Many Americans have an aversion to socialism because they are influenced by a lifetime's exposure to capitalist-sponsored propaganda. It does not help that many socialist movements succeeded in economically less advanced areas of the globe. Capitalists and their spin doctors easily confuse people into associating underdevelopment with socialism. They attribute the particulars of a people's historical development with the progressive path of socialism. For example, Russian history is colored by underdevelopment and autarky. Russian Bolsheviks, who faced two world wars against enemies much superior in military capability, a bloody civil war against capitalists and aristocrats, and hostility from liberal democracies abroad, relied on the Russian cultural tradition of a strong state to organize victories against their enemies. While capitalists were eager to support the repressive measures of the tsarist regime, for selfish reasons they loathed the first workers' government in history, criticizing any centralizing tendency that was often the norm in Russian development. From Ivan the Terrible to Nicholas II, from Lenin to Gorbachev, and from Yeltsin to Putin, centralized power is a common thread in Russian history. Some leaders were good, some were mediocre, and some were simply bad. To malign socialism because its Russian form and the peculiarities of historical conditions constrained its capability is misleading but useful to capitalism's cause of justifying an overwhelming preponderance of wealth and power in the hands of capitalists.

Socialism in an economically developed country is a progression of freedom and equality. It means greater justice and higher living standards for more citizens than capitalism can offer, much like liberal society was progressive vis a vis feudalism. The political economy of capitalism clearly cannot produce economic or political justice. Unfettered by democratic tendencies, neoclassical economic policies (i.e., pure capitalism) produce greater inequality, economic instability, and misery on a global scale for those required to serve the interest of capitalists. The history of capitalism demonstrates its shortcomings and why it should eventually be overcome through enlightened democratic action.

Understanding that capitalism cannot bring the greatest freedom for all is not sufficient cause for determining the optimal timing of its demise, however. For underdeveloped societies, capitalism is the only proven path to economic growth. One may conjecture that with assistance from a fully developed socialist society, less-developed countries could strike a different path to progress, but until socialism is achieved in the more advanced countries, this remains pure theoretical speculation. The benefits promised by socialist theoreticians and supporters must await the right time for socialism in the most advanced countries. The point in time possible for implementing socialism draws nearer with each decade of economic and technological advance, but until socialism is successfully pursued in the countries of the world most likely to promise it success, socialism can only offer the hope of freedom from tyranny to the toilers who unjustly serve capitalism's interests.

The correct timing of socialism is critical to its historical success if there is to be permanent progression rather than retrogression. If socialism's supporters find themselves in power at a time inauspicious to its success, failure will occur, followed by capitalist reaction. Wishing that the time is right for socialism is not sufficient cause for its success. At a minimum, the political and economic conditions in a country pursuing socialism must both be favorable. Even when these conditions could suggest success, other external factors still could snuff it out (e.g., an international coalition of powers hostile to it.)

Because historical conditions must be right for socialism's eventual success, it is important to understand what these conditions might be that would promise a high probability of success. Below are some political and economic conditions that would increase the chances of socialism's success, but until socialism is ultimately successful, the necessary conditions will remain unknown. America will be used as an example, but the analysis is applicable to any country, most readily to the most advanced countries economically.

In terms of politics, it is paramount to keep in mind that no faction will surrender power freely or willingly. Capitalists control economic resources in the American economy and use that control to command political power. They are able to manipulate the ostensibly democratic system to protect their interests. The democratic system in America does provide the means to remove capitalists from power, but only if the vast majority who vote understand that they are manipulated to strengthen capitalist power. Socialism's success hinges politically on utter bankruptcy in liberal political thought. Only if Americans understood at a fundamental level that American political history is the history of abuse of power by capitalists can they support socialism for the necessarily extended period required to guarantee its success. Marginal support for a minimal socialist agenda will not meet this condition.

Capitalists have the political advantage of fully understanding their interests – to hold onto power at all costs. Through this clarity and control of the levers of power, they can perpetuate their tyranny of a minority. Never for a minute do they suffer from moral doubt when it comes to keeping power. They will use racism, sexism, religious intolerance, or any other malevolent means to confuse and divide the majority about their most fulfilling interest: taking power from this aggrandizing minority.

The majority of non-capitalists in America is split through the tactic of divide and conquer. Large numbers of the middle classes are co-opted into serving the interests of capitalists through trickle-down economics; immigrants are targeted by capitalists because capitalists can rely on a common feeling of chauvinism; the evil fruits of poverty are held up to condemn those who suffer most unjustly from capitalism's tyranny as a means to scare the rest of America; the sick are kept quiet by blackmail over access to health care; and fear is generated among white Americans about blacks and other ethnic minorities. By perpetuating division among the majority, capitalism keeps Americans from building a consensus that is truly in the majority's interest: ending capitalist tyranny.

To overcome such tactics pursued by a tyrannical minority, an unshakable conviction is required among the majority that tyranny must be replaced by freedom. Because socialism will mean ending the tyranny of capitalists, capitalists will resort to any means in order to hold onto power, including treason and terrorism. The majority must be steadfast in its desire for socialism in order to guarantee success. Sufficient surrender or desertion among the majority would doom socialism to failure, resulting in political reaction. The political condition for success is therefore a moment when no one believes any more in the disinterested capitalist stewardship of our economy and government, when Americans learn to scorn the vast wealth and power that the minority commands to further its selfish interests. Only then will the chance of socialism's success be possible.

