Customer Reviews

Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Heaven on Earth is a captivating intellectual history of the first rank. When I first heard about this book, I imagined 450 dense pages devoted to socialism's political splits, rivalries and intellectual schisms over the past two centuries. Not a very inviting prospect. The reality is much different. Josh Muravchik tells the story of the socialist idea and of the socialist movement(s) through a series of fascinating vignettes and brief biographies. Starting with the French revolutionary Babeuf and taking the story through the fall of the Soviet Union (and the troubled current state of the Israeli kibbutz movement), Muravchik uses this format to highlight the central philosophical and political issues addressed by the key figures in a particular historical setting.

It is a very effective approach. The biographical portraits provide a very human dimension to his larger task of telling the story of socialism. By attaching political developments and ideas to the lives of real people, he also manages to create a real sense of drama in examining each historical period. Even though you know how the story will end, you become caught up in each personal narrative.

The entire book is first rate, but several chapters are especially notable. The first portrait of Babeuf and his contemporaries give you a historical footing in the development of socialism as an economic and political ideal that few of us have. A later chapter on Clement Atlee and the British Labor Party in the post-World War II era does a great job of describing how this patrician figure became the champion of democratic socialism. However, my favorite segment is the one on the American labor movement that features Samuel Gompers and George Meany. Muravchik uses this chapter to explore the failure of socialism as a movement in the United States and he does it with considerable skill.

One final aspect of the book is worth noting. Muravchik explains in the introduction that he was a third generation socialist who turned his political interests elsewhere in the 1970s. However, unlike many others who have migrated away from the Left, Muravchik is able to discuss socialism in a calm, analytical and, at times, understanding manner. This book is not a tirade against the evils of socialism, but rather a thoughtful explication of a flawed ideal and the failed and often dangerous political movements it spawned. Heaven on Earth is an intelligent and insightful book that is well worth reading by anyone who has an interest in modern politics and history.

Socialism is a wonderful idea. It is only as a reality that it has been disastrous. Among people of every race, color, and creed, all around the world, socialism has led to hunger in countries that used to have surplus food to export.

Its economic disasters have afflicted virtually every industry. In its Communist version, it killed far more innocent civilians in peacetime than Hitler killed in his death camps during World War II.

Nevertheless, for many of those who deal primarily in ideas, socialism remains an attractive idea -- in fact, seductive. Its every failure is explained away as due to the inadequacies of particular leaders.

Many of the intelligentsia remain convinced that if only there had been better leaders -- people like themselves, for example -- it would all have worked out fine, according to plan.

A remarkable new book makes the history of socialism come alive. Its title is "Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism." Its author, Joshua Muravchik, is a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a leading think tank in Washington. It is hard to find a book on the history of socialism that is either readable or accurate, so it is especially remarkable to find one that is both. The story told in "Heaven on Earth" is so dramatic and compelling that the author finds no need to gild the lily with rhetoric or hype. It is a great read.

This history of socialism begins more than two centuries ago, at the time of the French Revolution, with the radical conspirator Babeuf, who wanted to carry the revolutionary ideas of the times even farther, to a communist society.

It ends with current British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who brought the Labour Party back to power by dropping the core of its socialist agenda and putting distance between himself and previous Labour Party governments, whose socialist policies had so backfired that the party lost four consecutive national elections.

In between, there are stories of small communal societies, such as that founded in the 19th century by Robert Owen, the man who coined the word "socialism," as well as stories of huge nations like China and the empire that was known as the Soviet Union.

In all these very different societies around the world, the story of socialism has been a story of high hopes and bitter disappointments. Attempts to redistribute wealth repeatedly led to the redistribution of poverty.

Attempts to free ordinary people from oppression repeatedly led to what Mikhail Gorbachev frankly called "servility" to new despots. How and why are spelled out with both facts and brilliant insights expressed in plain words.

Human nature has been at the heart of the failures of socialism to produce the results it sought, even when socialist leaders were idealists like Julius Nyerere in Tanzania or Pandit Nehru in India.

