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Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies

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Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies

By: Kristian Niemietz
Narrated by: Russell Newton
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About this listen

Socialism is strangely impervious to refutation by real-world experience. Over the past hundred years, there have been more than two dozen attempts to build a socialist society, from the Soviet Union to Maoist China to Venezuela. All of them have ended in varying degrees of failure. But, according to socialism’s adherents, that is only because none of these experiments were “real socialism”.

This audiobook documents the history of this, by now, standard response. It shows how the claim of fake socialism is only ever made after the event. As long as a socialist project is in its prime, almost nobody claims that it is not real socialism.

On the contrary, virtually every socialist project in history has gone through a honeymoon period, during which it was enthusiastically praised by prominent Western intellectuals. It was only when their failures became too obvious to deny that they got retroactively reclassified as “not real socialism”.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2019 The Institute of Economic Affairs (P)2019 SpokenTome.Media Political Science Politics & Government Imperialism Economic disparity Economic inequality

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All stars
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Great book but the reader has a very annoying "ibit" tick that distracts from the story in a shallow way. Information wise, excellent read

Great book

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The narrator is great, but this book is very quote heavy. More or less the first 2/3 of the book deals with how various media outlets portray socialist states & much of this is directly quoted text. As a listener, this makes it very, very difficult to keep track of what is a quote & what is the author’s own own writing. This should have used a bare minimum of two different narrators, but probably three, so that direct quotes could have their own narrator voice. The narrator was also told to read aloud the various reference markers that are useless to a listener as there are no references to reference.

Great narrator but audio presentation needed more thought.

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Kristian goes through his thesis very well showing that all socialist regimes were considered socialist at some point (most recently Venezuela but traditionally USSR, China, Cuba etc) and that every regime goes through three stages from extreme adulation by the chattering classes to the veneer coming off / doubts about the system, and finally to "that wasn't real socialism".

He also brought up many examples of Saint Jeremy and his comrades praising many of these regimes and making disparaging comments about victims of the regime (for example, Corbyn refers to Cuban emigres in the US escaping Communism as "the gangsters of Miami") which is important to help us remember how close we were to having that dangerous man in power and how we should do all we can to prevent that in the future.

The only issue I have with the audiobook is the narration - the narrator's style just doesn't fit the book.

Excellent book - poor narration

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First and last or second last chapters are where the really interesting discussion takes place, the other chapters are the case studies to prove the point.

Tracks left wing observers reactions to Socialist experiments and proposes a pattern of celebrating a new utopia in the making, portraying all problems as caused by enemies of socialism, then denying the experiment was real socialism.

Argues that true Socialism is only ever seen the utopia it hopes to be, rather than a means of structuring society which appears to demonstrate repeated weaknesses.

Since it is trying to expose a pattern, each chapter can feel similar and anyone with limited knowledge of socialist countries' histories (like me) will lack context but the book is about how socialism is perceived, not executed so this isnt the fault of the book. Just be aware.

Delivery is fine though the American pronunciation is wrong for a number of words and idioms by the British author. Annoying but no deal breaker.

Good listen, recommended.

Interesting if repetitive to prove the point

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What an insightful and interesting narrative. While slightly repetitive, it is entertaining and hugely topical. Needs to be more celebrated and well known.

Amazing book perfect for our time

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It's a very long book, due to the fact it goes round and round in circles.

it's interesting, but long

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The book gives a fair and thorough overview of the history of socialist regimes and why socialist ideology fails.
In my opinion it maybe dwels a bit too much on the western academic defenders of socialist regimes, but I that is perhaps to be expected given the thesis the book seeks to prove. It is fair, gives good arguments, is not overly academic while not talking down to the listener, and does not try to be sensational in its narrative.
A criticism I have to give is the narration though. The thick American accent does not fit a book whiten by a Brit, and he absolutely butchers every single foreign word or name in the book. It frankly becomes a bit distracting, and it is obvious that he has not even bothered to look up the pronunciation of the words he struggles to pronounce. Please find someone who at least can pronounce "Jacobin" correctly next time.
I can recommend the book despite that, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in ideology.

Good book, bad narration.

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This was such an eye opener for someone like me armed with preconceptions and biases towards socialism yet over recent years wondering why high profile contemporary supporters of socialist regimes nearly always appeared to deny post hoc that those same regimes were not in fact socialist. Challenge those biases and listen to this superbly written and most importantly exhaustively researched book.

Provocative and game changing

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Many of us who lived behind the iron curtain and managed to escape (and family who stayed behind and saw the system fall) never quite understand how those in free nations could venerate the ideologies that lead to such horrific and repressive systems. Kristian does a great job articulating how the privileged of the West can idealise abstract ideologies while simultaneously distancing themselves from the inevitable/inbuilt real-world harms and authoritarian consequences of their implementation. Good job, easy read and very relatable.

Accessible and relatable

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A no holds barred trip around all our favourite totalitarian states, and yes it still doesn't work.

several cautionary tales for the comrades.

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