“I do have a great fear that, in the long run, we may not make it,” Mr. Sowell said. “I hate to say that. The one thing that keeps me from being despairing is that we don’t know. There are so many things that we can’t possibly know. And so, we may make it, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”

The author said that time and time again, people adopt willful ignorance regarding socialism’s track record around the world.

“So many people today, including in the leading universities, don’t pay much attention to evidence,” he said. “When you see people starving in Venezuela and fleeing into neighboring countries and realize that this is a country that once had the world’s largest oil reserves, you realize that they’ve ruined a very good prospect with ideas that sounded good but didn’t turn out well.