I am an immigrant from Colombia, a country that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)—a communist revolutionary group—spent half a century tearing apart.FARC murdered thousands of Colombians through sanctioned massacres, kidnappings, and terrorism, and the war FARC drove displaced over seven million Colombians, resulting in one of the largest internal displacement crises in the world.
I am now a naturalized citizen of the United States, a country that millions from around the world are still trying to reach.So, I read the latest polling on American capitalism with a particular kind of alarm.This polling is the result of a survey released by The Free Press using a method to surface the opinions people keep to themselves.
The finding: just one in three Americans holds a positive view of capitalism.Not one in three Democrats.
One in three Americans.Before the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) take a victory lap, consider the rest.That same survey found that most Americans remain wary of socialism, and Gallup found that while capitalism drew 54 percent approval, free enterprise drew 81 percent and small business 95 percent, compared with 37 percent for big business.
Americans have not turned against free enterprise, ownership, or entrepreneurial risk.Yet DSA candidates keep winning elections.
The gap between Americans’ faith in free enterprise and the DSA’s wins is a real vulnerability, and it deserves an honest question: Why not communism?MORE AMERICANS THAN EVER NOW HAVE A POSITIVE VIEW OF SOCIALISM, NEW POLL SAYSAn honest answer requires an important clarification.There is no meaningful difference between socialism and communism, and the founders of the movement said so without pretense.
Lenin devoted chapters of The State and Revolution to expounding on Marx and what he called the first phase of communist society and its ultimate end.Socialism was never the alternative to communism.
It was the on-ramp.There is no meaningful difference...