Socialism is popular!
A Pew study reports that more than a third of American adults view it positively.
How is this possible?
Little has brought more misery — first in the Soviet Union, then in China, Cuba, Nicaragua, now Venezuela.
{snip}
Where does she get 93%?
From a study published in 1986 by self-described Marxists in the Journal of Health Services.
The authors conveniently ignore the United States and other wealthy countries and compare socialist economies to “capitalist” countries like Uganda, Rwanda and Somalia, some of which were at war.
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That’s nonsense, too. People live longest in capitalist countries like Japan (85 years) and South Korea (84 years).
Even in the United States (79 years), where more of us die young because we drive more (car accidents), eat more, shoot each other more often and try more dangerous drugs, we still live longer than people in China (78 years).
Socialism is also superior, says Pendleton, because of “the 90% to 100% home-ownership rates.”
{snip}
Before 1998, when Chinese housing was still socialist, just 20% of Chinese people owned homes.
Several social media stars rave about China.
“Socialism worked in China!” says TikToker Dante Munoz. “They lifted over 800 million people from poverty.”
Again, it’s true that in the last 50 years, China’s GDP went from $156 per capita to more than $12,000.
{snip}
Another silly social media star, JT Chapman, tells his almost 2 million YouTube subscribers: “The central idea that unites all socialists is maximizing freedom . . . democratization of power.”
Democratization? In most socialist countries, there’s only one political party.
A popular TikToker calling himself Rathbone tells his 100,000 subscribers: “Capitalism . . . prioritizes profits over people . . . (but) socialism . . . prioritizes people over profits.”
Likewise, Chapman says socialism offers the “guaranteed right to . . . health care, food and shelter.”
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Yet Chapman claims, “Innovation can flourish even when people are not motivated by profit. The USSR gave the world the anthrax vaccine, artificial satellites and one of the earliest mobile phones.”
That is true. But no one uses those phones today.
Capitalism just creates much more.
Finally, Chapman says, “Ownership should be collective.”
Collective ownership does feel good. “We’ll share everything!”
But every attempt at collective ownership has failed.
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When people realized they could receive just as much barely working as they could working hard, many, naturally, worked less.
Within a year, the commune experiment failed and the property was returned to private hands.
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The bottom line: Incentives matter. No one washes a rental car.
Few people care much about what belongs to everyone. It’s just human nature.
Capitalism isn’t perfect, but if we want a better future, and freedom, capitalism is the only thing that works.
John Stossel is the author of “Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media.”
* Original Article:
https://nypost.com/2025/02/28/opinion/socialism-is-popular-despite-its-failures-blame-tiktok/?utm_source=smartnews&utm_campaign=nypost&utm_medium=referral