"I grew up in a socialist country. And I have seen what that does to people. There is no hope, no freedom. No pride in achievement.
"And that's what I see happening here."
So begins an ad that's been airing in the run-up to November elections, narrated and paid for by Thomas Peterffy, in support of Republican candidates.
Peterrfy, the CEO of Interactive Brokers, came to America in 1965 to escape Communist Hungary.
He fears a world where, if we're not careful, "people will lose interest in really working hard and creating jobs. I think this is a very slippery slope.
"It seems like people don't learn from the past."
Is the U.S. really starting to resemble the country he left?
We turned to "Steeltown, USSR," a book-length work of reportage from current Princeton University History Professor Stephen Kotkin, to see what life under socialism is really like.
Published in 1991, the book is Kotkin's account of his trips to the Russian city of Magnitogorsk in the late-80s, on the eve of the fall of Communism, and his interviews with the city's residents.
No one actually knows what to call the system of government they live under
Kotkin speaks with one outspoken middle-aged factory worker who tells him:
"We built it all right. We worked, we toiled, we built. And now they can't figure out what the hell we built.! No one knows what to call it: barracks socialism, Stalinism, totalitarianism. You could spend the rest of your life thinking about it, but you'll never come up with the right name. What we built — it's unnameable."
But whatever you call it, it doesn't creep up on countries — it is imposed
The Hungary Peterffy, born in 1944, grew up in had been occupied continuously by the Soviets since the end of the war. Their control was reinforced after the brutal repression of the 1956 uprising. Kotkin:
"Socialism...would not come about naturally. To bring about the unprecedented undertaking of noncapitalist transformation required a special instrument, 'a party of a new type' (in Lenin's phrase), which amid the chaos of a war-torn country managed to seize power..."
It's true that hard work often yields little payoff
It often took years to get basic quality goods and services. Again, from the middle-aged worker:
"This apartment, I waited 18 years for it. During that time, we lived four in one room. No one remembered what color the walls were. You couldn't see them, they were so covered with our belongings stacked up to the ceiling. I worked and struggled and endured all manner of humiliation for eighteen years for this pathetic, unexceptional new apartment. It makes me sad and angry to think about it. How much evil has accumulated! I have so much on my soul!"
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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