When conservatives discuss the failures of socialism, they tend to reach for the same old examples: the Soviet Union’s collapse, Venezuela’s ruin, Cuba’s stagnation, or the direction people fled when the Berlin Wall came down. Those lessons may still be powerful for older Americans, but to younger generations those lessons are too distant to mean anything.The lesson in each story is undoubtedly correct, but repeating it has not made it more persuasive. At some point, telling voters that socialism failed in places and eras they barely remember invites a predictable response: So what?

Thankfully, as Daniel Di Martino, a Venezuelan immigrant and fellow at the Manhattan Institute, has pointed out, Americans do not need to look to the rubble of the Soviet Union or even beyond the borders of their own country  fail. They can look around at the public housing in nearly every major city, the Veterans Affairs system, and the U.S. Postal Service. And then, they can imagine extending that same bureaucracy, to your bank account, your grocery cart, and your healthcare.

"But we don't even need to go abroad to understand how socialism works and government things work. You know, Congressman, you were showing housing in Cuba. Why don't we go to NYCHA in New York City?" Di Martino asked. "Let's go to American public housing. We don't have to go to other countries. Who wants to live in NYCHA? I challenge every socialist to go get the government as a landlord."

"I challenge people to get government healthcare. How is the Indian health service going in the reservations? How is the VA relative to private hospitals? How is USPS relative to FedEx?" he asked. "They lost $9 billion in fiscal year 2025, USPS, all for the privilege of getting junk mail. I know that's also not politically popular to attack USPS, but I say it because imagine the government didn't just have USPS or Amtrak, which I took, by the way, on the way here."

"Imagine the government didn't just have that. Imagine the government had Walmart. Imagine the government had Bank of America," Di Martino said. "There are members of Congress who want a government bank in USPS, that propose those bills. Government banking. So that the government is your landlord, the place that feeds you, the place that gives you healthcare, the place that employs you, jobs for all. The government becomes your master, because the price of free things is actually your freedom."

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Socialism already exists in America, in its inefficiency, its waste, its grand promises, and its reliably disappointing results. Much of the federal tax code is devoted to redistribution, while some of the New Deal’s most celebrated programs now rank among the chief drivers of long-term federal debt. Yet the proposed cure is always the same: more government, more spending, and more confidence that this time the bureaucracy will somehow become competent. 

It will not. The answer is not more socialism. It cannot be more socialism. 

So let’s try something different for a change, something neither party has seriously attempted in decades. Let’s rely less on government and more on free enterprise. Everyone knows that markets produce better goods and services, in greater abundance, at higher quality, and at lower cost than any government bureaucracy ever could. Yet whenever a problem emerges, politicians and voters in both parties reach for the same failed answer. It is long past time to trust the system that actually works.