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.