Socialism: The Failed Idea that Never Dies

by Kristian Niemietz

Socialism is strangely impervious to refutation by real-world experience.



Over the past hundred years, there have been more than two dozen attempts to build a socialist society, from the Soviet Union to Maoist China to Venezuela. All of them have ended in varying degrees of failure.



But, according to socialism’s adherents, that is only because none of these experiments were “real socialism”.



This book documents the history of this, by now, standard response.



It shows how the claim of fake socialism is only ever made after the event. As long as a socialist project is in its prime, almost nobody claims that it is not real socialism.



On the contrary, virtually every socialist project in history has gone through a honeymoon period, during which it was enthusiastically praised by prominent Western intellectuals.



It was only when their failures became too obvious to deny that they got retroactively reclassified as “not real socialism”.

Genres: Politics, History, Economics, Nonfiction, Sociology, Philosophy, Russia

374 pages, Paperback

First published February 21, 2019

Reviews

[Navid]

پیش‌گفتار
به عنوان خواننده انتظار دارم کتاب‌هایی که امروزه در زمینه‌های اقتصادی و سیاسی چاپ می‌شوند، ساختاری شبیه به این کتاب داشته باشند: شاملِ آمار و تجربیات تاریخی باشند. گذشت آن زمانی که نظریه‌پردازانی مثل آدام اسمیت یا کارل مارکس نظریاتشان را صرفاً بر اساس مشاهدات و تجربیات شخصی خود مطرح می‌کردند‌. آن زمان داده‌های آماری به گستردگی امروز در دسترس نبود و تجربه‌های تاریخی بشر در مواجهه با مسائل روز اندک بود.
ولی امروزه منِ خواننده انتظار دارم نظریه‌پرداز اقتصادی و سیاسی مثل همه‌ی علوم دیگر بر شواهد و مدارک تکیه کند، مثل پزشکی که باید بر اساس مقالات کارآزمایی‌های بالینی دارو تجویز کند یا فیزیک‌دانی که باید نظریاتش را در بوته‌ی آزمایش قرار دهد.
و این کتاب چنین ساختاری دارد که به باور من بزرگترین نقطه قوت آن است.
درباره‌ی کتاب

در صد سال گذشته، بیش از ۲۴ بار برای ساختن جامعه‌ای سوسیالیست تلاش شد. همه‌ی این تلاش‌ها با درجه‌های گوناگونی از شکست به پایان رسیدند. چگونه یک ایده که به این تعداد و در این همه متغیرهای متعدد و با این همه تنظیماتِ از ریشه متفاوت با شکست مواجه شده است، هنوز می‌تواند این همه محبوب و پرطرفدار باشد؟

طرح اصلی کتاب عبارت بالاست.
نویسنده‌ی کتاب «کریستین نیمیتز» استاد کینگز کالج لندن بوده است، بنابراین کتاب از دیدگاه یک اقتصاددان انگلیسی نوشته شده و اشاره‌هایی به آمارِ انگلستان و حزب کارگر انگلیس دارد و به طور کلی آمار اقتصادی اروپا در کتاب بیش از آمار آمریکاست.
کتاب در فصل نخست به ما نشان می‌دهد که در کمال شگفتی سوسیالیسم هنوز در غرب طرفدارانی دارد.
هنوز وعده‌ی عدالت اجتماعی(یا به نظر من بهتر است بگوییم مساوات) و گرفتن پول از سرمایه‌داران و ریختن آن به جیب بقیه‌ی مردم بسیار وسوسه برانگیز است.
سپس نویسنده به ما نشان می‌دهد که برخلاف تصور عمومی در کشورهای حوزه‌ی اسکاندیناوی سوسیالیسم حاکم نیست (رجوع کنید به کتاب رسوایی آرمانشهر) و اتفاقا موفقیت نظام حاکم در بهبود کیفیت زندگی ناشی از سیاست‌های لیبرال است:

اقتصادهای شمال اروپا با مالیات‌های بالا و سطوح بالای هزینه‌های عمومی مشخص می‌شوند، اما در سایر مسائل اقتصاد بازار نسبتا لیبرال هستند.

سپس نویسنده به ما نشان می‌دهد چطور طرفداران سوسیالیسم هنوز از آن دفاع می‌کنند. مثلا:

آنان ادعا می‌کنند که سوسیالیسم حقیقی، از اساس سوسیالیسم دموکراتیک است، سوسیالیسمی که زندگی اقتصادی را وجهه‌ای دموکراتیک می‌بخشد و تضمین می‌کند که ثروت و قدرت به طور یکسان به اشتراک گذاشته شود. آن‌ها ادعا می‌کنند که سوسیالیسم دموکراتیک می‌تواند از نظر اقتصادی کارکرد خوبی داشته باشد.

