Why Does Socialism Always Fail?
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In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state’s role absolute. In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated.
Nor should we turn a blind eye to the fact that the spirit of free enterprise, including the principle of personal responsibility of businesspeople, investors and shareholders for their decisions, is being eroded in the last few months. There is no reason to believe that we can achieve better results by shifting responsibility onto the state.
And one more point: anti-crisis measures should not escalate into financial populism and a refusal to implement responsible macroeconomic policies. The unjustified swelling of the budgetary deficit and the accumulation of public debts are just as destructive as adventurous stock-jobbing.
- Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister of Russia, February, 2009.
Socialism is the 20th century's greatest tragedy. Although its evangelists promised equality, prosperity and security, it was only responsible for misery, poverty, and absolutely 100% of the time ended up in tyranny.
Actually, it is interesting to note that socialism in the 20th century did achieve a form of equality after all, but only in the form that all people in socialist countries were equal in their misery and poverty. Having spent considerable amounts of time in actively socialist countries, I have seen the anguish of its proletariat with my own eyes... although I never thought that I would live to see the Kremlin lecture Washington on the dangers of socialism.
Just like Madoff's Ponzi pyramid scheme initially showed staggering success but then collapsed like the house of cards that it was, socialism demonstrates signs of success in its early stages. The essential problem is that all of the gains, real or imagined, fade rapidly as the basic and inescapable deficiencies of the policy of central control of an economy emerge.
I remember a gardener years ago discussing a particular way to over-fertilize a plant. That process would lead to a swift growth spurt and early blooming. Unfortunately, the plant would succumb to the excessive nutrients in the soil and would never bear fruit before it withered and died. That is an excellent metaphor for the life cycle of socialism.
The promoters of this appalling and loathsome grim joke on humanity unanimously point to the initial stages of any socialistic system where progress is made on a wide range of social issues, including universal health care, affordable housing, and guaranteed welfare. However, they unfailingly begin to suffer from amnesia when the mid to late stages of socialism arrive: Collectivism is impossible to support over a term of more than a few years due to the fact that it is based on a theory which is completely and absolutely erroneous.
Why does socialism always fail? Socialism is incompatible with the most basal and rudimentary principles of human behavior. Just like an animal has to be trained to perform a particular behavior through positive reinforcement, humans will generally not perform any act of labor unless there is acceptable incentivization. Incentives are central to a free market system: indeed the entire essence of the free market economy is to provide an elegantly interconnected infrastructure of incentives to drive and direct the socio-economic framework of the nation.
These incentives are based upon the essential human drive to possess. Under the free market economic model, individuals are enabled and empowered to gain tangible value from the fruit of their labor, and be able to build lasting security through wealth. One of the major keystones of this security is to be seen in the right to privately hold property. Permanent shelter is a fundamental human desire, and many individuals in a free market system have stated that the happiest day of their lives, after their wedding or birth of their children, is the day they burned their mortgage and thus owned their homes free and clear.
There are many other forms of value, whether it is the ability to possess entertainment, sports, leisure, professional, or convenience accessories, or to be able to invest wisely in order to ensure that children are secure while retirement comes early and is comfortable. The free market system is based this inalienable right to possess within a lattice of market-set pricing and profit-and-loss accounting. It is impossible to understate the importance of these incentives and their unparalleled power to shape the economy of a nation.
Incentives under socialism are virtually non existent. When you have a nation where all property is owned by the government there is no way for the common person to build security in any way. Individuals soon recognize that they are serfs of the state, and since they are subject to the whims of the politburo of the day, have no possibility for self determination. The only way to pull yourself out of the mire is to attempt to become one of the handful of Party authorities, who are able to live in the luxurious decadence of the top capitalists.
I know an Eastern European family whose 19th century ancestors built a lovely stone villa in a magnificent panoramic location overlooking the sea. It served as their ancestral home for over a century until the new socialist rulers of the nation served them an order to vacate. Their entire family of eleven was to be relocated to a two bedroom apartment in a Stalinist concrete block building next to a toxic chemical plant, as the villa had now been allocated to a high ranking local Party member.
This family not only received no form of compensation whatsoever, but was escorted from their ancestral home at gunpoint, to spend the rest of the century in that squallid, cramped, crumbling apartment in the core of a smog-laden, grimy city. It was only after the Fall of the Berlin Wall that they were able to engage in an expensive and draining five year long court action to restore their rightful property rights and regain the deed to their villa, which by now had fallen virtually into ruin as fifty years had elapsed.
Socialist centrally planned economies invariably fail due to their inherent and integral failure to encourage, develop, and nurture the essential potential of its people by lack of incentivization. Socialism is a failure because it suppresses the human spirit. Why else have so many thousands of people lost their lives in attempts to clandestinely escape their socialistic bondage and reach nations which embrace free market economies? In comparison, how many people have willingly left free market economies to move to socialist countries?
By its inability to foster, promote and develop the potential of people through incentives, centrally planned economies deprive the human spirit of ambition, aspiration, enterprise, determination and industry. What happens to the aspiration of a human being when there is essentially no reason to do anything? Nothing gets done.
Thus lies the core flaw of collectivist economies: When you inform a laborer that it is essentially irrelevant whether they produce one wicket a day or a hundred, and that it is also irrelevant whether those wickets are quality crafted or thrown together, as they will live in the same government owned apartment, shop at the same meagre stores, and be stuck in the same droning, monotonous job for the rest of their lives... their productivity falls steadily until almost nothing is produced. Multiply that effect by virtually every laborer in the nation, and you soon see why socialist economies are marked by long queues outside stores when the word gets out that they have soap, or bread, or eggs that day. Nobody is producing anything, thus nobody sells anything, thus there is nothing to buy.
At a time when the fault lines of capitalism are becoming exposed through the recent financial seismic shocks, it is a knee jerk reaction for the closet socialists to come out of the closet, dust off their tired rhetoric, and give it one more shot to convince the world to sing "L'Internationale" in unison. The reason why each proponent of this deficient ideology, from Vladimir Lenin, to Mao Zedong, to John Lennon has failed is due to the barren wasteland which exists within the seductive allure of socialism to the poverty-stricken masses of the world. The chimera of being able to "share the wealth of the state" is extremely tempting to those who toil in drudgery while the upper classes are whizzed by in their chauffeured limousines.
What they don't understand is that the state cannot create wealth, it can only administer it. Thus, the essence of socialism is one of universal impoverishment where even the hope that the lower classes can escape their poverty vaporizes along with the rest of the the nation's productivity.
We in the free market world are currently undergoing a severe economic adjustment. It would be fallacious to lay the blame for this convulsion on free market ideology or capitalistic structures. The current upheavals are due to the failure to enforce existing financial regulations thus letting blind greed and rampant megalomania run wild. That is not what a free market economy is all about. Just like a state cannot exist without just laws, a capitalistic system cannot function without adherence to fair and reasonable regulation. This recession was triggered by a myopic and incompetent gaggle of politicians, not by any inherent fault of the free market system.
The genius of capitalism, and the basic reason why it succeeds where socialism fails, is contained within its core tenet that the free and unfettered market determines profit and loss. Every citizen is empowered to design and market a better mousetrap, provide a better service, or implement a better idea, and let the free choice of the consumer decide to reward them. The potential success of the individual is limited only by their ambition, drive, and intellect, not by slavish adherence to a collectivist Five Year Plan.
It is at a time like this that we cannot afford to be hypnotized by the siren song of socialism, and the deleterious, titanic evils of nationalization, central planning, and government control through financing of private corporations. It is a time when we must refresh and renew our free market structures, allowing individuals the freedom and liberty to create wealth so that the rising tide will raise all boats once again. Some well known, salt of the earth companies and brand names will disappear forever, but they will be replaced and refreshed by unforeseen, startling new entities which will bring the nation new economic vitality and vigor. The United States of America is a land where ingenuity, innovation, and imagination are literally imbued in the lifeblood of the nation and its people. It has only ever existed as a framework in order to Let Freedom Ring, and none of its citizens must ever be enslaved to any degree of socialistic peonage, no matter how limited, or coated in an illusion of necessity.
Never.
Never.
Never.
