Vaclav Havel and the Power of the Powerless

There are at least two types of tyrannical political order. The first is one that is implemented by brute force with soldiers or police patrolling everywhere looking to enforce the ruler’s will on a frightened population. The second type of tyranny is one enforces by the people on the people. There is always a coercive force, but it does not require constant patrols by soldiers, because people (whether they believe in the tyrannical policies or not) enforce them or call in the authorities to do so.

Of the two types of tyranny, the second is the more awful. There will always be some toadies in an oppressed culture that will jump over to the other side and work with the oppressors in the first type of tyranny, but the vast majority of people will outwardly comply, but inwardly hope for and be prepared to assist a rebellion. Resistance is cheered, even in small things. This is a totalitarian system of government.

In the second form of tyranny, internal cultural forces demand absolute compliance and offer little hope of freedom. It requires the deletion of civil society—those groups that exist for non-political purposes and which hold societies together—and their replacement with government authorized programs. The second form of tyranny induces citizens, even those who do not explicitly favor the government’s policies, to enforce them through social pressure and, sometimes, by calling in the government’s enforcers. There is little room for people to live in dissent. Vaclav Havel calls this second form a post-totalitarian system.

In Vaclav Havel’s essay, “The Power of the Powerless” he describes what it means to live in a society in which dissent is impossible. He is speaking of his experience in Czechoslovakia, where he was a significant member of the resistance that eventually contributed to that nation being freed from communism.

Havel describes a simple act by a greengrocer, who one day refuses to put the approved Party sign in his windows. He does not believe that “Workers Unite” has any particular significance in a political system designed to entrap everyone in a miasma of misery. He may have already declared his allegiance in various public and semi-public ways through participation in Party activities, without ever believing the concepts. But one must go along to get along.

And yet, though many of the customers will not particularly care about the sentiment “Workers Unite,” because it has no real meaning, the minor resistance of the greengrocer in no affirming the approved common sentiment will be deemed a rebellion. In a post-totalitarian society, social auto-totality will lead to conformity, as word will spread and reach the authorities who will by force ensure compliance, often by removing the right to work. It may not be physical force that is brought to bear, but commercial and social pressure.

The crime of the greengrocer was simply to stop living the lie. He had never truly believed the slogans, like most of the population, but had simply done what was needed to get by. In that moment when he chose to stop putting up slogans, stop voting in farcical elections, and, perhaps, even positively voice an opinion at a political meeting, the greengrocer will have begun to live in the truth, but society will not allow it.

Havel writes as one who has experienced a post-totalitarian system under Communist rule. He worked against the system, though the system did not acknowledge him, and eventually became the prime minister of Czechoslovakia after the end of the Communist oppression ended.

We, however, are seeing the beginning of a very different regime of oppression that is being brought to bear on society more gradually and yet no less insidiously. At present, there is still room to live in the truth, but there are an increasing number of voices looking to make the lie the only possible way of life.

Consider, for example, the rush to ignore differences in sexual expression and the demand to support various forms of LGBTQ lifestyles. One may think those good or not, but participation in much of society is now becoming dependent on active, public affirmation of those lifestyles. There is no room for neutrality or even quietly thinking, along with many of the voices in human history, that this is an unhealthy lifestyle. Instead, employers require affirmation of “diversity” along arbitrarily invented lines, which necessarily exclude diversity of thought, or, really, any thought at all. To refuse to wear a rainbow ribbon on the culturally approved day or affirm the latest evolution in sexual ethics is a form of open rebellion, much as the green grocer’s refusal to post the sign, “Workers Unite.”

At times there is force of law behind these edicts, as with the states that are attacking bakers and florists that decline to participate in same-sex wedding celebrations, but much of the punishment for violating societal norms is meted out by regular people. This is an auto-totality. In Western culture, it is likely to get worse before it gets better.

