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Two hundred and fifty years ago, America was founded on the revolutionary idea that individuals are endowed with inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Americans are called to uphold this sacred inheritance to ensure our founding principles are carried from one generation to the next.
That includes economic freedom fueled with incentives and opportunity to climb America's ladder of prosperity. Since 1776, America has celebrated entrepreneurs, inventors, artists and scientific discovery. The protection of intellectual property - as well as individual ownership of homes, farms and businesses - are founding principles embedded in the U.S. Constitution. This bulwark of liberty fuels the U.S. economy and buffers individuals from government dependence.
As a lifelong family farmer, I appreciate how the free marketplace incentivizes hard work and high-quality food production, unlike Soviet-style collectivization that led to catastrophic famine in the 1930s. My fourth-generation family farm embraces innovation in seed and mechanization that improve productivity and stewardship to conserve resources and help fuel and feed the world. During the 20th century, American households were transformed by technology and invention. Consider how an inventor's ingenuity harnessed electricity to make a mechanical carpet cleaner. The Hoover vacuum in 1908 received U.S. Patent No. 935,558.
Recently, I bid goodbye to Beth - our family's American-made Hoover vacuum cleaner - after nearly five decades of dependable service. Just think, Beth outlasted the 45 year duration of the Iron Curtain that blocked innovation and freedom across Eastern Europe. Construction of the Berlin Wall began 65 years ago to prevent freedom-seekers in East Germany from escaping an oppressive regime and the scarcity of socialism. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan famously urged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall."
Five years earlier, Reagan addressed the British Parliament during the height of the Cold War. He predicted "the march of freedom and democracy" would "leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history." The Soviet Union collapsed 35 years ago, nearly a decade after Reagan's clarion call for freedom's march around the globe. However, lessons from the march of freedom during the Cold War and beyond are at risk of joining the ash heap of history.
The advance of socialists at the ballot box across America requires an urgent wake up call. Make no mistake: socialism is a failed movement in countries that have gone down that path, delivering economic ruin, lawlessness, shortages, censorship and corruption.
Socialism promises equality for all and delivers prosperity to none. It is a failed ideology that puts power in centralized government planning at the expense of individual freedom and economic mobility. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher best summed up its unachievable promise: "the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money."
Socialism is antithetical to America's promise of prosperity. The quill of our nation's founders enshrined a revolutionary promise of freedom, not the poison pill of government-knows-best.
Expanding prosperity merits the attention of policymakers and political candidates, but socialism is not the cure. The genius of the American experiment comes from robust competition, entrepreneurism and financial reward for risk and hard work.
Socialism promises goodies to the masses that turn out too good to be true. Socialists want groceries, higher education, healthcare, energy and transportation to be public goods run by the government paid for by taxpayers. The platform of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) ought to be self-defeating in a country built on freedom and the rule of law. The DSA's poppycock policies to defund local police and the U.S. military, empty out our prisons, open the borders, do away with the Electoral College, terminate checks and balances by restructuring the presidency, U.S. Senate and the Supreme Court, rewrite the Constitution and vanquish ownership of private property would destroy the American experiment that makes the United States the beacon of hope and opportunity around the world.
Socialism needs to stay in the dustbin of history.
If you think about it, some economists might say my trusted vacuum cleaner and socialism share one thing in common: They both "suck," but Beth the vacuum was built to last and made life better.
Charles Grassley, a Republican from New Hartford, represents Iowa in the United States Senate.