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While I agree with the underlying sentiment, I have to ask (because I have to play Devil's Advocate), are we there yet? You will immeditately say "yes"; however, if using some socialist tactics help solve current problems, in a manner that could be replaced with alternative tactics after the economy has recovered, is this not worth examination as a possible strategy? You will say "but once the socialists get their hands on nationalized corporations, they will not go back to a free market." And I will say, "why not?" Since the government already does use some measures that you deem socialist, why not incorporate more, in the short term? I ask merely for information, because it seems to me that there is no way in hell the US will ever lose its composition of individualistic, creative, thinkers, who can not only think out of the box, but would continue to do so in order to mold their surroundings to fit their imagination. Ortega y Gasset said that government should be "plastic" -- i.e. easy to mold, elastic, "shapeable" to fit any current circumstance. When you are cut, clean the wound and apply a dressing. That doesn't mean you have to wear that band-aid for the rest of your life. . . .?
Hal, we are in general agreement. But the basic human instinct that requires a free market is not just the instinct to possess. We want to acquire, we want to be able to keep what we acquire, and we want to be able to choose what we do with our time. These are three separate urges, each fueled by a different instinct. The profit motive is the urge to acquire (aka greed). The nesting motive is the urge to keep what you have (aka avarice). And the productive motive is the urge to engage in your own favorite productive activity (aka vocation). I wrote about all this in detail in "Avarice versus Greed". Appealing to the profit motive while shielding market participants from the consequences of their actions gives free play to greed at the expense of avarice. Regulating industries and professions destroys the ability to follow one's own vocation. Each of these interventions in the marketplace leads to disaster.
Proponents of socialism like to point at the unfettered greed created by their own protectionism and call that capitalism -- while they try to imply that capitalism and the free market are the same thing.
RKHenry: Wow. That's some compliment. Thank you very much! :)
Teresa McGurk: My dear Devil's Advocate, let's boil down the 1500+ words above to a basic synopsis: As soon as you introduce socialistic policies, productivity decreases. That is pretty well universal. The more socialism, the less productivity. Yes, I agree that we're not at the point of issuing collectivist Five Year Plans... yet. However, note Putin's quote at the top. He sums it up better than anyone could, and remember what country he's leading and what it was for three quarters of a century. HE is lecturing US on how socialistic policies are poison. Why? Because they are. GM is in the position that it is because it is a bloated, mammoth, stodgy corporation which has been cranking out essentially the same various chassis for the last quarter century with total disregard to the fact that the world has changed around it. Why on Earth should the taxpayer not only RESCUE that company but REWARD it? Wagoner walked away with TWENTY THREE MILLION DOLLARS OF TAXPAYER'S MONEY. I don't know about you, but if I ran my company into the ground, I wouldn't expect to receive a check for $23 million from the people of the United States. I'd deserve a good swift kick in the ass. Look at AIG. Get billons, and suck away about $170 million for bonuses for the EXACT PEOPLE WHO GOT US INTO THIS MESS. That is what happens when corporations spend taxpayer's money. It's MAD MONEY. They don't care what they do with it since they didn't earn it and it was a gift anyway. PLUS, they are now trained to rush back hat in hand to Washington whenever they get into another rut. Instead of using intellect, invention, and genius, they are now welfare bums, wards of the state which are nothing more than endless funnels for billons and billions of the money that THE AMERICAN TAXPAYER CAN'T AFFORD TO PAY IN TAX SINCE THEY HAVE KIDS TO FEED. It's like giving someone heroin just once or twice or three times... just to help them out. You're not doing them any favors: They will become addicts, 100% of the time! Taxpayer money is the heroin of corporations! This is the basic scandal of ANY form of socialism, no matter how small.
Aya Katz: I agree fully that:
Appealing to the profit motive while shielding market participants from the consequences of their actions gives free play to greed at the expense of avarice. Regulating industries and professions destroys the ability to follow one's own vocation. Each of these interventions in the marketplace leads to disaster.
Absolutely perfect definition. I also appreciate your refinement of the "instincts." Very well done. Bravo! :)
(*in a very quiet voice*) we're all screwed, aren't we?
Screwed, blued and tattooed. I'd love to share a more positive opinion, but unless there is a massive uprising unlike any since the Declaration of Independence, the chances of pulling out of this are next to zero. :(
Hal, I've been thinking about that. About the massive uprising, I mean. An uprising of any sort is only required if those who rebel are in the minority. I mean, we do have representative government, right?
So, as I see it, the people who are opposed to socialism represent a minority of the current population of the United States. Yes, this minority could rise up and re-establish the form of government that the founding fathers had in mind. But in order to do this, the people who disagree would have to leave or be deprived of their right to vote. This was easy during the American Revolution, because anyone who was a royalist could just go back to England. It would not be easy now.
So as much as I love the idea of a revolution, I think maybe we should reconsider the notion of peacefully persuading others of the error of their thinking.
I've recently been accused of being too pushy with my ideas in the forums, because I brought them up when people were trying to solve "little" problems in their lives, like the local government's taxing property that has a negative value. I see every opportunity to teach a life lesson as an important one, because I think it's better to confront people with the consequences of the application of their ideas, than to resort to armed revolt against -- not an oppressive government -- but actually oppressive (and oppressed) neighbors who voted for that government.
What do you think?
Hal, I would join RK in saying it's a brilliant and very clear piece of writing. I do have some minor disagreements, but this is definitely minor, so I won't bother putting them down, at least not now :)
Aya, I learned a while ago on a different forum and a different topic that the moment when people share their problems is not the right moment to attack their believes. I just forgot that, and the lesson was repeated :)
Sure, it looks like a right moment, but my experience shows that it is not :)
As for the revolution - I'm with John Lennon here, despite of his Utopian views - count me out :)
Interestingly, whenever another story surfaces about corporate fat cat greed (and stupdity) from those corporations who are not self supporting but feeding from the public trough, the French Revolution comes to my mind.
I don't want a physical revolution either .... but I sure do want to see SOME kind of revolution.
Misha, that was my point. I don't think the revolution is a solution, when dissenters from the view of the rebels are in the majority and they have nowhere to go. That means that persuading others is the only -- ONLY -- solution.
If bringing up general solutions to specific problems is not a good way to persuade, what would be a better way or when would be a better time?
Hal has written some really good stuff here, but except in the case of Teresa, who does not have strong allegiances to a particular social philosophy, no people have come by, except for those who already agree.
We can't just preach to the converted, or to those who might be on the verge of conversion. We also have to engage people with strong opinions and good writing skills, like PGrundy, because they have a following, and their opinion really does matter.
Good question about when :)
I keep observing it on my kids, and so far it looks to me that there always some moment of reflection after the fact, when they are most responsive and open to explanations. The trick is to catch this moment. It is defintely not arrived yet while it still hurts.
Granted, life often does not give enough time for that before the next hit comes - well, we should pass then on the old case for now, it may come back later. If we keep pushing, we are just building a resistance. Life can push, we can't :)
Hal, I agree that propping up institutions that deserve to fail is undoubtedly a bad plan, especially when socialism in your view equates to crooks making a speedy getaway with taxpayers money, in mine. For the rest we'll have to agree to disagree. A mixture of socialism and capitalism has served most of Europe very well for long decades. It was the liberation of the banking system and money markets that brought about our current desparate situation. Some people and organisations have to be reigned in for the greater good, just as there are those in society who will always need a safety net provided by at least an element of judiciously applied socialism.
It's all good and just Amanda, but has a built-in problem - those that reign and provide safety net tend to want to reign more, and eventually they grab everything. I used to beleive that USA founding fathers managed to find a counter-poison to that - yet our current experience shows that their method does not work either...
There will always be organizations who will try and protect and inform those who are unaware of what is happening to them.
I think it's all about extremes, Misha. Extreme control and extreme laissez-faire. Neither work, or at least not for the majority. I think the European model of some and some is the answer, but being European, I suppose I would really!
Isn't Europe in the midst of the major crisis? How is that its middle approach allowed for that? Is your answer - we need more regulations? Aren't more regulations mean more government involvemenet? Doesn't more government involvement mean more socialism? And isn't this hub about why more socialism is NOT the answer?
Misha, everybody keeps bringing up Sweden as a counterexample. I know nothing about Sweden myself. Do you? If there really were a place where socialism worked, we might be able to isolate the conditions required to make it work. From the example of the bees, I would think it would have to require an extremely homogenous population with a high tendency toward productivity and self-sacrifice. Is this true of Sweden, or is it a myth?
Yep, we're in the middle of a global crisis, just as the Americans are. However, socialised healthcare provision was not what put us there. Exposure to American toxic debt had quite a big effect, plus the free market policies that allowed us to import so many cheap goods that our own manufacturing base went into a terminal decline. We squandered our inheritance on a pile of cheap, shiny, plastic tat, oh, and we sold off our gold reserves (well the UK did anyway) Socialism is not the bogeyman here. Capitalism is.