Havel’s concerns are certainly different than those we face in the auto-totality, but the methods used by the contemporary culture to gain and maintain control are similar to those used by the Soviets in oppressing the people of Eastern Europe. Havel’s essay, “Power to the Powerless,” is informative because it provides a roadmap for those who disagree with the consensus that is being hammered over society to maintain their integrity and not live the lie.

The hope of the resistance should be to create an existential revolution, so that people see and pursue a radically different way of thinking and knowing. That is, the resistance needs to demonstrate that an alternate, moral reality exists and live in a way that points people toward it.

As Havel writes,

“Above all, any existential revolution should provide hope of a moral reconstitution of society, which means a radical renewal of the relationship of human beings to what I have called the ‘human order’, which no political order can replace. A new experience of being, a renewed rootedness in the universe, a newly grasped sense of ‘higher responsibility’, a new-found inner relationship to other people and to the human community – these factor clearly indicate the direction in which we go.”

Havel wrote his ideas on living in truth to fuel an existential revolution leading to moral reconstitution when the fall of communism still seemed unlikely. As the storm clouds of our present auto-totality continue to deepen, we may find it necessary to tighten the boundaries of our contrast communities, rebuild the moral structures within them, and live with greater integrity to demonstrate the plausibility of our moral vision for the world.

The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe

By Havel, Vaclav

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The Firm: The Inside Story of the Stasi - A Review

It seemed like a no brainer to understand that communism is evil when I was young. I remember the excitement of the Berlin Wall coming down, though I was still in elementary school when it happened. But a generation has arisen that has no memory of the Soviet bloc and whose greatest concerns seem to be that capitalism has worked too well for some people.

There is no replacement for experience. But the best way to keep the memory of socialistic oppression alive is to study history, retell it, and ensure apologists for economic collectivism do not control the narrative.

Gary Bruce’s book, The Firm: The Inside Story of the Stasi, is a book that accurately presents the reality of the East German secret police and the work they did to suppress freedom, oppress their people, and punish dissent.

This book is not as flashy as some history books, but it is impressive in the quality of archival work Bruce did. The one thing that the East German government seems to have mastered is paperwork, and they left a huge volume of it for historians to dig through. Bruce’s book combines both archival research and interviews to provide a look at the work of the Stasi from the perspective of the full-time employees, the informant network, and those who were impacted by both the other groups.

The Stasi did not work like the Nazis and the Soviet oppression of East Germany was quite different than that of the National Socialist party of Adolf Hitler. Of course, Hitler came to power by promising economic prosperity and largely delivering on that promise. The Nazis maintained control by force and popular enforcement by patriotic citizens. In contrast, the Stasi maintained control for the Communist Party by gnawing fear and a carefully maintained network of amateur spies within the East German population.

This book begins with a chapter explaining the geographical setting of the book. Since this is a volume derived largely from archival work, it cannot cover everything that happened. Bruce drills down to two industrial districts in East Germany, both of which are reasonably close to the West German border. Chapter Two details the work done by professional Stasi workers, which is really boring. The wrote absurdly detailed reports about routine goings-on, which were probably read by no one. However, those reports could be used, if needed, to justify charges and oppression of anyone who crossed the line at a later point. The banality of the work of the Stasi agent is depressing and almost worth pitying, if the effect they had were not so evil.

Chapter Three talks about the work of the Stasi informants. These people were amateur, secret agents who worked for the Stasi. Some of them believed in communism. Others were essentially blackmailed into participating in the oppression of other citizens because they or a loved one had history or an offense that could be charged against them. It is easier to have sympathy for the blackmailed than the volunteers. It is interesting to read how the Stasi cultivated their informant network and instructive for understanding contemporary surveillance. The fourth chapter discusses those who were targeted by the Stasi, which largely included anyone who raised signs of dissent or, especially, those who attempted to escape. One of the most significant truths of communism is that it requires force to keep people in.

