disappeared; indeed, it has expanded exponentially around the world (see the above about the sharp decline in global poverty). Marx’s attempt to use Hegel to create a “scientific socialism” has been an abject failure.
Finally, socialism flies in the face of the fundamental principles of freedom and self-governance that have made our nation great.
Socialism depends not upon the will of the people but on the dictatorship of the Party to remain in power. In “The God That Failed,” six famous Western intellectuals describe their journey into socialism and their exit when they encountered the gigantic gap between their vision of a socialist utopia and the totalitarian reality of the socialist state.
After visiting the Soviet Union, the French Nobel Laureate writer Andre Gide said: “I doubt where in any country in the world—not even in Hitler’s Germany—have the mind and spirit ever been less free, more bent, more terrorized and indeed vassalized than in the Soviet Union.”
We owe it to future generations to stop socialism in its tracks. Unfortunately, many young people seem taken by the idea of government handouts, and the popularity of certain Democratic presidential candidates doesn't bode well for the survival of liberty in our country.
That's why patriotic Americans need to call an Article V Convention of States. A Convention of States can propose constitutional amendments that prohibit socialist schemes by limiting the power and jurisdiction of the federal government.
These amendments can clarify the Founders' intention of a small, limited national government, forever blocking federal attempts to seize control of private industries.
Millions of Americans have joined the nationwide Convention of States movement, and fifteen state legislatures have voiced their support.
Sign the Petition below to get involved!
