(Minghui.org) Many people in the international community have a rather confusing concept about socialism, thinking that socialism doesn’t sound too bad, as it seems to promote “social justice” and “equality.” In fact, socialism is very dangerous by nature, which is fundamentally detrimental to traditional culture and ethical values that are essential for the existence of mankind.
Socialist advocates can be very deceitful as they often disguise themselves and try to win votes “for the people.” They have again and again played the role of “Grandma Wolf” – Put on a headscarf, carry a basket, and knock on the door of the chicken coop: “Open the door, I am grandma and I have brought you delicious food.”
Socialists promote “public ownership,” “welfare society,” and the so-called “social justice,” covertly encouraging people to “live on welfare” instead of working for a living.
One of the chilling commands Marx wrote in the Communist Manifesto said that “the theory of communism can be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all private property.”
Bill Muehlenberg, an America-born author, media commentator, and currently Secretary of the Family Council of Victoria in Australia, argued that, “social justice is not what you think it is,” and that, “In socialist countries, the only people who own high-value assets are the socialist rulers and their loyal cronies. Because there is little upward mobility under socialism, socialist societies are characterized by two economic levels: a small, immensely wealthy ruling elite at the top, and at the bottom, the low-income masses forced to obey the dictates of their socialist masters. A large and prosperous middle class like what we have in America does not exist in countries with a single-party socialist rule.”
Chavez’s “Third Way”
In 1998, during the campaign when Chavez was running for the presidency of Venezuela, in order to take power, he played down his socialist propositions and promised extensive social and economic reforms, which won the trust and favor of the poor and working-class people at the time.
He said he would find a “third way” between socialism and capitalism to carry out a “peaceful, democratic revolution,” making people believe that he was not following the communism of Eastern Europe, which collapsed not long ago in 1991.
After he came to power, Chavez took control of the legislature and amended the Constitution. He then started to promote socialism by nationalizing key economic sectors, offering free medical care and free education, as well as a public housing system. Gasoline in Venezuela became the cheapest in the world, costing less than bottled water. One could use as much gasoline as one liked, with no concern for what would happen when that level of consumption became unsustainable down the road.
In the first few years of his administration, life was good for the Venezuelans. The income of the poor in many places increased by 55%; the unemployment rate fell by 6.4%, and the population in poverty fell by 10%. Consequently, Chavez became more and more popular with the poor, as if he were their “great savior.”
Venezuela established 132 socialist training centers in 2007. Chavez ordered all employees of national enterprises to spend at least four hours per week studying Marxist theory, and such requirement also extended to the military and schools.
In the early days, with Venezuela having the world’s largest oil reserves and the benefit of high oil prices, Chavez seemed to have created a paradise on earth in Venezuela, where people could just sit back and enjoy a good life for free. However, when oil prices plummeted, Chavez's planned economy went from bad to worse every day.
The “big pot of rice” would run out sooner or later. The same story ran true in China in the 1950s when the communist regime launched the “Great Leap Forward” and people ate from “the same big pot.” The so-called “equality” and “social benefits” produced more and more “lazy people” and led to social and economic inefficiency and stagnation.
Venezuela’s economy started to deteriorate rapidly after 2010 and eventually collapsed with the massive overprinting of banknotes. Starvation and poverty soon plagued the country.
When Chavez announced that he would redistribute wealth and take money from the rich to give it to the poor, the wealthy began to emigrate; when he announced the nationalization of private enterprises and the control of the foreign exchange, as well as price control on daily necessities, the middle class began to emigrate; when his successor, Maduro, announced that printing of banknotes would go full bore, the poor began to do everything possible to escape to other countries.
Inflation in Venezuela reached a staggering one million percent in 2018. However, the Maduro government continued to issue banknotes and borrow foreign debts, which amounted to 120 billion U.S. dollars, of which, more than 60 billion were owed to communist China.
According to Venezuela’s 2019–2020 National Survey of Living Conditions (ENCOVI), the poverty levels in Venezuela spiked during 2019, officially rendering it the poorest country in Latin America and the Caribbean. There were 75% of people across the country who did not have enough to eat and had an average weight loss of 8.7 kg.
The average income in Venezuela in 2019 was 72 U.S. cents per day. Based purely on income, the survey says, 96 percent of Venezuelans lived in poverty and 70 percent lived in extreme poverty.
Eastern Europe abandoned communism in 1989, and 30 years down the road, Venezuela once again proved that communism is a dead end. It did not bring people happiness as promised but only left behind evilness, corruption, suffering, and poverty.
The failure of Venezuela has caught attention worldwide, and yet Bernie Sanders, the most influential American socialist, and others said very little about it, claiming that Nordic-style socialism was what the US should follow.
Retired professor Paul H. Rubin, an expert on socialism and capitalism, published a new book in August last year, titled A Student's Guide to Socialism: How It Will Trash Your Lives. He explained in the book what the U.S. would look like under socialism: People would be poorer. There would be less freedom, and goods would be of lower quality but more expensive. There would be less innovation, and the environment would be in worse shape.
He also argues that the U.S. is the most productive and richest country that has ever existed, and that the current level of wealth in the U.S. is due to capitalism. Lastly, he demonstrates that many critiques of capitalism (such as it leads to excessive inequality) are mistaken or ill-founded.
As a matter of fact, socialists often behave like Chavez at the beginning, and they would play down the extremes of communism but portray a beautiful picture that they know will never come true.
Denmark Is Not Socialist
After seeing his country held up as an example in the U.S. presidential debate by Bernie Sanders, Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen explained in a lecture at Harvard on October 31, 2015, that his country is not socialist.