The final two chapters discuss the experience of those not under direct surveillance of the Stasi. They were often the place where people would go to complain about pollution, unsafe work conditions, or other failures of the communist regime. The Stasi provided security services to ensure festivals did not cause dissent. The Stasi were everywhere, but they were often seen as an ineffective bureaucracy, which was more likely to succeed in making life difficult for those who dared to speak out than for the average citizen than in fixing the real problems in the area. Chapter Six outlines the events leading to and immediately following the fall of the Berlin wall, including the attempt of the Stasi to escape the anger of the citizens who had lived under their thumb.

Collectivist economics continues to increase in popularity because people do not remember the malaise of life within the Soviet regime. The Firm helps retain the memory of the work it took to keep the population within East Germany, especially highly skilled individuals who could have done much better by escaping. Bruce does this in an even-handed way. He is positive toward the medical system of East Germany, though recognizing that they often lacked treatments and tools that were common in the West. He recognizes that many people had a moderately fulfilling life. But what readers cannot escape is that life was always controlled. There was a constant knowledge that freedom was limited and that the mere suspicion of a desire to escape could well lead to having one’s life turned upside down. These are the necessary side-effects of collectivist economics, which should give us pause as we consider our nation’s future.

The Firm: The Inside Story of the Stasi (Oxford Oral History Series)

By Gary Bruce

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Animal Farm, Economic Freedom, and Human Flourishing

George Orwell’s Animal Farm is an important piece of literature for our age.

Though the main target of the satire no longer exists, this is a book that should find its way back into the curricula of upper elementary, middle, and high schools. There are a whole lot of young adults that are living in a fairy tale, hoping for communism, that would benefit from reading it seriously, too.

Based on history, however, I think that the importance of Animal Farm is greater than when Orwell wrote it and that it is useful in understanding human nature and why we should be very careful how we view each other and the role of the government.

There are several reasons why Animal Farm deserves a more prominent place in American curricula.

Why is it Important?

First, it is simply a good story, written well, and entertaining. The book is satire, but the characters are sufficiently plausible that most readers will acknowledge they’ve met that person before. It helps that the story is about animals. One of the reasons Animal Farm should be more broadly read is because it is a masterpiece.

Second, it is a brilliant example of how imaginative fiction is much more effective at carrying ideas than essays. Those meager writers who mainly write in the world of non-fiction should be blown away at how powerful Orwell’s depiction of communism captures the absurdities of that political and economic system. I have read some of Orwell’s non-fiction essays (he is an excellent essayist, too), but his 1984 and Animal Farm are much more compelling.

Third, Animal Farm provides a gateway for children to understand totalitarianism. As a child toward the end of the Cold War, I sometimes wondered how it was that the Communists could get and maintain control, if they made people so miserable. Orwell shows the way in a manner that even a child can understand.

It is interesting, however, that Orwell’s satire seems to have implications beyond his original intention.

Broadening Applicability

One of the more interesting facts about Orwell is that he was a socialist. The man lived in voluntary poverty in France for a time, had a deep sympathy for working class people in the U.K. (who were largely getting a raw economic deal), and as a result viewed socialism as the economic program most likely to help people out.

The intentions were good, but Orwell failed to account for the fact that whether socialism comes in through revolution (as with Animal Farm) or by popular vote, as he preferred, it tends to end in the same place: human misery.

One of the central tenets of socialism, perhaps the very core of it, is that the collective controls the means of production. There are, as proponents of socialism argue, multiple ways that this could happen. In the Soviet bloc, ownership was by the government. As the U.K. flirted with socialism, it was public ownership of certain industries while private ownership remained for others, under government scrutiny.

Although there are some Jacobin types on the far left who lobby for full on communism, most of the advocates for contemporary socialism view themselves as arguing for some sort of economic control by the people, funneled through a centralized planning system, but always being governed democratically.

Again, the intentions are (nearly) always to make life better. People that want socialism don’t want Venezuela, and they typically don’t believe they will get it.

