The Socialist Temptation, Iain Murray
The Socialist Temptation, Iain Murray
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The Socialist Temptation

Author: Iain Murray

Narrator: James Langton

Unabridged: 6 hr 12 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/29/2020

Synopsis

IT'S BACK!Just thirty years ago, socialism seemed utterly discredited.An economic, moral, and political failure, socialism had rightly been thrown on the ash heap of history after the fall of the Berlin Wall.Unfortunately, bad ideas never truly go away—and socialism has come back with a vengeance.A generation of young people who don’t remember the misery that socialism inflicted on Russia and Eastern Europe is embracing it all over again. Oblivious to the unexampled prosperity capitalism has showered upon them, they are demanding utopia.In his provocative book, The Socialist Temptation, Iain Murray of the Competitive Enterprise Institute explains:Why the socialist temptation is suddenly so powerful among young peopleThat even when socialism doesn’t usher in a bloody tyranny (as, for example, in the Soviet Union, China, and Venezuela), it still makes everyone poor and miserableWhy under the relatively benign democratic socialism of Murray's youth in pre-Thatcher Britain, he had to do his homework by candlelightThat the Scandinavian economies are not really socialist at allThe inconsistencies in socialist thought that prevent it from ever working in practiceHow we can show young people the sorry truth about socialism and turn the tide of history against this destructive pipe dreamSprightly, convincing, and original, The Socialist Temptation is a powerful warning that the resurgence of socialism could rob us of our freedom and prosperity.

About Iain Murray

Iain Murray is Vice President for Strategy and senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington, DC-based think tank that works to promote free markets and limited government. Murray also directs the Center for Economic Freedom at CEI. For the past fifteen years at CEI, Iain has written and lectured extensively on free markets and the environment, labor policy, finance, the EU, and trade. He tweets at @ismurray and is a Contributing Editor at Instapundit.com. Before coming to CEI, Iain was Director of Research at the Statistical Assessment Service. A former civil servant in the United Kingdom, where he helped to privatize the railroad industry, Iain immigrated to the U.S. in 1997 and remains a British citizen. He holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of London and a Master of Arts from the University of Oxford. He is married with two children and lives in Northern Virginia. Iain is a long-suffering fan of the Washington Redskins, Sunderland AFC, and the England cricket team. He likes to brew his own beer and play board and table-top games with friends.

Reviews

Goodreads review by George P.

The phrase American exceptionalism emerged in the late 1920s in debates between American Communist Party members and their counterparts in the Soviet Union about why the United States did not seem to follow the general laws of Marxism or need a socialist revolution. Over time, the phrase took on add......more

Goodreads review by Chase

Iain Murray is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. He has a unique writing style that mixes church history, theology, and discerning analysis. In this book, Murray switches gears a bit and replaces secular history for his normal topic of church history and tackles the temptations of sociali......more

Goodreads review by Brance

An excellent and timely book. I do wish he had spent a little more time at the end discussing how to move forward in an America that is rapidly embracing socialist ideas and policies. But overall, the book provided great historical context and current analysis to make his point that socialism is a t......more

Goodreads review by Nathan

Good. Not great. It felt like the product of a think-tank, or a policy center: clearly written (and written clearly) by an author with good exposure to a great deal of pertinent data, but not quite as rigorous or scholarly a presentation of data, history, and arguments as to make it compelling. Good......more

Goodreads review by Roger

I would’ve given this book 5 stars had it provided more direct references to primary sources and more scholarly material. That is a personal preference, so take it for what it’s worth. Most of the arguments and observations in this text will not be new or in any way earth-shattering to anyone who is......more

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