"Socialism fails because it’s a static solution imposed on a dynamic society. People respond to incentives, chasing carrots and avoiding sticks. The initial proposition of the New Deal was to provide for the needs of the desperate, by collecting taxes from the wealthy. Unsurprisingly, the system devolved into the vote-buying and corruption we live with today, becoming a heavy wagon hitched to a struggling middle class, which provides far more of the funding than those “fat cats” socialists love to use as whipping boys. Politicians respond to incentives too, and the machinery of the centralized state excels at sucking in tax dollars and spitting out votes. The ugly gears of that machinery are well-hidden behind an illusion of moral authority and seductive promises, alluring enough to compel the faithful support of nearly half the population, even as its unsustainable failures become painfully obvious.
The system was doomed to crash because its vast array of taxes, spending, and regulation destroy the very wealth that sustains it. It ran out of fat long ago, and began feeding on muscle… and now it has worked its way down to the bone. Wealth is a product of choice, and every action taken by a collectivist government destroys wealth by reducing the options available to its citizens"
