Marxism doesn’t work. Socialism doesn’t work. Sri Lanka’s patriotic politicians must realize this, and its patriotic majority must reject Socialism in all its manifestations.

 

Socialists claim that they can help people by making sure the production, distribution, and exchange of all goods is controlled by everyone as a community. But in fully Socialist countries, the free individual becomes subordinate to the state, which then ends up being ruled by an iron-fisted tyrant. Ultimately, the Socialists who say they want to help the masses always end up killing their fellow citizens.

In Sri Lanka the Marxist JVP started a campaign of bloodshed and violence which left tens of thousands of Sinhalese people dead. Led by a bloodthirsty madman, they killed indiscriminately anyone who opposed them, or who they thought was a threat to them. Professionals and intellectuals were brutally murdered. The JVP created a reign of terror in the rural south and even in urban centers.

Did these JVP Sinhala terrorists help anyone? Did they make the ordinary, poor, villager richer? Did the villager see an improvement in his quality of life? Did the JVP bring a hospital or medicine or food to the villagers? Did killing educated Sinhalese people or Sinhalese politicians bring jobs to the villagers? No. The JVP brought only death and destruction to the nation.

On the political side, we had the Trotskyist N.M. Perera. Under his economic policies, Sri Lanka ran out of basic goods and essential ingredients, the transport of food was severely restricted, and hundreds of farmers, businessmen and others committed suicide when he invalidated paper money and thereby destroyed the hard-earned savings of entire families.

This was real Socialism in action, Sri Lankan style.

Let’s look at what happened in Cambodia. Cambodians studied Socialism in France and applied what they learned to their homeland. Led by Pol Pot, they created a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist regime of terror which killed millions of Cambodians in the space of just 4 years from 1975-1979. Cities were emptied, people were forced to work on the fields, and those who wore glasses were targeted for killing.

All of this was in order to make everyone equal by subordinating the individual to the state. Because that is the ultimate goal of all Socialist systems.

To really prove the abject failure of Socialism, let us look at the Korean peninsula. The two Koreas are a perfect case study to compare economic systems because all possible variables are controlled.

Both countries are home to the same Korean race, with the same history, culture and language. The countries didn’t have to contend with any real ethnic or religious minority. The only difference between the two is that one is Marxist, and the other capitalist. In the 1950s both countries were equally poor, and equally undeveloped after years of war.

Which Korea would you prefer to live in today? Which Korea do Sri Lankans actually move to, in order to work? Which Korea has so many jobs that even Sri Lankans from thousands of miles away can make a living there?

South Korean people are rich, live comfortable, first-world lives, and produce smartphones, cars, and appliances that the whole world buys. South Korea’s science and technological development is easily equal to the Western countries.

North Korean people are starving and are infected with tape worms.

How about China? China was a poor, undeveloped and hungry nation during the time of Mao and his Socialist nightmare. After Deng Xiaoping took over and finally brought in elements of capitalism, it rose to be the second richest country in the world. In just 40 years, China went from begging for food handouts to building aircraft carriers and artificial islands (not to mention Colombo Port City!).

Socialism’s only legacy is death and poverty. Marxist Cuba is as poor as it ever was, while capitalist Argentina is a rich country. And just like in Sri Lanka under N.M. Perera, in Socialist Venezuela today, the people suffer from food shortages, and skyrocketing prices of other goods.

A nation based on Socialism has never been a place where people want to live. They are always places that people flee from.

The common refrain of today’s left-over Socialists is that “real” Marxism or “real” Socialism still has not been implemented. They say that if done properly, Socialism will bring about a paradise. This is pure fanaticism.

Sri Lanka’s own left-over Socialists love to name-drop people like Marx, Lenin, Gramsci, Trotsky, Lukacs, and Engels, as if these people are great thinkers who provided some kind of value to humanity.

On the contrary, their theories and books now rest atop piles of dead bodies. These evil peoples’ legacy is only unending human suffering and indignity.

Every time Socialism has been tried, in every country, no matter what race or ethnicity was doing it, it has led to impoverishment, starvation, and death.

Socialism is a failed philosophy, and worse, it is a deadly ideology.

It creates a space where tyrants can come to rule. It corrupts people’s souls and brings about the deaths of millions. It belongs in the dustbin of history, along with imperialism and colonialism and all the other failed projects of the last millennium.

Aren’t the lives of hundreds of millions around the world enough of a sacrifice on the altar of Socialism?

As Sri Lanka finally returns to sanity after the long darkness of the Ranil-Sirisena regime, let us patriots throw away this false idea that capitalism is bad, and that socialism is good.

Just look at the evidence.

Capitalism is the only economic system which has consistently lifted millions out of poverty, in every single country that has implemented it.