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Ask a traditional Marxist why socialism failed, and he will tell you that it hasn't. Rather, he would say that the conditions are not yet right for a worldwide revolution, and that all good things come to those who wait. It is true that the Soviet Union has fallen, and with it the ideals of 20th century socialism. There are plenty of reasons why the USSR collapsed, but I would assert that these are not as important as people claim them to be. Instead, we should look for reasons why socialism could, or could not, succeed in the future. This shifts the debate away from the flaws in past leaders and politics into how socialism rises and falls. I assert that due to the current economic trends of globalization, the likelihood of socialism ever succeeding dwindles to nothing.

The first reason is the changing shape of global corporations. In the past, particularly when Marx was first writing in the 19th century, there was a daily interaction between the owners of a company and the workers. Workers were fully aware of the economic gaps between workers and capitalists, and the daily reminder fueled most of their resentment.

Now, however, globalization has eliminated this interaction by shipping labor to poor third world countries. The workers there, while they may have a vague conception of what life is like for today's capitalists, they see none of it. They have nothing to throw their resentment against aside from their supervisors, whose lives resemble those of the workers more than anything. With nothing to unite against, this new class of workers can only simmer in resentment with no unity.

A second consequence of this is that the workers have no connection to the small sliver of the "bourgeoisie" with a social conscience. It is this section of society that Marx claims will break off and lead the workers on their glorious revolution. But without this philosophical guiding light, the workers again are left with no direction.

Third, the bourgeoisie no longer has to rely upon the proletariat to secure power as they did in Marx's time. Because they are isolated in a separate country, they need not fear the proletariat at all. If the workers did manage to throw off the hands of their oppressors, they would be in no better shape than before, because the corporation would only move and exploit some new country instead. Globalized capitalism is a many-headed hydra, and the workers have no way of attacking every head at once.

But what about those of us left in the developed countries of the world? It is true that workers here still retain their connections to the capitalists, but there are other obstacles to overcome, mostly because of the tremendous surge in workers rights over the past century. With the invention of the minimum wage, people are paid enough to be content, but not so much as to allow workers to stop long enough to think. We are left with a lazy lower middle class, which delights in the immediate gratifications of the information age, without examining the bait and switch that has occurred over the past century.

In the end, socialism is dead, or at least so asleep that nothing short of a global catastrophe will waken it from its slumber.

Learn more about this author, Andrew Fink.
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