Brazil’s Sad Tale Sounds Familiar
Posted by M. C. on March 27, 2024
Why Alex Fled Socialism
As a newer American citizen with first-hand experience of socialist blight, Alex fears that socialism will bring another once-prosperous country to its knees. I was therefore intrigued by his take on young Americans’ economic make-believe; he described the hard facts that these hare-brained fantasies never include.
Some things in life will never dwell together in unity. Examples from the physical world illustrate this easily—oil and water, equal magnetic poles, or cats and birds. The ideological world provides even more examples— prosperity and socialism, for example. As with other South American victims of the Left, this point is illustrated clearly in Brazil.
Younger Americans nonetheless love to agitate for socialism’s shiny promises—the “free” stuff like college educations and medical care, or the “cool” stuff, like high-speed rail or mass transit. Life under socialism appears to be one big, happy hostel, full of licentious delights, music festivals, and climate-friendly “solidarity”. What was “available for years in Europe” is now available here—if only people will, “like, save democracy” and vote!
Like European cars, real socialism would presumably bring stylish improvements to the clunkier traditions of American life. For the star-gazing Left and its young disciples, there is something pleasing and progressive about socialism’s brutalist, gender-fluid aesthetic. Regardless of the hipster window dressings applied to this dismal philosophy, though, one will only find the old deprivations and tyrannies within.
My regular Uber driver, a Brazilian guy named Alex, only shakes his head at his American peers’ mindless appetite for socialism. Like many in the ride share business, Alex is finding some success here. He’s happy to work long hours and build wealth along with his wife, who is also a citizen, now pregnant with their first child. Over the course of several airport drives, he described Brazilian socialism—the popularly touted “social democratic” variety that he escaped through a costly and legal immigration process.
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As a newer American citizen with first-hand experience of socialist blight, Alex fears that socialism will bring another once-prosperous country to its knees. I was therefore intrigued by his take on young Americans’ economic make-believe; he described the hard facts that these hare-brained fantasies never include.
Surprisingly, his heavily-accented personal history doesn’t focus on stories of privations, shortages and censorship—although he observed those things, too. Instead, most of his Brazilian backstory was disturbingly relatable; it was as if he was describing my American life from a vista of the future, just a little further on down our current road.
When I asked about the “free” medical care enjoyed in Brazil—the left’s famously touted benefit of socialism—he shared his experience working for an oncology practice, where he scheduled patients for cancer surgeries. As is always true, “free” wasn’t worth much at the doctor’s office; most Brazilians still need private insurance because government medical care is poor— if you ever manage to get it. On many occasions, by the time he contacted cancer patients on the long waitlist, the patient had already died.
Government schools—both in Brazil and here— are the training and acclimation grounds for all such dismal results. Brazil teaches us where a socialist education model leads; public high schools and universities there are known to hang posters of Marx or Che Guevara. Public education is generally abysmal, so even struggling middle-class families will cobble funds to send their kids to private schools instead. Sexual performance “art” is increasingly common on college campuses. None of this is difficult for Americans to imagine anymore—to a large degree, it’s already happening here, too.
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