The Capitalist Engine Beneath the Socialist Dream
A thought experiment that made me uncomfortable.
I built CatchMark from the ground up. Long nights. Personal guarantees. Certifications earned. Clients won one relationship at a time. I took the financial risk. I carried the payroll pressure. I reinvested profits instead of extracting them. When things went wrong, my name was on the line.
There were seasons where cash flow was tight and sleep was lighter. I signed documents that made it clear if this failed, it was not theoretical. It was personal. That weight sharpens decisions. It forces discipline. It ties risk directly to reward.
Now imagine my team gathering one day and saying:
“Brent, it is only fair that ownership be equal. Profits should be divided evenly. Decisions should be made collectively. Compensation should not vary based on who started the company, who assumes the most risk, or who produces the most value.”
On the surface, that sounds noble. Equal. Fair. Just.
And if I am honest, part of me is drawn to that ideal.
I really love the ideals of socialism. The principle that everyone benefits. The prospect of all haves and no have nots. The vision of a system where no one is left behind. There is something deeply human and compassionate about that dream.
But I also love the idea of flying like Superman. I love the idea of walking through walls. I love the story those fantasies tell.
They are still fiction.
The story socialism creates is powerful. It promises a world where outcomes are equalized without cost, where incentives remain strong even when rewards are flattened, where centralized control does not concentrate power in dangerous ways. It assumes human nature will respond to guaranteed outcomes with sustained excellence and discipline.
That is where the tension begins.
Back to my company.
If my personal risk is no longer connected to my potential reward, how aggressively do I continue to assume that risk? If the teammate working sixty hours receives the same outcome as the one working forty, what happens over time? If innovation, sacrifice, and ownership carry no differentiated upside, how long before effort normalizes downward?
Incentives matter. I feel that reality in my bones as a business owner.
That thought experiment captures the core tension inside socialism. It seeks to equalize outcomes without fully accounting for differences in risk, effort, responsibility, and innovation. When scaled from a company to a country, that tension does not disappear. It intensifies.
History is not vague on this point.
From the Soviet Union to Maoist China to Venezuela, large scale attempts to centrally control production and redistribute outcomes have produced a familiar pattern. Economic stagnation. Shortages. Suppression of dissent. Concentration of political power. The intentions may have varied. The outcomes did not.
At this point, someone usually says, “What about Scandinavia? What about Denmark, Sweden, Norway? That is socialism working.”
It is an appealing claim. Strong safety nets. Universal healthcare. Low poverty. High quality of life.
But here is what often gets missed.
The Nordic countries are not socialist planned economies. They are market economies with generous welfare states layered on top.
They protect private property. They encourage entrepreneurship. They rank among the most business friendly nations in the world. Companies compete globally. Prices are set by markets. Profit incentives drive innovation.
Their prosperity is generated by capitalism. Their social programs are funded by it.
Sweden even experimented in the 1970s with policies that moved closer to democratic socialism, gradually shifting corporate ownership toward collective control. Growth slowed. Capital began to leave. Economic strain followed. In the 1990s, Sweden pivoted back toward market liberalization. The recovery that followed is often cited as proof of socialism’s success, when in reality it coincided with renewed market reforms.
The examples held up as socialist success stories almost always reveal a capitalist engine underneath.
Strip away private ownership, market pricing, competition, and profit incentives, and the historical record becomes far less inspiring. The Soviet Union abolished private control of production and struggled with chronic shortages and inefficiency. Venezuela nationalized key industries and watched output collapse. Cuba provides universal services, but at the cost of stagnation and limited economic freedom.
This is not about lacking compassion. I care deeply about fairness. I want opportunity to be real for everyone. I want systems that allow people to rise.
But I also understand, from building a company, that prosperity does not appear by decree. It is created through risk, discipline, innovation, and ownership. When the connection between effort and reward weakens, effort eventually weakens. When power centralizes, accountability often declines.
If CatchMark operated under a structure where risk and reward were disconnected, I know exactly what would happen over time. Decisions would become less sharp. Innovation would slow. Responsibility would blur. The culture would change.
Scale that dynamic to a nation.
The question is not whether we want fairness. We all do.
The question is whether we pursue it by embracing a story that feels morally satisfying but ignores the realities of incentive, power, and human nature. History suggests that when we confuse redistribution with wealth creation, we undermine the very engine that makes generosity possible.
Some dreams are inspiring precisely because they are not real.
The challenge is making sure we do not build public policy on them.