The Politically Incorrect Guide to Socialism (The Politically Incorrect Guides)

It is a surprisingly fun read actually. Both informative and well written, it addresses the common myths and wishful thinking of those who like socialism... or at least the idea of it. Socialism is what it is in the real world, not on paper. The author goes into why the ideals go astray... and why they HAVE TO go astray in implementing socialism.Socialism in Russia is different from socialism in Sweden but when socialism is compared across cultures commonalities appear. He addresses the issue of sorting out what is local or cultural vs. what is tied to socialism itself regardless of the culture that socialism is applied in.This is our second copy; the first one went astray. : )I can also recommend:The Rational Optimist: how prosperity evolves by Matt RidleyDevelopment as Freedom by Amartya SenReinventing the Bazarr by John McMillanLiberalism by Von Mises could be a good addition as well (Liberalism in the original sense of the term- it's not what you think.)Human Action: The Scholar's Edition by Ludwig von MisesIf you start with Politically Incorrect and go down that list you will get a fair start on better understanding socialism, capitalism and free markets, appropriate/inappropriate regulation/intervention by government, and economic growth in both the developed part of the world and the third world, and a bit more besides.Development as Freedom looks (in part) at freedom of action, and Human Action on the study of the actions people take. That's so simplified as to be misleading... you could say H.A. looks at economic choices as part of a wider framework. Development as Freedom also looks at economics in a broader framework; he examines the freedoms that help foster economic development and enable people to live the kind of lives they have reason to value - with economic growth providing some of the means to their ends.Friedrich Hayek used the term catallaxy to describe "the order brought about by the mutual adjustment of many individual economies in a market." --You may want to look at some of his work as well.If you are ready for something heavier, Prices and Production by Freidrich Hayek and The Theory of Money and Credit by Ludwig Von Mises are good choices. I found Von Mises rather hard to read in some sections, but well worth the effort.

The word "Socialism" or "Socialist" has been used quite a lot in recent years, perhaps without much knowledge of what the word actually means. Fortunately, we have Kevin Williamson to help us out. In his brilliant book "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Socialism", Williamson provides the reader with a good knowledge of what Socialism is and what it is not, along with how Socialism has been developed in various parts of the world.According to Williamson, Socialism is not, primarily, the redistribution of wealth. Welfare, Social Security, and other government programs, can be part of a Socialist system, but they are not themselves Socialism. Socialism, rather, is the belief that central planning can produce better results than the chaotic, messy marketplace, or any venue in which people act spontaneously. The Socicialist believes that planning is more rational and fairer. Socialism, then, is all about THE PLAN.The problem is that in order for THE PLAN to work, as Hayek demonstrated, the planners have to have real-time information about every economic transaction. THE PLAN cannot succeed without such information, and yet it is not possible for the planners, no matter how intelligent they are, or how sophisticated their computers are, to gain that information. In a market economy, each actor needs to know the information that pertains to his particular business. The planners, whose business is the whole economy, must know everything, and again, that is not possible. To make matters worse, the one way to obtain the information is through the prices generated by supply and demand. By determining prices based on political rather than economic considerations, the planners essentially blind themselves. This assumes that the planners are rational and impartial. In fact, there is an irresistible temptation to reward friends and cronies while punishing enemies.Another problem with THE PLAN is that not everyone will agree on the particulars of any given plan. They will tend to want to do what benefits themselves rather then what the planners want them to do. Thus, coercion is needed to make THE PLAN work and so Socialism always results in tyranny.Williamson takes the reader through the various forms of Socialism from the hard Socialism of North Korea and the former Soviet Union to the softer varieties found in the West European social democracies. He shows that the differences between them are only a matter of degree rather than of kind. He debunks the widely held notion that Sweden is a Socialist paradise and affirms that, yes; Obamacare is Socialism, in that it relies on THE PLAN.Overall, Kevin Williamson has written a valuable and informant guide to Socialism.