Tiny Leap Forward

For all the promises of socialism, it can't even provide basic food for people.

Viviana Vargas was worried after her son Mathias was born in April last year. The 30-year-old Venezuelan mother wasn’t able to breastfeed him sufficiently due to stress and other problems, so the 6-pound baby was on the verge of malnutrition.

She and her husband began to look for infant formula, which is pricey and scarce in Venezuela. They found out that a 14-ounce can of powdered formula, good for a week at most, would cost about twice the monthly minimum wage at the time — about 6 million bolívares or $3 on foreign currency black markets.

It doesn't matter where you try socialism. It ultimately fails. It's turning out to be one of the most efficient and lethal ways of destroying the human spirit.

The Chinese learned this the hard way. From 1958 to 1962, the death toll from The Great Leap Forward is estimated to be 55 million. That's almost the same number as those who were killed in the Second World War.