Socialism is the means of complete control over industries, and both production and distribution of goods. Socialism is an economic system that still exists in other countries. But do we, as free people of the United States, want this control? Socialism will slowly kill our country and it will affect many factors that allow our country to grow.

Socialism was introduced before 1948, but was popularized by Karl Marx, a philosopher and socialist, in his book "The Communist Manifesto," co-written by Friedrich Engels who was also a German philosopher. According to Karl Marx, socialism is the pathway to communism. To him, socialism is an economic development that replaces capitalism, since he repudiated capitalism.

“A rising tide lifts all boats,” former U.S. President John F. Kennedy once said, referring to the continuous and strong economic growth of the United States. Economic growth is important to our country, just like it is to any other country, and it plays an important role in the world of economics. Strong economic growth assembles jobs, jobs are filled by people and people produce goods. It's a system that's eliminated due to rebuking success and praising failure. This is shown today by our government, because it gives people with low-income money that hard-working Americans earn by inflicting high taxes. I can understand if the government provides for people who are unable to get a job due to disabilities in order for them to live, but I don't understand why the government gives free money to people who are perfectly capable of getting a job and provide for themselves and/or their family but “don’t want to work”. What do hard working Americans get in return? They get their income taxed at a high rate and they pay thousands of dollars for other people. When people are given free money, they are rewarded for failure and encouraged to not work or pursue an education. The ultimate goal is to make everyone equal: to make everyone the same so our country can be “fair.” This is an infinite cycle that will not stop unless something within the system changes.

Because socialism is complete governmental control, freedom will not survive in a socialist economy. If people were allowed freedom of speech, distribution of goods and ideas, socialism will then cease. With this being said, you may understand by now that if socialism continues, people will have no control and no freedom. They will be completely dependent upon the government for survival. We do not want socialism in our country because our ancestors worked hard and even died fighting to make this country have the freedom no other country contains. Our country stands strong, and if we allow socialism to control us further, we will crash and become one of the weakest governments on this earth. We are not only individual people with rights, but we are a whole with freedom. Because we are a whole, we should fight for our freedom together. Modern socialism seems “fair” and it “meets everyone’s needs,” and because that's so, it's dangerous to believe and trust socialists.

Those two points, economic growth and freedom of the people, are important to discuss when socialism is the subject. It's important to understand what socialists will do in our government if they have the control.