Nowhere have people been willing to work as well for the common good as they do for their own benefit. Perhaps in some other galaxy there are creatures who would, but the track record of socialism among human beings on earth shows that this is not the place.

Worst of all, the concentration of political power necessary to try to reduce economic inequalities has allowed tyrants like Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot to impose their notions and caprices on millions of others -- draining them economically or slaughtering them en masse or exploiting them sexually.

Mao Zedong, for example, had harems of young girls -- and occasionally boys -- for his pleasure in various parts of China.

There is no point blaming the tragedies of socialism on the flaws or corruption of particular leaders. Any system which allows some people to exercise unbridled power over other people is an open invitation to abuse, whether that system is called slavery or socialism or something else.

Socialism has long sought to create a heaven on earth but an even older philosophy pointed out that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

This book provides a one-stop history of socialist ideology from the French Revolution through the Blair government from the perspective of a self-described original red-diaper baby who has since rejected socialism. Although it is probably impossible to get an objective discussion of the intellectual history of socialism, this probably comes as close as anyone could get. If there were one flaw in the book, it would be the neglect of the Scandinavian experience with socialism, including its ultimate rejection by the voters in those countries (rejection? Yes. Ikea, Nokia, and Saab aren't state-owned, are they?)

I originally saw it in a bookstore and was especially surprised by the chapter on Mussolini. Apparently, Benito grew up in a socialist household, rose through the ranks of the socialist party, and broke from them in the aftermath of WWI. His father - a member of the International - named him after four different famous socialists, read Marxist texts at the dinner table every night. Young Benito was a rising star in the Italian Socialist party, edited their magazine, and eventually became a party leader. On the outbreak of WWI, Benito had the same reaction as his hero, Lenin: they both saw that the workers in various countries rejected Marx's internationalist philosophy and rushed to arms and exclaimed, "the international is dead". Benito, however, began to develop a new variation on Marxism: he believed that stronger countries oppressed weaker countries like Italy in the same way they believe that capitalists oppress workers. He believed that the entire country must rise up against the stronger nations in order to allow the workers to rise up as predicted by Marxist dogma. He also saw how camaraderie in the army was the epitome of the class solidarity they sought, and decided to pursue a strong state based on a strong, army-like command structure. You know: Fascism. Throughout his life, he continued to admire the work of Lenin and Stalin, and the feeling appears to have been mutual until he tossed in with Hitler.

The other chapters were also enlightening, but not as surprising. The failure of Owen utopianism is traced directly to Engels' appearance in his Church of Science. Engels and Marx are traced to their selected successor, Bernstein, and his observation that the Fabians' approach of reform was having the results that Marx claimed could only come about through revolution. This in turn led to a response by a young Russian named V.I. Lenin, bringing forth the theory of perpetual revolution, in which reform would be rejected and workers would be kept in a constant state of agitation. To see the outcome of that line of thought, I'd recommend the Black Book of Communism. There are also several chapters on the policies of Clements and the failure of the Socialist experiment in England, the experience of Socialism in Africa, and the fall of communism featuring Deng Xiaoping and Mikhail Gorbachev.

However, I found the chapters on the anti-socialist and anti-communist philosophies of Samuel Gompers and George Meany, and the epilogue describing the history of the kibbutzim in Israel to be the most fascinating. Despite leading the labor movement, Gompers and Meany were both strongly anti-communist and insisted that the goal of the labor movement was to negotiate for workers so that they could earn their way into the middle class. That stands in stark contrast to the union movement today, in which they are hardly distinguishable from the socialist parties. The kibbutz experience was similarly fascinating: it seems to have been successful so long as the survival of Israel hung in the balance, but has since fallen apart as younger people felt the desire for something more than working their lives away at subsistence level while giving away all privacy. They discovered that capitalism yields both individual economic results as well as moral bonuses like individual rights and privacy.

