A lesson lost.

For those who came of age when the Soviet Union held much of postwar Europe captive—and who later watched that empire collapse under the weight of its own failures—it’s shocking to see socialism gaining influence in the Democratic Party.

Try as they did, the propagandists of the Soviet Union could not hide their problems, nor did they succeed in making their population look prosperous and happy in the eyes of the world. Democrats and Republicans in America largely agreed that the Soviet Union and its puppet states were de facto prisons.

Because of that shared awareness of the misery endured by the Soviet people and Eastern Europeans, everyone was pretty much on the same page about socialism.

That shared understanding has faded as generations born after the Soviet Union’s collapse have come of age.

Socialism is seductive. It sounds good to the young and idealistic because it springs from genuine moral concerns: poverty, insecurity, and the fear—sometimes justified—that the powerful are exploiting the weak. It offers an emotionally satisfying explanation: suffering is caused by an unjust system.

And it offers an equally satisfying promise: place economic power in public hands and use it for the common good.

That promise is vivid. But the horrendous costs—including distorted incentives, concentrated authority, corruption, and diminished freedom—aren’t immediately apparent.

Economic power is political power. When concentrated in the hands of a select few, those who resist are treated as enemies. And when government imposes a single economic plan on millions of people, oppression and the curtailment of individual liberty become inevitable.

The challenge is explaining this to those whose understanding of socialism’s history is absent. Therefore, education about socialism must proceed on two fronts.

One is to explain socialism’s failures and dangers. The other—and perhaps overlooked—is to explain just how extraordinary modern prosperity really is.

For most of history, poverty was the ordinary condition of mankind. Most people lived close to hunger, vulnerable to disease, dangerous work, severe weather, and the whims of rulers. The heated and air-conditioned homes, abundant food, modern medicine, and everyday conveniences Americans now take for granted are historically new.

That transformation didn’t happen automatically. It followed the emergence of government constrained by law, the enshrinement of private property and the expansion of individual liberty. That freedom unleashed countless acts of enterprise and cooperation—coordinated not by a central authority, but by individuals pursuing their own self-interest.

The result was not perfect equality, but something unprecedented: broad prosperity that lifted ordinary people from conditions once endured by nearly everyone.

Because younger generations inherited that prosperity, they easily imagine that it’s all natural, permanent, and self-perpetuating.

It’s none of those things.

A society that forgets where prosperity comes from may blithely dismantle its foundations while assuming the prosperity itself will remain.

Put more simply, it’s a fact of human nature that when the fruits of Charlie’s hard work are confiscated for the benefit of Joe, Charlie stops working so hard and Joe doesn’t work at all.

And that’s why socialism has never worked.