Socialism Sucks

Two Economists Drink Their Way Through the Unfree World

By: Robert Lawson, Benjamin Powell

Narrated by: John Pruden

The bastard step-child of Milton Friedman and Anthony Bourdain, Socialism Sucks is a bar crawl through former, current, and wannabe socialist countries around the world. Free-market economists Robert Lawson and Benjamin Powell travel to countries like Venezuela, Cuba, Russia, and Sweden to investigate the dangers and idiocies of socialism - while drinking a lot of beer.

©2019 Dreamscape Media, LLC (P)2019 Dreamscape Media, LLC

Excellent fun read

My only complaint was the conclusion that open borders would benefit everyone. I highly doubt it. The United States would end up overcrowded & the theory doesn’t take into account the social ramifications of what their economic model considers to be a good thing.

entertaining and informative

even if you disagree with the authors politically, this is an informative and entertaining book that constructs it's argument with facts and real world experience...and beer.

I learned more than I anticipated in a 4 + hr book

Review in a nutshell: I was entertained throughout and learned more than I anticipated in a 4 hour 25 minute book.

Eye opening moments:

Life in Sweden might be good, but Swedes living in the U.S. are significantly more prosperous than Swedes living in Sweden (similarly but less surprisingly, Cubans living in the U.S. are far better off than Cubans in Cuba).

Bernie Sanders once praised Venezuela's brand of socialism (“These days, the American dream is more apt to be realized in South America, in places such as Ecuador, Venezuela, and Argentina, where incomes are actually more equal today than they are in the land of Horatio Alger. Who’s the banana republic now?”-Bernie Sanders). I wish this were more widely known.

Some Cubans are aware that more interaction with America will lend itself to growing freedom in Cuba.

Georgia's surge toward freedom was completely new information to me.

Some concerns:

High school teachers and community college professors might not assign or recommend this book due to the repeated references to alcohol. Hey Robert and Benjamin, maybe this calls for a second book geared toward that audience?

Partway through this book I thought, "O goodness, they think millennials are actually socialists! That's why we're spending so much time talking about true socialism in this book up to this point." And I thought the entire book was going to be a waste. Once we got to the socialist convention in the U.S., they diagnosed what's going on among young Americans very accurately, which was a big relief. Somehow I missed that near the front of the book . . . so if you're like me when you read this maybe I can help -- they tie up everything very well in the second half of the book. Don't worry! In fact, the last few chapters would be worth reading on their own.

Overall, well done! Big thanks to the authors.

-Jordan, age 30.

Both entertaining and informative

This is a book that I want to send to my millennial children who don’t seem to understand the perils of socialism.

Every millennial should read this!

Great book for beer lovers and people thinking that socialism will all work out fine.