اما به این نکته توجه نمی‌کنند که تجربه‌های تاریخی به ما نشان می‌دهد سوسیالیسم نه تنها نهایتا به نقض دموکراسی می‌انجامد، بلکه حتی اگر در مراحلی دموکراتیک بوده، از نظر اقتصادی عملکرد مناسبی نداشته است:

دموکراسی بسیاری از چیزها را بهبود می‌بخشد و به دلایل بسیار متعددی مطلوب است، اما بالذات هیچ تمایلی برای ثروتمند کردن یک کشور ندارد و دموکراسی‌های ثروتمند، بسیار پایدارتر از دموکراسی‌های فقیر هستند.

و این که چرا سوسیالیسم در نهایت به مخالفت با آزادی‌های فردی می‌انجامد:

در یک جامعه‌ی سوسیالیستی زندگی اقتصادی یک تلاش دسته‌جمعی است. بنابراین، محدودیت‌هایی که برای آزادی فردی به وجود می‌آیند اجتناب‌ناپذیرند و این محدودیت‌ها در منطق سیستم توجیه پذیر هستند.

نکته‌ی بسیار مهم این است که طرفداران سوسیالیسم معمولا از پذیرش شکست‌های سوسیالیسم خودداری می‌کنند. آن‌ها همیشه در مورد شکست سوسیالیسم می‌گویند این سوسیالیسم واقعی نیست و سوسیالیسم واقعی خیلی هم خوب است!

تا زمانی که یک تجربه‌ی سوسیالیستی در اوجش باشد، به هویت سوسیالیستی‌اش هیچ‌وقت شک نمی‌کنند. تا زمانی که سوسیالیسم جواب بدهد، سوسیالیسم واقعی است. تنها زمانی که شکست می‌خورد و تبدیل به لکه‌ی ننگ برای آرمان سوسیالیستی می‌شود به عنوان سوسیالیسم «غیرواقعی» دسته‌بندی می‌شود.

برای بهتر نشان دادن این مطلب، نویسنده تجربه‌ی سوسیالیستی را از نظر زمانی به سه فاز دسته‌بندی می‌کند:
۱- دوره‌ی ماه عسل: که در آن سوسیالیسم در برخی حوزه‌ها به موفقیت‌هایی رسیده یا حداقل این طور به نظر می‌رسد. در این دوره، روشنفکران طرفدار سوسیالیسم با خوشحالی آن را به عنوان سوسیالیسم واقعی می‌ستایند.
۲- دوره‌ی بهانه‌ها: که در آن شکست سوسیالیسم به تدریج در حال آشکار شدن است:

جستجو برای بهانه‌ها شروع می‌شود و مقصر معمولا «خرابکاران» تخیلی و تلاش‌های نامشخص برای «تضعیف» کشور معرفی می‌شود.

۳- مرحله‌ی سوسیالیسم «غیرواقعی»: اوضاع به قدری خراب می‌شود یا به قول معروف آش به قدری شور می‌شود که کار از بهانه‌جویی می‌گذرد. در این مرحله طرفداران سوسیالیسم می‌گویند این اصلا سوسیالیسم واقعی نبوده و سوسیالیسم واقعی هرگز اجرا نشده است!

نویسنده در فصل‌های دوم تا نهم تجربه‌های تاریخی سوسیالیسم و گذر از این سه‌ مرحله را در کشورهای شوروی، چین، کوبا، کره‌ی شمالی، کامبوج، آلبانی، آلمان شرقی و ونزوئلا شرح می‌دهد و در فصل آخر جمع‌بندی می‌کند که چرا با وجود چنین فجایعی، سوسیالیسم ایده‌ی شکست خورده‌ای است که در جهان نمرده است.

[Nick Imrie]

Kristian Niemietz's twitter is full of him snarking, bantering, owning, and quote-tweeting commies, tankies, and Corbynistas. I get the feeling that this book was written entirely for the purpose of engaging in twitter fights. A surprising number of twitter-tankies seem to believe that the only reason that people don't support socialism is that they haven't read enough Marx and many twitter spats end with: 'Read a book, you melt!' And now Niemietz can respond with, 'No, you read a book: this one!'

Niemietz's twitter feed is entertaining in the way that only twitter can be: funny in an aggressive way, superficially informative, and more-ish like a can of pringles. This book is the opposite: vastly more informative, but not terribly entertaining. In fact, almost dull. The book is less concerned with exactly how each socialist experiment has failed, and more concerned with how Western supporters of socialism have acted and reacted. And since it was the same every single time, it gets very repetitive very quickly.