Animal Farm, I think, helps show what the process of centralized control will always tend toward the abuses of the animals on Animal Farm and by the government in Venezuela.

Orwell wrote Animal Farm to mock the Soviet Union and, perhaps, to show that real socialism wouldn’t end up there, but there is little empirical evidence of a nation implementing broad economic socialism while maintaining both economic viability and a reasonable amount of personal freedom.

Those arguing that “real socialism” won’t end up like Animal Farm, are really just unthinkingly chanting, “Four legs good, two legs bad.”

Just like the sheep chanting against two legged humans, most of the advocates for socialism (or raw capitalism, for that matter) haven’t given enough thought to the system to deserve to comment. Additionally, they mistakenly believe that it is the number of legs that determines the goodness, rather than the way that power is structured. Their end goal is wrong.

Economic Freedom as a Goal

Economic freedom is important, but it should never be an end to itself. This is why so many of the arguments between contemporary socialists and capitalists is unhelpful. Economic freedom is always relative, always situated within a particular context and community, and should always remain a means to an end.

The end of economic freedom should be to enhance human flourishing.

As I understand it, human flourishing is the ability for individuals to flourish within the web of families and communities as we live out our calling to be the image of God. Others may want a more naturalistic description of that, but I’ll stick with my own worldview.

True human flourishing isn’t found in a universally level distribution of GDP across the community or in absolute personal autonomy. It must have the individual and community as complementary elements, with both playing a function.

Oddly, many of the contemporary conceptions of socialism in the United States believe they can get both absolute personal autonomy and total collective cooperation at the same time. One of the privileges of being a fringe idealist group with (so far) very little control of policy is that you can propose preposterous solutions without having to ask whether it is even possible for them to achieve the stated ends.

The trouble with popular forms of capitalism that put personal autonomy as the golden calf at the center of the platform is that capitalism requires a cooperative community to function, so the very end they pursue promises to undermine the ends they want to achieve. The trouble with socialistic proposals that see the collective as the solution is that the collective always concentrates power to a few who will use it undemocratically “for the common good” and that abuse of power inevitably demotivates the hard workers who are being deprived from the fruit of their labor for someone else’s vision of good. This is the inevitable end of socialism.

Animal Farm may have started with a revolution, but it shows the likely end of all collectivist economic systems. By using anthropomorphic animals, Orwell enables the reader to look beyond the caricatures and have sympathy or antipathy toward parties that would be impossible were they humans. The book enables important conversations as we consider the likely end of socialism, which makes it an important resource for having real discussions with a generation that seems to be lurching toward a false belief in the innocence of the collectivization of power.

Animal Farm

By George Orwell

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Is Socialism Ecologically Friendly?

There is an odd correlation in some of the public square between socialism and the ecological movement. The so called “Green New Deal” is a major example of this, where a proposal has been created to install socialism in the United States for the sake of the environment. This belief in the environmental friendliness of socialism didn’t begin with thoughts of the recent proposals, but the logical connection between the two is dubious, at best.

The first time I came across the argument that socialism was the best solution to the environment was in Naomi Klein’s popular book, This Changes Everything. It was a shoddy book by an activist who writes journalistically, but given the popularity of Klein’s sales and the increasing popularity of the combination of economic control and ecology she proposes, it seems to resonate with a number of people.

Among Klein’s basic proposals is a Universal Basic Income (UBI), which has supporters on both among free market advocates and those who desire more centralized economic control. She claims UBI “makes it possible for workers to say no to dirty energy jobs but also because the very process of arguing for a universal social safety net opens up a space for a full-throated debate about values.” (Klein, 2014: 461) Given that in her recent book, On Fire, Klein offers a definition of “green jobs” that include daycare workers, it isn’t clear exactly what a “dirty energy job” is and why it should be resisted. (Klein, 2019: 268)

But the deeper issue is that there is often no clear connection between socialism and improving the environment, the very grounds on which the so-called Green New Deal is supposed to stand.

