TCS: "Why Isn't Socialism Dead?"

I stumbled onto this article in the Dallas Morning News written by Lee Harris, which was actually featured at Tech Central Station a couple of weeks ago. Why Isn't Socialism Dead? is an important piece deserving of much attention.

Those of us espousing conservative ideals are flummoxed as to why the universally failed doctrine of socialism continues to flourish.

Would it be stating the obvious that the failure of public education to teach factual history is largely responsible for the propagation of the myth? In that regard, the left can take great pride in the fact that our education system has produced uneducated dolts who may actually sympathize with socialist dictators such as Chevez, Castro and Morales.

It's not just Academia that promotes socialism. Our entire guilt ridden culture is based on the edicts of multiculturalism, political correctness and diversity; philosophies designed to denigrate Western civilization as one of the world's greatest evils.

Is it any wonder why the myth of socialism is alive and well with so many eager promoters in our midst?

Here are a few good paragraphs from the aforementioned piece, but be sure to read the whole thing:

Thus, in the coming century, those who are advocates of capitalism may well find themselves confronted with "a myth gap." Those who, like Chavez, Morales, and Castro, are preaching the old time religion of socialism may well be able to tap into something deeper and more primordial than mere reason and argument, while those who advocate the more rational path of capitalism may find that they have few listeners among those they most need to reach -- namely, the People. Worse, in a populist democracy, the People have historically demonstrated a knack of picking as their leaders those know the best and most efficient way to by-pass their reason -- demagogues who can reach deep down to their primordial and, alas, often utterly irrational instincts. This, after all, has been the genius of every great populist leader of the past, as it is proving to be the genius of those populist leaders who are now springing up around the world, from Bolivia to Iran.

This is why socialism isn't dead, and why in our own century it may well spring back into life with a force and vigor shocking to those who have, with good reason, declared socialism to be no longer viable. It is also why Georges Sorel is perhaps even more relevant today than he was a hundred years ago. He knew that it was hopeless to guide men by reason and argument alone. Men need myths -- and until capitalism can come up with a transformative myth of its own, it may well be that many men will prefer to find their myths in the same place they found them in the first part of the twentieth century -- the myth of revolutionary socialism.

This is the challenge that capitalism faces in the world today -- whether it will rise to the challenge is perhaps the most urgent question of our time, and those who refuse to confront this challenge are doing no service to reason or to human dignity and freedom. Bad myths can only be driven out by better myths, and unless capitalism can provide a better myth than socialism, the latter will again prevail.