According to Joshua Muravchik, Jane Fonda once shouted at a group of hecklers, "If you knew what communism really was, you would be down on your knees praying for it!" This book enumerates the many ways she was mistaken. Muravchik was a socialist leader of a national student group while at college, so he knows its theory and practice backwards and forwards. His focus here is on a group on leaders--Mussolini, Lenin, Deng Xiaoping, George Meany, and Tony Blair, among others--who are representative of the progress of socialism through the past two centuries. This biographical approach makes the book extremely readable. Muravchik's central conclusion: people need stories to explain their lives. Socialism was a gospel, a morality play to take the place of supposedly discredited religion. Except socialism ignored or tried to supress human nature, saying that people were infinitely plastic, a "blank slate." And it was not restrained by any basis in trancendental morality, so it could perform any experiments on living human beings in the name of a higher good, the definition of which was left deliberately vague, up in the air. Thus came the open-air slaughterhouse of the twentieth century. Even the kibbutzim, the communes of Israel (perhaps the purest-hearted of all the modern experiments in socialism) are closing up shop. Muravchick's devastating conclusion about socialism: "If you build it, they will leave." Muravchik has returned to Judaism, with a willingness to set aside utopian schemes. If heaven is to really come on earth someday, it won't be built by fanatics and bloody tyrants. This book is a definitive obituary for socialism as it was practiced over the last two centuries.

Readers finding "Heaven on Earth" interesting will benefit as well from reading Brink Lindsey's "Against the Dead Hand". Reading through some of the dissenters in the resulting reviews of this book, it is quite clear that we still don't understand as a people the basic truths of a free and civil society. That those dissenters can read a book like this and counter with false examples like Denmark is more a fault of the author than the dissenters.

There is much careless use of facts and terms. A more careful review of the facts will show that socialism is not sustainable -- it does not work. Period. Every experiment has failed, every treatise has been decisively refuted at its logical roots. And places where we continue to dabble - education, medicine, etc. -- in our "mixed" economy, are unmitigated disasters.

It comes down to this (with great respect to Lawrence Reed), and this book provides great edifying examples -- but could do a better job of distilling the principles:

(1) Free people are not equal -- and equal people are not free. I'm not referring to equality before the law -- I'm talking about equalness in income and material wealth. We shouldn't get hung up about differences in wealth as result of people being themselves. If it's a result of artificial political barriers then we should do what we can to get rid of them -- but don't try to place fundamentally unequal people into a homogenous heap -- it won't work and you'll destroy everything in trying. Read up on the histories of Stalin, Khmer Rouge, etc.

(2) What belongs to you, you take care of; what belongs to no one or everyong tends to fall into disrepair. This is the magic of private property -- and a big reason why socialism fails.

(3) If you encourage something you get more of it; if you discourage something you get less of it. We are creatures of incentives and disincentives. What to break up families? Offer a bigger welfare check if the father splits. Want to get less work? Impose such high tax penalties on it that people decide it's not worth the effort... Want to discourage investment? How about a high capital gains tax?

(4) Nobody spends somebody else's money as carefully as he spends his own.

(5) Government has nothing to give anybody except what it first takes away from somebody, and a government that is big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you've got. This bears some serious reflection for those who think, "ya but we can be different this time..."

To further quote Mr. Reed: "Liberty isn't just a luxury or a nice idea. It's not just a defensible idea or a happy circumstance. It's what makes just about everything else happen. Without it, life is a bore at best. At worst, there is no life at all."

George Washington said, "Government is not reason. It is not eloquence. It is force. Like fire, it can be a dangerous servant or a fearful master." This is not some radical, ideological, anti-government set of ideals here, folks... these are just some of the hard-earned facts you should have written on your soul. Many -- many -- have given their lives before you to establish these truths.

Sadly, we haven't learned very well -- and there are perhaps more eloquent authors out there -- Hayek's "Road to Serfdom" comes to mind. Still, "Heaven on Earth" is worth your time.

