Jenny Beth Martin asks Lawrence W. Reed for socialism's record, and he says he would be hard pressed to name a single success in any form.
He starts at Plymouth Colony in the sixteen twenties. The Pilgrims pooled everything they produced into a common storehouse and divided it equally, and within a couple of years Governor Bradford said plainly that they were going to starve. His reason is the one Reed returns to all hour: when people are rewarded regardless of effort, they stop making the effort. They line up for what they feel entitled to and they stop showing up in the morning.
Then the nineteenth century. Roughly 150 utopian socialist communities were founded in America, every one of them on the promise that there would be no greed and no competition and everyone would receive according to need. Every one of them failed, and not one lasted five years. The reason, Reed says, is human nature. We are creatures of incentives and disincentives.
Then the twentieth century at national scale. The Soviet Union came to power promising equality and discovered instead that concentrated political power is inherently corrupting and that the people holding it never give it up. Venezuela had enough private enterprise and enough oil to become one of the richest countries in Latin America by the nineteen nineties, until Hugo Chavez arrived promising to take from some and give to others. Reed says roughly ten million people have since left, and adds the observation that the Berlin Wall was built to keep people in, not to keep anyone out.
And when it fails, he says, the answer is always that it was not true socialism and that they will get it right the next time.
This is part two of a four part economics series with Lawrence W. Reed, president emeritus of the Foundation for Economic Education.
Watch the full episode at jennybethshow.com. Learn more about Tea Party Patriots Action at teapartypatriots.org. To reach your senators and representative about federal spending, call the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121.
00:00 — Socialism's Track Record
00:17 — The Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony
00:55 — Rewarded Regardless of Effort
01:07 — 150 Utopian Communes, Not One Lasted Five Years
01:45 — Failed Everywhere It Has Been Tried
02:05 — The Soviet Union and Concentrated Power
03:00 — Cuba and Venezuela
03:23 — Hugo Chavez and the Richest Country in Latin America
04:44 — Reed: Ten Million People Left
05:09 — The Berlin Wall Was Built to Keep People In
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