A great many Americans think they’d prefer to live under socialism. It would be more fair and equitable if the government ran the economy and ensured everyone was provided for. Unintended consequences? Never you mind — bringing that up is just a trick of the capitalist exploiters.

Those people ought to read this excellent AIER essay by Barry Brownstein. He observes that once central planners are given the power to alter long-standing social arrangements to satisfy some theory about how things should work, the results will be terrible for most people.

He points especially to Mao’s China, where famine resulted from the arrogant destruction of property rights.

Brownstein writes, “Many of us are familiar with the tragic destruction wrought by Mao’s Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, but the early years of Mao’s murderous reign are not as well-known. Mao proclaimed the People’s Republic of China in October 1949 and began his collectivization campaign shortly after. Property rights were systematically eradicated under Mao, with grave consequences to social order.”

Our “progressives” are undermining property rights but at a slower pace. Nevertheless, the adverse consequences are visible in cities like San Francisco, where the social fabric is fast unraveling.

Brownstein quotes F.A. Hayek: “[W]hile it may not be difficult to destroy the spontaneous formations which are the indispensable bases of a free civilization, it may be beyond our power deliberately to reconstruct such a civilization once these foundations are destroyed.”

That’s right, and it is just what is happening in the U.S. thanks to Joe Biden’s administration.