Socialism has been repeatedly tried and repeatedly has failed. The original American colonies attempted a socialist commune. Their Puritan idealism repudiated lazy human nature and rights to property and fruits of effort (the pursuit of happiness). Settlers who had formerly been known for their virtue and hard work became lazy and unproductive. Starvation and disease decimated these pilgrims until they returned to the ethic of meritocracy.
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The French revolution, Marx, Engels, and others sowed the more modern seeds. But it has failed in the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany (National Socialist Workers Party), China, Korea, Cuba, Cambodia, South America, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, and S. Africa. There is never a mass emigration to these socialist utopias, just people desperate to get out.

Today, under socialism, people are starving in Venezuela, a country with more natural resources than about any other country in the world. The socialist leaders are in the lap of luxury. Korea presents a stark contrast between starving and oppressed people under communism in the north (the leader and his generals are doing great), and the prospering and free people in the south under free enterprise.
In every instance of socialism, the top 1% living fat on the hog are those heading the government. They get there while demonizing the 1% who earned wealth through industriousness. Today, in America, the inroads made by socialism have resulted in the richest counties in the country being those surrounding Washington D.C. Politicians enter the government with modest resources and end up multimillionaires as "public servants" pushing socialist agendas that steal wealth from productive citizens.

As always, follow the money if you wish to uncover true motivations.
To achieve their ends—absolute government control—socialists use the ruse of presenting themselves as ethical, fair, and egalitarian saviors. Their appeal is to emotion, not reason or truth. They play to common sentiments of envy, entitlement, and victimhood and can easily beguile the naïve, particularly the young who think socialism is cool. But in the end, their true Svengali nature is revealed.

They eventually drop the soothsaying and demagoguery and resort to violence to insure their elitist position and power. They must because people are not going to forever passively give up their freedom, hard-earned assets, or share their home with several other families when authorities demand it. To enforce their will, socialists first remove guns from the population. Then, at gun-point, they force submission. This force has resulted in unthinkable human misery, including millions of deaths—20 million in the Soviet Union, 45 million in China, 2 million in Cambodia, 3.5 million in North Korea, 6 million in Nazi Germany, and about 50 million in the world war fomented in large part by socialistic ideologies.

Of course, apologists will debate the numbers or claim their version of socialism is kinder and gentler. American socialists point to Scandinavian socialism as a model of success. But there is no real socialism there. Nordics have learned that socialism means stagnation and economic retrogression. Thus, they have no minimum wage and have a lower corporate tax than in the U.S. They also permit free educational choice and protect private property rights. Their attempt at ideological socialism worked for a while because it was fed by a previously existing and successful free market. But that largesse ran out and threatened the collapse of the economy. Today, Nordic countries once again practice free market economics paired with high taxes on the middle class exchanged for generous government entitlement programs. They know enough not to kill the capitalist geese laying the golden eggs.

That is not the socialism leftists aspire to. They glorify the dictators in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela and then pretend to want to be like the Nordics.

Unfortunately, an entire generation of Americans has been indoctrinated by government education, socialist politicians, and their media mouthpieces. The naïve youth are fooled by class and race warfare and enraptured by the promise that free stuff does not cancel freedom or mean they will be ruled by callous despots.

Reason and historical lessons barely have a chance against this insidious political cancer that will just not go away.

Words of Wisdom:
"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance of foreign lands should be curtailed lest the Republic become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance." Cicero, 55 B.C.