We had visitors from Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. They were trying to figure out how to farm without the massive Soviet bureaucracy. One guy kept asking how to get natural gas to his greenhouses in northern Russia. He could not get his head around the idea of growing his vegetables in a warmer, southern climate and then shipping them to market.

The rest of the group kept deferring to the guy who had been the main boss under the Soviets. They could not figure out how to break up the huge collective Soviet farm and work it as smaller pieces.

Ownership and innovation

Farming needs ownership and innovation. Ownership because the decision-makers have to be responsible and live with the consequences of their decisions. Innovation to always improve quality, yield and efficiency.

I would have thought that one of the lessons of the 20th century is that socialism doesn’t work. It was tried in different cultures and different places and it failed. Even China and India gave up more than 30 years ago — and then their countries prospered.

But apparently the younger generation is not happy about things and they are looking at socialism once again.

What about Sweden and France?

One question that comes up is: What about Sweden and France? Fair enough. I am a quarter Swede and we have visited a few times. Being Swedish is fabulous. But the old system is breaking down there. Maybe socialism can work on a small scale — actually, I think that is called community. Maybe that kind of socialism worked in the monoculture of a small country. It can work with a commonly agreed-on social contract.

But we don’t have that here in the U.S. We are a diverse, rip-roaring culture and economy of more than 330 million people spread over a continent.

Income inequality the real concern

What critics get right is that people should be treated with dignity and given opportunity.

What critics get wrong is that the answer does not lie in giving the government more power and money.

What critics are really concerned about is income inequality, and that is a concern. Take a look at the French Revolution for how bad that can go. Income inequality is a failure of leadership. This applies to Congress as well as corporate America.

Why should Congress make $150,000-plus a year while their constituents might average $50,000 a year? I have long thought they ought to be paid the average of their constituents. That would thin the herd in D.C. and give them a reality check.

Corporate America is no better. If your CEO is making a gazillion dollars and your employees are struggling, there is something wrong with your business model. A business can only be as productive as the people working for it.

All that being said, I am not worried about Elon Musk being a trillionaire. It is not like he is Scrooge McDuck swimming in a vault of golden doubloons. He is hiring thousands of people and innovating in different industries. His wealth does not hurt me, and in his case, his innovations help us all.

Character, not politics

Writing about socialism a century ago, G.K. Chesterton said, “Mere state systems could not bring about and still less sustain a reign of unselfishness … the fountain heads of all real improvement are to be found in human temper and character.”

Politics will never bring the golden age today’s socialists want. That will only come when we bring character back.

If you are concerned about income inequality, excellent. But that is a different issue than whether we need socialism.

Socialism does not work on the farm. Mao killed 30 million people through bad farm policy, starving them to death. The absolute slowest way to kill someone — and unnecessary. Again, I would have thought that one of the lessons we learned in the 20th century is that socialism does not work. There are other ways to address the concerns people have.

In the meantime, free market capitalism has brought the greatest prosperity and greatest freedom to the most people in the history of the world. We need to address concerns about things like income inequality and the environment without killing the goose that lays the golden egg. The ancient Greeks pointed out that either/or is a logical fallacy. Both/and is the way of wisdom.

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Farmer, writer and educator, Paul Betancourt is a lecturer at Fresno State and written books on Swiss political history and environmental policy.