Venezuela- What Inevitably Happens When Socialism Fails
Regardless of nuance in the different forms of socialism, when it is tried and ultimately fails, the result is almost always deadly.
First there was Russia where socialism was the philosophical reason for the Russian revolution and the impetus behind the creation of the Soviet Union. The world watched as the economic upheavals it unleashed, and its ultimate failure of economic function, led to a brutal Stalinist totalitarianism that resulted in the death of 20 million in the labor camps of Siberia.
Then there was National Socialism, born of the German Workers Party and fermented in the severe depression which followed Germany’s loss in the First World War. The German Workers Party became known as “Nationalsozialismus” and its acronym NS (pronounced “na-zi“ in German) and the movement it spawned, seizing national control of the economy, touched off the costliest war ever fought, and the systemized eradication of at least 9 million people, including 6 million Jews, in the death camps of its own creation.
When Mao Zhedong touched off the Cultural Revolution in China, based in the pursuit of socialism in Asia, it is estimated that as many as 100 million perished in the wake of Mao’s internal war against political adversaries, and inspired socialist revolutions on the Korean peninsula and in Southeast Asia, resulting in the death of millions more. Such pursuit of communism, in the name of socialism, has given the world a madman in North Korea who is now capable of launching intercontinental ballistic missiles into the United States and intends to do so with nuclear payloads.
Attempts at socialist uprisings in the Western Hemisphere have inevitably led to the creation of brutal totalitarian regimes in Cuba, Nicaragua and, most recently, in Venezuela, amongst others. Once the fourth strongest economy in the Western Hemisphere, Venezuela’s march towards socialism in the twenty-first century, first under Hugo Chavez, and since, under Nicolas‘ Maduro, has disintegrated the economy, and brought about a brutal totalitarian regime which has eliminated constitutional rights and imposed harsh treatment of its own starving people. The nation that once led the efforts to free Latin America from the grip of European Colonization, under visionary hero Simon‘ Bolivar, has now descended into chaos and violence as it comes to grips with its own economic failure, as the result of socialist imposition.
In Europe, a more measured and incremental march toward socialism has transfigured an entire economic culture which once gave birth to the concepts of individual liberty and economic freedom. Coupled with an open-door policy towards the migration of millions of refugees from the Middle East, the inevitable result in the soaring social costs of trying to provide all people all things, is pushing towards eventual financial failure. Once this occurs, will the remaining members of the European Economic Community follow Britain’s lead in exiting the alliance, or will the EEC impose more stringent controls on the swelling population and seek further erosion of individual liberty and private enterprise?
All of these examples are curiously missing in the rhetoric of Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT), as they urge their followers to pursue what Sanders has called “Democratic Socialism.“ Both of them know the ultimate outcome of that which they seek- the imposition of economic wealth redistribution that will make everyone poorer, more dependent on government and more willing to surrender individual liberty in exchange for services provided. Then, once all the money runs out and the people begin to starve en masse, the government will clamp down on any attempt to dissemble the socialist apparatus and, in doing so, will end constitutional guarantees of freedom and liberty.
The underlying socialist proclivity that is inevitably contained within the globalist, one-world economic movement, once led by Obama, Clinton and both Bushes, during their respective presidencies, as well as in the controlling power bases in both political parties, now have only one thing standing in the way of their own globalist visions…
…and that one thing is President Donald J. Trump.
Any questions?
-Drew Nickell, 7 August 2017
© 2017 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.
author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”
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