Over the last few years, my buddy Ben Powell, who is a professor of economics at Texas Tech, and I toured the world, drank a lot of beer, and saw for ourselves how things are going in former and current socialist nations. It turns out the quality and availability of beer in each of these countries is an accurate, at-a-glance way to assess their political systems.
Our first stop was Sweden, which Bernie Sanders and others extol as an ideal example of socialism. I’ve got news for Bernie and his crew. Sweden is no more socialist than the United States. Ben and I have been there, and the beer is good and cold, produced by privately owned companies, imported from all over the world, and sold at privately owned bars at unregulated prices. Those prices are high, because of Sweden’s notoriously high taxes, which are about 50% higher than in the U.S., but that’s not socialism.
Socialism is a system of government in which the means of production and the raw materials are controlled by the government. Think of your least-favorite government office — is it the post office? Or maybe your state division of motor vehicles? Then imagine every business in our nation, from Starbucks to Procter & Gamble to car manufacturers, being run the same way.
What does that do to beer? We went to Venezuela and Cuba to find out.
In Venezuela, the country has actually run out of beer on several occasions. Yes, you read that right. The entire country has run out of beer. How could that happen? The government, which controls the foreign exchange market, couldn’t or wouldn’t allocate enough hard currency for the largest beer company, Empresas Polar, to buy sufficient quantities of malted barley from outside the country.
In Cuba, they had beer, but the central planners in charge of the economy decided they only need two kinds. There is Cristal, a light lager, and Bucanero, a dark, bock-like beer. Both taste like Budweiser that’s been left out in the sun too long.
Socialism fails in practice because it is bad in theory. Central planners lack the knowledge and incentives to respond to consumers’ wants and needs. Every place that has tried it has ended up in misery, with starvation and death rather than prosperity. The beer sucks, too.
Interesting take on socialism and a very good basic description of what happens in its wake. Take a basic consumer product, like beer, and see how the gov’t ruins it.
I saw this somewhere recently.
Dad and Son chat:
Son: Dad, if socialism doesn’t work why do people still want it?
Dad: Well they don’t work either son.
…you really can’t expect people who can’t tell the difference between a man and a woman to be able to understand that there is a diifference between fermenting and festering…
They will drive you to drink and then take away the beer.
Gawd…that picture makes me squirm……great choice
Government attracts incompetent people, and then let them make decisions for private business. It’s as successful as government usually is.
Warren Promises to Increase Refugees By 700%.
Warren drinks Immigrant Piss and left wanting for more!
“… Sweden’s notoriously high taxes, which are about 50% higher than in the U.S., but that’s not socialism.”
Sorry. TAXATION IS CONTROL.
Taxes used for any other purpose than the legitimate necessities of gov’t (self-defense, roads, bridges, Secret State Police, Foreign Relations, stuff like that as defined in the constitution – and yes, Sweden’s is different from ours) is confiscation for socialist purposes, if it’s used to support other members of society. Taking money from those who work and giving it to those who don’t is the definition and crux of socialism – not some arcane, nonsensical, dialectic materialist falderol – pseudo-economic fake-science logical contortions.
izlamo delenda est …
I’ve drunk beer in over fifteen European countries. It’s all good.
“Revolution is the largest for-profit, independent brewer in Illinois and produces beer in higher quality and in a vastly greater variety than all of the socialist countries in the world—combined.”
Hypocrisy, at its finest flavor, kinda like schadenfreude.
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Take Fauxcahontas’ beer bottle and shove it up her corrupt ass. Though she might do it herself and post it online to try and get the women’s soccer team votes.
“Government attracts incompetent people..”
Where else are they going to get position and power?
Anonymous
Did you go to high school or College?