According to the economic and political theory called Marxism, socialism is the transitional stage on the road from capitalism to communism. Communism is the ultimate goal (actually, a dream), while socialism is a relatively short temporary period. All fifteen republics of the former USSR, China, Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba, the Soviet satellites of Eastern Europe, occupied by the USSR at the end of the World War II, actually, all countries of the world, in which the means of production and distribution of goods belonged to the government, were socialist.
They were called "communist" in the West, but it was an incorrect term because, according to Karl Marx, communism is the final stage of the evolution of human societies. It is significantly more developed than socialism in all aspects - economically, ethically, and ideologically. Communism is a much more advanced system without the socialist totalitarian dictatorship of the proletariat, without social classes, and even without money, with all people happy and equal. In other words, communism is a classical theoretical utopia - the Marxist dream that was never realized, while socialism existed in many countries in the 20th century. Most of them collapsed after the dissolution of the USSR, but Cuba and North Korea still survived.
The 2016 election showed that our country is at an inflection point - we are in the process of selecting the road to the future. In my opinion, the reaction to election of President Trump was not the anti-Nazi fight but the anti-capitalist resistance movement - the protest against conspicuously capitalist Donald Trump. Probably most of the anti-Trump resistance activists still do not realize the real source of their hostility even now, four years later.
If we abstract from the unimportant details, in a pure form, the current choice is between the American dream and the socialist dream.
For the American dreamers, the United States is a shining city upon a hill, a noble, generous, and exceptional nation, the symbol of liberty, justice, and prosperity, the subject of admiration of the entire world, and the model for other countries.
For the socialist dreamers, America as an evil and corrupt capitalist nation based on the obsolete constitution, founded on the extermination of Native people and slavery and deeply embedded in capitalist inequality, racism, homophobia, and sexism.
Socialists think the U.S. exploits other countries and brings mostly misery to the world.
The great American economist and philosopher Thomas Sowell presented an in-depth analysis of the conflict of visions, and we will discuss this subject on many occasions. In the modern political environment, every U.S. citizen must have a cool head and a decent understanding of the current precarious situation. Unfortunately, many Americans are confused and dramatically misinformed. They are attracted to the completely fantasized, entirely distorted image of the socialist system.
The problem is that socialist dreamers have nothing new to offer. They dream of replacing American capitalism with socialism via gradual transfer (instead of socialist revolution) of the ownership of the means of production from "capitalists" to the "people" (an abstract word "people" in practice means "the government"). But the result of the new socialist experiment can be easily predicted since it was already tested in many socialist states (incorrectly called communist) - the last 100 years demonstrated that socialism always ended as a totalitarian nightmare and economic disaster. The socialist system leads to these catastrophic results for several reasons that I will describe in the book in detail. Still, one factor is the most prominent and foundational: socialism is based on artificial and unnatural ideology. Political power is necessary to support and protect the ideology-based system-the use of force automatically limits freedom, justice and democracy.
