I once lived in a socialist country—or at least a country that was on the “road to socialism.” This country changed its name from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe in 1980, after a brutal war between those who had everything (white Africans) and those who had almost nothing (black Africans). The revolutionaries who took power in 1981 were educated and committed to building a utopia for all workers. The rising sun was bright in the sky of this socialist experiment called “The House of Stones” (what “Zimbabwe” means in Shona).
The experiment was dead by 1987. All of the revolution’s noble principles and ideas were sent to prison for life or simply executed. The revolutionary president, Robert Mugabe, became a dictator and never looked back. My family began leaving the country in 1988, and at the time, nothing could convince me that socialism was in any way better than capitalism. There was a TV show, Road to Socialism, that aired every week and featured a black African Marxist debating a black African businessman, a capitalist. I never sided with the former, who was clearly not talking about reality but only his party’s ideology and program.