As the Washington Post revealed in this profile of Saikat Chakrabarti, who has been one of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s political handlers, the so-called Green New Deal was originally not about the environment, but about imposing socialism on society:

Chakrabarti had an unexpected disclosure. “The interesting thing about the Green New Deal,” he said, “is it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all.” Ricketts greeted this startling notion with an attentive poker face. “Do you guys think of it as a climate thing?” Chakrabarti continued. “Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.”

This was readily apparent to many who read the summary of the so-called Green New Deal proposal and noted that it took a great deal of time to get to anything that was supposed to benefit the ecosystem.

The conflation of radical redistribution with eco-friendly is not unique to political formulations of ecology, though. In his book, Religion and Ecology: Developing a Planetary Ethic, queer-theorist Whitney Bauman proposes (1) free higher education (and transferring student loan debt to the U.S. government), (2) global, universal health care, and (3) an increase in leisure time as key remedies for environmental ills, the method for which is not clearly defined. (Bauman, 2014:  147–148) The idea is to get people disengaged from economic activity so they take on the attitudes of “polytheistic nomadism” and have space to imagine a world that is truly environmentally friendly.

The message seems to be that by granting economic power to a central elite––an oligarchy that we will democratically choose, of course––people will stop working so hard and have time to consider the lilies.

There is no question that this sounds terrifically appealing on a Friday afternoon after a long week of work. And, of course, there is some helpful truth within the ideas, which allows people to focus on the legitimate good(s) proposed without considering the damage it would take to get there or what it would do to society.

As a Christian and a non-libertarian advocate for a Free Market economic condition, I believe that debt from higher education (and a whole bunch of other consumer sources) is too high, that we need to reevaluate and structurally improve our health care system at many levels, and that the harried pace of modern life are damaging to the human psyche. I am also of the opinion that we need to think carefully about our individual and corporate impact on the environment and continue to make adjustments at all levels.

However, I can’t support proposals like the so-called Green New Deal because of some of the fundamental flaws in the worldview.

Can Socialism Self-Regulate?

More significantly, I cannot support movement toward socialism on environmental grounds, because centralized control of the economy has not consistently led to a positive outcome for the environment. For the sake of this discussion, I will accept the traditional definition of socialism, which is that the government owns (or substantially controls) the means of production. (There are competing and historically naïve definitions in existence, so such a definition is warranted.)

At a fundamental level, it seems illogical that central planners will self-police environmental issues to the degree that advocates of socialism hope. When the local, state, and federal government are independent entities, they have both standing and incentive to enforce environmental regulations and seek damages from corporate entities that pollute. However, once the various levels of government and production are simply branches of the same massive entity, it is not clear they will have the political will to essentially self-enforce regulations.

Of course, the counter argument is that it isn’t a totalitarian socialism that is being proposed but a “democratic” socialism. However, when a few thousand people are being affected by a chemical spill for the benefit of the rest of the population, it doesn’t take too long to imagine how majoritarian democracy could choose to neglect that tiny minority. It also becomes less and less clear how people will be able to vote in their long-term best interests when their immediate good in regulated by the tiny minority in power, but that is a discussion for another day. It might be more helpful to look at historical examples to see how ecological health has fared under socialist economies.

Historic Impact of Socialism on the Environment

Historically speaking, socialistic systems have not been particularly good for the environment. In his book, The Art of the Impossible, Vaclav Havel describes the environmental blight caused by socialism the former Czechoslovakia. Similarly, historically, the levels of pollution in East Germany were several times that in West Germany during the reign of socialism. Then, you have the ongoing environmental blight and gross pollution present in today’s China, which has made some capitalistic reforms, but is still recovering from their economic communism. During Moa Zedong’s rule, his government created a famine by exterminating sparrows because he thought them to be pests, thus disrupting the ecosystem. The list can go on significantly and include the ongoing environmental meltdown in Venezuela. It is also worth noting that the so-called “good” socialism of the Scandinavian countries is rated near the bottom of the Sustainable Development Index. (For the record, these countries are not socialistic.)

