Has Real Socialism Been Tried? Yes. Many Times.

Whenever socialists find themselves in a debate with non-socialists (that is to say, non-insane people), about the infamous “has real socialism been tried?” question, they like to claim that real socialism has never been tried. Every example we use to show why their ideology is evil- Cuba, Venezuela, China, the Khmer Rouge, the Soviet Union, North Korea, etc- they claim isn’t an example of real socialism. Of course, their refusals to accept reality beggar the question, has real socialism been tried?

The answer to “has real socialism been tried?” is, or at least should be, a resounding “Yes! Absolutely!” Whatever the blue-haired freak on a college campus says, real socialism has been tried before. And, every single time a nation tried it, it failed in a spectacularly bad fashion.

Not only have socialist policies, nations, and governments failed everywhere, in the process, Marx’s evil ideology has led to a host of almost unbelievably horrible things. Political prisoners being sent to work camps to starve to death. Dissidents being shot by the score. Huge swathes of the population dying in famines. The millions dead from socialism are proof to the fact every attempt at socialism was a bloody failure.

Read books like The Case Against Socialism or Liberal Fascism. If you do, you’ll see irrefutable evidence that communism has been tried before by a wide array of people. Even the pilgrims attempted collectivism when they first got here! The nations profiled in those books described themselves as socialist, implemented socialist policies, and then quickly crumbled as millions died and their previously thriving economies stagnated and eventually collapsed into the dustbin of history.

Meanwhile, capitalist nations around the globe have succeeded and grown tremendously prosperous in pretty much every single example. Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland, America during the Gilded Age, and many more grew prosperous because of capitalism.That’s because of the inherent moral advantage that capitalism has over the evil ideology of socialism, and the way in which it motivates people to succeed, work hard, and innovate.

The true nature of socialism is what prevents it from succeeding. But, the constant failure of socialism doesn’t meant that it hasn’t been attempted. It definitely has been. So, next time someone asks “has socialism been tried?”, now you know how to respond. Just say “Yes, it has been tried many times and it failed miserably.”

You can say that because there is not a single socialist country that has succeeded. Sweden and Norway are not socialist countries, so the “has real socialism been tried?” question certainly doesn’t apply to them. Similarly, while China used to be socialist, it no longer really is. Socialism under Mao destroyed it and killed tens of millions of innocent civilians that got in the way of his socialist utopia. Later Chinese rulers replaced socialism with corporatism, which unleashed Chinese economic growth, albeit not to the same extent that would have existed with true capitalism.

By: Gen Z Conservative, author of the blog www.genzconservative.com