The Soviet Union, Mao's China, Cuba, the recent events in Venezuala, even the Khmer Rouge, all follow the same pattern (although to be fair, he did have to reach to find supporters of the Khmer Rouge):

It begins with lots of triumphant support of the glorious new socialist state from Western believers, mostly in the form of endless opinion pieces and propaganda. Some supporters go on tour to the new socialist state and write back about how wonderful it is! This part is often quite funny as the true believers are so committed that 'everything' looks like proof that socialism has created paradise on earth:

Luise Rinser sees a child in Pyongyang smile at her, and attributes this child's happiness to socialism, and the genius of Kim Il Sung. Carla Stea sees a North Korean woman wearing high heels, and marvels about how 'a woman's shoes, especially high heels, are very often an expression of her self-esteem'. Seumas Milne and George Galloway marvel about how East Germany offered free healthcare and free schooling, even though this was equally true of West Germany.

This starry-eyed veneration becomes a bit sinister when more skeptical visitors start reporting back on famines, political repression, disappearances, which the supporters somehow totally missed.
Eventually the failures of the socialist state become so obvious they must be addressed. At first they are attributed to saboteurs and traitors, and for a while this allows the supporters to carry on supporting the state and its nastier policies: they're only executing all these dissidents because the dissidents are traitors undermining the state. When the traitors are all gone then they can get right back on track to utopia and human rights.
Finally, the states collapses and the horrors cannot be denied. At this point, everyone who supported it claims hotly that they never did support it, it never was socialism. Real socialism has never been tried.
The political oroborous has come full circle and Western socialists, without a single doubt, go on to write earnestly about how wonderful everything would be if we could just implement socialism. This is especially frustrating, because they believe that no previous socialist experiment was real socialism they feel no need to think seriously about avoiding the failures that seem to be baked into the socialist experiment. They can write airy, philosophical pieces about why it's good to share - without ever suggesting a practical means for this sharing to be done. There's often a bait-and-switch here where requests for the nitty-gritty are met with, 'Oh, we'll do it the Scandanavian way' without any acknowledgement that a strong welfare state coupled with a free market is not socialism.

Niemietz does a little be of arm-chair psycholigising of the Western socialists, which - I don't know - always makes me feel a bit icky. It doesn't seem fair to treat a movement made up of millions of people as if it had one mind. The general outline is that supporting socialism has no negative consequences in the West, but plenty of positive ones, for the individual supporter. Having established socialism as the 'nice' politics, one can call oneself a 'socialist' and reap all the benefits of feeling good and noble, without actually having to live in a socialist state. Plus, there's the pleasure of feeling that you're fighting the good fight against the evil bad guys (capitalists in this case). Basically, it's political larping as a way to make friends.
He also goes into some evolutionary psychology, which was interesting. For most of human history we lived in small bands of about 200 people. With numbers that low, it is actually possible for a circle of elders to centrally plan the distribution of food and resources. One can commit to a policy of 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs' because one knows everybody in the tribe and can make a good estimation of their needs and abilities. It makes a lot of intuitive sense. Support for libertarianism, capitalism, and freedom, on the other hand, is counter-intuitive because it's not immediately obvious how unrestrained greed can end up being beneficial for a whole society, even though this is the case (according to Niemietz!). I'm not sure if this entire theory is a way for Niemietz to obliquely brag that he's smarter than the tankies he's arguing with.

The part that I found most interesting and helpful was the final chapter: a hypothetical alternate history East Germany after the Berlin Wall comes down, in which the Easterners decide to give socialism one more go (and it fails again). I suspect I liked this best because it was the one section where Niemietz was completely focused on showing his thinking about socialism - without swiping sideways at the stupidity of Western supporters of socialism.

This little story really demonstrated why the economics of socialism always lead to political despotism, despite that never being the intention. The first thing that this story drove home was that 'The People' is not a useful concept when it comes to economic management. We can say the railways, farms, schools, factories, hospitals, businesses, shops, etc. will be owned by The People, and run by The People, for the benefit of The People. But in practise 55 million people cannot jointly run anything. Instead, all these things will be run by bureaucrats and politicians. And surely we can all agree that bureaucrats and politicians always act in their own interests before the interests of The People?

The second thing is that central management and 5 year plans cannot work together with workers co-ops and communes. If the Party are making a central plan for the entire economy, then that depends on each separate part of the economy, every little factory and farm, doing what it's told in order to fit into the plan. If a little workers' cooperative gets together to do their own thing and ignores the central plan then they could have a knock-on effect upsetting or delaying the whole plan. It can't be allowed. And of course, nobody wants a workers' cooperative to do their own thing successfully and end up getting wealthy off it. The defeats the whole point of socialism. It's easy to see how this leads to a massive loss of freedom, and why socialist countries always end up forbidding their subjects from emigrating or even quitting their job or region.

