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Opponents of socialism often cite Cuba, Venezuela, and the former Soviet Union as evidence that the system “doesn’t work.” They argue that, unlike earlier economic arrangements — slavery, feudalism, and capitalism — each of which was explicitly organized around producing wealth, and each of those systems was superior to its predecessor in its capacity to generate it, socialism has failed to create a higher level of economic prosperity.
Critics of socialism miss the mark. Socialism works because its purpose is not wealth creation; the purpose of socialism is economic equality.
Democratic Socialism, guided by democratically elected leaders, carries the legitimacy of popular consent and will advance economic equality through lawful, transparent legislation, unlike the coercion and mass terror that marked the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba.
The concept of economic equality has been widely misunderstood or deliberately misconstrued. If the untutored proponents of economic equality took a moment to study human history, they might discover that the only true instance of economic equality occurred during the era of primitive communism. Ten thousand years ago, before the advent of farming, people were forced to obtain food collectively. Everything that was produced was immediately consumed. There was no property and no wealth, which ensured economic equality in a state of poverty. This is the only circumstance in which true economic equality has ever existed—or can exist.
The idea of equality in wealth is intrinsically self-contradictory — an oxymoron shrouded in utopian dreams. By its very nature, wealth rejects uniformity; it thrives on distinction, accumulation, and inequality. In this light, socialism aims to replace inequality in wealth with equality in poverty.
In reality, it is not merely a matter of redistributing wealth, as most of us have led to believe; the ultimate objective of socialism is the destruction of wealth as the only way economic equality can be achieved in industrial society. Thus, socialism reveals its authentic nature as an Ideology of Poverty.
This ideology spreads like an infectious disease—one that societies must endure before they can build true immunity. As Alexander Solzhenitsyn remarked, “For us in Russia, socialism is a dead dog; for many in the West, it is still a living lion.”
This “dead dog,” once expelled from Russia, found new life in the United States, where it has regained vitality, emerging as a “living lion” within the Democratic Party. The Party has undergone an ideological transformation into a Marxist social democratic entity, attempting to persuade the electorate that this time it is different – this time, socialism is democratic.
As noted earlier, the driving force for any version of socialism is economic “inequality” — the argument socialists have never tired of invoking since the dawn of capitalism. The mantra brought into play by the French Revolution — “War to the palace, peace to the cottage” — is alive and well today in the Democratic Party.
It is no coincidence that the Democratic Party has chosen New York City to launch its direct attack on capitalism. With the fundamental components of socialism firmly in place – a welfare state, high taxation, and extensive government regulations – New York City is an ideal setting for the establishment of a wholly socialist government. Should this endeavor prove successful, the Party will proceed to enforce socialism throughout the state and beyond.
The current American political environment is conducive to the spread of socialism. Numerous warning signs are evident. The most concerning element of the increasing pro-socialist sentiment is the intellectual stagnation present in America’s political dialogue. American political thinking about socialism is trailing behind that of the Russians or Chinese. Neither education, nor upbringing, nor life experiences equip Americans to grasp the magnitude of the socialists’ assault on American institutions.
Consequently, the electorate often elects individuals who are demonstrably unqualified and have failed to possess even a basic understanding of history, economics, or critical thought. A few have even earned notoriety for inconceivable stupidity. Many of them, aware of self-worthlessness, adopt Marxism and can hardly contain their awe and envy at the American enterprise and question its moral validity.
Whether the New Yorkers voted for socialist serfdom knowingly or they have been duped is irrelevant. If people are ignorant or complacent, they deserve the government they elect. As Barack Obama famously said, “Elections have consequences.”
We must be mindful that every ism — communism, socialism, fascism, and the like — has its supporters and beneficiaries. Those who envision themselves on the receiving end, have every reason to think they will be better off with socialism. As Aristotle said about 2,400 years ago:
In a democracy, the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme.
We can criticize Zohran Mamdani all we like, but without proper education, America is destined to become a country of triumphant socialism.
