"Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism" by Joshua Muravchik

Babeauf and Marechal believed that socialism would create equality, which would mean an end of boundaries, hedges, door locks, theft and murder. "All crime."

American was about securing the pursuit of happiness. The French Revolution aimed to secure happiness itself.

Babeauf believed if you had too much, someone else didn't have enough - the fixed bounty of nature, and the idea of zero-sum economics. He felt that no one should be superior to another in any way including intellectually. he wanted to eradicate the desire to be richer, wiser or more powerful than another.

Muravchik's mystery: "How could an idea that so consistently showed itself to be incongruent with human nature have spread faster and further than any other belief system? And how did an idea calling upon so many humane sentiments lend its name to the cruelest regimes in human history?"

Harrington: Socialiam made things easier. Heaven was found in this world rather than waiting for the next. And it asked for little in return. At most, you were to support revolution, at least, do nothing. You didn't have to worship, obey, make sacrifices, give to charity, confess, or repent. Socialism had an "absence of good and evil or right and wrong. This opened the doors to the terrible deeds that were done in the name of socialism."

Religionists who do terrible deeds must "ignore or suppress core elements of their creeds that address moral commands to the believer himself. Socialism, in contrast, lacks any internal code of conduct to limit what believers may do."

During the crusades, 2 million people were killed in 300 years. Pol Pot murdered 2 million people in 3 years. "Regimes calling themselves socialist have murdered more than 100 million people since 1917. The toll of the crimes by observant Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, or Hindus pales in comparison."

"Democratic socialism turned out to be a contradiction in terms, for where socialists proceeded democratically, they found themselves further from socialism. Imaginary utopias all relied on coercion."

"Occasionally...leftists boast and rightists lament that 'we are all socialists now.' But the opposite is nearer to the truth. [Socialists] recognize the limits of the welfare state, voters have hefty appetites for government benefits but rebel when taxes grow too high."

"Part of the power of Marism was its ability to feed religious hunger while flattering the sense of being wiser than those who give themselves over to unearthly faiths."