The final point that really stuck out at me was that markets are just a much more efficient way of distributing resources, even if they do end up giving the people what they want good and hard! Sure, we can look around at the excesses of the capitalist west and be a little disgusted by so much extravagance and waste when people are in need. But the alternative is some bureaucrat somewhere deciding what you need for you - and the only way to change his mind is to join a worker's committee on recreational items to feedback what you actually want. Surely anyone who's ever been on a committee can see that this will end in the loudest and most fanatical and annoying people having the largest say in how things are run?

It's easy to say that we all want to share, support the needy and restrict the greedy. It's easy to fantasise about a political system in which everyone is an equal and we'll all make all the decisions together with everyone getting a fair say. But in reality, that's exhausting. Nobody wants to be continually having to have a say in every political decision anymore than they want to have absolutely no say in any political decision.
I'm starting to think that Plato was right and what we need is a Philosopher King. It's deeply aggravating that philosopher kings seem to be so thin on the ground, while power-grabbing megalomaniacs are in such plentiful supply. Bring on the AI overlords, I guess?

[Dimitrios Mistriotis]

We all have met in a social occasion or at work a person who was self identifying as a socialist, when someone usually asks such a person about Soviet Union, North Korea, or Cuba, you get the answer that this was not "true socialism", or some similar excuse, while advocating that if for example Jeremy Corbyn (LOL writing it in 2020) gets in power, things in the UK will not only be different but way better.

Up until reading that book I thought that the best course of action would be to (1) grab that person, (2) bash their head against the wall until there are some cracks, (3) let the poo flow out of their head, (4) now they are cured ask them again. Only reason that I did not do that is that I do not want to cure total morons and also it is unfortunately illegal.

Now there is a third option: give them this book.

Apart from the irony and my offensive humour, Kristian Niemietz builds a good case. He discusses the common denominator of the approach towards a socialist state by socialists in the West, there is a word for that in Asia used as an insult to a person's intelligence, which is basically (a) hope and praise, (b) things are not working because of some external factor (eg USA embargo), or internal resistance, (c) this is not true socialism, (d) some idiots somewhere in the world vote for a socialist party or a new dictator comes into power where we go again to (a).

Western intellectuals (LOL again) have the following attitudes: (a) praise and pilgrimage visits, (b) amazing excuses or justifications such as "yes, there are gulags but people choose to be there", (c) whataboutism or other grief behaviour.

Then after this is established, author provides with references on how intellectuals treated all major socialist states and explains why East Germany was treated somehow differently. The second part of the book is about analysis on why and how this happens. Because I would encourage everyone to read it, I would say that it changed my mind towards the socialist advocates from believing they were somehow lets say "bad people", to being plain idiots, so we need to somehow shut them up instead of offering the treatment I suggested earlier.

The last part was pure highly entertaining comedy where the author writes about a fictional series of events in the way The Guardian newspaper would cover it making a pastiche from articles on real events.

Thanks to Kristian for having the PDF available.

[Behnam]

این کتاب به سوسیالیسم می‌پردازه، ایده همیشه شکست‌ خورده‌ای که طرفدارانش معتقدند که هرگز به صورت واقعی اجرا نشده!
بخش‌هایی از کتاب:
«دفاع سوسیالیسم واقعی همواره معطوف به گذشته است، یعنی زمانی که تجربه سوسیالیستی قبلا در سطح وسیع بی‌اعتبار شده. تا وقتی که تجربه سوسیالیستی در دوران اولیه‌اش است تقریبا هیچ‌کس بحثی روی اعتبار سوسیالیستی آن ندارد. برعکس، عملا تمام رژیم‌های سوسیالیستی دوره‌های اوج‌شان را گذرانده‌اند و طی آن مشتاقانه از سوی بسیاری از روشنفکران غربی تحسین شده‌اند. تنها بعد از رویداد(یعنی زمانی که آن‌ها مایه شرمندگی نهضت سوسیالیسم شدند) است که نسخه‌های سوسیالیستی آنان بر مبنای تجربه گذشته «غیرواقعی» لقب می‌گیرند.»
«پس از هفتاد سال تجربه سوسیالیسم می‌توان گفت بیشتر روشنفکران تمایلی ندارند بپرسند آیا نباید دلیلی وجود داشته باشد که چرا سوسیالیسمی که به کرات عملی شده است ظاهراً هرگز آن‌طور که رهبران روشنفکرش می‌خواهند از آب در نمی‌آید. جست‌وجوی بیهوده روشنفکران برای جامعه واقعی سوسیالیستی [...] به ایده‌آل‌سازی سلسله ظاهرا بی‌پایان آرمانشهرها و سپس سرخوردگی از آن‌ها انجامیده است. اتحاد جماهیر شوروی، سپس کوبا، چین، یوگسلاوی، ویتنام، تانزانیا و نیکاراگوئه.»

