At its heart, socialism & communism are failures at (or, more possibly, blatant disregards for) the science of incentives. The basic tenet of both is the “It takes a village” mentality. The problems are: A) Government is inherently slower & more inefficient the higher up it gets. That’s why so many powers are given to the states: the federal government can’t hope to manage a huge number of our rights & problems effectively. They just can’t keep track of them all. B)For communism, at least, you blatantly take money away from people & give it to the “poor & needy”. However, if the average factory worker knows his money will just be stolen, he works less (“what’s the point?”); then all those factory workers add up, crippling the economy, which promptly screws everyone over. Socialism is similar, but less obvious about it. C)When government steps in & “fixes all our problems”, people become soft & lazy. They know they don’t have to do a thing to get the stuff they want, as those “kind, merciful government blokes” will waste money, time, & effort on an immense scale to “help them”. Thus, no one works hard, the welfare bills pile up, & one day, everything crashes, because the government finally realizes that they desperately need money to pay off these bills. When they come calling, the citizens go “WTF! What happened to the nice guys we know & love?!?!” Answer: he woke up to reality far too late.