Author:
Richard Stern, Vice President of the Plymouth Institute
Plymouth Institute for Free Enterprise
TOPLINE: “Real socialism has never been tried” has become a cliché, yet it's also a one-sentence summary of the Democratic Socialists of America’s (DSA) platform.
BACKGROUND: Hoping it’ll work this time, the DSA offers the same forms of collectivism that have doomed societies for centuries. From pre-industrial times to today, societies that have seized wealth, implemented price controls, and socialized economic control have faced severe consequences. The DSA would surely add America to the long list of socialism’s historical victims.
Pre-Marx Collectivism
- Münster, 1534 – Collectivists took over, abolished money and private property, and rationed from a communal store (like Mamdani’s grocery stores). Sixteen months later: famine, book-burnings, forced polygamy, and public executions.
- New Harmony, Indiana, 1825 – This equal-rations commune collapsed in two years as the idle lived off the industrious, a lesson the DSA still hasn't learned.
The Mark of Marx: The Soviet Union and Maoist China
- Early USSR - Nationalized industry, price controls and grain stolen at gunpoint collapsed the economy until some market privatization reforms were made.
- USSR Famines - Famine killed millions before Lenin restored some private trade. Then millions more died during famines in 1929-1933 as the USSR again forced the collectivization of farms in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and other areas.
- Mao’s Famine – Mao forced people into communes, resulting in the deadliest famine in recorded history with an estimated 70 million dead from his regime.
- China’s Reforms – China stagnated until Deng’s 1978 reforms dropped many price controls and partially freed the economy, expanding private business.
Other Examples
- Zimbabwe's government seized 23 million acres of farmland, resulting in a 60 percent drop in food production while inflation peaked at 79.6 billion percent.
- Venezuela seized over 1,000 companies, implemented price controls, and went from the 4th wealthiest country in the world to a failed state with famine.
- North Korea has 1/30th the income level of its capitalist neighbor, South Korea.
BOTTOMLINE: Across the board, nations that follow the DSA playbook have ended up in the same mass grave. Socialism is nothing less than collective misery. America could be next.
