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Just thirty years ago, socialism seemed utterly discredited.
An economic, moral, and political failure, socialism had rightly been thrown on the ash heap of history after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Unfortunately, bad ideas never truly go away—and socialism has come back with a vengeance.
A generation of young people who don’t remember the misery that socialism inflicted on Russia and Eastern Europe is embracing it all over again. Oblivious to the unexampled prosperity capitalism has showered upon them, they are demanding utopia.
In his provocative new book, The Socialist Temptation, Iain Murray of the Competitive Enterprise Institute explains:
- Why the socialist temptation is suddenly so powerful among young people
- That even when socialism doesn’t usher in a bloody tyranny (as, for example, in the Soviet Union, China, and Venezuela), it still makes everyone poor and miserable
- Why under the relatively benign democractic socialism of Murray's youth in pre-Thatcher Britain, he had to do his homework by candlelight
- That the Scandinavian economies are not really socialist at all
- The inconsistencies in socialist thought that prevent it from ever working in practice
- How we can show young people the sorry truth about socialism and turn the tide of history against this destructive pipe dream
Sprightly, convincing, and original, The Socialist Temptation is a powerful warning that the resurgence of socialism could rob us of our freedom and prosperity.