Documentary on socialism

Below is a link to a documentary on socialism called “Heaven on Earth: the Rise and Fall of Socialism”. It’s not a bad documentary, because it does mention the utopian socialist movement (just Robert Owen, however), and does talk about democratic socialism and the kibbutz movement. The last part is clearly biased, however. The presenter and many of the people interviewed are connected with the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative, free-market think-tank. One of the commentators says, “I don’t believe that socialism is dead because I don’t believe that the impulse which drives people towards the Left, the desire to control, meddle and interfere in other people’s lives, can ever die.” Whoa, how about, “…because I don’t believe that what drives people towards the Left, the massive gap between the very rich and the very poor, between the powerful and the powerless, will ever go away.” Someone needs to try to make this documentary over again, with a little more detachment. It is good to examine the mistakes of the past, however, and to reveal the truth about the bad things that happened. History teaches us that socialism requires hard, efficient work and good management to succeed, that the creation of a centralized police state is not an effective or safe method of implementing socialism, and that socialism is not for everyone – people cannot be programmed to be socialists. One of the founders of Kibbutz Ginosar is clearly proud of what he and his comrades achieved, and still seems to believe in the appeal of socialism, while his daughter, who grew up there, is not impressed, and says, basically, that what motivates people is money, personal comfort and the happiness of their own families. She still apparently lives there however! The smug tone of the movie reveals that it was made before the most recent (2007) economic collapse.