"Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy." —Perth, Scotland, 28 May 1948, in Churchill, Europe Unite: Speeches 1947 & 1948.
Socialism's benefits are touted as nationalization of key industries (i.e. free healthcare etc), redistribution of wealth (through taxation), social security schemes, minimum wages, employment protection and trade union recognition rights. There are people to whom this menu will naively appeal. If socialism works, and is the modern day "Garden of Eden", a logical person must ask why there were 13,000 Haitians under a bridge in Del Rio Texas attempting to get into a capitalist hell rather than the other way around? Let us look to history to see, in real time, the effects of socialism in three very different countries that tried it and how quickly the fourth, Venezuela, plummeted headlong from the third richest country in the western hemisphere to the commencement of civil war (see Socialism doesn't work article).
A multitude of countries have tried their hand at socialism and on every occasion it has failed. Israel, India and the United Kingdom (UK) experimented with socialism after the end of the Second World War. Israel was initially successful in its attempt seeing growth of around 12.6 percent. This was short lived and in 1965 Israel suffered its first major recession. Economic growth ground to a halt, unemployment tripled. Following his acceptance to be named an economic advisor to the Israeli government in the 1970s, Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman proposed the adoption of free market reforms. Change was slow to come in a deeply rooted socialist government and there continued a frivolous period of borrowing and spending leading to thousands of businesses and private citizens going bankrupt. Israel was in a state of economic collapse, The U.S. came to the rescue offering a financial rehabilitation package if the Israeli government agreed to abandon its socialist rulebook and adopt U.S. style capitalism. As a result, Israel's economic growth topped the charts in the developing world in the 2000s. Propelled by low inflation (down 430 percent), a reduction in the size of government and the implementation of sensible fiscal policies the budget deficit was reduced to zero from a figure that was originally 15 percent of their GDP.
For nearly 30 years, the Indian government adhered to a strong socialist line, restricting imports, prohibiting foreign direct investment and maintaining price controls on a wide variety of industries. Any producer who exceeded their licensed capacity faced possible imprisonment. Economic inequality was regulated through taxes—the top personal income tax rate hit 97.75 percent. 14 public banks were nationalized in 1969; six more followed in 1980. At the peak of Indian socialism more than half of India was living below the poverty line. It wasn't until Rajiv Gandhi succeeded his extreme Left mother in 1984 (after her assassination) that the socialist anchor was cut free and the country began the long haul back to capitalism and prosperity. Economics were placed above ideology, licensing was terminated and tariffs cut from 355 percent to 65 percent. India's economy was back on course and by 2005 GDP growth had reached 9%, by 2017 India overtook Germany to become the fourth-largest auto market in the world. That same year, India overtook the U.S. in smartphone sales to become the second-largest smartphone market in the world. Today, India's GDP ranks fifth in the world being only behind the United States, China, Japan, and Great Britain. Never before in recorded history, Indian economist Gurcharan Das has noted, have so many people risen so quickly.
During the 1970s and 80s the UK underwent an economic revolution under the leadership of the UKs first female Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. For 30 years' prior, the UK had been referred to as "the sick man of Europe". A nationalized industry had the government owning the largest manufacturing firms. The top individual tax rates were 83 percent on "earned income" and a crushing 98 percent on income from capital. A large sector of the housing was government-owned. The biggest obstacle to economic reform was the powerful trade unions, which since 1913 had been allowed to spend union funds on political objectives, such as controlling their preferred party. Mrs. Thatcher targeted and successfully broke the power of the unions by banning the pickets that travelled to support workers on strike at other sites and by preventing the unions from forcing workers to join. She cut the top rate of income tax in half to 45percent and exchange controls were abolished. Due to her privatization of government owned assets in the 1980s Britain's economy grew faster than that of any European country with the exception of Spain, business investment grew faster than in any other country except Japan and productivity grew faster than in any other industrial economy. Inflation fell from 27 percent to 2.5 percent. The once "sick man of Europe" flexed the muscle of economic health.
There have been over two dozen failed experiments in socialism over the past one hundred years but a modern socialist will still tell you "these examples don't prove anything at all. None of these were truly socialist. You just don't understand socialism." Their idea of contemporary socialism is a non-autocratic, non-authoritarian, participatory and humanitarian one; but that was always the idea, it's not novel, just doesn't work. Lenin's 1917 manifesto "The State and Revolution" does not at all read like a blueprint for a totalitarian society. It reads like a blueprint for, to use the currently fashionable term, "democratic socialism." Socialism is always democratic and emancipatory in its aspirations, but oppressive and authoritarian in its actual practice.
Insanity is often referred to as "doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result". Documentary evidence clearly demonstrates that Socialism has failed on at least two dozen occasions, how many more times must a nation endure the pain and suffering that always accompanies the illusion? Let's not wait until our cupboards are as bare as some of the supermarkets around the country before we put a stop to the Lefts madness, call your representative today. Stand Tall.
There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism - by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide. - Ayn Rand
https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/commentary/three-nations-tried-socialism-and-rejected-it