Amanda, but were businesses allowed to fail? Was there as much incentive to accumulate wealth as to spend it? Free enterprise is not about unfettered greed. It's allowing greed and avarice to balance that keeps the market from getting out of hand.
What I've heard about Britain is that because of tax provisions people who have wealth keep it outside the country.
Aya, I don't know too much about Sweden either, but I do know (from experience) that once you are used to heavy taxation, particularly when it is deducted directly from your wages rather than on demand, you cease to dwell on what you might be doing with that money. Plus, once you have experienced good, socialised healthcare (and in the case of Sweden, generous pensions etc) you don't particularly wish to reinvent the wheel.
Amanda, but aren't the Swedes unusually healthy to begin with? Isn't that part of the secret of how their healthcare system is not over-taxed? I mean, if it's true.
Aya, whilst we have been busy stockpiling cheap imports, plenty of businesses have failed. The government doesn't write cheques at the drop of a hat. I have friends who have been made redundant from two local factories who make parts for the motor industry. The government hasn't bailed them out either.
As to tax havens, yes some very wealthy individuals do choose to hide their wealth in this way. Probably wealthy Americans have similar tricks. It's one of the topics on the G20 agenda, and soon there'll be nowhere to hide.
Perhaps the Swedes are unusually healthy because they don't have the stress of wondering what will happen if they're ill, and how they'll cope when they get old!
I most definitely don't want to shape or direct this sequence of superlative comments, as it is my profound desire to encourage this form of debate on an issue that is of immediate impact to the entire future of American society. I would only like to state two points at this time:
1) I am a firm adherent to non-violence in the Gandhian sense. When I call for an uprising, please read that to be a democratic, legal insurrection where the people of the nation band together to restructure their government in a way that it best serves them and their needs.
2) I am completely in agreement with the point made by Aya Katz that "we can't just preach to the converted, or to those who might be on the verge of conversion. We also have to engage people with strong opinions and good writing skills, like PGrundy, because they have a following, and their opinion really does matter." Please inform me as to the best way to proceed in this process and I will be more than happy to implement whatever actions are deemed best.
For those who are Americans here, I have only one question - When you voted for Barack Obama (and I am pretty much sure that most of you DID vote for him), what did you expect? Haven't you learned from his background that he is a product of different social programs of the USA? He doesn't know anything about capitalism, or creating wealth or building a business - because he NEVER did it! Wealth redistribution was a slogan of his compaine, now he is just doing what he promised. Therefore, enjoy the ride and just prey that four years are not enough to totally destroy the country!
We haven't had anything resembling a free-market economy for almost a hundred years, maybe longer. Hopefully people will start to realize that government-sanctioned counterfeiting and artificial lowering of interest rates (FED) causes distortions in capital markets and leads to unsustainable malinvestments in all areas of the economy, which leads naturally to the market correcting those distortions (recession).
Austrian economists, that have predicted every boom/bust cycle that has plagued this country since 1926, are saying the US economy is headed for the shredder. When all is said and done, in about 6 years, they are predicting the US will be encased in a socialist, government controlled economy that will decide winners and losers, based not on productivity, creativity, innovation, or competitiveness, but on political and social considerations.
Personally, I don't know what it will take to turn the American people away from the Keynesian state-corporatism that has looted the hard-working, productive, American population for a hundred years. Protest falls on deaf ears when we have an insulated professional political establishment in Washington.
What we dearly need is term limits on ALL elected officials. Now there is a rallying point worth fighting for..!!!
I don't believe in politicians, period. I am of the opinion that the only good politician is one that's unemployed. There is only one way that I can see out of this morass, and for more than a decade it's been a pie in the sky pipedream: Electronic direct democracy where the actual INDIVIDUAL BILL votes in House and Senate are overridden and/or redistributed according to the expressed wishes of qualified and verified web-based and/or mail-in and/or phone referendum voters. After all, what is the American legislative system anyway? It's a holdover from almost two and a half centuries ago when the farflung voters had no choice but to elect representatives to travel to faraway Washington D.C. on horseback. Why can I read and see via webcam about what is happening on every street corner in the Ginza District in real time, but I still have to elect some greedy power-hungry bozo to "represent" me for 4 years?
Hal, actually, things seem to be going in the right direction here now, as we have gotten into more of a debate. I guess the best way to foster that is to be open to new ideas from people with opposing viewpoints, without conceding the central point.
Amanda, if it becomes impossible to accumulate wealth anywhere in the world, then it will mean the end of industry. I'm not sure that's what the proponents of this idea really want to have happen, but I suppose that it could have some useful ecological consequences.
Populations usually don't get healthy by having access to lots of health care. Historically, the healthiest populations are to be found in those areas of the world where the living conditions are harshest.
This is why Westerners, as a whole, are not nearly as healthy as the average person in a third world country -- leaving aside epidemics such as malaria and AIDs. And even in places decimated by malaria and AIDs, the result is that survivors tend to have traits that render them immune to those diseases.
Wander, as I see it people mostly voted against McCain, not for Obama. I had similar experience when USSR collapsed, and it did not end up well either...
Maven, I am afraid problem is not in politicians - they just merely reflect what MAJORITY wants. And majority wants to work less and earn more. Democracy, sir...
Aya, I don't have any Sweden experience either, except for some very nice kids literature. I am watching to see what happens to it during the crisis, and Iceland (another socialist flagship) recent bankruptcy does not make outlook too rosy for Sweden.
Misha, I agree with most of what you said, except for the part about working less and being paid more. ;->
I honestly believe that the reason most Americans voted the way they did is because they believe in the slogan: "Decent pay for honest work." And they think that if they worked for an hour, they should be paid for an hour -- regardless of what they accomplished in that hour and what it is worth to somebody else.
They want to be assured that they will be judged on their efforts and intentions and not their accomplishments.
I've seen this in college students who are willing to work very hard for a grade, and who don't realize that what is important is what they learned and not how hard they worked.
I'm afraid politicians are a necessary evil, my friend...you are asking for majority rule and that is not always in the interest of human rights...taking that approach to government we would still have slavery as an acceptable practice since most Americans either endorsed or ignored the practice even in Lincoln's day....
We may not have a perfect system, but it is far and away the best the world has ever known...I truly hope I am not speaking to the past, but I agree, something must be done, and done soon, to change the course that the ship of state is now charting... a course that will land us on the shoals of Socialism.
Maven, we're already there. How do we push off?
Aya, to answer you in brief: We must make a market correction, which, tho painful, will put us ( The productive American ) back in charge of our nation and personal lives....
Socrates did not approve of tyranny or of democracy. He believed that the best form of government was one ruled by an individual possessing the greatest ability, knowledge, and virtue. I would take that a step further and say that WE, the People, ARE that individual, many time multiplied...
Tea parties, breast-beating, and midnight meetings won't change the governments inexorable shift to Socialism...it will take real action, by doers, not talkers....folks that will rally their villages, towns, cities, and states to deny federal encroachments...how will they do this..? The Internet is a powerful tool for bloodless revolution...like a gathering of eagles, like-minded Americans, equipped with the necessary legal tools to stop government control, can wake up the sleeping masses, the intellectually and morally challenged, the indifferent, the self-indulgent, the slackers, to a looming danger that will threaten their own selfish life styles....
Education is the answer, just as it was for the peons and slaves of the middle ages to rise up and throw off the chains of tyranny...the power of the written and spoken word can change cultures and governments...
Maven,
Johnny can't read and apparently he can't vote any better than he can read.
Maven, we HAD a great system, that worked and WAS the best the world has ever known! But, somehow most of Americans wanted CHANGES! Now you have changes - do you like it? And I am pretty sure that the worst are ahead.
Aya, what you described " Decent pay for honest work. Think that if they worked for an hour, they should be paid for an hour -- regardless of what they accomplished in that hour and what it is worth to somebody else. They want to be assured that they will be judged on their efforts and intentions and not their accomplishments." - IS A SOCIALISM !
Great hub, by the way. The only thing wasn't mentioned here, that during the socialism all the country and people are poor, but the TOP OF The Government live in a quite luxury and that's the way the USA is heading right now!
Then we must insist that schools TEACH, not indoctrinate....If we cannot return discipline to the schoolroom , then you are right, Issues....Johnny will not learn, Johnny will become a willing wage slave to the state...1984 will become a reality...
Please don't get me started on our absurd educational system that rewards mediocrity and excludes innovation and patriotism...
Folks, definite kudos for the superlative discussion! Keep it up, as it's not only fascinating but extremely critical for our times!
