Opus 2019-015: Pick Your Future, part 3 of 3, Beyond the Dream

Dreams are wonderful.  In my dreams I am God’s Golden Boy.  I am a world saver.  I am awesome.  Not so much when I wake up.

How do the dreams of the Progressives and free enterprise buffs look in real life?  Nowhere near the ideal of either group but if you could travel back in time you could see the difference in real life in a place called Berlin.  At the end of World War II Germany and Berlin were both divvied up into four sections to the four major victors.  The western quarters merged and the Soviet quarter started putting up barbed wire to keep people in.  Berlin, the capital, was located in the middle of the Soviet quarter.  Before the Berlin wall fell the three sections in the west of the city were a reflection of the free market of the West.  The one quarter in the east was a good example of life under socialism.  It was possible for Western tourists to travel from one to the other.  The west was vibrant, colorful and bustling.  The east was dull and dreary.  This is literally true.  It was like someone turned off the zest of life when you crossed the border.  For those too young to have seen this difference between Communism and free enterprise, watch the opening moments of The Wizard of Oz.  Do you remember the first time you saw Dorothy move from black and white to technicolor?  That is what it is like going from one reality to the other.

One of the events that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall was a simple visit to an American grocery store by Boris Yeltsin in 1989.  You can read about it at The Federalist if you want.  He could not believe the simple daily reality of an American grocery store.  It is something that we take for granted but much of the world would think they had gone to Oz.

Socialism has a long list of poster children.  The most current example of the socialist dream is Venezuela.  A few years ago it was the wealthiest country in South America and then the socialists took the wheel and began to drive the country into the ground.  Grocery stores are empty.  Electricity is often not available.  Life is miserable.  It is socialism in action.

The closest to the free enterprise reality would be what we call the West.  All the necessities of life are freely available.  All the comforts are available.  Of course much of that is available in the Socialists paradises too but only to the elites who run the country.  In free enterprise they are available to just about everyone. 

What is your dream?  If it only involves you then dream all you want and enjoy your sleep.  If it involves forcing your dreams on everyone else then you need to wake up before someone else builds the wall you will run into.

homo unius libri