The November Plan

Was just reading an article on the upcoming Olympics in Brazil and noting, yet again, how socialist promises are going unfulfilled and have instead resulted in tragedy. A simple comparison of the promises made by the European Union (EU), a favorite topic of Harvard's Center for European Studies and whose out-of-control immigration is threatening Europe, Brexit, in which Britain is collapsing, as well as Venezuela, where people are rooting though garbage looking for food -- and these are just the most recent examples of the long-term consequences of socialism. So why is socialism so popular when its track record is so horrendous? In fact, I would say that the relationship between the short-term appeal of socialism and its eventual long-term failure is the most predictable relationship in politics, even more so than the much beloved democratic peace theory.

The question then becomes, why is it that this highly predictive and consequential regularity is so unstudied? I would even go further to say that why is it that professional politics are actively hostile against questioning socialism? The answer is that political elites benefit disproportionately from socialism. Historically Hayek's critique of centralized planning, The Road to Serfdom and The Intellectuals and Socialism, is an instructive starting point. But Hayek's thoughts on complexity point the way toward a more modern critique of socialism and understanding of conservatism. But a review of Venezuela's socialist experiment shows that the Chavez family is fabulously wealthy as their country starves. And recent research shows that so-called political experts seldom deliver what they say they will and are rarely called to account for it. This highly predictive failure of socialism -- including its metastasized variants progressivism, communism, leftism, Fabianism, globalism, and extreme democracy -- is why I call it "The November Plan," because after it passes through, nothing lives. Making the case why this is the case and having people understand the consequences of socialism is the most pressing issue not only for intellectuals but, more importantly, for the citizens of the countries who implement these inevitably doomed-to-fail November Plans.