The death of socialism

At the collapse of communism and the end of the Cold War, many optimists predicted the triumph of global free market capitalism. Communism, like fascism, became totally discredited, as countries around the world rushed forward toward free market reforms, in a valiant attempt to produce prosperity.

Capitalism, however, has still not completely triumphed. To many observers, the Asian catastrophe, the Russian implosion, the turmoil in Latin America, and the intransigent elements of trade protectionism in America, have all cast doubt upon the laissez faire promise. Socialism–and the threat of socialism–seems alive and well.

In reality, however, socialism is finished; its historical force has been spent and thoroughly dissipated. Even in today’s mixed economies, socialism is suffering from a slow but sure death. Just as Soviet communism took more than 70 years to perish from the earth, socialism may not end during our lifetimes, but it will surely end, as the inevitable historical course marches relentlessly forward toward liberty.

Either socialism will die, or we will die. There can be no compromise between the historical facts and forces of reality.

The recent failure of Asia’s economies, for example, was the direct result of the futility of centralized government planning, state subsidies, and artificial controls. Asia prospered for a generation using the old, obsolete paradigm of the “capitalist developmental state,” which worked temporarily during the industrial age. But the changes brought about by the information age have rendered the old methods completely useless, so that, unless Asia abandons socialism and embraces the free market ideal, it will never fully recover from its current protracted recession.

To be sure, socialism is becoming increasingly untenable all over the world. Even in Bill Clinton’s America, we are beginning to see the enormous cracks in the Social Security program, a centerpiece of FDR’s socialistic New Deal, which appears increasingly anachronistic. For the first time in 60 years, retirement privatization has gained serious discussion, lest the Social Security fund ends up in bankruptcy, as most projections predict.

The fact of the matter is: Socialism is an old ideological relic of the Second Wave industrial age. It is hopelessly incapable of coping with, or adapting to, the enormous technological, commercial and social changes brought about by the Third Wave’s digital information age.

In Chairman Mao’s Communist China, we saw the results of socialized agriculture in the 1950s–“The Great Leap Backward”–which resulted in mass famine. In Soviet Russia, we saw the results of socialized industry–“Stalin’s Five Year Plans”–which ultimately led to the countries complete dissolution. We see the dismal effects of more benign socialism in Europe today: high (double-digit) unemployment rates, inflation, gross inefficiencies, technological backwardness relative to America, etc.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates just wrote a book called “Business at the speed of thought,” outlining the tremendous commercial revolutions now taking place as a direct result of the breath-taking breakthroughs in information technologies today.

Can big, bloated governments regulate businesses at the speed of thought?

Remember: George Orwell was dead wrong in “1984.” Adlous Huxley was dead wrong in “A Brave New World.” Technology does not oppress; it liberates. Rest assured, eventually, information technologies will liberate us from socialism, if progress truly cannot be controlled.