In recent times, various protest activities have been raging on our university campuses, providing another opportunity for those who have long been discontented. They are calling for the abolition of America’s democratic government and free-market capitalism system, and replacing it with some kind of collective utopianism.
Our students and graduates are so ignorant about the deaths and destruction caused by communism and socialism that they can earnestly advocate Marxism. Undoubtedly, this is a sharp accusation against higher education in America.
For over a century, the death toll caused by communism worldwide is almost unquantifiable. Obviously, the death toll exceeds 100 million. Late historian and University of Hawaii political science professor Rudolph Rummel calculated a death toll of nearly 170 million, excluding deaths caused by battles and wars. Millions have died due to various forms of political persecution: imprisonment, torture, purges, executions, and other murders.
But there are also tens of millions who died from starvation.
In Russia, 5 million people starved to death during the famine of 1921-1922. In another famine in the early 1930s, 6 to 9 million former Soviet citizens starved to death. In Ukraine alone, over three million people perished in the tragedy known as the Holodomor.
In China, the erroneous policies initiated by the first generation leader of the Chinese Communist Party, Mao Zedong, led to the great famine between 1958 and 1962, during which up to 45 million people tragically starved to death.
In Cambodia, the communist Khmer Rouge regime killed around 2 million people, accounting for 25% of the population at that time. Under the economic restructuring implemented by the regime, the number of deaths due to starvation is countless.
In North Korea, approximately 250,000 to 3.5 million people starved to death in the mid-1990s famine.
And in Venezuela, a country that was once the most prosperous in South America, socialist Hugo Chavez plunged the majority of its population into abject poverty within just over a decade.
Why does this happen repeatedly under socialist regimes?
Undoubtedly, it is because the ruling class is arrogant, reckless, and foolish. However, the most critical issue is that the people have no other choice but to be subjected to exploitation.
Let’s consider how many companies in American history have gone bankrupt? The answer is tens of thousands, perhaps even millions. For example, from 2000 to 2022, 15,000 to over 60,000 companies declared bankruptcy each year. However, did these bankruptcies deprive the general public of food? Fuel? Cars? Clothing? The ability to buy a house or rent an apartment?
The answer is no.
Because when some companies are forced to shut down due to poor decision-making, unforeseen circumstances, mismanagement, or even fraud, other companies succeed and can provide essential services that the bankrupt entities couldn’t.
However, what would happen if all products and services were provided by a single entity or government? What if the government owned all the land? Controlled all industries? Made all agricultural and industrial decisions?
Undoubtedly, when there is only one producer, any unforeseen issues lead to systemic and catastrophic failure.
This is not baseless speculation; we have seen time and time again that in highly centralized, command-and-control economic systems, such situations recur. Mao Zedong’s “Four Pests” campaign aimed to eradicate sparrows but inadvertently triggered a locust plague, causing severe damage to crops. In Venezuela, Chavez believed that oil prices would remain high indefinitely. In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge believed they could relocate farmers to work in hospitals and have surgeons work in the fields.
In fact, this phenomenon is not limited to authoritarian governments.
Taking Sri Lanka as an example, this small country recently demonstrated the consequences of government issuing unwise agricultural policies. At the urging of environmental groups, Sri Lanka’s former president banned the use of nitrogen and synthetic fertilizers on the country’s farms. The result was a sharp decline in the production of the country’s main agricultural products. Sri Lanka went from a net exporter of rice and tea to a country where its own people couldn’t get enough to eat. Food, fuel, heating, and medicine prices skyrocketed. Widespread social unrest and violence forced the president to flee Sri Lanka.
Now, our own government is seeking more power and control over our agricultural production, industries, and economy. Under the guise of so-called “climate change” — a scientific basis that remains unclear to this day — the government is attempting to phase out the oil, natural gas, and coal industries, overhaul the automotive industry completely, and coerce Americans into buying electric cars. Politicians are pushing to limit the use of air conditioning, ban gas-powered appliances, and radical activists are advocating for reducing cattle farming and the production and consumption of agricultural meat, citing methane emissions from cow flatulence. Billions of dollars are being invested to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which is essential for plant growth. Plants produce oxygen, and humans need oxygen to survive.
The problem lies not only in the insufficient scientific knowledge or flawed economic policies but also in too much power concentrated in the hands of a few. When those wielding great power make mistakes on certain matters, the damage caused by their errors is significant, and they always make mistakes on certain matters.
The success of America is precisely because economic and political power is dispersed and distributed among states, local governments, millions of enterprises, and tens of millions of people. The ideological extremists hidden among us firmly believe they can and should control everything. They are manipulating the political process by propaganda, censorship, unsupervised bureaucratic systems, and executive orders to concentrate their power over the economy.
The warnings given by history of communism and socialism movements worldwide are crystal clear: anyone who gains control over our economic decisions will inevitably ruin the economy, leading to social decay.