Wanderlust, just one correction to your statement. In the Hub I wrote: "The only way to pull yourself out of the mire is to attempt to become one of the handful of Party authorities, who are able to live in the luxurious decadence of the top capitalists." And yes, I agree that we're heading in the same despicable direction.
Aya, if you give your students the degree without the need to work for it - would they accept?
That is what I am talking about. It is not to say that I am any different, I too don't want to work (meaning doing something I HAVE to do, not something I WANT to do), and want to live a decent lifestyle. Yet I do understand that robbing rich people to reach this goal eventually gets me in trouble, so I am trying to find other ways. The majority of people for some reason don't understand this and will vote into the office anybody who promise less work and more pay, no matter at what expense. :)
But looks like we scared Amanda away, and again we are preaching to the choir :)
BTW Hal, I think more efficient way to spread the word is forums, you never come there for some reason, and some hardcore socialists including Pam Grundy frequent it :)
Misha, my point is that the students work hard AND they get their degree AND they learn nothing ... in many cases. Why? Because working hard is only one part of the equation.
People don't seem to want to accept that there is a risk that if they work hard they may still not accomplish a thing, and that learning or producing are not guaranteed if only you work hard.
Sometimes a farmer works hard, and the crops fail, anyway. It's not his fault. He did everything right, but it was a bad year. People want government to guarantee them against that.
Sometimes a student works hard, but for some reason he can't grasp a difficult concept -- and so he doesn't learn. We give them diplomas now for showing that they "did the work and earned the credit", but we do not require them to learn. If we did require them to show that they learned, some would fail despite their best efforts. Is that fair? I say "Yes." The American public says no.
Are Americans lazy? No, they are not. They all, every last one of them, work hard. But working hard does not guarantee anything. And they want guarantees.
LOL yes Aya, but this is not the point I was trying to make. :)
We were talking about democracy, and I was saying that democracy is a bad form of government because majority always will vote into the office whoever promise them less work and more pay. It is our natural behavior. And it inevitably leads to our current problems. :)
Misha, okay, but I think my point (which is not your point) is important. The USSR had production quotas and rewards for working hard and penalties for slacking off, but still everything failed. Why? Because working hard is not enough. In the U.S. at that time, ingenuity and creativity were rewarded more generously than mere productivity as measured by a quota. This was done by the operation of supply and demand, and not by external punishments and rewards.
Oh, absolutely, I am with you on this 100% :)
And yes, I too think the current generation in USA is brought up to expect to be rewarded for hardness of their work, not for it results, which looks fair from the worker point of view yet absolutely unnatural as most "fair" things, and therefore going to backfire. In fact it probably already backfires...
Misha, glad we're agreed.
About your advice to Hal to join more in the Forums, I think you're probably right, but I've found it hard to strike a balance there between theoretical discussions and things that devolve into personal attacks. It seems to require a really tough skin, sometimes.
Don't forget the role played by USA and other capitalistic states in torpedoeing the socialistic experiment in USSR. Regan, who termed USSR as the evil empire, deliberately escalated the arms race hoping that USSR would go bankrupt first and it did.
If USA had gone bankrupt first, you would probably be extolling the virtues of socialism instead of capitalism.
That USSR disinegrated does not mean socialism is a dead idea. It has inspired the national struggles of countless countries from Nehru to Mao and Ho Chin Mein.
It only means that one experiment of socialism failed. The spirit in which we should take it is, given the potential of socialism to solve human problems, we should try again, learning from the mistakes of USSR.
Socialism just means equality of all humans and end to exploitation. Period. I don't think that is such a bad idea.
After all, in the 300 years of its existence, capitalism has not been able to solve the problems of the world. So shouldn't we be looking for something better? And that could be socialism.
And what has captialism given to the world in all its years of existence - imperialism which consumed millions of people around the world, slavery, Obama notwithstanding, two World Wars that killed one billion people.
Are these achievements that one can tom-tom about?
True Aya, it can get uncomfortable at times. But who said educating people is an easy task? :)
And frankly with experience you get used to get over personal attacks, and you learn to avoid sounding mean. And when you come to appreciate the fact that people ALWAYS attack out fear, it makes thing so much easier. :)
Julaha, it's obvious that when you read this Hub you did it with pink blinders on. Please reread it, and understand that you are completely, fundamentally, and absolutely wrong when you state "It only means that one experiment of socialism failed." Dude, EVERY EXPERIMENT WITH SOCIALISM FAILED. Show me ONE success or retract your statement.
Socialists are right there with proponents of water fueled engines, cold fusion, and flat earths. You can spout the theories all you want, but you can NEVER come up with one iota of proof that the theories have ever or ever will have verification in reality!
Misha: I regret that I never got into the Forum habit. I'll have to plunge in there sometime and see how it goes! :)
Now I'll leave you folks alone to continue the fantastic debate without interference from yours truly! I love it! Keep up the great work!
Julaha, true dat, armes race bankrapted USSR first. But make no mistake of it - it was because USSR had more socialism then USA. Should it be other way around, USA would have collapsed first.
Now, I again suggest you go and read the definition of socialism in the dictionary.
As for the capitalism - I don't have a firm opinion on it yet. I think free markets work, and I know socialism does not work. Free markets and capitalism are not exactly the same thing, again directing you towards dictionary :)
Misha, I'm so glad you made that point about capitalism!
Am I the only one who thinks that this hub is a collection of ignorant misinterpretations and historical distortions?
USSR failed because of its communist political agenda, not socialist central plan economics.
In USSR's worst times everybody had health care and free education -- something you cannot say about the United States even now, twenty years after the collapse.
And what's this crap about "greed" as a human trait?! The presumption! Aren't helping people and being generous also intrinsic human qualities?
The reason greed overcomes compassion is because of hubs like this, which extol greed as if it were some immovable constant.
This hub is particularly ridiculous today, as United States' entire economic system collapsed precisely because of excess greed. Capitalism obviously failed. In contrast, Scandinavian countries practice a form of capitalism which can be aptly called "socialism" for all uses and purposes -- and they thrive, and treat all their people well.
LOL we got a client :D
Care to prove your opinion about the reasons of USSR failure? And I don't wish you the same healthcare we had in USSR, you won't like it even though it was free :)
Where exactly anybody here denied that humans do have generosity naturally?
Now, I would love to hear what exactly is the mechanism of hubs like this causing greed to overcome compassion?
And the last one - the flagship of socialist Northern Europe Iceland is already bankrupt, how is this thriving exactly?
Elijah S: "USSR failed because of its communist political agenda, not socialist central plan economics." Wrong. The implosion was driven by the cumulative inability of the state to continue meeting its ballooning expenditures with non-convertible junk currency.
"In USSR's worst times everybody had health care and free education" Wrong. The health care was not up to Third World standards unless you were a family member of the Politburo, and the free education was directed by what the Party stated you should be. If they decided you were going to be a welder but you wanted to be a nuclear physicist, you got welding education. Period.
"The reason greed overcomes compassion is because of hubs like this, which extol greed as if it were some immovable constant." Wrong. The basic desire to obtain and gain security is an immovable constant. You can extol the virtues of altruism all you want, but that will never trump the far more basal impulses. Would you give food and shelter to a stranger when your children had no food and shelter? 'Nuf said. :)
"This hub is particularly ridiculous today, as United States' entire economic system collapsed precisely because of excess greed. Capitalism obviously failed." Wrong. Even the US Treasury Secretary just yesterday stated that it was due to lack of proper oversight and enforcement of SEC et al regulations on the books.
"In contrast, Scandinavian countries practice a form of capitalism which can be aptly called "socialism" for all uses and purposes -- and they thrive, and treat all their people well." Wrong. Scandinavian countries in and out of the Eurozone have their economies in tatters and their social policies cannot be shown to be any more socialistic than Canada, a country which its inhabitants will agree is not a socialistic country.
So far you're 0 for 5. Want to keep going? :)
USSR failed for several reasons. It failed because communist theory prescribed spreading communism across the globe. USSR supported the entire Eastern block, plus Cuba, North Korea and a bunch of emerging African and Latin American nations. This required money and resources, the production of which was transfered on the back of USSR people. You mentioned the arms race. Falling oil prices. And so on. Central plan economics weren't perfect of course. But, most of all, USSR failed because so many wanted it to fail.
Healthcare in USSR was okay, I experienced it first hand. Again, not perfect -- but no one ever was denied treatment, or had to sell the house to have an operation.
