Socialism is looking less ugly these days.
It used to conjure up images of bushy Karl Marx with spittle in his beard, or a hairless Nikita Khrushchev locking a monkey in a satellite, promising “we will bury you,” and then yelling at a U.N. podium while banging his size 6 Soviet shoe.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE WEB VERSION
on capitalism? Many millennials and their younger siblings think so. A YouGov poll showed that 70% of American millennials are “somewhat or extremely likely” to vote for a socialist. Though Sanders, at 78 years old, may soon head off to a retirement village or to one of his homes to settle down, his followers will not. Rather than apologizing for KGB spies in the Soviet Union or Stasi thugs in East Berlin, American socialists blithely cite gentle Sweden. They disregard that Sweden now embraces free enterprise. It swerved back from the welfare state to avoid national bankruptcy in the 1990s. The Cato Institute’s Human Freedom Index now gives Sweden a slightly higher score than the U.S. Though Sweden’s personal income tax rates exceed U.S. rates, how many American socialists know that in 2004 the Swedish parliament voted unanimously to drop the estate tax to zero? The billionaire founder of Ikea, who had
Today the word “socialist” recalls not a ghoul... but a codger like Bernie Sanders or his funnier incarnation, Larry David. Bernie looks like he drives around the country in a beat-up Dodge Rambler and leaves his left- turn signal blinking the whole way across Route 66. We now live in an era where an avowed socialist came close to grabbing a major party’s nomination. In contrast, it’s been a tough century for capitalism. Investors have absorbed successive hammer and sickle blows to the head, the gut, and the portfolio: First, the Tech Wreck of 2000... second, the 9/11 attacks... third, the Great Recession... and now the coronavirus crisis. That brings today’s slump, which I call the “Great Cessation.” With borders slammed shut, tariffs marring trade, and a budget deficit rivaling World War II’s, is it time to throw in the towel
American Consequences
17
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker