When someone says that America should abandon a system that we have held to for centuries, I do not think it is asking too much to demand that they bring a little evidence to the table. That is especially true for the supposedly “democratic” socialists who call for capitalism to be replaced with a more “equitable” socialist alternative. Let’s forget about all the anecdotal evidence that says socialism would never work. Let’s set aside the strong moral and religious case for why socialism is incompatible with American values. Let’s get down to the cold hard facts about socialism in the world today.
Socialists should be able to point to at least one example in world history where their namesake economic system has worked successfully. After all, it has been tried plenty of times. Venezuela is a socialist nation, but that is not working out so well at the moment. The United States even tried socialism when the Jamestown colony was first founded in 1607. That idea was quickly scuttled after it was shown to be a complete disaster.
Socialists like to point to what they call the “Nordic model,” which is the economic characteristics of such nations as Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. They claim that because these Nordic countries are prosperous, socialism can work anywhere. The only problem with this evidence is that the Nordic countries are not socialist countries. They don’t even claim to be socialist countries. That was a complete lie fabricated by American socialists to give evidence to their baseless ideas. The prime minister of Denmark put these arguments to rest in 2015 when he said, “I know that some people in the US associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism. Therefore, I would like to make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.”
In reality, American socialists have no real evidence to offer in favor of their ideas. Maybe some academics in ivory towers have written papers in their peer-reviewed echo chambers, but socialism has never worked in real life. Give me capitalism with its flaws over Venezuelan socialism any day.