Flowchart Friday – Socialism | a reasonable faith

Flowchart Friday – Socialism

September 22, 2017

Flowcharts are fun. They can make a complicated matrix of goals and options more easily navigable and understandable, as well as allow for some comic relief when working your way through a complex subject. Though they can resemble a maze they’re really just the opposite…no choices to make on which way to turn. Go here. Now there. This way. —> You just go with the flow.

So to the flowchart at hand this week. The recent interest in socialism, by the young in particular, has many of us older folks shaking our heads and wondering what the heck is wrong with people.

From an editorial in Investors Business Daily:

Around the world, nations that have been foolish enough to adopt socialist policies either collapsed or are well on their way to doing so. Why, then, are so many in the U.S. enthralled with the idea?

A quick look at the world’s countries in direst economic shape reveals that many, if not most, have one thing in common: They rely on top-down socialist control, rather than free markets, to run their economies. The former, history amply shows, are doomed to fail. There are no long-term socialist success stories. None.

One of the major reasons why socialism is getting the nod from so many is an ignorance of the devastating consequences of socialism historically as well as those being suffered right now by the unfortunate citizens of Venezuela.

The experiment with “21st-century socialism” as introduced by the late President Hugo Chavez, a self-described champion of the poor who vowed to distribute the country’s wealth among the masses, and instead steered the nation toward the catastrophe the world is witnessing under his handpicked successor Maduro, has been a cruel failure. – The Atlantic

From the NY Times:

The economic crisis in this country has exploded into a public health emergency, claiming the lives of untold numbers of Venezuelans. It is just part of a larger unraveling here that has become so severe it has prompted President Nicolás Maduro to impose a state of emergency and has raised fears of a government collapse.

But there are other reasons besides ignorance of what socialism does; there seems to be a woeful ignorance of what socialism is, as well as of effective economic policies and the interplay between social systems and human nature.

Here’s what it looks like, in a “flowcharty” kind of way. As with my other flowcharts, this is not meant to be an accurate representation but rather a slightly frivolous and simplified snapshot.