The mechanism is this (and this goes for your question on generosity too): people spout and regurgitate this "greed" generality, saying it's the basic propeller of capitalism, success and prosperity. This is absolutely arbitrary. Greed cannot be calculated, it's not in any economical formula. Hence, it's propaganda. And this is what this article is: a propaganda. And propaganda of capitalism, as you well may know, may cause people to support the current economy conditions in the US. Which, since they deny healthcare to tens of millions of people and deny college education to even more, in turn cannot be called compassionate. On the contrary. Thus greed overcomes compassion...
Last question: I meant the Scandinavian peninsula. Sweden, Finland and Norway are doing okay, don't they?
LOL Hal, I have to correct you a bit with education, sorry. :) It was not THAT bad, especially in the late socialism. Mandatory part was 8 grades in school. Then you could choose what you do after. You could start working or continue studying. Two more grades in the school, and then another point of choice - either start working (and get drafted to Army at 18) or go to university and continue for another 4-5 years. Then a choice of masters and then doctorate, speaking in American comparable terms.
If you did not want to pursue masters or did not pass exams to enter it, they would send you into any open spot over the country at their discretion, mostly considering your major. That is where you did not have a choice and, boy, what a nice breeding ground for extreme corruption :D
Elijah S., compassion and helping others are also human traits. Nobody denied it. In fact, some of the most generous people are the greedy ones. They try to earn as much as they can so they can spend it on others.
The real question is: what's your angle in all this? I mean, what does socialism mean to you, and what aspect of it are you trying to defend? If you tell us that, then we can maybe address your real concerns.
Hal -- let me disprove you on all but one (maybe) count and correct the score.
1. "Balooning expenditures" -- your argument doesn't address socialist economics per se. The expenditures were the result of communist politics. Socialist economics were a moderate success it's the political agenda that brought ruin to the country. Look at DDR and other socialist countries. They were pretty well off. And they were socialist. +1
2. Healthcare was okay. Please read my previous pot. Not perfect. But okay. Education: let's put aside for a moment the quality of the education and the freedom of choice (Misha answered that partially -- Russia's scientists were of the highest caliber. Humanities were more of a problem... ) Anyway, I think you are mixing politics with economy again. Fact is, socialist economy allowed everyone to have higher education if they were capable to achieve it. +1
3. Greed/Compassion. Again, please read my previous post. Let's face it: capitalism is "dog eat dog;" socialism is "everybody equal" and has similar rights. In practice, of course, nothing is that radical and black&white, but that's the premise. There were no homeless people in USSR and no one ever went hungry. EVER. You cannot say that about US, can you. +1
4. US Treasury said? This is ridiculous. Do you really listen to what they say?! +1 (being generous)
5. Scandinavia: out of my competence. You and Misha may be correct, but as far as I knew, they are in much better shape that the US. +0
4:1
Good, now it is something to discuss Elijah :)
How do you think, was it possible for USSR to waste those enormous resources on "helping" other countries and other idiotic projects if government was not an owner of all resources and economy as a whole? So doesn't this look like a more fundamental cause for collapse?
Concerning healthcare - I disagree. I don't know where you received yours, mine was definitely not satisfactory. Unprofessionalism, bribery, multi-hour lines to doctors office - just to name a few :)
Now I fail to see mechanism in what you wrote there, you have to try harder. Denying a greed as a basic human instinct seems somewhat arbitrary to me. May be it is beneficial to look into the dictionary for definition first? Also, even we assume this hub and discussion to be propaganda - which they are definitely not, because people put here their own thoughts - you still have to show how propaganda makes greed overcome confession, and to show that it is exactly this type of propaganda that does it :)
And for Scandinavian countries - I am watching them with interest myself. But you wouldn't deny that the whole Europe is in the midst of a severe crisis, would you?
PS Addressing your far-fetched statement #3 to Hal. I am leaving aside milder examples, but what about eating children in 30s in Ukraine? Was it just for fun? Or was it because of unbearable hunger?
Misha --
"...So doesn't this look like a more fundamental cause for collapse?"
It does. As I said, USSR failed because of it's ruinous political agenda, and the lack of political flexibility of its leaders. Look at China for fine opposite examples.
"Concerning healthcare - I disagree..."
It wasn't perfect. Still, if you compare statistics of birth deaths and life expactancy (considering mass alcoholism) -- it was decent. Okay, it was worse than in the West. But everybody had access!
"...you have to try harder.."
I don't recall denying greed. I'm saying it shouldn't be professed as the saviour of economy. As to propaganda... well, the way I see it, the article is based on unsupported pseudo-historical claims and arbitrary emotional appeals to greed. It ends with a swan song and a vague call for action (vote Republican)... what is propaganda?
(I have the utmost respect for the author's expertise in the field of motorcycles, but that's as far as it goes.)
As to Europe: Europe is in crisis I agree, but I always saw Scandinavian nations as the most stable in the region. Iceland did prove otherwise, but they're too small and not really Scandinavian.
--Misha, responding to your Ukraine remark: I think this example is irrelevant, because it take the Soviet Union still in the process of political becoming. In the 30s economy was still only emerging, and was confronted with resistance. The atrocities of "Golodomor" are a separate issue, in my opinion.
Well, you defined the wide scope yourself when you typed "EVER". And frankly it does not make me feel any better if country where I live now is going to go through the same thing while it is building its socialist economy.
Yet I can give you other examples. Does the word "bich" or later "bomzh" tell you anything? Do you think that somebody just invented them without any particular purpose, and people did not mean anything at all when they were using them?
Oh, and BTW if you think this is a pro republican thread, you are grossly mistaken. Being against socialism does not necessarily mean to be pro fascism. There are other choices, you know :)
Aya --
"In fact, some of the most generous people are the greedy ones. They try to earn as much as they can so they can spend it on others."
I don't buy this argument. That's because usually when people try to earn as much as they can they ruin the lives of many other people So the whole excercise defeats the purpose, only backwards.
I believe that by combining past lessons of both socialism and capitalism, from all countries, a more balanced (and compassionate) economy and society can be created in the US and other countries. This is not some utopia. Many countries practice moderation in profits, sacrificing greed for equality.
@Misha-- "bomzh" -- well, I think the point is that everyone had the right for a roof above his or her head. Maybe not everyone practiced that right. Everyone had to work, too. Not everybody worked -- some were stealing, and some simply couldn't adjust. There are many exceptions.
--
Also, I think my responses are too angry and maybe disrespectful and I would like to apologize.
Good night.
Well, so there were homeless. Most of homeless here become homeless for similar reasons - they don't fit into the society.
Anyway, good night, and you were not too angry or disrespectful, definitely not enough to halt the conversation, and this is what counts I think :)
Elijah S, first of all, your opinions are ALWAYS welcome on my Hub. Your responses were emphatically not "too angry and maybe disrespectful" so no apology is required.
Please do not think for a moment that the reply was ad hominem. I simply want you to understand IMHO socialism is the single greatest crime of the 20th century, with a death toll by far exceeding both world wars, and a heritage of misery, totalitarianism, poverty, and tears.
I could go into a lengthy repudiation of your points, but I will limit myself to just two:
1) I must correct your statement. It should have read "I have the utmost respect for the author's expertise in the field of motorcycles, PC technology, Italian cuisine, Bengal cats, quantum mechanics, and providing young buxom ladies with paroxysms of ecstasy in the boudoir, but that's as far as it goes" :)
2) I have to amend my statements. I have never lived in the USSR, and know of it only through research. Therefore when I speak of the USSR in my comments above, they should read "the two Iron Curtain Countries where I spent nearly two years." The processes I have outlined are absolutely true and correct when applied to those countries. I have seen it with my own eyes, and personally spoke to countless citizens of those nations who suffered those exact tribulations.
Hal Licino, and who will count the bodies strewn all over the globe by capitalism?
To start with the bodies in the Iraqi desert due to the illegal war for control of the oil reserves there.
Then the billions murdered all over the globe by rampaging imperialism, which Lenin described as the last stage of capitalism, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
The deaths in famines due to imperialistic interference in local lives such as the Bengal Famine which put to sleep 10,000,000 while the British traders hoarded grain in their godowns for the prices to rise.
The decimation of the original inhabitants of North America.
The destruction of the civilizations of Latin America.
The slave trade which earned American and British capitalists huge profits but blighted the lives of millions of Africans.
The two worlds wars, Nagasaki and Hiroshima included, which took close to one billion human lives, all fueled by the great capitalistic drive to redistribute the colonies of Britian and France.
Not to speak of the lesser wars in Vietnam, Korea, Algeria, etc.