The errors of the communal impulse are meticulously documented in Joshua Muravchik's sensational Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism. I have seldom encountered a book that is such a perfect balance of entertainment and education as is Muravchik's. In a world where one can pay $25 for 200 pages of utter tripe, Heaven on Earth stands as a bargain and an ideal. It entertains as much as it educates. His compendium of the mayhem of that is socialism is also a testament to the necessity for historical analysis. He is similar to Anthony Beevor in the way his prose and style can create interest in a topic that one never wanted to study before.
The author of this work made a clever decision, and it was to focus on many of the lesser known members of the cult of socialism. Less publicized figures like Gracchus Babeuf, Robert Owen, and Julius Nyerere are given chapter long treatments. Clement Atlee, Samuel Gompers, George Meany, and the Israeli kibbutzim are discussed in order to flesh out the overall picture of the political actualities behind the success or lack of success of the socialist movement. It makes for a surprisingly suspenseful read, as many of the facts, stories, and quotations contained it the book the reader may never have gazed upon before.
The men who founded the movement known as socialism can best be described by a quote meant for Robert Owen which was, "He became a humanitarian, and lost his humanity." No better sentence can sum up the socialist mind and their 150 years of ruthless social engineering. Pass a cemetery and think of their legacy to the world. It is unfortunate that their bankrupt ideology remains politically viable in many locales today. Upon reading Heaven on Earth, the reader will realize that you can no more build a socialism which works than you can create a human being who will live forever.

Despite their many differences, one thing all definitions of socialism have in common is the idea that economic competition is a negative thing to be eliminated while common ownership of resources is a positive to be achieved. Few doctrines have been empirically tested as frequently and for as long as the theories of socialism. All have proven to be abject failures. Indeed, I think it can safely be said that experience has demonstrated that the implementation of socialism leads, at best to economic stagnation, at worst to mass slaughter. In this interesting book, ex-socialist Joshua Muravchik explores the history of socialism from its beginnings to its inauspicious end through a series of portraits of leading socialist figures. He traces the development of socialism from its early beginnings in the doctrine of radical equality and revolution promoted by Babeuf in early 19th century France and the utopian commune theory of Robert Owen in early 19th century America. He then explores the "scientific socialism" of Marx and Engels which became a sort of secular religion to its adherents among the intellectual and educated classes. The Marxian theory of "inevitability" was modified by Lenin who rather than waiting for the "proletariat" to bring the revolution, "imposed" the revolution on the peasantry of Russia. Leninism of course degenerated into a murderous tyranny as did its cousin, fascism. Muravchik also explores democratic socialism in Britain and third world socialism in Tanzania. Democratic socialism did not descend into tyranny but proved incredibly ineffective as an economic system. Socialism did descend into tyranny in much of the third world and led to mass starvation in many cases. Finally, Muravchik explores the doctrine's inevitable end through the stories of Gorbachev in the Soviet Union, Deng in China and Tony Blair and "New Labour" in Britain.

The book is never shrill in tone and despite Muravchhik's obvious contempt for socialism in all its manifestations, he seems almost wistful and puzzled by how such a theory could become so popular and widespread. Indeed he wonders how so many decent people like Clement Atlee could be so very wrong. One thing Marivchik makes clear, however, is that the kind of progressive liberalism promoted in the United States and by the Liberal party in Britain can in no way be considered socialism. Many on the far right consider any reform action by the government that impacts property rights or business practices to be socialism. To the contrary, such reformism, of the type promoted by the American Labor movement under Gompers and Meany are the exact opposite of socialism. As Muravhcik shows, while some regulation of market forces is necessary to maintain a decent society, the complete restriction of competition and economic incentive leads to economic ruin. Nor can such restrictions be introduced without some sort of political coercion. As Muravchik argues, in the one example of democratically implemented socialism, the Israeli Kibbutz, the members have voted socialism out of existence.

