Two experiments on whether socialism is better than freedom

The Occupy crowd--including its well-to-do supporters among academics, Hollywood residents and Democrat leadership--wants more socialist policies. More freebies, more welfare state, less free market activity. Because private business is eeevil, dontcha know.

Great takedown of that thinking here. And a great summary by a commenter (edited):

The world has had a chance to observe two perfect experiments in the relative benefits of communism/socialism versus freedom/capitalism: East Germany vs. West Germany, and North Korea vs. South Korea.

In both cases there were no significant differences in the two populations, climate or natural resources. The only difference was the ruling ideologies.

Result: On one side blight, decay, starvation, misery, paranoia, repression.
On the other a cornucopia of production, wealth, openness, freedom.

Ask a typical US college professor and he’d say Side A was capitalism and Side B was communism/socialism.

But to any normal person the results of these two real-world, side-by-side experiments are both clear and stark. Pity that American education is so misguided and left-leaning that most Americans under the age of 30--including virtually the whole Occupy crowd--haven't a clue about this.

Starting with our President.

And for a fun experiment, ask any college student about the Berlin wall and the whole East/West Germany divide. They don't know because they weren't taught. Note it's been 23 years since the wall was torn down!

(H/t Peterike, Wretch, Maetenloch at Ace's.)