Socialism

Polls show that only 4% of baby boomers believe socialism is a good form of government while 19% of their children, the millennials, believe in socialism. During the runup to the 2016 election young people were excited by Bernie Sanders and his socialistic views. This was happening while Venezuela, a country with more oil than the US, was going broke. People were fleeing the country to avoid starvation. The siren call of socialism has always been strong but in practice it never works. Marx said the rich would keep the poor down to promote their own good. In today’s world there are more billionaires in the United States than all of Africa and Asia but the poor in the US have a better life than the people in those other two continents. The poor in West live better lives than the kings of the Middle Ages. The wealth gap in the US is far too wide and getting wider each year and posses a serious long-term problem but socialism is not the solution. A greater threat today, is the number of intellectuals, who believe they have the answers and if they just had the authority to implement their solutions, the country would be better served. The common mistake they make is that they fail to consider the results of their actions and thus the phrase, the unintended consequences of good intentions. Examples indicating this are legion.