Socialism has been discredited time and time again

OPINION:

For many of us who remember the existence of multiple “socialist” regimes in Eastern Europe and their nefarious impact on millions of people, the new love affair of the young with socialism conjures up troubling memories.

Epitomizing those memories is a story that made the rounds in the Soviet Union about a woman who sought to relocate to Russia many decades ago. The tale tells of the bureaucratic complexities created by the all-powerful communist government (officially referred to as socialist), which controlled even an individual’s choice to move from one residence to another.

In that world of total government control, authorization was a prerequisite for relocation. To get that authorization, one had to file a formal request.

As the story goes, the relevant form asked a series of questions, to which the following answer was provided: Where were you born? St. Petersburg. Where were you educated? Petrograd. Where do you live currently? Leningrad. Where do you wish to move? St. Petersburg.

St. Petersburg, Petrograd and Leningrad are all the same city. The only difference is the nature of the government in force at various times.

With each change of regime, the city acquired a new name. The applicant’s use of the old czarist name was meant to demonstrate rejection of the socialist regime and a preference for the discredited autocratic monarchy. This was a sarcastic but unambiguous slap to the face of the government and its constraints on everyday life.

With the sudden and surprising resurgence of support for socialism, this story has new relevance. Socialism was a failure, and to those who lived under it, virtually any other form of government — even a rejected autocracy — seemed preferable.

The notion of placing society’s assets, including housing and major corporations, in government hands now seems attractive to younger generations. It was not so attractive to those who had to live with it.

Entrusting our most important assets to government and allowing government to make some of our most important decisions is to relinquish control over our own lives. We must think very carefully about the consequences of such an approach.

We need not look back at Soviet Russia to know that the major decisions that define our lives are best left to us, not bureaucrats. Anyone who has had to interact with a motor vehicle administration or any other government agency can fully appreciate that dealing with a bureaucracy is unpleasant and challenging at best.

Many will say that capitalism is cruel and heartless, that the forces of the market are not kind or compassionate. To some extent, this may be so. When we operate in the private sector, however, we can mitigate those difficulties through our hard work, intelligence and persistence.

Our choices belong to us, not to people with whom we do not have any relationship and, most important, over whom we cannot exercise any control.

Not one nation that emerged from communist control after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 has chosen to revert to that type of regime. Once the heavy hand of socialist dictatorship was removed and citizens had a chance to select their system of government, every one of those nations chose capitalist regimes.

This tells us that those who knew best — the people who lived under a socialist system — rejected that system. They knew better than anyone else the oppressive nature of that system and chose to reject it entirely.

Before allowing democratic socialists to prevail in the coming elections, Americans must ask themselves whether there will come a time when people born in Washington and living in “Sandersville” may no longer profoundly wish to return to living in Washington.

• Gerard Leval is a partner in the Washington office of a national law firm. He is the author of “Lobbying for Equality: Jacques Godard and the Struggle for Jewish Civil Rights During the French Revolution,” published by HUC Press.