At nearby University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, one professor has belatedly made the journey across ideological divide and concluded that “socialism doesn’t work”:

“I gradually became disenchanted with Marxism by visiting many of the countries that had tried to shape their societies to conform to its doctrines. I was disillusioned by the realities I saw in … socialist countries – the USSR, Eastern Europe, China, Cuba, etc,” [Jack] Stauder told The College Fix via email.

“I came to recognize that socialism doesn’t work, and that its ‘revolutionary’ imposition inevitably leads to cruelty, injustice and the loss of freedom,” the professor continued.

“I could see the same pattern in the many failed left-wing revolutions of Latin America and elsewhere. By combining actual travel with the historical study of socialism and revolution, I succeeded in disabusing myself of the utopian notions that fatally attract people to leftist ideas.”

Becoming familiar with people who work with their hands for a living in the American West also aided Stauder along, when contrasted with life immersed in left-wing academia.

Some of the first comments to the post are interesting.  Defenders of socialism appear to take two tacks:  1) the bad socialist countries aren’t socialism, but dictatorships, and 2) good countries that aren’t fully socialist are socialism.  One could take the countries listed and suggest that nations deluded into socialism can choose one of two options as socialism gets around to not working.  They can either reform away from it (as Northern European countries have been doing) or move toward dictatorship, which is the inevitable end point when a people refuses to abandon socialism’s core tenets.

Given Stauder’s illustration that it is possible, even late in life, to abandon bad ideas, it’s saddening that socialists in the United States and the internationalists are managing to spread their malignant ideology.  Let’s hope that Americans haven’t destroyed their culture too fatally to avoid the dictatorship option.