Even voluntary socialism is difficult to sustain

Fascinating. From the Becker-Posner blog, a closer look at the kibbutz movement;

Utopian socialistic experiments like the kibbutz movement, and countries that tried to create large-scale efficient socialism, all failed for the same reasons. They did not realize that while the zeal of pioneers, and the result of revolutions, could sustain a collectivist and other-serving mentality for a short while, these could not be maintained as the pioneers died off or became disillusioned, and as circumstances became less revolutionary. Basically, they ignored the evidence of history that self interest and family orientation is not the product of capitalism, but is human nature due to selection from evolutionary pressure over billions of years.

And to follow on from that the Investor's Business Daily looks at why the combination of capitalism and socialism, the Third Way, isn't as successful as often touted; and how Europe lags badly behind the US economically.