Picture a seven-year-old girl living under communism in the 1980s. Her dad brings her to a local grocery store in the Ukraine, their home, in the old Soviet Union. He tells her to look around the store and memorize the scene. This was described to me in a radio interview a few years ago by Marina Medvin, a successful D.C. area attorney and writer for Townhall and Forbes. She was that little girl.
Marina’s father told her, “Make a photograph of this in your mind.” She does. The walls are bare. There are some shelves, but the only food item is on a shelf way up top. It is a jar of pickled, green tomatoes. They look like they might be spoiled.
Fast forward to a year or two later. Now the family is in Newark, New Jersey---the first step in their move to America as a new home. Marina Medvin then enters a grocery store and is shocked by all the food and all the variety.
The difference between capitalism and socialism could not be clearer. And yet millions of Americans, including the young, fall prey to the siren song of socialism.
Could the old Soviet Union-type store with its bare shelves be coming soon to New York City?
As we all know, several weeks ago, Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old avowed Marxist Islamist, won the Democratic primary for NYC mayor. If his opposing candidates split the opposition vote in November, an avowed socialist could actually become the mayor of the nation’s largest city.
AOC and Bernie Sanders support him. So do many other prominent liberals. I believe Mamdani would be bad as mayor for many reasons, but this article will only focus on socialism.
Many young people today are disenchanted with capitalism. Socialism seems to have the better branding among the young. The Cato Institute even points out that one-third of people under 30 support communism. What an indictment on modern education.
Marxism begins with an atheistic premise. But today we have been so cut off from the premise of America, founded on the idea that our rights come from God, that many disillusioned Americans want to try and give socialism another shot.
Although some modern proponents of socialism might argue that even if it hasn’t work in other places, it will work this time around---given the right leader. Zohran or AOC or Bernie.
But haven’t we seen this before?
Socialism didn’t work under Lenin, maybe it will work under Stalin.
Socialism didn’t work under Mao, maybe it will work under Xi.
Socialism didn’t work under Chavez, maybe it will work under Maduro. And so on.
Socialism is often the gateway to communism---the redistribution of wealth by government force. As Winston Churchill observed, “communism is nothing but socialism with a gun at your back.”
I read about a T-shirt that says, “Communism has only killed 100 million people. Why not give it another shot?” This can be found in the book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Communism: The Killingest Idea Ever (Regnery, 2017) by my friend, Dr. Paul Kengor of Grove City College, whom I’ve interviewed multiple times.
Maybe it doesn’t work anywhere and never will because it runs contrary to human nature.
Human nature is sinful. And the best form of government recognizes that and therefore separates power, so no individual or small group can amass too much of it.
Why has America historically succeeded in granting us freedom? It’s because the founding fathers recognized the fact of human selfishness. They did everything in their power to limit how much power any one man or group of people might have. Belief in the sinfulness of man can be seen in the Constitution with its strict separation of powers.
Ben Franklin said, “There is scarce a king in a hundred who would not, if he could, follow the example of Pharaoh, get first all the peoples’ money, then all their lands and then make them and their children servants forever.”
Capitalism does not produce an equal distribution of wealth. No system does. But in the socialist schemes, it is only the rulers that do well, not the people.
The people are forced into breadlines for inferior bread---or pickled, green tomatoes.
For all of its warts and flaws, capitalism produces much greater prosperity for the greatest amount of people.
What does communism produce? Ultimately, a lot of dead bodies.
One might ask, “Why would God allow all the suffering that the socialists and communists have imposed on this world---not to mention the total loss of religious freedom in such places?” I would answer: “So that we don’t go down that road again.” We pray New Yorkers won’t go down that road.
Jerry Newcombe, D.Min., is the executive director of the Providence Forum, an outreach of Coral Ridge Ministries. He has written/co-written 33 books, including George Washington’s Sacred Fire (with Providence Forum founder Peter Lillback, Ph.D.) and What If Jesus Had Never Been Born? (with D. James Kennedy, Ph.D.). www.crm.tv
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