Revolutions promise sudden change, but not all are alike. Some succeed because they align with reality; others fail because they try to replace facts with ideology. History distinguishes between revolutions that expand freedom and prosperity and those that make ordinary people pay for ignoring reality.
Scientific revolutionaries succeed not by overturning the laws of nature but by describing, revealing and respecting them. Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Lavoisier, Darwin, Mendel and Einstein subjected their ideas to the relentless pursuit of truth. Their theories endured because reality, not politics, was the judge.
Soviet agronomist Trofim Lysenko exemplified the opposite. He rejected Mendelian genetics partly because it conflicted with the Marxist-Leninist conviction that society could be transformed by changing its environment. He denied inherited genetic traits and claimed acquired characteristics could pass from one generation to the next. Lysenko’s ideological commitment contributed to crop failures and food shortages. Citizens paid the price.
The same principle applies to the social sciences. Just as natural scientists must conform to the natural world, social scientists must acknowledge human realities: incentives, scarcity, private property and dispersed knowledge. The question isn’t which theory promises the most, but which best explains reality.
British economic historian T.S. Ashton observed that, as England emerged from feudalism and mercantilism, ordinary people “voted with their feet,” leaving the countryside for opportunities created by industrial capitalism, especially its factory systems. Despite the hardships, millions moved toward a market economy because it offered prospects unavailable under the old order. Capitalism prevailed because voluntary exchange improved their lives over time.
Supporters of America’s revived socialist movement are motivated by real-life concerns, including housing costs, medical bills and economic insecurity. Those problems deserve serious answers grounded in economics, not politics. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani champions rent freezes, fare-free buses and a larger public role in providing everyday goods and services. The false promise is familiar: that political authorities can produce abundance by overriding prices, profits and private ownership.
Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises argued that economic coordination depends on institutions that reflect reality. Market prices, generated through private ownership and voluntary exchange, aren’t arbitrary numbers. They signal dispersed knowledge about scarcity, preferences and opportunity costs. Without those signals, planners lack the information to allocate resources rationally.
Even the Polish-born socialist economist Oskar Lange acknowledged the force of their critique. He remarked that a statue of Mises deserved a place in the Central Planning Board because Mises had forced socialist economists to confront the problem of economic calculation. Lange believed mathematical planning could answer Mises’s criticism. The record of centrally planned economies suggests otherwise.
Political revolutions work much the same way. The most successful political orders don’t try to create a “new man” or remake society from an abstract blueprint. They recognize human nature and build institutions that work with it. Mandating the same pay for fewer hours doesn’t manufacture the missing output. Government can suppress the signal, but it can’t eliminate the underlying scarcity.
America’s founding wasn’t simply a break from British rule but the product of an intellectual evolution from classical thought through the Enlightenment. The Founders didn’t redesign human nature; they built institutions around ambition, self-interest, fallibility and the temptation to accumulate power. Checks and balances set ambition against ambition. Property rights and voluntary exchange kept knowledge and initiative dispersed. The system was imperfect because its participants were imperfect, but it was designed for people as they are, not as theorists wished them to be.
That distinction matters now. A just society should help those in need, widen opportunity and correct genuine market failures. Reform succeeds when it works with incentives, competition and prices. It fails when good intentions become a license to ignore trade-offs.
Today’s socialists insist democratic control separates their project from past failures. Democracy is essential to political legitimacy, but voting can’t repeal scarcity, create information or erase unintended consequences. A majority can choose a policy. It can’t choose the economic laws that follow.
Revolutionaries should therefore be judged not by the generosity of their promises but by the results their institutions produce. Lysenko, socialism and the American founding teach the same lesson: Durable progress begins with humility before reality. The movement now gaining ground in America can evade that lesson only until reality sends its next bill.
Dr. Timothy G. Nash is director of the Northwood University Center for the Advancement of Freedom, Free Enterprise and Entrepreneurship (NUCAFFEE). Dr. Gabriel Benzecry is a leading economic historian and holds the David E. Fry chair in free market economics at Northwood University. Mr. Bob Thomas is the COO of the Michigan Chamber of Commerce.
Correction: Bob Thomas is one of the authors of this piece. A previous version stated otherwise.
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Revolutionaries cannot overrule reality | Opinion
Reporting by Timothy Nash, Gabriel Benzecry and Bob Thomas, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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By Timothy Nash, Gabriel Benzecry and Bob Thomas, The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
