The End Of Democratic Socialism

by Monty Pelerin - May 29th, 2010 - American Thinker

The end of democratic socialism is at hand. The welfare states of the U.S. and Europe are financially out of control, spent and unsustainable. They have reached the point that Margaret Thatcher defined as the end of socialism: They have run out of other people's money. These areas of the world are about to change dramatically.

Victor Davis Hanson has a piece in National Review Online focused on Europe. His comments, while directed at Europe, are also applicable to the United States. Hanson states:

Five years ago, the European Union's account of itself resonated with end-of history triumphalism. In organic fashion, democratic socialism would spread eastward and southward, recivilizing the old Warsaw Pact and the Balkans through cradle-to-grave entitlements, state unionism, radical environmentalism, and utopian pacifism.

How quickly the dreams of just a short time ago have been shattered. Now the once-smug EU struggles desperately to survive.

We are not far behind, either in our eminent collapse or in the smug arrogance of the socialists in America. America, until the last 4 years was a generation behind Europe in its adoption of the welfare state and state unionism. With the 2006 takeover of congress by the Democrats, their immediate collusion with George W. Bush to ramp up the welfare state, and then the total takeover of our government by the extreme socialist wing of the Democrat Party in 2008, America has nearly caught up with Europe's impending collapse. 4 short years is all it took to move America from incipient socialism to full blown socialism. Like every socialist state in history, our collapse is rapidly approaching too.