[Lukas Lovas]

Despite this not being the easiest reading, it is well worth the read. A rather short book for how much info is packed within it, it makes a good case for why we instinctually feel socialism as an ideology to have merit, but also explains, why it failed every time. Not to say it couldn't work... but the trend I'm seeing is, that it failed every time because of people, so to implement it, you would need the ideal people and with ideal people, you could actually make any system work well. A sort of socialism works for very small groups and it feels great. Trying to implement it on large scale just isn't practical. Market economy on the other hand might make us feel bad emotionally, but it works and is self-correcting. I do believe there should be a balance in there somewhere.

[Gabriel Stein]

Excellent

Socialism is an evil, vicious creed which has caused more deaths than any other ideology in history. Nevertheless, it retains a huge attraction for large sections of the population in many countries. Why? This book is an excellent attempt not only at answering this, but also showing how socialists always manage to escape acknowledging the consequences of their ideology.

[Gerard Costello]

A brilliant book that more people should read. The author will have taken heart from the butchering that the British Communist Party (Corbyn's Labor) received at the end of 2019. The book is enlightening in explaining why Socialism does not and cannot work, and rather than depend of lofty ideals and abstract argument, as a pretentious university Professor would, he illustrates the inherent structural flaws of Socialism with real world examples from the many failed not real socialism regimes that have held power over the past century.

A particularly sad part of the book is the author's prediction that 'Venezuela is just the most recent example of a failed Socialist state, it will not be the last.' This is undoubtedly true. One does ponder the notion that perhaps Democracy's greatest weakness is that if you allow turkeys to vote for Christmas enough times, they eventually will. I finish this review with the prediction that Ireland has done just that. Sinn Fein will form a coalition of Globo-Leftist tripe that will spend, tax, culturally enrich and regulate the economy into the gutter. Ireland will be an absolute mess by the middle of the decade. Call me out on on this post if I'm wrong.

[mark harris]

Simple and stylish account of why far left ideas can't work

Full of practical real world examples of why socialist ideas are well meaning but ultimately delusional and deadly. Of course if you are heavily invested in the far left world you may reject it out of hand but I implore you to read it, it might change your mind

[Hammad]

A well written book

The book examines key socialist regimes that have existed in last 100 years or so and why they failed. I have never been a fan of socialism and reading this book confirmed to me that socialism is for those who think they can have an easy life if they had a job for life, no competition and the whole world was as lazy as they are.

[Jetlir]

What a great book explaining socialism in depth and how "intellectuals" that so many people believe what they say is true is far from it.
Give this one a read its needed especially nowdays when socialism is an idea thats getting great attraction from people who forgot the past and are living without rationality and fully governed by their emotions.

5/5

[Will]

Most of this is just a retread of Paul Hollander's extensive documentation of "political pilgrims."

[James]

Dr Niemietz documents the trendy Western intellectuals' relationship to real-life socialist regimes.
Stage 1:
The regime's honeymoon period where it appears things are going quite well. The intellectuals sing its praises from the rooftops. They go on pilgrimages, and report back how this regime is showing the rest of the world a different way of doing things.
Stage 2:
Things start to go wrong - shortages, famines, human rights abuses, concentration camps, are either denied completely, downplayed (the Western capitalist media 'exaggerates' the numbers of executions) or claim it's the result of foreign interference.
Stage 3:
The regime completely collapses. The intellectuals claim they never said it was socialism and wonders why anybody would bring up this ridiculous strawman for cheap political points. Or they simply stay silent.

[Omarustwani]

I wanted to give this book a chance but it never picked up. I was expecting well researched chapters on the failure of each of the socialist states; Russia, East Germany, North Korea, Cuba, etc which is what the book promised. It was pretty much a collection of quotes from leftist apologists, what he calls "pilgrams", when they visited the socialist country, then it falls shorts and stops abrubtly without providing any debates or counter-argument. If I wanted per verbatim quotes from Hayek or Chomsky I would have gotten their books instead.

[henry field]

Extraordinary work analyzing the interventionist/socialist dream

Anyone interested in political ideas and parties left right and center will gain invaluable insight from this well written thoroughly thought through and researched book.

[Brijesh]

"What belongs nominally to everyone on paper belongs in effect to no one practice"

"I prefer the way they do things here. You try and sell something. If people want it you sell more. If people don't want it you stop and try something else. They have no endless debates about what the 'Community supposedly needs'. They just try different things. Some work. Some Fail.
- An East German migrant to West Germany

