The insanity of history

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
- Albert Einstein

1789-1799: French Revolution. Radical efforts to create a utopia of "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity" degenerate into a Reign of Terror, the rise of Napoleon and two decades of warfare in Europe.

1848: Populist unrest in France (again) spreads across Europe, calling the common man 'to the barricades.' Utopian collectivism was the buzzword, but Tocqueville noted "Society was cut in two: those who had nothing united in common envy, and those who had anything united in common terror."

1880s: Growing faith in the idea of what would later be called the Managerial State; Bismark's Germany tries to undercut Marxist influence... by implementing the least radical or offensive aspects of the Marxist agenda...

1917: Russia throws out the Czars in favor of the Commissars and the promise of a "worker's utopia." Eight miserable decades later, the experiment implodes.

1930s: Rise of National Socialism in Germany. Despite the propaganda putting "Nazi" and "Commie" at opposite ends of a spectrum, they belong on the same (heavy-handed government) side of the scale. Think of the deathmatch between Hitler and Stalin like these two guys... mere variations on a theme.

1950s: Cuban Revolution. After decades of exporting mayhem (think Che) and impoverishing an otherwise promising society, Fidel Castro finally admits the system doesn't work. (That THAT, Michael Moore...)

1998: Hugo Chavez is elected on a populist platform including a "right" to universal State-provided healthcare. Socialist utopianism takes on a new nickname: "Bolivarianism." The relabeled Statist management approach 'manages' to produce double-digit inflation for years...

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Redistributive socialist approaches would seem to be discredited by such a dismal track record, but in true Keynsian form its advocates always retort that failure resulted from incomplete implementation. (i.e. it's never that "Stimulus packages" are the wrong policy, it's that they're not large enough. I suppose there's a sliver of logic to this. After all, if Pol Pot had managed to kill EVERYBODY, there wouldn't have been any social problems left to address, right?)

When I see so many Americans clamoring for the State to make everything right and provide for their needs, I can only shake my head. The school of hard knocks is an expensive one. What a shame humanity keeps paying for the same lesson, over and over...