From the ash heap of history, socialism is once again getting a resurgence and it is surprisingly from the countries who fought it just half a century prior. Countries that have previously supported free and thriving democracies are now under threat of being overrun by the bureaucratic menace of a socialist system. But in fact, democracy itself may be the root of socialism.
The many horrors in the 20th century were rooted in the drive and push for progress. Many countries, especially in Europe, embraced socialist ideologies such as Communism, Fascism and National Socialism. Sadly, these societal experiments only proved how government planning and the coercion of individual freedoms could result to more devastation and human suffering. One of the largest atrocities in human history were subject to the hand of such “progressive” socialist governments. The brand of socialism that spawn from Karl Marx did not fare any better too. People under communism lost their freedoms and when they rebelled where thrown to the gulag.
Scholars today may still argue about the economic benefits and effects of a planned economy under socialist nations. Socialism has produced mixed results with welfare states being proof of how a government could help people at the poverty level. Meanwhile, there is still enough evidence that a total control of industry could harm the economy. Even America right now is not a totally free-market country. There are currently more regulations and laws that prohibit companies from doing as they please. But one could still very well argue that even with some regulations, the free-market can still work best without being manhandled.
Right now, many groups around the world are advocating for more and more socialist or socialist-like policies. The push for these political groups to further such agenda are now making it harder for people to retain their individual rights and freedom. It is also becoming harder for an entrepreneur to do business because of such limitations being imposed by socialist regimes.
The core advocacy of socialism is equality and majority. Except for the fact that socialism as an economic ideology want to have “collective ownership on the means of production”, democracy itself have the same principles. The most common point of contention for those who advocate against it is the fact of its majoritarian democracy. A book written by Ludwig von Mises discusses entitled Liberalism, talks about how both capitalism and democracy works. For many libertarians, they are appreciative of the free market yet have deep disdain for democracy. As stated harshly by Lane, democracy in itself is the cause and the basis for socialism with its fundamentals being rooted in democracy. The tyranny of the many is ultimately the one that leads to socialism.
It is now come to realization for many that bad economic decisions come from a particularly bad votes by the majority. Democracy turning to Democratic Socialism inevitably leads to crony capitalism. Since democracy serves to further a social interest, it is the ground for spawning corruption. In real-world, corporations do not want to have competition and would in-reality be more for government control and government security both to protect their business and to stifle competition.