In 1969, Qian Zhongshu was sent to a cadre school under Mao's Cultural Revolution. The following year, his wife, Yang Jiang, was also sent there. Those cadre schools aimed to "reform" intellectuals like Zhongshu and Jiang through manual labor. The couple was forced to dig wells and farm at the cadre school. Yang, an author and a playwright, chronicled this experience in "Six Chapters of Life in a Cadre School: Memoirs from China's Cultural Revolution."
It's important to remember their story, which is hardly an outlier, because while the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) continue pushing their America-destroying agenda, it's important to remember they're selling nothing but lies. It's a gateway to full-blown communism, and the DSA said that is their endgame.
They've raised up a generation of ill-informed, uneducated, and historically illiterate socialists who think a socialist economic system means their rent is paid and their pantry is stocked on the backs of the "rich," leaving them time to do fun things like create art and garden.
Genuinely, I DO NOT like the concept of capitalism. I don’t want to work my job every day. I want to make art. I want to be in my garden. I want to feel something.
— ً (@omgsidewalks) July 26, 2026
As many pointed out, this account is in Africa. But it reflects how the socialists I know actually think. I know someone, an avowed socialist, who thinks his life will be Twitch streaming video games if we just get rid of our capitalist system.
To them, I say, open a history book.
The fun things—teacher, artist, and other white-collar jobs—go to the elite members of the communist party and their allies. The common people, including my acquaintance, are the ones who will be working the factories and the farms. Anyone else will be sent, as Zhongshu and Jiang were, to "re-education" camps, farms, or factories.
There, you do not get weekends. You do not get breaks. You do not get benefits or vacation days or holidays. You work, and if you don't, you are punished. If you're lucky. Many times, you're lined up against the wall and dumped in a mass grave.
There is no "your garden." There is no "your art." You are smothered by the warmth of collectivism. And someone has to make the free food. Someone has to maintain the free housing. Someone has to provide the free healthcare.
Who gets to decide who farms? Who gets to decide who provides the medical care? The ruling class, that's who. And you are not part of that.
Capitalism has given me a very good life. I have a roof over my head, a job that puts food on the table and gives me the flexibility to work from literally anywhere. I've written stories from my kitchen table, my gym's lounge, and from Egypt and Greece. I get to "feel something" outside the work, even though I love my job (and I'm not just saying that because my bosses might read this). I've gotten to write some great stories, I've gotten to eulogize everyone from Matthew Perry to Bob Uecker to Jimmy Carter. When I'm not working I have movies, books, my kids, my boyfriend, my crafting, my garden. There is life outside of work.
Socialism would take all of that away from me, and because I have a big mouth and despise the commies, I'd end up in a gulag or—if they're smart—dead, because I'd be a problem for them.
The ideology that work is unfair, that life is only good if you get to do what you want, when you want, is the belief of children, of people who have never had to work hard in their life and have had everything handed to them. They are lazy, greedy, and selfish. There's a reason why most socialists are rich, white, and privileged and why actual working-class Americans oppose this nonsense. We're the ones who have everything to lose.