After the death of brutal dictator Fidel Castro, many have romanticized his legacy. A good amount of youth continue to praise Castro for being a “revolutionary.” They are incredibly privileged to have never experienced such a nasty regime firsthand. The Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau even called Castro a “remarkable leader.”

Trudeau was not wrong. The socialism of Castro left a remarkable legacy of suffering, repression and death.

Socialism is gaining acceptance with our young. A YouGov poll shows only 29 percent of Americans have a favorable view of socialism. Statistics reveal that American society, as a whole, is in favor of free markets. However, millennials prefer socialism over capitalism by 11 percent (43 percent to 32 percent). Our generation is being seduced by the false song of socialism.

“Socialism sounds great. It has always sounded great,” highly respected economist Thomas Sowell said. “And it will probably always continue to sound great. It is only when you go beyond rhetoric, and start looking at hard facts, that socialism turns out to be a big disappointment, if not a disaster.”

Sowell could not have summarized the appeal of socialism any better.

At the basis of socialism is a lack of understanding. Many of those who support socialism cannot even properly define what socialism is: government ownership of the means of production.

To eliminate private enterprise is foolhardy. While the government can and has played an integral role in the advancement of technology, we owe many of our innovations to capitalism. When a young “revolutionary” heaps praise towards Marxism using Facebook or Reddit, he or she is enjoying the fruits of capitalism. While pure, unbridled capitalism without laws can result in negative externalities such as monopolization and pollution, there has never been as great a driver of societal progress as capitalistic competition.

The beauty of capitalistic competition lies in its alignment of incentives. It aligns the inherent desire for individuals to better their positions in life with the interests of society. Innovators are incentivized with the potential of profits to offer goods and services better than that of their competitors. Capitalism allows for creative destruction, where competition continuously improves the price and quality of goods for consumers, driving up the standard of living.

One only has to look to Mao Zedong to see the economic regression that socialism causes. His failed revolution set the country of China many years backward, plunging many into poverty and starving millions to death. Only after introducing capitalism was China able to become a leading economic force.

Economic regress is not the only pitfall of socialism. Another consequence of socialism is the loss of human rights.

Under Marxist theory, socialism should lead to equality, harmony, and prosperity. In reality, socialism will lead to loss of liberty and life. If true socialism was to be implemented in American society, there would be violent seizure of personal property. The government would have to be granted immense power in order to enforce its control of production.

This would take away many Constitutional rights that made our country great. There is a reason why many Cubans have fled to America, and many who lived in Communist China fled to Taiwan: because the victims of socialism had a yearn for freedom.

While our system in America is not perfect, it is far better than the lies, deceit, and violence of socialism. Rather than fighting revolutions with rioting and destruction, we fight with the ballot machine. There is a reason why so many people want to come to America: because we are a land of liberty and opportunity.

Socialism versus capitalism is not a matter of left-wing versus right-wing. It is not a battle between Republican against Democrat. Rather, it is the juxtaposition of individual liberty against totalitarianism. The oppression against those under socialist regimes cannot be forgotten, and we must never allow ourselves to succumb to the false song of socialism. It is my prayer that the people of Cuba can one day find the freedom that they rightly deserve.

— Emmanuel Lai, ’17