But, some might argue, communism isn’t real socialism and what the so-called Green New Deal is proposing will be environmentally better. First, since the so-called Green New Deal is being compared favorably to FDR’s New Deal of the early 20th century, we can consider the impact that farm subsidies have had on the environment. One of the chief concerns about farming is topsoil depletion, which is significantly accelerated due to monoculture. The rise of agribusiness and the propensity toward monoculture of crops have been enabled and accelerated by FDR’s Agricultural Adjustment Act, which was a precursor to the modern farm bills. The industrialization of farming has only accelerated topsoil depletion. It is unclear that any new proposals from the so-called Green New Deal programs will do much better.

Conclusion

While there is a groundswell movement on the political left to link the concentration of economic power in the Federal government and environmental health, it is unclear that such a movement will have a positive outcome for the environment. In fact, there is good historical evidence that exactly the opposite will occur. We certainly need economic reform, but it might be better to think local, compassionate, and personal instead of looking to socialism.

The Art of the Impossible - Speeches by Vaclav Havel

Looking back, the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe came suddenly and, in many cases, was completed with relatively little bloodshed. One example of this is the so-called Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, which led to playwright and dissident, Vaclav Havel, being elected president in a bloodless rebellion.

In a 1997 book, The Art of the Impossible, we are provided the texts—translated into English—of a number of Havel’s speeches from his time as president of Czechoslovakia and, a few years later, the Czech Republic. As historical artifacts, these speeches are somewhat interesting. However, as expressions of a political philosophy, the speeches are engaging and thought provoking.

After decades of resisting Soviet occupation and communist rule, Havel had the responsibility to help his country peacefully transition to a democratic, free-market political economy. The risk of this transition leading to political violence against the former oppressors is always real. Simultaneously, the temptation for the new ruling class to become just like the old ruling class was strong.

The speeches in this volume are arranged chronologically, so they have a variety of topics. There is a clear trajectory in them that shows the ways Havel’s nation was changing and the landscape of Europe was shifting to accept the former Soviet-bloc countries. Each of the chapters, however, seems surprisingly frank and open.

For example, the first speech was given on New Year’s Day in 1990, shortly after communism had been overthrown and Havel named president. He notes early in his speech, “Our country is not flourishing.” But this was not simply due to the political turmoil, but a profound misdirection of society, because,

“The enormous creative and spiritual potential of our nations is not being used sensibly. Entire branches of industry are producing goods that are of no interest to anyone, while we are lacking the things we need. A state that calls itself a workers’ state humiliates and exploits its workers. . . . We have contaminated the soil, rivers, and forests bequeathed to us by our ancestors, and today we have the most polluted environment in Europe.”

Havel could say this, of course, because he was looking at the abusive legacy of four decades of communist tyranny. However, the quick pivot toward arguing that he is going to make everything great again doesn’t come. Instead Havel emphasizes the difficulty that lies ahead and how much it was going to take to become a healthy nation.

One of the major themes in this work is responsibility. In contrast to contemporary political discourse in the United States, which typically focuses on rights. On the left, the concern is positive rights: the right to have other people work to provide something for me. On the right, the concern is typically negative rights: the right to own weapons, live faithfully, and keep a larger percentage of wealth. In a state of precarious need, Havel draws people’s attention to their duties to each other and to society in a powerful way.

Among the more interesting speeches is his speech on “The Anatomy of Hate,” given in 1990, only a few months after the fall of communism. As a man who had suffered so greatly in prison, it must have been difficult not to hate his oppressors, but Havel explains the pieces of hate in a way that makes it clear why its pull is so strong and why he resisted it. This chapter alone is worth the price of the book.