The above quotations from the book will the reader a broad understanding of the way Socialism as a concept and theory has been dealt with in it.
Kristian, very effectively takes you through each of the last 100 year's 12 Countries which adopted Socialism as a Political ideology, but failed to provide Economic Policy related answers to the pertinent questions which this ideology raised. Finally it led to the failure of the ideology across these 12 countries and thereby labelling the Socialism being practiced in those countries as 'Unreal Socialism', in a retrospective manner.
By enumerating innumerable number of excerpts from the published articles of a large section of Western Intellectuals, who kept on supporting Socialism despite it's failure, the author puts forth the question or makes you think if there always has been a vested interest by such people in supporting and providing the intellectual muscle to this theory.
The author also tries to delve into the psychological aspect of a majority of humans across the globe, who in a subconscious manner support the adoption of Socialism as an ideology, but at the same time would refrain from living in a Country which practices it.
This debate between the superiority of Capitalism vs Socialism and vice-versa, can perhaps only be answered through the Ancient Bhartiya concepts of an Economy, which can broadly be categorised as 'Conscious Capitalism', which as effectively able to strike a balance between the two through the concept of 'Dharma'

[Gregory Dolan]

I think it's a bit clique to say but I do think this should be on some required reading in history classes. Niemietz does an extremely impressive job of surveying the rise and fall of a multitude of socialist countries and the common theme among all of them. I especially liked chapter 10 where he synthesizes Jonathan Haidt's and Bryan Caplan's concepts to provide a reasoning behind the vast amount of Western intellectuals who visited these socialist countries and then praised them to no end, some even while genocides were occurring in those countries. The last chapter where he provides an alternate history of what would happen if the GDR didn't exactly fall after the Berlin Wall did and the articles he takes great inspiration from feel straight from an Orwell novel.
This would be a 5 star book if he spent a bit more time on certain countries but I can totally understand why he didn't expand fully as it's a bit beyond the scope of the book which focuses more on the political pilgrims of these countries rather than going over every detail of the country's course. I also would've liked if he spent some time explaining the economic calculation problem along with his explanation of the knowledge problem but again it's a bit out of the scope of the book.
Highly recommend

[Derek Vanstone]

From an academic or thesis standpoint, the book is written very well. The author explains the basic premise of the book; provides examples and legitimate sources for his basis; and then explains the mechanics of socialism applied to humans on planet earth. It’s a rock solid case for why Socialism is often so popular, and yet never works when applied.
The reasons I gave it four stars instead of five is because it is somewhat dry and boring in parts- but I think that was more the fault of the narrator on audiobook than the written word of the author. The other reason was that the author uses capitalism as the alternate option to governments, but doesn’t actually support capitalism very well.
All in all, I think this should be a mandatory read for any university 200 level political theory class.

[Langston Quail]

A solidly written and well-argued book which outlines why socialism in practice always leads to failure, yet never manages to be discredited as an ideology (at least by the political left). The only criticism I have is the book's repetition-it consists of numerous quotes from people who made pilgrimages to socialist countries. These quotes are so similar that at a certain point they blend into each other, and it almost doesn't matter which particular country the author is discussing because they all sound the same. It is also incredibley depressing that so many public intellectuals were fooled into supporting some of the most authoritarian regimes the world has ever known, without ever realizing why these regimes turned out the way they did. Overall, however, this is a well researched, unfortunately necessary book, and a cautionary tale for society to live by.

[Peter Wickenden]

An excellent read, containing an empirical analysis of socialist regimes from history and their portrayal in Western media. Each regime follows the same pattern of initial relative success and later failure which corresponds to an eventual portrayal as ‘not really socialism’. So much for the thesis, which Niemietz demonstrates with some style, but the more interesting part of the book covers why such a consistently failed idea has not gone away.

[James Neophytou]

Devastating, redoubtable and definitive. If anyone is in any doubt, this book lays out the facts. Undisputed. The evidence is overwhelming but never before marshalled in such an authoritative and comprehensive way. Country by country we see the devastation wreaked by one of the most disreputable fallacies of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Every student should read this. Every citizen should be issued with this book. It’s as important as Macbeth and Pride and Prejudice.

[Lord Bathcanoe of Snark]

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde "Socialism, the triumph of hope over experience".
In life it's best to avoid anything ending in ism. Rheumatism, botulism, and especially socialism.

[Tomislav]

An overview of numerous embarrassing episodes in which Western intellectuals and politicians praised some of the worst socialist dictatorships and then afterwards usually pretended that nothing happened. I started reading it with somewhat low expectations, knowing only that the author is a great Twitter warrior who according to legends single-handedly destroyed whole tankie divisions. It was a pleasant surprise; not an original, groundbreaking study, but a fun, readable book. In the introduction Niemietz quickly recaps the main arguments of socialists and their critics, often referencing Hayek. He points out that socialism did not fail because of lack of democracy and freedom but because it lacked a functional economic model. Even contemporary socialist do not have any real economic solutions, instead providing copious amounts of high-minded criticisms, vague moralizing and wishful thinking.

The main part of the book documents the intellectual support for various socialist experiments. Brutal dictatorships were not consciously advocated, but happened out of necessity, because there is really no other possible outcome for confusions and contradictions of socialism, both political and economic. Niemietz identifies three phases through which supporters of such experiments always pass. First, they eagerly support the new regime, but after a while their enthusiasm regularly ends in disillusionment, poor excuses, and attempts to blame others for failure. Finally, they conclude that the whole attempt was not really socialism, but that the next revolution will be different, a real workers’ democracy.