Alexander G. Markovsky, Ph.D. in economics and political science, is a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research. He is the author of “Anatomy of a Bolshevik” and “Liberal Bolshevism: America Did Not Defeat Communism, She Adopted It.” Mr. Markovsky is the owner and CEO of Litwin Management Services, LLC. He can be reached at alexander.g.markovsky@gmai.com
Alexander Markovsky provides his informed, incisive political analysis of the humanitarian hoax and promise of socialism, democratic socialism, and the election of Zohran Kwame Mamdani. The hoax is in the marketing strategy. Words matter––and missing words sometimes matter even more. Consider this, if socialism was marketed as the promise of economic poverty equality, socialism would never sell. But promise historically ignorant young people economic equality, and they assume it means economic wealth equality! This is the same con that humanitarian huckster-in-chief Barack Hussein Obama used when he promised to fundamentally transform America. The assumptions generated by these deceitful promises are not the factual reality of socialism, democratic socialism, and the election of Mamdani. This article exposes the hoax. BUYER BEWARE!
The prime purpose of socialism is to build society and so social cohesion by secularising religious ideas of charity into consistent and systematic policy thus saving the rest of us the expense and nuisance of Dickensian rookeries of losers, criminality and cesspits of disease. You only have to look at the results of the first wave of industrial revolution in Britain: unpaved, unsewered unsafe buildings and polluted water where typhoid, cholera and measles killed and blinded half the population before they were – to us – school age but then starting to work and life expectancy was 17 or18 and town populations kept up on immigration from villages of younger sons and evicted labourers. if you want a totally anti-socialist society take a visit to Haiti or the streets of Calcutta or Cairo’s “City of the Dead” first.
Human beings are ornery beings and people like Ford, Trump and Musk let alone your corner store could not do as they do without public authorities sewers, water mains and roads or public cleansing without which there woulld be dung heaps about and spoil heaps to drown villages as in Aberfan, Wales. When I was at school in the 1940’s and 1950’s we were still taught that the Lord made the Earth but left Holland to the Dutch. The same can be said of the State of Israel water grid. Both are national and social enterprises however much of the detailed work was contracted out.
Commercial success is often a matter of social skills and not everybody can do it any more than everybody can not do maths or learn foreign languages however well intentioned. Further wealth like much else distributes according to the Gauss / “Normal” curve. If we leave the people of the second and third deviations below the mean to rot then it back infects society as a whole. Criminality costs police and prisons but as much again in lawyers of all degrees and security measures. If we did spend more on [child]health visitors and nursery education we would gain disproportionately in healthy educated and employable youngsters. As it is we do spend excessively on police, prisons probation and law courts.
There is a parallel in health budgets which costs are to an extent self driven by prosperity and longer life. UK – and similar in Europe spend 8% GDP on doctoring but as it is a wholesale operation state run or at least state subsidised it is more effective than the USA spending 14% because in Europe – or specifically in the UK’s NHS the paperwork takes 10% of the gross health spend till the Lansley Act put it up to 15% with its “internal market” and in the US because it is retail funded 24% of health spending goes to paper pushing and the emoluments of contractors’ directors as clinicians charge procedure specific fees and “insurers” cavil over cents. A system which multiplies the measureable and chargeable so more tests and pills than necessary. The Lansley Act mock market had to be unpicked in part even before the Tory Government fell in 2023 becaus eof its timme wasting costs – which proves the overall argument about doing whatever one can wholesale.
Society is delicate and unstable when its base is in perpetual flux which is the industrial case. The private and public sectors need to be run in harness and constantly checked and adjusted – but then if you can not ride two horses at once get out of the circus.
Why is Markovsky titling his piece “Socialism works” and then proceeding to contradict this in his article?
“Ten thousand years ago, before the advent of farming, people were forced to obtain food collectively.” Although the author debunks socialism, this sentence suggests one of its key ideas, that all was shared equally, like one big happy family.
Based on what I know of families, there is lots of inequality.
Even more to the point about the socialist fantasy of pre hisotical times, we just don’t know. We were not there.
If one wants a pre history fantasy, i suggest instead “The Clan of the Cave Bear,” brutal life among neanderthals, with huge imbalances of power. Some got lots of food, and some didn’t or had to be humiliated to get any at all.
And, what, pray, is ‘proper’ education? Surely, if this is the key to turning back the great unwashed, then the author incurs a responsibility to his readers to explain precisely what is the meaning of his solution to the issue and exactly how to implement it. From what I have seen and read of American education, the prospects are next to zero for such a change as will be required and the support for doing so to the degree required is non-existent.