The talk "Socialism Sucks: Two Economists Drink Their Way through the Unfree World" given by Benjamin Powell highlights the presence of socialism in countries around the world and its impact on those countries. Before watching the video, I had never stopped to reflect on how socialism can affect the quality of goods because it is common to think of socialism as affecting people's morale. After watching the video, I realized that socialism affects everything, and hits the economy worse than people's morale. When I was reflecting on the talk and the connection with socialism and poor economies, I was reminded of something my eighth-grade history teach told me. He informed us once that even though Greece is a top vacation destination for most people, they are actually an incredibly poor country. They rely on tourism for 20% of their overall GDP, and have gone through several economic crises. After being reminded of this anecdote following Powell's talk, I researched Greece's past political leaders and if any of them dabbled in socialism. I was proven correct when I saw a rather unexpected long list of all the Greek socialist leaders and politicians and was even more surprised to find that one of Greece's most recent prime ministers identified as socialist. Alexis Tsipras, the Greece prime minister from 2015-2019, had a notable experience just six months after being in office when he caused Greece to "default on a huge debt to its international lenders." (Harrison) Greece's economy had been slowly but surely recovery from the Great Recession, but Tsipras caused them to plunge down again, angering his citizens. Another part of Powell's talk that particularly stuck out to me was a statement he made rather early on in his talk about young people and socialism. He stated that socialism has become more popular among young people, and while socialism might be more vocalized now among young people than in the past with young people, teenagers and college students have always had more socialistic tendencies than their elders. This can be proven by a quote made by Edmund Burke, an economist who lived from 1729-1794. He said, "A man who has not been a socialist before 25 has no heart. If he remains one after 25 he has no head." This demonstrates the long history behind young people and their tendencies to lean towards socialism. It seems like young people are more socialistic now because of social media and its attractive aspect of being able to state whatever opinions you want on it. In conclusion, Powell's talk gives a unique and entertaining insight on the detriment that is socialism and how it can not only hurt our feelings, but our pockets as well.
Image Source
