Correcting the Record of Socialism on May Day

As the world continues to suffer the effects of inequality, many gravitate toward a hope they see in socialism. Yet the complexity of central planning delivers injustice, vast redistribution necessitates vast state control, and liberty and human rights groups become inconveniences. One group rules the rest, making inequality much worse.

May Day was once an innocuous holiday celebrating workers. Today it has been hijacked as an occasion for collectivism to rear its ugly head in public, with tub-thumping rallies praising socialist ideas. But do Americans even know what socialism is? In the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation‘s (VOC) widely-cited Annual Report on US Attitudes Toward Socialism, one-third of respondents confused it with fascism — and sadly, most Millennials associate socialism with equality and fairness, oblivious to the long history of atrocities committed in its name.

On May Day’s eve, VOC Executive Director Marion Smith wrote an op-ed published in the New Hampshire Union Leader showing how Marxist ideology has corrupted labor movements founded to fight for workers’ rights but with now serve socialist masters: “Far from ushering in a more equitable society, socialist movements that subscribed to Marxist ideology engendered a new form of slavery in the modern world.”

To those dazzled by its utopian vision, Smith shows how actual socialism — state control of the means of production — has been awful for workers everywhere it’s been tried. “Millennial Americans who rightly take offense at the greed and inhumanity sometimes exhibited by global corporations must remember that workers’ rights have not improved thanks to international socialism,” he wrote. “Workers are only truly empowered in a free society because employers and employees are able to negotiate with each other equally under the law.”

Alongside the op-ed, we released a new “Socialism is Slavery” video to help alert Millennials to the truth about socialism. The video reveals how socialism’s pursuit of “equality” leads to ugly state overlordship.

As Smith concluded, “If May 1 really is about workers, then don’t celebrate socialism. Celebrate free enterprise that allows workers to thrive.”