Collections of thought like this are helpful for those in generations who have not witnessed the destructive power of communism, because Havel provides examples and testimonies of how oppressive that form of socialism is and, after having experienced the “benefits” of full socialism for decades, how eager the population was to get a market economy. There is a moral difference between socialism and a market economy, and the second is preferred by people who have experienced the first.

At the same time, Havel is clear that freedom cannot exist without responsibility. This responsibility, Havel argues, is rooted in the human understanding of the existence of a transcendent power beyond our immediate understanding. Though Havel explicitly denies being aligned with any particular religion, he recognizes the common recognition within humanity that there is something that made all things, holds all things together, and is moving history toward something. In a manner similar to Solzhenitsyn’s Harvard Commencement Address, Havel calls for respiritualizing politics and daily life; the acknowledgement of something greater helps reduce the absolutizing abuses of ideology.

These speeches are surprisingly fresh and insightful, given some of them are three decades old. The landscape of world politics, particularly politics in Europe, have changed significantly, but many of the challenges Havel recognized are still evident and, indeed, still need to be dealt with.

The Art of the Impossible: Politics as Morality in Practice

By Vaclav Havel

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Socialism Sucks - A Review

I requested a review copy of Socialism Sucks: Two Economists Drink Their Way Through the Unfree World on a whim. The title is provocative and the subtitle sounds intriguing (if not a model of virtue). Given the title, I expected the book to be somewhere beyond polemical into the range of bellicose. Thankfully, the coauthors, Robert Lawson and Benjamin Powell, are not mean drunks.

Lawson is a professor at SMU and, perhaps more significantly, is one of the co-creators of the Economic Freedom of the World index. Powell is executive director of the Free Market Institute and a professor at Texas Tech. There are men who are convinced that a free market it the best economic system. They are libertarians. And, apparently, they enjoy good beer.

The premise of the book, which was proposed via a slightly tipsy text, is that these two economists would travel to various countries impacted by socialism and sample the local beverages while they examine the health of the economy. Their journey takes them from Sweden through China and all the way back to the United States. The chapters are a mix of reporting from ground level and discussion of economic principles. Who would have expected that when going on a pub crawl with these men, readers would learn something about economics?

After an introduction that begins with salty language and breezy prose, the authors go to Sweden. The beer in Sweden is good, though expensive. Of course, Sweden is not a socialist country, so the quality of the beer is not surprising, given Lawson and Powell’s thesis of the deficiencies of socialism. However, the beer is also notably expensive because of the high taxes needed to support Sweden’s bulky welfare system. Sweden is, in fact, able to support their generous welfare system because they have one of the freest economies in the world.

Next stop on the journey is Venezuela. The authors actually spend more time in Colombia along the Venezuelan border, because it isn’t safe to enter Venezuela. But what they see is tragic. The once-prosperous nation of Venezuela has residents streaming across the border to Colombia on a regular basis to get goods (like diapers and sugar) that are simply unavailable in their home country. Inflation is so bad that the authors exchanged a US $20 for a foot-high stack of large denomination Venezuelan currency (and they likely got the short end of the stick). The collapse of the economy in Venezuela is, as Powell and Lawson explain, largely due to attempts at price control, seizure of private property by the government, and strict controls on imports and exports. Oh, and beer is generally unavailable in Venezuela because the government won’t allow them to import hops.

After that dreary visit, they go to Cuba. It is, according to some, a paradise of free medical care. What tourists find when they venture off the beaten path is a dreary socialism that is barely making ends meet. There are some restaurants, but their menus are nearly identical and bland. The hotels run by the government are mediocre at best. The beer is bland and low quality. Cars are exorbitantly expensive, even for moderately functional units.