There are some funny quotes praising Stalin for being the leader of the democratic world and Soviet Union for creating a wealthy society. On the other hand, Mao is glorified for ending evil consumerist pursuit of wealth; instead, China eliminated alienation and achieved mass enlightenment. Children in North Korea are the happiest in the world! Niemietz digs out some really embarrassing proclamations from famous intellectuals and politicians, especially British public figures. Strangely, he does not include Yugoslavia among the examples. He even mentions Albania – which surprisingly also had some very eager Western admirers - but Yugoslav failure and embarrassment are not good enough for him.

The book also attempts to explain the psychology behind such astonishing delusions. Again, it is a recap of some usual arguments: Haidt’s insight that political orientation is formed by intuition while rationalization and arguments are post-hoc; Caplan’s explanation that it is often rational for individuals to support socially irrational policies as long as they feel good about themselves and avoid the direct costs; Hayek’s idea that socialism is a deluded attempt to structure complex industrial society using the rules of small tribes in which human biological evolution occurred. Of course, there are even more interesting explanations of far-left psyche, such as the ones by Nietzsche, Unabomber and others, but the book does not go that far. The epilogue is a fun thought experiment, an alternative history written in the form of chronological Guardian articles. The story starts in 1990 when East Germany decides to remain independent and build a real, democratic socialism, which then mostly follows the decline trajectory of Venezuela, along with the initial Western praise, excuses and final renouncement. If you are interested in understanding Western, intellectual support for socialism, written in a comprehensible manner, with a lot of historical examples, this is a good book to read.

[Matt Berkowitz]

This is probably the best book I’ve read that criticizes socialism. I'll summarize my main take-aways.

Perhaps the biggest retort from socialism/communism defenders when you point out the many failed socialist experiments: “That’s not true socialism.” An accompanying claim to this “no true Scotsman fallacy” is the claim that “true socialism” would not be a dictatorship.

Niemietz responds to these particular claims in a number of ways:

1) He documents the copious examples of (far) left-wing academics considering USSR and many other regimes “socialist” when those regimes were occurring. It’s only after these regimes failed—as they inevitably all did—when academics retroactively dispute these regimes as legitimately “socialist”.

2) The primarily causal variable in economic success is not the “dictatorship vs democracy” continuum but the “socialism vs capitalism” (or degree of private ownership of the means of production and distribution):

Przeworski (2002) studied the relationship between political systems and economic performance looking at 135 countries from 1950-1990. He found:

“Political regimes have no impact on the growth of total income […] The few countries that developed spectacularly during the past fifty years were as likely to achieve this feat under democracy as under dictatorship. On the average, total incomes grew at almost identical rates under the two regimes.” (p. 34-35)

“Democracy and economic progress are strongly related, but the causation runs in the opposite direction: rich democracies are much more stable than poor democracies (Przeworski and Limongi 1997).” (p. 35)

Barro (1994) found the same thing using a continuous rating of democratisation rather than a binary one. He found: “[D]emocracy is not the key to economic growth, although it may have a weak positive effect for countries that start with few political rights. […] [T]he advanced western countries would contribute more to the welfare of poor nations by exporting their economic systems, notably property rights and free markets, rather than their political systems, which typically developed after reasonable standards of living had been attained.” (p. 36)

Niemietz spells out the implications: “One implication is that socialist dictatorships are (or were)
not poor because they are (or were) dictatorships. They are poor because they are socialist. It is therefore entirely fair to hold the economic failure of socialist countries against democratic socialists. It is not a straw man. Democratic socialists may not want to replicate the political systems of these countries, but they do want to pursue similar economic policies, and it is the economic policies – not the absence of democracy – that caused their economic failure.” (p. 36)

--

Socialism defenders often claim, either directly or by implication: “The leaders of these regimes *could have chosen* to implement their socialism democractically rather than in an authoritarian manner.”

3) This ignores the incentives and information in a socialist system. Without the decentralized pricing mechanism to signal information about supply and demand, socialist governors have to compensate somehow for this major eschewal of information. This has the effect of consolidating power in the hands of a few elite socialists at the top who have to make strict plans regarding production and distribution. In the USSR, this meant that Five-Year Plans were drafted by expert commissions which prohibited emigration and workers' autonomy to do as they please. You can see how this requirement of socialism logically leads to authoritarianism. If the proletariat do not comply with the central economic planners’ dictates, they must be kept in line.

All in all, this was a fantastic book—carefully argued, engaging, and non-partisan. My highest recommendation.