It is amazing that the most basic ideas of human nature should be so ignored by so many bright people who should have known better. And yet, as Muravchik shows, it was an idea adhered to religiously by millions. What makes this book valuable is that it is history not doctrine. What other idea has been so tested and so discredited? The book is far from a complete and comprehensive tome on Socialism. Indeed, it is light on theory and heavy on anecdote. But it will be enjoyed by anyone interested in the history of the Western world.

With this book Muravchik does a service in pursuit of sane social policy everywhere. He uses historical facts to bring some semblance of understanding to what causes so many to continue their attraction to such an economically failed theory as Socialism.

One could conclude that the lure of Socialism activates the same animating impulse as religion and be done with it, but that would be too curt. As the author recounts in story after story, in example after example, facts are irrelevant to the faithful. And, as this book will show, as it follows in the footsteps of many others that have reached a similar conclusion ("the Guide to the Perfect Latin American Idiot" come to mind), man's infinite capacity for self deception will not be blunted by historical refutation of a belief system.

It would appear that juxtaposed to man's capacity for blocking and denying there is a need to feel self important through a deeply seated desire to feel self-righteous and virtuous. The reality is rather simple when you consider that ones drive for self-importance is primal. Any one of us can feel superior to someone who exceeds our ability to create wealth by pretending that we are more virtuous than he. We can allude that he has earned his money by avarice and deception while deigning not to focus on his trials and tribulations in his climb up the ladder of success.

It is this easily fanned flame of envy that resonates so strongly with the less motivated. This fabrication finds further voice in the refrain that "we're poor because they are rich" or put another way that the reason that the poor are that way is that the rich oppress them and keep them down.

We see this nonsense taught in history classes in America's school systems today where the Marxian idea of mass social movements dictating historical inflection points is worshipped. The idea that individual effort might be a cause of said change is roundly ignored by our self-anointed academics. Muravchik covers the history of this addled thinking throughout "Heaven on Earth". Hopefully he'll get a book interview by Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel, but I'm not holding my breath. To too many, the truth is just too hard to take.

The only thing that seems to change ones thinking is emotional trauma and in a perverse sense this is the silver lining in the 9-11 tragedy. Perhaps the national confusion on the whys and wherefores of this event will provide a window to a change of thinking for the many adherents of a Socialistic, top-down government still in our midst. Perhaps Murachik's book will achieve the wider audience it deserves as a consequence of the direct attack on America. Anything that brings more sanity to the social policy of western civilization is surely welcome.

Socialism was a modern attempt to replace traditional religion with a set of beliefs purporting to be a science.

Although in the course of about two hundred years, socialism spread far and fast, it did not produce the good life for ordinary people. Muravchik points out that nothing worked. Not communes, revolution, fascism, third world socialism or social democracy.

This book in very readable because of its coverage of prominent historical figures who either advanced, impeded or modified socialism out of existence.

In the first category are obvious choices such as Robert Owens, Marx, Engels and Clement Atlee.

In the middle category is the towering figure of George Meany, a cold warrior of Reaganesque proportion while also a Social Democrat. A delicious quote from Meany is this one, when he was asked to have the American Federation of Labor join some international communist front group after World War II.

"What would we talk about? The latest innovation being used by the secret police to ensnare those who think in opposition to the group in power? Or, perhaps, bigger and better concentration camps for political prisoners?" (p. 251-2)

Conservatives and other Americans should develop a greater appreciation for George Meany who died in 1980.

A very current reason for reading this book should be its description of the life and political evolution of Tony Blair. Blair, who has transformed Socialism and is well known for his spinning and equivocating at home, should also be well appreciated by Americans for his support against terrorism.

This book is readable, memorable and on target.

This is a fantastic work, well documented and thorough. The author takes you on a whirlwind tour of the history of Socialism and its affects on our world. I was astonished to learn about the failed socialist experiements in both Great Britain and the US. I NEVER came accross this in my public education in America!

Anyone who is a serious student of history and wants to unearth religious worldviews that are harming the welfare of nations and generations of people MUST read this book.