“I know that some people in the U.S. associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism. Therefore, I would like to make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy,” Rasmussen said.
“The Nordic model is an expanded welfare state which provides a high level of security for its citizens, but it is also a successful market economy with much freedom to pursue your dreams and live your life as you wish,” he added.
In fact, the Nordic countries have been aware of the problems of socialism for some time. In 1975, Sweden had been the 4th-wealthiest nation on earth (as measured by GDP per capita); however, it dropped to the 14th by 1993, and the Swedes had begun to realize the problems they were facing in their experiment with socialism. Swedish scholar Nina Sanaddaji and others believe that the expanded social welfare has been abused and work ethics have been eroded, and the Swedes have begun to feel that the various practices of socialism are “a colossal failure,” and Denmark has come to a similar conclusion.
However, the mainstream media in the U.S., which has long been trapped in a stultifying quagmire of “political correctness,” refuses to report the troubles caused by socialist practice in the Nordic countries. The “psychedelic drug” of communism, in the name of the “Green New Deal,” is now gaining popularity.
The fact is that during the last decades of the 20th century, the U.S. appeasement policy towards communist China had already allowed socialism into the United States. A survey of millennials shows that 70% of them believe in socialism.
Like opium, communism once attracted a great number of people, and it has indeed poisoned people all these years.
Under the influence of communist atheism, unscrupulous indulgence has prevailed in the United States. The eight years of Obama’s administration plus the last two years of Bush Jr.’s office are regarded as the “lost decade” by many Americans, with two iconic indicators – Firstly, more and more people began to rely on social welfare; secondly, the middle class was shrinking. In addition, same-sex marriage was legalized, hundreds of drug-related death row prisoners were pardoned, and unisex public toilets were popularized.
The Truth of “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics”
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is extremely deceitful and has a history of lying to gain sympathy and approval from the international community so as to push its own political agendas.
“How to achieve democracy? Please take the right track of democracy: Give people’s rights to the people!”, said the editorial of the CCP mouthpiece Xinhua Daily on September 27, 1945, with the title “The Right Track of Democracy: Returning the Political Power to the People with No Reservation.”
“Democracy has become the trend of the world. Whoever goes against this trend will perish......” said the Xinhua Daily editorial “Democracy First” (September 15, 1943).
In order to hide its true nature by pretending to promote democracy, Mao Zedong, leader of the CCP from 1935 till his death in 1976, personally addressed the importance of democracy on numerous public occasions, saying that China's shortcomings were the lack of democracy, and that only by practicing democracy could China be developed properly.
In July 1944, when meeting with John Stewart Service, political advisor to Joseph Stilwell, the China-India-Myanmar Theater Commander and the Chief of Staff to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Mao Zedong said warmly, “Every American soldier in China should be an advertising agent for democracy and they should talk about democracy to every Chinese they meet. American officials should talk about democracy to Chinese officials. In short, the Chinese respect your American ideals of democracy.” (“The Party History Newsletter” 1983 No. 20-21 Issue, compiled by the Party History Research Center of the CCP Central Committee)
In 1949, the CCP claimed to establish a “free and democratic New China” and “invited” many overseas patriots to return to the motherland. Many responded to the call, leaving their homes and careers behind. However, most of them ended up being persecuted as “spies,” “reactionary authorities,” etc., and many lost their lives as a result.
For decades, there has been such an argument that the CCP is different from before and is changing, and it is going its own way with “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” However, 40 years later since China’s economic reform and opening up, the CCP remains the same, with lies, violence, corruption, and destruction of faith, among many other issues. The proletariat is still the proletariat, with 600 million people earning 1,000 yuan a month. After 40 years of reform and opening up, the living standard of nearly half of China’s population has hardly improved.
American scholar Steven Mosher, author of Bully of Asia: Why China’s Dream is the New Threat to World Order, said that the CCP is actually a fascist regime wrapped in communism. Firstly, the CCP itself consumes about one trillion U.S. dollars each year, mainly for the salaries of cadres and officials, sanatoriums and recuperation facilities for retired cadres, public-funded overseas trips, and other expenses.
The second thing, or the second burden the Chinese have to bear, is the state-owned sector that loses trillions of U.S. dollars every year. All state-owned enterprises are losing money, creating heavy burdens on the Chinese people.
Steven Mosher said that the CCP’s economy cannot make ends meet, and it has gone too far to be able to recover. The disintegration of the CCP is inevitable and it won't be too far away.
Epilogue: People Are Waking Up and Rejecting Communism Has Become a Consensus
Throughout the ages, the reason why scammers have often had their way is because they have sets of tricks that can gain the trust of others by hiding their true color. But liars are always liars, and no matter how skillful they are in playing games, they will eventually give the show away.
Trump has warned of socialism on many occasions, and the 2020 U.S. election has enabled many Americans to realize just how far communism has penetrated in the U.S. society. A netizen left a message online, saying that, “we don’t want to see in the U.S. where goods are stolen and money robbed, illegal immigrants enter at will, murderers and arsonists go unpunished, gender change and drug abuse are advocated, rapists of young girls are protected, lawless BLM and Antifa activists behave in an utterly lawless manner, stealing $950 is not deemed illegal, no ID check in the election, etc. We don’t want to see capitalism turning into socialism.”
History has reached a critical moment, and the tricks of the communism Red Devils have nowhere to hide. The socialist frenzy during the U.S. general election was but “Grandma Wolf”’s last knock on the door.
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Category: Perspective
