Kristian Niemietz's book, "Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies,"

I was reading a book review of Kristian Niemietz's book, "Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies," Just the review itself is very educational. 

The article starts like this:

"What would you say to an amateur chef who baked a cake following a certain recipe only for everyone who ate a slice to fall ill quickly afterward? Being such an enthusiastic baker, they bake the same cake a second time just a few weeks later, again following the same recipe, but this time with one or two slight adjustments. Unfortunately, the result is the same—everyone who eats the cake soon ends up feeling sick.

"The cake baker repeats this more than two dozen times, always modifying the recipe a little, but the basic ingredients remain more or less the same despite the fact that their guests throw up every time. Of course, there’s no way such a thing would happen. The cake baker would soon realize that there is a major problem with the recipe and throw it away.

"Yet this is exactly what socialists have done."

(frank) A little later in the article are these paragraphs

"Even mass murderers such as Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong were enthusiastically celebrated by leading intellectuals of their time. These intellectuals were not outsiders but renowned writers and scholars, as Niemietz demonstrates with numerous examples. Even the concentration camps in the Soviet Union, the Gulags, were admired:

"They were presented as places of rehabilitation, not punishment, where inmates were given a chance to engage in useful activities, while reflecting upon their mistakes.

"A then-well-known American writer explained:

"The labor camps have won high reputation throughout the Soviet Union as places where tens of thousands of men have been reclaimed. (p. 72)"

t.ly/oPGV Article URL