A pretty balanced death count, wouldn't you say, may be a little bit favourable to the capitalistic enterprise.
Socialism put a stop to all that and forced capitalism to be more sensitive to the needs of people. Thus was born the welfare state, for which you all will have to thank our dear friend Mr. Marx.
Forget it Hal, it is time we gave a chance to socialism.
And as to examples of the success of socialism, it has succeeded in every place where it has been honestly tried - USSR, China, Vietnam, Cuba, and in the states of Kerala and West Bengal in India.
If you look up human indicies like life expectancy, literacy rate, male-female ratio in the society, child mortality rate or any such indicator for India and compare it with that of Kerala an Indian state consistently ruled by communists for the last 60 years, you will know what I mean.
Elijah, I am in complete agreement with you. We need to move out of the profiteering mind set of captialists.
Marx has shown that the next step in the historical progression of humanity after capitalism is socialism. It is high-time USA took this step. Obama seems to be making the right noises. The move can be gradual and a lot of educating will be necessary as this post clearly indicates.
What we need is people with vision who can look into the future of humanity, someone like Jesus, Marx or Gandhi, who can move humanity purposefully towards an inspiring goal.
Capitalism has caught itself in a meaningless vicious circle of money-making. The enterprise of the human race has been forgotten. Earlier great thinkers like Jesus Christ, Budha, Marx, Lenin and Gandhi dreamed of a human society rid of hunger, illitracy, homelessness, joblessness, disease and exploitation.
Today we need people like that. If the current economic crisis can throw up such leadership, all the suffering that we have undergone recently would not be in vain.
Do you think Obama is the next Jesus Christ, Marx or Gandhi for humanity?
Is there a communist party in the US? Now is the time for it to show up.
Rise Americans, you have nothing to loose but your chains! Show the world the way to socialism and out of hunger, poverty, joblessness and illitracy!!!
Now for some constructive suggestions. I think the two party system in America is fundamentally flawed. Soon both parties become mirror-images of each other as lobbies compromise their policies with money.
As societies get more complex, we need more political space than can be made available in a two party system.
I suggest America should start thinking of a third alternative something like the Third Front in India which gives an alternative to the two mainstream parites, Congress and BJP. The Third Front is a mix of diverse political positions representing the diverse needs and aspirations of a a multi-lingual, multi-religious, multi-cultural milieu of India.
American society is becoming equally diverse, what with your constituencies of Blacks, the Hispanics, the Chinese, the Whites, the Indians and the Jews. You have further divisions like the industrial North and the formerly slave-driven agricultural states of the south, the Mexican territory of Texas and the frontier states in the West. They all must be having pretty divergent views and aspirations. How about different political parties there, like the regional parties of India.
Your elections would become more representative of the people's will, if your voters have more political options than just the two you have now.
And one of those options can the communist or socialist party of USA which should fight elections and gain power.
The current approach of the two parties socialising their agenda is too little too late.
You will need a full-fledged communist agenda to pull you out of capitalism and into the straight path of communism and socialism.
If America, the heartland of capitalism can do, then the whole world can do that too.
So socialising America will a hugely desirable human enterprise. We al should work towards it.
Now who is for a socialistic USA?
The alternative to the ballot route to socialism outlined above will of course be revolution. God forbid that Americans have to take that route.
But if it is inevitable, you must be prepared to bite the bullet, and so must the rest of the world.
Consider the possibilities if USA were to go communitst. The two great communist nations of the world China and USA can embark on an enterprise of shaping a new humanity that knows not what is hunger, ill-health, poverty or unemployment.
Then, after having vanquished these old foes of hunger, etc., it could embark on even great challenges like conquering space, or the oceans. Isn't it an exciting thought?
Do you think this could happen in our life times?
Yikes, dude. Time to take a Valium. I'm not going to go toe to toe with you on every point as it would overflow this server. Therefore, allow me to VERY BRIEFLY state that:
1) You are completely mixing up the deaths and misery caused by socialism DUE TO ITS INHERENT IDEOLOGY with the wars incurred by various states due to reasons that have nothing to do with ideology.
2) When you state that socialism was a success in the USSR, China, etc. it's obvious that you live in a parallel dimension. Did you not even read Putin's quote? Isn't the current Russian leader qualified enough for you? How BLIND are you?
3) By your comments as "Rise Americans, you have nothing to loose but your chains! Show the world the way to socialism and out of hunger, poverty, joblessness and illitracy!!!" it is quite evident that you are just another of the same old Commie rabble rousers which have done nothing but create trouble for a century. You dig out dusty, inane prose out of Marx, Engels, Trotsky, and company and parrot it without any relevance to the actual situation you are addressing. Americans in chains. Yeah. That's a good one dude. Sheesh.
Julaha, you are certainly committed so I have to respect you for that. However, due to your ideas, you should be committed. To an insane asylum. :)
Hal, I think when someone says "socialism was a success in X location at Y time", what we need to question is their notion of "success". I mean, maybe they are really trying to achieve a different goal than most people have in mind when they talk about success.
Here are some alternate goals that different adherents of socialism might have:
1) material prosperity for all
2) equality of circumstances for all, no matter what those circumstances are.
If the person's goal is (1), then we can have a common language and something to discuss in a factual manner.
But if the goal is (2), then we just have to agree that there is nothing to discuss.
Anyway, that's my personal take on it.
I fully agree with your statement, but #1 would be a tall order for the socialists to support thus I believe that the debate would be rather short lived. Yes, #2 is a total joke under socialism, so there is no debate there! :)
LOL no debate with the blind ones, for sure. If the guy don't see obvious facts, I don't see how we can have any conversation at all. Something about pearls and swine immediately comes to mind :)
So aside form making fun of him - what he even would not be capable of understanding - I don't see any value from that addition :)
Hal,
I am confused about what was the answer for the question posed by your hub. There were just too many comments and diversions, I lost track in reading them.
I think in one of your other hubs, there was a mention that Cuba was the last real Socialist country. Is that true?
If so, then how do we classify the current state of the UK, Canada and the US?
If these countries are socialistic or moving towards socialism, then how will socialism fail there?
Was the collapse of banks too numerous to mention followed by the debacle at AIG, and the death throes of the motor industry supposed to sell the rest of us on the idea of unfettered free trade and capitalism?
Amanda,
why do you think it happened because of "unfettered free trade"? Where did you see unfettered free trade at all for this matter? Again, leaving capitalism aside for now, because free trade does NOT equal capitalism, please see any dictionary.
Issues,
Don't know what Hal's answer would be. For me Cuba is the last country from the "socialist camp" that was so populated during last century. I think China left it already, because despite of their totalitarian government their economy seems to be much closer to free market now.
And current state of Northern American and European countries seems to be a fast movement towards socialist economy. And how it will fail we will see later when it fails :)
OK Misha,
Put aside your dictionary for a minute. Did the relaxing of the rules that previously stopped the banks from going stupid with our money, cause the current crisis, or was it socialised healthcare in Europe?
Misha: Socialists have been the #2 thorn in the side of my life, second only to Scientologists... you gotta pardon me for taking a cheap crack once in a while! :)
issues veritas: Let's clarify: In today's world's ranking of socialist countries North Korea is #1, followed by Cuba, Laos, Vietnam, Venezuela and to some degree Chavez's buddies in Bolivia. China is not a socialist country at all, but a fully capitalist one with a totalitarian government. No other country in the world today qualifies as socialist, although they may have left of center government policies, such as Syria, Belarus, Zambia and Turkmenistan. Countries like the Scandinavians and Canada do not qualify in any way as socialists. Canada has a hawkish rightist government that is even more conservative than the GOP!
Amanda Severn: You can certainly be excused from the common belief that it is Free Enterprise which spawned the current economic meltdown. Absolutely nothing could be further from the truth. If there is a corrupt judge who lets a mobster free, you do not demolish the entire Judicial system. You single out that judge and remove him. Exactly the same is the case with this recession. There was ONE ELEMENT AND ONE ELEMENT ONLY which triggered the disaster: Subprimes. The USA government has literally thousands of people in agencies that suck billions of dollars of taxpayer's money EXCLUSIVELY TO MONITOR AND PREVENT SUCH ABUSES. It was a BUREAUCRATIC FAILURE, IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE MOST APATHETIC, INCOMPETENT AND DISTRACTED ADMINISTRATION IN THE HISTORY OF THE USA which created the problem. There is nothing wrong with Free Enterprise. It's worked perfectly well for two and a half centuries up to last year when BUSH, CHENEY & THEIR GANG OF CRIMINAL BOZOS were too busy cozying up to their oil pumping buddies to pay attention to the fact that the foundations of the nation were being ripped asunder. Furthermore, the restoration of faith and function in FULLY FREE ENTERPRISE is the one and only way that we will ever get out of this morass.