[Mattjmjmjm]

Too much focus oh what journalist and writers thought of socialist government and not enough in-depth criticism in the failings of socialist ideas and real life application. It shows how at stage one: many intellectuals are in love with a socialist regime, second some flaws seep into the system, they get defensive about the government they were so in love with and third when the system fails they say it wasn't "real socialism". In a sense it's about the cognitive failures of certain writers not able to see the flaws of their desired system. The book doesn't say socialism can never happen but that the principles and application by those in government who believed in "real socialism" lead to less desirable outcomes than most capitalist governments. Sure none of these socialist government might be your ideal socialist outcome but nevertheless it was people who called themselves socialists and organised their economies in reaction to market economies which lead to outcome less than desirable either in economic terms or political terms. The soviet union was mean to be democratically governed by a council of unions, it wasn't meant to be a dictatorship and have forced labour, that wasn't the intention and yet it happened anyway. A bad policy in a capitalist economy is criticised to no end as showing how bad capitalism is by people on the left but they don't give the same consideration of the flaws of putting socialism to effect in many countries. Capitalism is the current reality, state capitalism, free market capitalism, mixed market capitalism, these are criticised as being a negative of capitalism but the same logic doesn't apply to almost any socialist system. As with many political and cultural items, the issue is double standards.

[Bookworm]

Kristian Niemietz manages to explain in relatively simple and accessible terms why socialism is doomed to fail, no matter how many public supporters claim that maybe if it is done right, it will finally produce the desired effects. He uses case examples to show the rise, the decline and the inevitable downfall into absolute destruction of economic and social life, always claiming lives.
What I found interesting what that he applied Haidt's and Caplan's findings to explain why socialist intellectuals become pilgrims that initially sing the praise of new forms of socialism.
Another valid point that Niemietz makes is that he tries to explain why the anti-capitalism feelings/movements seem more natural than pro-capitalist feelings, by applying the findings of evolutionary psychology (Peter Foster) and the answer seems intuitive and quite plausible: from an evolutionary point of view, our minds haven't fully adapted to a modern environment as far as the economic sphere is concerned. Basically, the remnants of the hunter-gatherer mentality are still buried deep, which brings out a tendency to prefer the idea of socialism, since is it the promise of turning economic life into a consciously directed group effort, as opposed to capitalism, where economic life is perceived to be governed by the division of labour and coordinated by an anonymous mechanism.
Bonus points for the exercise in alternative history, with the case of GDR, to show how the downward spiral of socialism will inevitably manifest.

[Dimitris Taktikos]

Ο Niemietz επιχειρεί μια αποδόμηση του "υπαρκτού σοσιαλισμού", εξετάζοντας το ζήτημα, κατά κύριο λόγο, από την πλευρά της Οικονομίας.
Δεν στέκεται σε ατέρμονες θεωρητικές αναλύσεις, καθώς σε κάθε κεφάλαιο παρατίθεται και από ένα παράδειγμα κράτους που προσπάθησε, ανεπιτυχώς, να οικοδομήσει μια σοσιαλιστική κοινωνία.
Κατά τον συγγραφέα, η επιμονή στην εφαρμογή της σοσιαλιστικής οικονομικής διαχείρισης, μετά από τα αποτυχημένα παραδείγματα που παραθέτει, έχει και μια ψυχολογική παράμετρο, που την αναλύει στο τελευταίο μέρος.
Σε γενικές γραμμές είναι ευανάγνωστο, προορισμένο για τον μέσο αναγνώστη, που θέλει πιο πρακτικές προσεγγίσεις των οικονομικοπολιτικών θεμάτων.

[SK]

I pretty much agree with everything the author says, but at times the book felt like it was a collection of quotes presented in a way that's not so different from those short form clips of people saying dumb shit. I get that delving into the each quote and breaking down the context in which those quotes were said in depth is not the project of the book, I can't help but wonder whether there could've been a more fine-tuned version of arguments that engages with the context of the quotes and extrapolates on the motivations of each western intellectual just a little bit further.

[D Johnson]

A good academic book, in the sense that the author has developed his theory, and pummels it home over a succession of chapters. It's hard to disagree with the conclusions, so it's effective, but stylistically it's a little repetitive.
What the book does well is dissect is the flaws of socialism as a pure governance model, but what wasn't discussed, and that I was hoping for, were opinions on whether socialist policies are ever workable or preferable within a capitalist framework.

[Max Mears]

Excellent Book on the reasons behind why socialism persistently fails and how the failed idea never really does die! Good use of examples across history and why the political left romanticises the failed ideology. The epilogue was a particularly interesting and informative, imagery example of how socialism will fail in any scenario and how the left will always revert back to the default position of “it was never really real socialism”!

[Ivan Savić]

It has a good premise, claiming that socialist systems tend to become autocratic and collapse. But it didn't provide good and convincing explanation why that happens.