Yes, Socialism IS for dummies. No one else likes it.

“Consider the Marxist idea of ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.’ What an incentive for people to minimize their abilities and maximize their needs. Can you imagine a better formula for destroying society?” – From the late legal scholar Henry G. Manne, one of the founders of the field of law and economics.

”Imagine, if you will, someone who read only the Reader’s Digest between 1950 and 1970, and someone in the same period who read only The Nation or The New Statesman. Which reader would have been better informed about the realities of Communism? The answer, I think, should give us pause. Can it be that our enemies were right?” – Author Susan Sontag at a 1982 town hall rally for the Polish Solidarity movement. The shocked liberal audience nearly booed her off the stage.

“To see her in sunlight was to see Marxism die.” – From a 1973 short story by Harold Brodkey,

“Freedom, it turns out, has a taste, and it has a smell. The taste is that of Bazooka bubble gum, large wads of it stuffed into my mouth until my cheeks jowl out.” –Former federal appellate Judge Alex Kozinski, discussing how, as an 11-year old, he stuffed his face with previously unavailable gum after his family escaped from Communist Romania.

“Some people say that because the Soviet people have to stand in line, it gives them time to reflect and become philosophical.” – Ralph Nader, commenting on the long queues outside Moscow shops during his 1990 visit.

A few comments more:

"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries." – Winston Churchill

PJMedia‘s John Hawkins recently compiled a collection of 20 quotes that explain why capitalism is superior to socialism. Here are five favorites:

1. From Ayn Rand:

   America’s abundance was created not by public sacrifices to “the common good,” but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. They did not starve the people to pay for America’s industrialization. They gave the people better jobs, higher wages and cheaper goods with every new machine they invented, with every scientific discovery or technological advance—and thus the whole country was moving forward and profiting, not suffering, every step of the way.

2. From Milton Friedman:

   Well first of all, tell me: Is there some society you know that doesn’t run on greed? You think Russia doesn’t run on greed? You think China doesn’t run on greed? What is greed? Of course, none of us are greedy, it’s only the other fellow who’s greedy. The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests. The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn’t construct his theory under order from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn’t revolutionize the automobile industry that way. In the only cases in which the masses have escaped from the kind of grinding poverty you’re talking about, the only cases in recorded history, are where they have had capitalism and largely free trade. If you want to know where the masses are worse off, worst off, it’s exactly in the kinds of societies that depart from that. So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear, that there is no alternative way so far discovered of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by the free-enterprise system.

3. From David Horowitz:

   In practice, socialism didn’t work. But socialism could never have worked because it is based on false premises about human psychology and society, and gross ignorance of human economy. In the vast library of socialist theory (and in all of Marx’s compendious works), there is hardly a chapter devoted to the creation of wealth to what will cause human beings to work and to innovate, or to what will make their efforts efficient. Socialism is a plan of morally sanctioned theft. It is about dividing up what others have created. Consequently, socialist economies don’t work; they create poverty instead of wealth. This is unarguable historical fact now, but that has not prompted the left to have second thoughts.

4. From Ludwig von Mises:

   The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterized by rigid observance of routine and by a resistance to every kind of improvement. They call themselves liberals, but they are intent upon abolishing liberty. They call themselves democrats, but they yearn for dictatorship. They call themselves revolutionaries, but they want to make the government omnipotent. They promise the blessings of the Garden of Eden, but they plan to transform the world into a gigantic post office. Every man but one a subordinate clerk in a bureau. What an alluring utopia! What a noble cause to fight!

   Bonus Quote from Mark J. Perry:

   As we’ve learned from countless examples throughout history, including now Venezuela, the main difference between capitalism and socialism is this: capitalism works

P.S. Creeping socialism has already racked up 40 trillion dollars in national debt. Imagine what gallupping socialism would do!

PPS: If bankruptcy, chaos, and eventual dictatorship is what you WANT, "democratic socialism" is your horse to ride. The Trojan horse of collectivism.