Even an unshakable conviction by Americans to remove tyranny does not guarantee socialism's ultimate success. A treasonous flood of paper economic wealth and a trickle of Americans who control that wealth would exit the country if the majority broke the chains of oppression. American capitalists could bribe into existence a piratical coalition of the willing with these assets to restore themselves to power, with chances of success closer to what the French émigrés during the French revolution achieved than to what was achieved by Russian émigrés at the time of the Bolshevik revolution. If somehow they were successful in restoring capitalism to power through military action in a socialist America, most Americans would be personally confronted by ruin, rape and murder. The international situation would be a major factor in determining the success or failure of socialism in America, even if outright military action against us was excluded from consideration by socialism's enemies because of our nuclear arsenal. Economic warfare against a socialist America and support of terrorists inside America would be options to use against us if we pursued a socialist course alone. Because America is the most advanced economy in the world and it is larger than the other advanced economies, its chances of success are higher than for other countries when trying to be the first to steer successfully a course to socialism alone. Success would be far from certain, however. Economic integration across the world means interdependence, so enemies of socialism acting in other countries could harm a socialist economy.

Internal and external existential threats to American socialism would require strong central control for a time in order to defeat these threats. The stronger these threats, the longer the period of necessary control by the center to organize victory would be. Unfortunately, the longer the period of strong central control, the greater is the possibility that corruption would sap the vital energy from the forces of progress. The enemies of socialism do not have to win a single battle to win the war against socialism; they only have to create conditions which make socialism's success difficult or impossible. The political requirements of a long period of fighting both internal and external enemies are not conducive to democracy. It would be necessary to achieve success within a relatively short period to demonstrate the benefits of socialism to the world and to allow for devolution of power from the center to local levels. Ten years is probably the longest period such control could remain at the center and success still be achieved before corruption eroded socialism's chances of success. All but the most morally upright in character could remain uncontaminated by the influences of political corruption.

There are two economic conditions important for socialism's eventual success: some level of economic development and a terrible cyclical collapse of the capitalist economy. Both are promised by capitalism's historic development, so ultimately they will occur. Whether or not socialism will be implemented is not known, however. Economics cannot promise an eventual socialist victory, only auspicious conditions for socialism's success will occur. The political conditions above address why economic conditions alone will not deliver the triumph of socialism.

The first economic condition of reaching some threshold of development probably occurred in the advanced economies before World War I, but no later in America than by World War II. A close look at the ability of the German High Command to control tightly its economy in the First World War demonstrated that the necessary conditions for centralized planning existed to a degree unforeseen by contemporaries. What America achieved in the Second World War was even more striking; by taking an economy on its knees in the Great Depression and achieving war production that was undreamed of by even the most firm believers in economic planning, America demonstrated that planning could deliver production on a scale greater than anything promised by capitalism. Capitalism had created the knowledge and institutions necessary for this production, but now acted as a barrier to the production potential demonstrated by the American war economy. Americans of this era endured some important but painful lessons that until recently were forgotten.

Important to achieving socialism is high labor productivity (i.e., a high level of technology.) This allows for a surplus large enough to be created from each person's work that can be easily shared. If technology is limited and the economic surplus is therefore low, any extraction of surplus from each individual laborer for use by others requires tyranny. When economic surpluses in the ancient world were very small, the tyranny of slavery was required to extract a surplus from people living at no better than subsistence level. As science and technology grew during the late Middle Ages and early modern era, the tyranny of feudalism could be thrown off for a freer system of capitalism. Likewise, as technology has grown in the late modern and early post-modern times, the tyranny of capitalism becomes unnecessary to extract a surplus from workers. Once economic conditions progress to a point where people can freely share their surplus without fearing starvation, the system for expropriating that surplus becomes no longer beneficial, only tyrannical. That condition has been reached today in the advanced economies of the world.

The other economic condition that will increase the chances of socialism's success is widespread and deep cyclical depression. No economic or political system is discarded successfully without some crisis to focus people's interests towards removing the existing system's barrier to prosperity and freedom. The supporters of a system that delivers marginal improvement year after year without the concrete example of a better alternative have nothing to fear from theoretical claims to a better world. The most intolerably oppressive measures can be scaled back through reform, removing for many the impetus to change the system. Only economic calamity can bring about the strong political conviction that change must come. This condition is more probable in America through neoclassical, laissez-faire economic policies than through reformist policies that curb the excesses of capitalism. Callous as it may seem, the economic development delivered by neoconservatives in the past thirty years has been more auspicious to the success of socialism than the development that Keynesian policies delivered in the immediate post-war era. Through the natural development of capitalism we will most likely see the ripe conditions for socialism, rather than through some middle way that seeks to ameliorate the worst excesses of capitalism. In the short term it is better to let the tyrannical minority overplay its hand than to advise it on how better to govern in the majority's interests while still holding onto power.

Concluding, there are some conditions that would likely increase the chances of a successful transition from capitalism to socialism. These listed here are political and economic. There are undoubtedly many others, including some that are political and/or economic in nature and that were overlooked here. Most important to understand is that these conditions will affect the outcome of a struggle to achieve socialism, limiting or increasing the possibilities of success. Also, nothing achieved by mankind is determined beforehand. Rather, the conditions for attaining progress must exist, but do not make it necessary for progress to occur. To those living in the less developed world, caution is necessary when confronted by dreamers, charlatans, or worse, who promise a short circuit to historically proven paths of development. Americans must examine their conscience when conditions seem favorable to socialism's success. Will you cower before the whip? Or stand up to be counted among the heroes of progress? The capitalists also face a moral challenge, one issued millennia ago by a man who was murdered for opposing the tyrannical minority of his day: Repent, for the end is near.