O’Donnell: Yes, Socialism Works . . .
by James O’Donnell, M.B.A.
This year has seen major American cities, like New York City and Seattle, elect socialist mayors. Elsewhere, positions a bit lower on the totem pole have also found successful socialist candidates, including winning city or area council seats in Atlanta, Georgia; Cambridge, Massachusetts; Detroit, Michigan; Greenbelt, Maryland; Ithaca, New York; Jersey City, New Jersey; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Poughkeepsie, New York; and Carrboro, North Carolina.
And there are many more socialists running in the next year or so.
As in New York City, socialists’ victories came from similar demographics behind them: rich, educated, white liberals (especially women) and poor people. These victories highlight the renewed appeal of the Marxist system. Some now see socialism as the wave of the future. Conservatives reply by saying that this system must be rejected because “socialism does not work.”
However, socialism does work if you have a different idea of what “works” means.
As a free-market capitalist – which I confess to be – I understand the imperfections of being a free-market capitalist. I look at “my” system as the least-worst of all the economic systems. The statement, “Capitalism is the least-worst economic system,” is, admittedly, a paraphrase of Winston Churchill’s own thought regarding democracy. It encapsulates a widely held view that while free-market capitalism has significant flaws, it has proven more effective in generating prosperity and innovation than alternative systems have when implemented on a large scale.
Most people reading these thoughts in the Indiana Policy Review, with its conservative outlook, would conclude that my observations are just more proof that socialism does not work. It proves the failure of a defective economic system that rewards laziness and encourages theft through the redistribution of wealth.
I can hear it now, “Socialist fools can’t see that socialism does not work! It is so obvious.”
However, I can come to an opposite and more terrifying conclusion: Yes, socialism works.
We must look at the pattern. Where socialism rules, impoverishment follows. It is intentional. This is no mistake. The general loss of order, beauty, ambition, motivation and excellence, to name just a few attributes of a free society, is not caused by socialist leaders making endless attempts to reach prosperity with broken tools and a defective system. The system and the people leading socialistic governments want things that way.
The key to understanding this strange conclusion is to plumb the depths of what different people mean by “works.”
When I say that something works, I mean it functions according to its intended purpose. A car that does not move forward fails to perform its transportation function and does not work. A piano that can only play half of the notes in the C major scale fails to reach its musical end. Neither the car nor the piano works.
So it is with socio-economic systems. A free-market economy and its corresponding society aim to produce great wealth and prosperity through certain economic rules. Though that system isn’t perfect — producing unequal outcomes, excessive ambition and greed — among them. Its goal is “human flourishing.” Individuals matter. Responsibility matters. Accountability matters. So does one’s work ethic, intelligence, resilience, drive, stamina, creativity, imagination – and more. Virtue matters. When all this stuff works, it creates a natural hierarchy in which all individuals prosper according to the effort they exert. Yes, for sure, luck figures in, too. In addition, the culture strives for excellence because it improves production, efficiency and prosperity. When a society reaches this goal, it all works. When a stock market generates great financial losses instead of profits, we say it has crashed. That didn’t work.
However, a socialist economy and its corresponding society aim to redistribute wealth, not for excellence or individual accomplishment. In fact, it delegitimizes individual wealth creation. Marxism (in all its applications) is not only an economic system but a philosophical system that idealizes an egalitarian society under which everyone (well, everyone but the leaders) is equal, and no one possesses more than anyone else. In any of its myriad manifestations and varieties, what unites socialist thinking is its attack on hierarchies and those manifestations of excellence that give rise to inequalities. In fact, it is hostile to the ultimate Authority and Creator of inequalities, who is God Himself.
Thus, when people say that socialism does not work, they really mean it does not produce the same results as a market economy and its society does. And they are absolutely right. However, a true socialist isn’t interested in achieving the goals of a free-market economy and society.
Socialism works to create an egalitarian society. It works when it destroys the structures and hierarchies that have allowed the West to prosper. It works when it destroys the standards of excellence that favor human flourishing, particularly individual effort. It works when it suppresses what it considers excessive wealth by taxation, regulation, legislation and even confiscation. It works when it favors vulgarity, drabness and all that is ordinary.
Socialism attracts rebellious (and, as well, not a few intelligent) souls who hate authority and any restraint upon disordered passions. It creates resentments, entitlement and class struggle. Socialists aren’t stupid. They pursue an egalitarian, atheistic society with cunning and purpose as a means of achieving this end that favors their most deeply-rooted vices.
As Mayor Mamdani promises more rent-controlled housing in New York City, why would a landlord work to maintain or beautify a building when it costs unrecoverable investment, makes him stand out, and maybe trigger socialist persecution? Why would he (or she) improve something that an owner can’t charge more for and might find the owner has no control over those who might rent the dwelling and abuse it? To the socialist, remember, we’re all equal, remember, no matter how we act or treat each other.
Why would others use refined language, better clothes and polite manners that reinforce charm, courtesy and hierarchical structures? The socialist tendency is not to stand out and attract attention. Everything and everyone must be equal. Radically equal, if possible. Socialism creates the constant race to the bottom.
Indeed, in much of the Soviet world, in Eastern Europe, in China, for instance, socialism has worked beyond Marx’s wildest dreams. Socialism works when it produces hopelessness, despair, blocks of ugly, poorly made, identical apartments, godless societies and depraved morals.
We can say that socialism works wherever it is true to itself, be it in Cuba, Venezuela, or other places.
We are not threatened by the socialism that does not work according to Western standards. We are threatened when socialism works, radiating its egalitarian and gloomy presence everywhere.
James O’Donnell, M.B.A., an adjunct scholar of the Indiana Policy Review, is the retired, emeritus, Luke J. Peters Professor of Business and Economics and the Executive-in-Resident at Huntington University, Huntington. Before becoming a professor, O’Donnell was an executive vice president at Fidelity Investments in Boston. He is the author of numerous best-selling books in his business field, but also “Letters to Lizzie,” dedicated to his wife, who died in a long struggle with cancer.
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