The third stop on the journey is North Korea. This time the authors do not actually go into the country because they have a friend who spent over a year in a labor camp for his visit. What they see from a neighboring Chinese city is a radical difference between the extreme poverty of North Korea’s socialist economy and the pseudo-capitalism of China. These libertarian professors even choose to forgo a strip club with North Korean girls, not because of any sexual virtue, but because they realize that many of the staff at the club are trafficking victims who were merely looking for a way out of North Korea. The misery of North Korea is even more striking when the prosperity in South Korea is considered in comparison. In this chapter, Powell and Lawson drink Swedish beer again, because there is no North Korean beer. In China, however, the beer is cheaper than in Sweden because the taxes are lower.

Although China is governed by the Communist party, there have been significant market reforms in the past few decades. Thus, the authors call it “fake socialism.” There are, to be sure, still significant aspects of the Chinese economy that are not free. What China has is crony capitalism, which is an advance on socialism, but still effective in keeping many Chinese people from prospering.

In Chapter Five, Lawson and Powell’s excellent adventure takes them to Russia and Ukraine, which are hungover from the socialism of the Soviet empire. Their visit to the epicenter of communism serves as a reminder of the millions of people enslaved and slaughtered to make socialism work. One of the most striking vignettes in this chapter is the prevalence of abortion, particularly when the Soviets were in power. It was not something that was particularly good for women, contrary to recent attempts to whitewash abortion and the Soviet regime. According to an estimate by Soviet gynecologist Archil Khomassuridze, “women in the Soviet Union had between five and eight abortions for each birth.” (pg 97) It was done in an assembly line manner, as this quote from a feminist magazine outlines:

“You go into a hall splattered with blood where to doctors are aborting seven or eight women at the same time; they’re usually very rough and rude, shouting at you about keeping your legs wide open et cetera….if you’re lucky they give you a little sedative, mostly Valium. Then it’s your turn to stagger out to the resting room, where you’re not allowed to spend more than two hours because the production line, you see, is always very busy.”

The libertarian authors are not opposed to abortion, but they still find this outcome of socialism horrid. The prevalence of abortion was largely driven by the unavailability of birth control and resistance to large families due to economic difficulties. The medical conditions were representative of the socialist approach.

On a more positive note, the next destination is the Balkan nation of Georgia. Since they have become free from Soviet rule, markets have begun to flourish thanks to the work of several of their leaders and laws intentionally written to encourage development. The result is an economy that is beginning to grow and recovery from the misery of socialism. It takes times to recover and the ugly Soviet-era buildings remind visitors of the joylessness of socialism. Since the fall of the Soviets the local wine industry has flourished. It was an age-old craft that the Soviets sought to eliminate, but local grapes fermented by local methods have made Georgia a stop for wine tasters in Europe as the country opens up to free markets.

In Chapter Seven the authors return to the United States to visit a conference of American socialists in Chicago. They attended multiple sessions to hear about socialism from those who are advocating for it. Then, they proceeded to the privately owned bar down from the convention to casually interview conference attendees over glasses of beers with socialist brands. What Lawson and Powell discover is that there was almost no discussion of actual socialism at the convention and, when asked, conference goers thought that socialism was about support for abortion, queer ideologies, and freeing the oppressed, immigrant rights, and Black Lives Matter. The two economists were politely confused by the failure of the supposed socialists to understand the ideology they were advocating for. Their theory is that, like many cults, the real economic socialists are allowing the conversation to stay on the popular topics instead of revealing the black center of the ideology.

Each of the chapters is a mix of stories about their travels, with a heavy emphasis on the quality of the booze, the food, and the hotels, and economic principles written at an accessible level. Though its title is splashy and some of the language salty, this is an ingenious way to get some people to understand why socialism really isn’t a good thing for anyone except those at the center of power. This is an example of winsomely explaining a topic so that an unusual audience might listen. This might be the only way to get some college sophomores to actually move beyond the memes into some meaningful economic theory.

Socialism Sucks: Two Economists Drink Their Way Through the Unfree World

By Robert Lawson, Benjamin Powell

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NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.