20 Years After: Berlin Wall Gone, But Collectivist Spirit Lives On

It was twenty years ago today when the Berlin Wall came down and democracy began spreading fast into Eastern Europe. I made two predictions that day.

The first was since socialist economics had been discredited with the collapse of the old Soviet Union, the energies, money and power of the Left would flow into environmentalism, as a new means to implement centrally planned economics and restrict freedom.

That prediction was a home run, but I only batted .500 that day. My second prediction was the world would learn and remember that market-oriented economies were the superior means to boosting growth, alleviating poverty, and spreading democracy. That prediction had a pretty good run, but came crashing down this decade as socialism (or perhaps more accurately social democracy) has made a roaring comeback in the West.

So on this 20th anniversary of that happy day I’ve learned two things: Don’t make predictions, and old debates about old ideas never go away.