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Socialism blog
A thought experiment where every price in town is set by a committee A labelled satire follows a Fair Prices Committee from bread to gasoline until the shelves empty, then matches each joke to the historical record. The Pilgrims Tried Common Property and Went Hungry Until Bradford Changed It Plymouth's common storehouse bred shortage and resentment, Bradford's 1623 land assignment brought plenty, and skeptical historians get a fair hearing. Bills of Rights Alone Never Saved a Republic, Ask the Soviet Constitution The 1936 Soviet Constitution promised free speech while the purges raged. Structure, not a list of rights, is what keeps a people free. Read the Medicare for All Bill and You Will Find Your Insurance Abolished The slogan promises to extend a popular program, but the Medicare for All Act of 2019 bars private coverage that duplicates the government plan. A Certificate of Need for Pizza Shops, a Thought Experiment in Planning A labelled satire that applies hospital-style certificate-of-need rules to pizza, to show what the real laws do to clinics, scanners and surgery centers. The Value of a Thing Is Not the Labor in It, and Menger Answered Marx Marx said value is the labor embodied in a good. Menger's 1871 answer explains prices, diamonds, water and profit without calling anyone a thief. Nozick's Basketball Example Still Answers Rawls's Veil of Ignorance Rawls built the strongest case for redistribution in 1971. Nozick answered with a basketball star and a quarter, and the answer still stands, with caveats. Two Germanys and two Koreas, the natural experiments that socialism lost History split two peoples in half and gave one side markets and the other a plan. The results are the closest thing economics has to a controlled experiment. Eight socialism myths tested against the countries that actually tried it Eight favourite claims of socialism's defenders, tested against the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, Venezuela, Britain and the Germanys, each with a verdict. Denmark is not socialist, and its own prime minister said so at Harvard The Nordic countries run market economies with free trade and heavy taxes on the middle class. The Nordic-model argument at its strongest, and the answer. Plymouth tried common property in 1621 and nearly starved before 1623 The Pilgrims began with a common store. Governor Bradford's own history says that giving each family its own land in 1623 ended the hunger. A close reading. Mises Showed in 1920 That Socialism Cannot Calculate a Single Price Without private ownership of factories and land there are no prices for them, and planners fly blind. Mises proved it in 1920; the Soviet century confirmed it. Why Soviet shoppers stood in line, and the calculation problem behind it Central planning failed because planners without market prices cannot know what anything is worth. The argument, from Mises to Novocherkassk. Why the Worst Get on Top, Hayek's Most Uncomfortable Chapter Chapter 10 of The Road to Serfdom argues central planning selects for ruthless people, because only they will do what planning requires. Walter Duranty's Pulitzer and the Famine the New York Times Did Not See A Pulitzer-winning Moscow correspondent downplayed the Ukrainian famine while a young Welshman told the truth. What access does to a reporter's judgment.