14 DAY TRIAL // Since the beginning of the Cold War, people in the United States have been told that the Communists are the enemies, and that, if they didn't support more nuclear arms, they would eventually succumb to the Reds' attack. But, first and foremost, they were taught that the economic principles of socialism and communism were wrong, and that free, market-based capitalism was the only economical system capable of producing enough wealth to everyone. It would appear now that this type of mentality has backfired on the US, and only capitalism and its intricate mechanisms are to blame.
Whenever Americans hear the world “social,” they have been trained to associate it with communism, and that is one of the most misleading aspects of the capitalist doctrine. But the reality is that the current economic system in the US, and the prevailing method of conducting economies around the world, is simply not able to produce widespread welfare and a fair distribution of wealth. While theoreticians could argue all day long why free market economy is better than planned and directed economy, the fact is that socialism truly guarantees that no one is left behind.
However, in socialism, the divide is not between the rich and the poor, but between people and the party elite, which channels most of the wealth in their hands. However, this happens in practice in countries with authoritarian regimes, which is not necessarily the way socialism was envisioned by its creator, Karl Marx, when he first wrote The Capital. For instance, a recent study has shown that the level of overall satisfaction, or “quality of life,” decreased sharply in Central and Eastern Europe once the Iron Curtain fell, and that nearly 400 million people were affected by it.
In the course of the “transition” from socialism and communism to capitalism, the Gross Domestic Product of countries such as Poland, Bulgaria and Romania decreased by anything from 50 to 85 percent, causing widespread social repercussions. The promises of privatization, which come with capitalism, drove authorities in charge of large, socialist-era factories and refineries to intentionally drive them to the brink of bankruptcy, so as to make them available for purchase. The study also shows that, while the GDP in these countries rose from the 1990s to the 2000s, the level of personal satisfaction in people living here failed to keep up, and is even now lower than expected.
“So far, we have very little scientific empirical study bearing on whether socialists are happier than capitalists. However, what my paper suggests is that there are elements of 'socialism' that appear to have more directly addressed important concerns of the 'average person' (...) and that if we are interested in promoting well-being we might learn from the study of experience under 'socialist' regimes, as well as 'capitalist,'” University of Southern California expert in “happiness economics” Richard Easterlin, the man who proposed the Easterlin paradox, explains.
“As my paper notes, the (...) evidence such as that for the transition countries does not seem to suggest an important effect on happiness of democratization, and indeed when people in countries throughout the world are asked about what makes them happy, they rarely mention political concerns. Yet, in my personal view, political and civil rights are important. So my answer is that we would do well to start paying attention to happiness, but we should not assume that it is in itself the last word on well-being,” he concludes, quoted by LiveScience.