BTW Hal,
Until I joined Hubpages I had never thought of myself as a Socialist, or even as having socialist leanings. By British standards my politics would be considered to be in the centre.
I agree that the sub-prime issue caused this, and that governing bodies should have seen it coming, but the truth is they had dollar signs before the eyes. Integrity had no part to play whatsoever.
LOL Amanda, I know you are fixed on health care, can we leave it alone for a moment, while we are talking banks?
The problem with banks did not started just now. In fact I tend to think it started back in 1844 in GB, when you guys passed Peel's bank act (please note that this was more regulation, not less) that promoted lending banks to deal in payments processing too. Before that there were two kinds of banks, that were completely separate - lending and payment.
Amanda Severn: Although I might find myself in disagreement with several commenters here who I respect very much, I believe that integrity is a truly valid, wonderful and transcendent human value, but there will always be the Gordon Gekkos who implement any black hat strategy they can to rip off as much money for themselves as they can get away with, and in cases like Madoff, as they CAN'T get away with. There is no ideological or societal or theological system that has ever been found to eliminate these greedy bastards. The only thing that can be done is to handcuff them in REASONED, LOGICAL, SUSTAINABLE and ENFORCEABLE regulation which allows their impulses to build wealth for the society as a whole, without dragging the whole system down with them. Again, this is an administrative, not an ideological recession.
Misha: Yes, Peel definitely adhered to the Currency School which was backed by the US founding fathers. The only real reason it failed was because the financial forecasts of the day could not have taken into consideration the proliferation of checks as a payment medium. But, yes, banking as we now know it is inherently unsustainable primarily IMHO due to the explosion of uncollateralized credit, which allowed anyone to ring up more bills than they would ever have a reasonable expectation to be able to pay off.
Amanda, the restrictions on lending that you believe were meant to save the economy from unfettered greed would not even have been necessary if the dollar were indexed to gold or some other objective standard.
In a mixed economy what sometimes happens is that one hand of the government gives the green light to do something, and the other hand puts the breaks on. It's sort of like driving your car with one foot on the gas pedal and the other on the brakes.
In a free economy, (admittedly something we have not had for many, many years) the balance is achieved naturally by the market, between avarice and greed, thrift and generosity, risk taking and risk aversion.
Howdy Guys - interesting Hub, Hal.
Not going to get into the whole socialism debate - I had an interesting discussion with Misha, where we argued to a standstill, so there is little point in going over old ground! Pretty much agree with Hal's comment about greed transcending ideology - an excess of anything, leading to extremism, is not a good place to be.
The political differences aside, I agree with you on many things. Whatever the reason for the current eroding of rights and downright theft, the main point is that it can only happen if the population allows it. Other than direct action, I am very interested to hear any good suggestions - We burn the banks here, but I am not convinced that that is a long-term solution! ;)
Aya Katz: "meant to save the economy from unfettered greed would not even have been necessary if the dollar were indexed to gold or some other objective standard". HEAR HEAR! This is something else we can blame Nixon for: The abandonment of the gold fix was the REAL beginning of today's crisis!
Sufidreamer: Thanks! Again, in respectful disagreement with some of the insightful commenters here, the more I analyze "the way out" the more I have to head towards electronic direct democracy. I'll write a Hub on it today (time allowing) and I'll post the link here.
LOL Sufi, if we knew the answer we would be golden :)
Hal, I am afraid it is not going to work, because as I stated many times already, given the freedom to choose, the majority inevitably votes to the office whoever promises more pay and less work. And it is not even my own thought, someone of ancient Greeks first said that...
And regarding banking - if lending and payment/savings were still separate, no subprime crisis could have happened at all, because there would have been no money to lend out in that quantities
But Misha, I do have the answer, and it is Golden! For just $5,000 per person, you too can join the Guru Hal Socio-Economic Chela where you will receive a very special monthly newsletter "How To Prosper In Bad Times By Sending All Your Money To Hal" and many other strategies which will show you how your money and property is the root of all your unhappiness, and the only way to escape this endless spiral of sadness is to bequeath it all to the one enlightened being on Earth who can absorb and purify this otherwise filthy lucre: Hal! :)
P.S. I think I have some interesting insights on electronic direct democracy which might be quite workable (none of them original, but just derived from my years of observing the various failed attempts at implementation and learning from their errors).
No worries, Guys.
Electronic democracy could be one way - IMO, the two party system has failed. Voters have no choice - get rid of one party and the other does exactly the same, just fiddling around the edges a little.
I will keep an eye out for that Hub, Hal - an interesting idea. :)
Too right Misha, although burning banks does seem to make people feel a lot better!
Sufi, if the Hubbers we know are any indication, then free market proponents are far outnumbered by those who think socialism (in moderation -- whatever that means) is a pretty good idea. I think democracy is pretty much limited by the minds of the citizens...
I'm really bad at reading minds, though, so I could be wrong!
Lol Hal, for some reason I thought it was HalAyaMisha ;)
As for regulations being an answer, I don't think I am buying it. Regulations tend to create a vicious cycle of requiring more regulations to fix their unintended consequences, and more regulations to fix the next round of unintended consequences, and so on...
Considering at least some of those new regulations require some workforce to be added to government for implementation and enforcement, or even a new department or agency, over time you happen to arrive at situation when ALL workforce is tied to serving regulations instead of actually producing something - pretty much what we are heading to right now, but did not arrive just yet...
Aya - I suspect that using Hubbers as a representitive sample is inaccurate - we are a motley bunch! ;)
In this particular case, it seems that Europeans and Americans have different cultural values - it is hard to arrive at the best answer. In Greece, certainly, our left of centre approach works well.
In a diverse country such as the US, with a different history, maybe not. I have little idea about that one!
Has anyone seen the brass ring on this merry go-round?
You can't have a free economy and government intervention.
It is like driving a car you have your feet on the gas and the brake. You give it gas and brake depending on the road conditions. This is similar to supply and demand. Now you add the government with their feet over your pedals and overriding your control. This is similar to government regulation, monopoly (for (mergers and acquisitions) and against (anti trust laws).
Add to that, the government can tell you who you can and can't see to.
In the 1980s, Northrop Aircraft built the F20 Tigershark fighter aircraft. They funded it with their own money but the government wouldn't let them sell it to certain countries. The deal fell through and the result was that no one else wanted this plane. They instead wanted F15, F18 and F16 that were not built by Northrop Aircraft.
There was probably a valid defense reason why the government prevent the sale, but you would think that a defense contractor like Northrop Aircraft would have known that.
If there is Socialism in the US today, its political version of Albert Einstein was FDR. He was in a similar situation as President Obama and it appears that Obama must have copied his plan.
Pardon me now, while I raise my shields.
Issues Veritas, you seem to know a lot about the defense industry and its problems and shortcomings. A government contractor -- or even someone who produces something at his own expense, hoping to sell it to the government -- is in an unusually uncomfortable situation, more so than others in a mixed economy.
Do you have a solution for the problem you raised?
Aya,
The Northrop story was just an example of Government intervention on free enterprise.
I can't come up with a solution because this is just one instance of government affecting the economy. There are also many indirect government affects on the economy. With sales taxes reaching 10% in many states, large ticket items purchases may be put off or substituted with an item that is lower priced by tens of thousands of dollars.
Buying a vehicle in California is a good example, the more expensive the vehicle the higher the tax on it. Then California charges it registration fee not be weight but by value. So you have higher yearly registration fees. This month California just doubled the price of the registration fee. Add this all together and it is no mystery why new car dealerships are going out of business in California.
The entire government proposal system is more political than just assessing vendor capability. A friend mine owned a private company that submitted a bid for a project that was open. The short story is that he was notified with a personal visit from the government agency telling him that while the bid was still open, it really was filled because they knew who they were going to use.
Most of the defense contractors, that I know from personal experience are like special purpose lobbyists. They have major offices in the Washington, DC and surrounding area to pursue these bids. This is OK to a point, except when it is the personal relationship, rather than the ability of the company that gets the nod for the bid. In many cases, the bids are known to them before they are published. I really don't know much more about it than that.
Hal,
I hope this was in the context of your hub, if not delete it.
