The Difference Between Socialism and Free Enterprise — in 1 PICTURE

Socialism delivers misery and inequality because nothing else can happen.

Leftists say that when they get socialism installed, we will have equal wealth and income. But that isn’t true. When Leftists rule we will all be equally poor.

But that isn't entirely true either!

The real truth is that our Leftists rulers will be rich. It is you and your family who will be poor, and eventually starving.  Because that is what socialists do when they really get in power. They do two things:

1. They lie. Although, yes, that is not a difference. They always lie. They also lie before they get in power.

2. They starve large segments of society; often starving them to death.

The fog of lies and misinformation that surrounds such subjects as the Ukraine famine, the Spanish civil war, Russian policy in Poland, and so forth... does have to acquiesce in deliberate falsification on important issues... The organized lying practiced by totalitarian states is not, as is sometimes claimed, a temporary expedient of the same nature as military deception. It is something integral to totalitarianism... 

George Orwell, The Prevention of Literature (1946)

(Some readers might point out that only half the people who caused the Spanish Civil War were Leftists, but the truth is that everyone who wants more powerful and bigger governments is on the Left side of the Control - Freedom spectrum. So fascists are really Leftists, as we discuss in Leftist Untruth #11 The Left’s Far-Right Untruth.)

What is the difference between Socialism and Free Enterprise?

Answer: about 5 inches

Studies measuring pre-school boys and girls, high school seniors, and adult men all found the same thing: North Koreans were as much as 5-6 inches shorter than their South Korean counterparts.

"...children raised in the developing country of North Korea are up to 13 cm [5 inches] shorter..." 

Daniel Schwekendiek, "Height and weight differences between North and South Korea" Sociology Journal of Biosocial Science (2009)

https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Height-and-weight-differences-between-North-and-Schwekendiek/9f2f738960264a0b5374ba6f6b5737196d578779

("developing country" is a nice Leftist way of saying "hellhole made horrific by Communists".)

Maybe the difference in height was genetic? No. The people of the two nations have the same genes.

North Korea and South Korea are among the most racially homogeneous countries on earth as ethnic Koreans make up 96% of South Korea’s population and over 99% of North Korea’s population. Thus, based on genetics alone, height among these two countries’ populations should be about the same. But South Koreans are taller.

https://www.theifod.com/why-are-south-koreans-taller-than-north-koreans/

You like your smartphone? Under socialism you probably wouldn't have it. Mobile phone ownership in 2015:

North Korea 3.2 million

South Korea 58.9 million

But socialism does produce more of some things. Inequality and a giant military.

North Korean had 1,190,000 active military personnel in 2017. About twice as many as South Korea.

But is North Korea real “socialism”? Yes. People sometimes think of Scandinavian nations as socialism. But they have free-enterprise economies, some freer than the U.S.  Scandinavian nations have a little socialism and suffer a little bit from it, and would be better off if they had none. Socialism promises equality and delivers misery and inequality. It always happens because it has to. Nothing else can happen. Read why in “Leftist Untruth #5 —'Socialism Can Work'”.

North Korea has a lot of socialism, so it has a lot of misery and inequality: the ruler and a few higher-up minions live well, even lavishly. It is the rest of the people who get the short end of the stick.

Socialism delivers misery and inequality because it has to. Nothing else can happen. Socialism shrinks people because it shrinks their economy and their freedom. It always happens.