Of course the young like socialism – they’re taught to

It beggars belief that Jeremy Corbyn can, with a straight face, announce that capitalism has failed and we’d all be better off under socialism. ‘The super-rich are on borrowed time,’ he said at the Labour party conference. He’s going to tax the rich until their pips squeak, overlooking the fact that the coalition government’s decision to lower the top rate of tax from 50 per cent to 45 per cent actually boosted tax revenues. The taxes paid by the top 1 per cent of income earners are now responsible for 28 per cent of the total tax take, higher than it ever was under Labour. Coincidentally, 28 per cent of the total amount the government spent in 2016-17 was on welfare — things like social security benefits, disability benefits, incapacity benefits, housing benefit, child benefit etc. In effect, the rich are paying for the services that sustain the poorest people in our society. Isn’t that an example of capitalism working as it should?

More generally, the superiority of capitalism to socialism when it comes to helping the very poorest is completely indisputable. Since 1990, more than a billion people across the globe have been lifted out of extreme poverty as countries like China, India and Indonesia have embraced the fundamental principles of the free enterprise system. In 2013 alone, 114 million people saw their incomes climb from below $1.90 a day to above $1.90, the international poverty line. Compare this with the effect of the socialist economic policies introduced by Hugo Chávez, whom Corbyn hailed as ‘an inspiration to us all’. Venezuela was once tipped to be among the richest South American countries, thanks to its abundant natural resources; now it is among the poorest. When Chávez came to power in 1998, 48 per cent of households were living in poverty; last year, that figure was 82 per cent.