I feel like this is a low quality article. > Why? What in Europe could have been so horrible that rational people would risk their lives and their children's l

I feel like this is a low quality article. > Why? What in Europe could have been so horrible that rational people would risk their lives and their children's lives to escape it? > Socialism. It wasn't called socialism in those days, but that is what it was—unlimited government control and taxation of everything and everybody. There were no free markets and no free enterprise. Regardless of how honest or hard working a person was, it did him little good unless he was in bed with the government. I don't think this author understands what socialism is...from Wikipedia: "Socialism is a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership and democratic control of the means of production."[0] At that period in time, economies were run for those at the top (similar to the 1%). It was centralized control i.e. not a system characterised by social ownership. I feel like there are some people who think that if a society does not have free markets then it must be socialist (i.e. !free markets == socialism). This is not the case. You wouldn't call the current Russia political system socialist.... it's authoritarian. I feel like the author is ignorant. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism