"Socialism, wherever it actually had the means to plan a society, to pursue efficaciously its vision of the abolition of private property, economic inequality, and the allocation of capital and goods by free markets, culminated in the crushing of individual, economic, religious, associational, and political liberty. Its collectivization of agriculture alone led to untold suffering, scarcity, and contempt for property as the fruit of labor... The cognitive behavior of Western intellectuals faced with the accomplishments of their own society, on the one hand, and with the socialist ideal and then the socialist reality, on the other, takes one's breath away...[R]egimes of central planning create poverty and occasion ineluctable developments toward totalitarianism and the worst abuses of power. Dynamic free-market societies, grounded in rights-based individualism, have altered the entire human conception of liberty and of dignity for formerly marginalized groups. The entire "socialist experiment," by contrast, ended in stasis; ethnic hatreds; the absence of even the minimal preconditions of economic, social, and political renewal; and categorical contempt for both individuation and minority rights. Our children do not know this true comparison."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Alan Charles Kors, "Can There Be an ‘After Socialism’?" (27 September 2003), Atlas Society
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Socialism
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Socialism
205 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Socialism →
Related Quotes
"Sosialismi. Voiton marximointia. (Seppo Ahti = Bisquit) (SSSK)"
"Socialism of any type leads to a total destruction of the human spirit and to a leveling of mankind into death."
"Why is it after a century of socialist disasters, and an intellectual legacy that has been time and again exploded, t…"
"Socialism is the same as Communism, only better English."
"The trouble is with socialism, which resembles a form of mental illness more than it does a philosophy. Socialists ge…"
"In different places over the years I have had to prove that socialism, which to many western thinkers is a sort of ki…"
"Under Socialism, you would not be allowed to be poor. You would be forcibly fed, clothed, lodged, taught, and employe…"
"The socialism I believe in is everyone working for each other, everyone having a share of the rewards. It's the way I…"
"As we know, socialism is calculational chaos. Rational appraisement and allocation are eternally elusive. It is a gig…"
"It is far more likely that by the time nationalization has become the rule, and private enterprise the exception, Soc…"