Brazil's Woes Are The Wages Of Socialism

IBD ^ | 06/22/2013

[SeekAndFind]

The Hemisphere: Brazil's rulers have been taken aback by the millions of countrymen surging up against them, venting their fury. What we have here is a fresh example of why socialism fails.

Up until now, a million Brazilians in the streets usually had something to do with a soccer match or, perhaps, a samba festival.

This time, it wasn't about festivities.

What started as a protest against a 9-cent fare hike on public transport fireballed into a gigantic public protest against political corruption, high taxes and lousy public services — and the government itself. Protesters stormed state legislatures and set at least one on fire. The capital was stormed as well, and President Dilma Rousseff canceled her trip to Japan to call an emergency meeting with her Cabinet.

The New York Times reported that Brazil's leftist ruling Workers Party — full of 1960s-era guerrillas, community organizers, academics and radicals — "finds itself perplexed by the revolt in its midst."

After all, hadn't they been good socialists, shoveling pork to the poor, protecting local industries from foreign "predators," employing bureaucrats and taxing "the rich"? Yes, they did, and the result is a nation awash in corruption, angry at special interests, poorer from protectionism and beset by high taxes.

Now the people are marching. And the Workers' Party (PT) philosophy of rule by special interests is at least one reason why.

[allendale]

Those that implement socialism are guilty of crimes against humanity. They must be held accountable.

[TADSLOS]

Same ol’, same ol’....socialism. Like watching bacteria in a petri dish blossom and eat itself.

[Hotlanta Mike]

Argentina is in a similar boat and they had experienced earlier demonstrations by the middle class as well.

[PapaBear3625]

Brazil's rulers have adopted the poor as their constituency, but have bought off big business and public employees too — creating a web of powerful interests who benefit from its rule. Those on the outside pay for it all.

Sounds like the Democrats.

[Pollster1]

Socialism is scientifically perfect and mathematically flawless. It’s a shame every socialist government in history has been plagued by corruption, inefficiency, favoritism, and widespread bad luck. Fortunately, Marx, Engels, Stalin, and Obama have taught us that socialism and communism are historically inevitable, so we don’t need to rethink socialism. All we need to do is keep trying the same thing we’ve tried since this idea blossomed among the weeds of capitalism - eventually, the results have to be different.

[griswold3]

Don’t ever expect a socialist to actually pay for what they get! Seems, as Lady Thatcher had predicted, they’ve run out of other people’s money, now they have to use their own for services. That’s funny.

[Thom Pain]

Socialism = Corruption 100% of the time.

[TADSLOS]

Yep. Corruption is the only thing that structurally supports socialism. The rot finally collapses in on itself and the Marxist idealists are always “surprised” at the reaction.

[BfloGuy]

protectionism is the rule of the day. Keeping foreign competitors out has made life easier for Brazil's oligarchs — but it's made life miserable for Brazil's consumers, who must deal with higher prices and fewer choices.

[FreedomNotSafety]

Let the anti-free trade diatribes begin. IBD sees very clearly the link between protectionism and socialism. We are just a decade or so from having these same riots here.

[ken5050]

The government probably thought they were providing the ultimate in “bread and circuses” for the masses by bringing the World Cup to soccer mad Brazil. It’s turning into a disaster. The “Confederation Cup”..the warm-up for the World Cup..is being affected by the riots, and most of the new stadiums have serious problems...

[RayChuang88]

I hope the people involved in these "movements" realize that it will soon coalesce around a charismatic leader--with horrible consequences. Do the names Vladimir Lenin, Benito Mussolini, Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, and Mao Zedong ring a bell? People need to look at what happened after the French Revolution brought down King Louis XVI--a Reign of Terror against "enemies of the state" at one point in the Revolution that resulted in 42,000 innocent French citizens being executed by the guillotine and in the end resulted in the rise of a famous leader and tyrant: Napoleon Bonaparte.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks SeekAndFind.

The New York Times reported that Brazil's leftist ruling Workers Party -- full of 1960s-era guerrillas, community organizers, academics and radicals -- "finds itself perplexed by the revolt in its midst." ... the result is a nation awash in corruption, angry at special interests, poorer from protectionism and beset by high taxes. Now the people are marching.