I am in Berlin, looking down from a boardroom at where the ‘wall’ that separated East and West Germans once was. The wall is now destroyed; monuments of this wall can be seen in isolated areas around Berlin: but it still makes me think: how is it that the idea of socialism is still even considered an option?
One must be somewhat ideologically twisted to really belief in socialism as a means to solve the world’s economic challenges – poverty, unemployment and inequality. But we must recognise that socialism as a populist political model, aimed at giving easy and very attractive (albeit silly) answers to very complicated questions, it is still very much alive. In the classic socialist doctrine, hard work, wise business decisions, sacrifice, persistence and dedication over years are substituted with the crazy idea that equality could be achieved by taking from those who ‘have’ and give it the those who ‘have not’.
Apart from the fact that it is an obvious economic non-starter, we also know that those ‘receiving’ the redistributed ‘goods’ are prejudiced more than those from whom the ‘stuff’ (whatever that is) is taken – simply because this kind of redistribution robs the receiver from self-confidence, self-belief and fulfilment – it may even permanently economically incapacitates the receiving individual; even worse, a whole group, yes, even a society.
Strangely, there are still millions across the world flirting with the socialist idea. However, have they ever thought why socialist regimes are always suppressive in nature? Why is it that socialist governments always tamper with individual rights and press freedom? Why do people living in free market societies never ‘flee’ to socialist societies; why it is always the other way round?
Isn’t this proof enough?
– Gerhard Papenfus