This week in class we watched a talk by an author of the book Socialism Sucks.
One of the interesting things he talks about early on is the misconception that Scandinavian countries such as Sweden. He notes that despite the big welfare state and high taxes, Sweden is very much a capitalist country. He talks about things like Volvo, which is a private company, and how restaurants in Sweden are privately owned and other examples. Even before he talks about this, he defines socialism as removal of private means of production. I really like how he clears up the misconception that countries like Sweden with large welfare states and high taxes are socialist countries. I have noticed that a lot of people use the word socialism to describe a whole host of policies and agendas that are really not socialist. It is also something people get very passionate about on either side, so I think the terminology is really important. People need to understand what they are talking about to avoid ruffling feathers.
The book then moves on to Venezuela. He talks about how economically free and wealthy, but eventually became a system of cronyism. Then they democratically elect a socialist, and it seemed to do alright for a while. However, it was an artificial success. The collapse in Venezuela shows an extreme case where when the government fails to produce, the people starve. The author suggests that this collapse is guaranteed in a socialist system, and I am included to agree, though mostly due to lack of evidence to the contrary.
Something that I thought was interesting about Cuba was that an outsider can freely participate in the economic system. This allows great insights into how the economy actually works. I thought it was really interesting when he was talking about how Cuban businesses are all really bad at service and advertising and customer satisfaction because the government owns everything. And in the Cuban system too, there are shortages on basic necessities.
I got really interested in the section about China. He calls China a fake socialism. He mentions the time when China was real socialist, but it is not any more. I think this is really interesting given that most Americans today would list China as an example of modern socialism. Just because China is ruled by a communist party does not mean that it is a socialist state. It is a crony-capitalist state, which is not true capitalism, but it is not socialism either. Like in Scandinavia, most of the employment and production is private. People find it hard to think of China positively, but the country has made great reforms in economic freedom, which has lead crazy numbers of people breaking free from poverty.
The last interesting thing was the people who identify as socialists in the USA. These people have a list of problems that need to be solved, and they advocate for socialism, but they do not mean actual socialism. Going back to a point made above, it is really important for people to understand what they are talking about, because they might be accidentally advocating for a system that they do not believe in.