Wanderlust, I don't know what would make you be "pretty much sure" that most Americans here voted for Obama. Many Americans did not vote for him. He got a little over 52% of the popular vote, so that's a whole lot of Americans that didn't want him as president.
Issues veritas: The comments are just fine, and don't worry about deletion.
Lisa HW: There were 208,323,000 eligible voters in the 2008 election. 69,456,897 voted for Obama. Which means 138,866,103, or 66.7% of all registered voters did not vote for Obama.
It's also interesting to note that 13% of all American voters believed Obama to be a Muslim. With his recent bow to the Saudi King, many of them feel vindicated. :(
Here's the link to the new Hub on electronic direct democracy and how it can be the solution to our woes.
I think you're confusing socialism with Stalinism, communism and other related -isms.
The real reason true socialist societies may have trouble succeeding has little to do with what you've outlined in my view. Within a collectivist society, labor performs the same function capital does in a capitalist society. The greatest crime in our society is failure to pay taxes on capital. The greatest crime in a socialist society would be withholding of labor. Labor does not preclude innovation but when a society is built on the giving of labor, the result of the equivalent of tax evasion is much greater. You're right that it's a question of incentivization in a purely collectivist society but as yet, not one exists.
The argument that socialist societies are necessarily more oppressive is ridiculous. That would be as ridiculous as the claim that capitalist societies are necessarily more oppressive. There's examples for both but those are all divorced from the fundamentals of both economic ideologies.
Knee-jerk capitalism or appeals to, for that matter, are dangerous. To say the United States is primarily capitalist discounts Jefferson's ideal of citizen farmers and limited government. In its true form, socialism is limited government, non-existent government even. To say that this entire fiasco is independent of the capitalist system is also not entirely true. It's a yes and no answer. When simple regulation is talked of as "socialism," it makes no sense to argue that with a straight face. It all boils down to incentivization.
My dear sir, how can you possibly state that "in its true form, socialism is limited government, non-existent government even"? Every single implementation of socialist politics in any government in the world has always been marked by massive increases in government control of its economy and a resultant explosion in bureaucracy. I would like to inform you that there is essentially no difference to socialism as currently practiced by Hugo Chavez as to the type practiced by Fidel Castro, or by extension Stalin or Mao, regardless of what particular term we wish to apply to it. I could not possibly disagree more with your comments and urge you to research the basis to your opinions to a far greater degree.
You're mistaking economic philosophy with implementation. To claim there is no difference between the various forms you've mentioned isn't an accurate assertion. A true Marxist (I presume that's really what you were critiquing) society is closest to a direct democracy. Is a Stalinist society Marxist? I doubt you'd find many knowledgeable people agreeing with you there. I'm not knowledgeable enough on the Swiss form of direct democracy but to be fair, the reason Marxism will not come to pass is simply the size and scope involved.
calebd: "A true Marxist society is closest to a direct democracy." First of all, that is a totally absurd definition which does not match any scholar's conclusion from reading Marx. Now please point out one instance anywhere in history that this alleged "true Marxist society" was ever implemented! Stalinism is not a carbon copy of Marxism, yet it is a perverted fruit off of the same diseased tree. The Swiss cantonized democracy is nowhere near the direct democracy I have outlined in my E-Vote hub, as direct democracy is now generally assumed to refer to instantaneous referenda. I find myself in as much fervent disagreement with you as with Julaha, and believe me, that's a LOT.
Disagree all you want but know you're misrepresenting Marxism. There's plenty of scholars that substantiate what I said, besides the obvious "read Marx or Engels and that'll show you." I don't care either way because I believe Marxism is flawed for reasons other than the ones you've described, mainly to do with withholding of labor. However, the fact remains that to call Stalinism Marxism is the same as calling Nazism Neitzscheinism.
Engels, in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, argues that the Proletarian Revolution abolishes the state. Marxism aims to destroy the state, not take it over. Of course, this depends on whether you see statism as intrinsically linked to a monopoly on war.
Like I said, I don't understand Swiss democracy enough to comment, but the goal of Marxism (which cannot come to fruition until it is global...reasons of efficiency and monopoly) is to create a post-classist society through direct democracy. It's fairly close philosophically to anarchism and libertarianism. All this is easily google-searched or whatever.
Fabulous heckling contest.
calebd: The proletarian revolutions have always established the state, and a totalitarian one it has always been: Lenin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, et al. I can write that halibut tastes like strawberries all I want, and it still will not make it happen in reality. Both Marx's and Engels' arguments are entirely fallacious as they are not in any way verified by the scientific method. If something cannot be proven and verified and duplicated, then it is fiction. That works in physics and biology and chemistry as well as ideology. Each and every time in history that some scumbag bastard manipulating bastard has managed to hoodwink, manipulate and delude a population into believing that socialism was the way to empower THEM it has always ended up in empowering HIM. And people never learn and keep getting suckered in... just go to Caracas if you doubt that. You'd figure that after a century of getting SCREWED OVER, people like you and Julaha and the Venezuelans would learn your lessons from history. SOCIALISM IS NOTHING MORE THAN A DESPICABLE WAY TO FOOL STUPID POPULATIONS INTO SUBJECTING THEMSELVES TO REPRESSIVE, SELF-GLORIFYING DICTATORSHIPS. Period.
Raven King: Yeah, it is kinda fun, isn't it? :)
Absolutely fun. My eyes are welling too much. Pee in your pants fun. :)
I'm not sure you understand what the scientific method and fiction are. Marxism has NEVER been practised and is unlikely to ever be. Those regimes you keep going on about aren't Marxist (as in: they don't agree with Marx, whatever they or you claim, anymore than Mugabe's regime is capitalist as they claim it is)
You might want to breathe before you attack straw men in LARGE CAPS.
Raven King, who says that Hubpages isn't the most fun you can have with your clothes on? :)
calebd, if even you admit that "Marxism has NEVER been practised and is unlikely to ever be" then it's pie in the sky fiction, and what's the point about defending its tenets and trying to establish some form of relevance to practiced ideology? So maybe every power-hungry demon from Lenin to Chavez has used Marx as an excuse to screw people over and become totalitarian dictators. Isn't that the more justification to expose this unparalleled LIE?
And... I breathe just fine. How about you? :)
Right on definition of Socialism and it's deleterious effect on incentive which is stifled and ultimately destroyed by the overwhelming mediocrity of the collective. Freedom to accumulate, protect and increase private property holdings is the bedrock principle of a free system. We hear that the Free Enterprise System has failed and that Socialism is the only alternative left. Really? It's not that we have tried free enterprise and it has failed but rather that we have not tried it at all. Predatory Capitalism indeed has been the order of the day for at least 100years but the Liaise-Fair system [truly free system] of economics and government was set aside at the turn of the century when the Federal Reserve Corporation gained control of America's money supply and ultimately the nation's economic system through Debt Money. Today we see the FED in the driver seat and driving the national socialist economic bus [full throttle on the printing press pedal] over the cliff. Intentionally! There is no better way to obliterate private property, the middle class and freedom than to trash a people's money supply; unless we Americans wake-up to who the real cause of our economic woe is and throw the usurpers out there can be no hope for a once free and prosperous people.
Larry Lathrop, I couldn't possibly have said it better myself. Bravo! :)
So to sum it all up shortly, we need a balance of socialism to protect disabled and disaster struck people, with freedom for all protecting everyones rights all over the planet. We must eliminate leaders so that capitalizing on social benefits is impossible, and socializing our freedoms is not desirable.
Adam, how do we eliminate leaders?
Adam W: I'm not 100% clear on what you're stating.
Aya Katz: The way socialism has always eliminated leaders (at least the ones they don't agree with): Gulags and firing squads.
Great post!
Thanks! :)
Hal...Another great post...Where do you find the energy ( and patience ) to respond to calebd with such restraint..??
I was going to throw my two kopecks in but my wife ( she who must be obeyed ) is demanding I get on a couple of honey-do's, like NOW..! No democracy in our home, pure tyranny...
My dear friend, I have taken more than my share of shots for blasting commenters on many Hubs so I'm definitely no saint. However, I believe so strongly that this "creeping communism" has to be stopped that I'm trying to convince the world one person at a time. :)
Fantastic article. Shout it from the rooftops.
I guess (that while wishing for the downfall of the banks) the average left winger didn't realise the the huge taxes the banks paid were supporting the overgrown public sectors. Now that they got their wish they cant understand why the socialist gravy has run out... durrrrr.
State-socialism is what you are talking about. Socialism is a broad topic and you covered one part of it. There are no complete capitalist economies because it allows for those incentives to be manipulated by those who were able to first gain wealth. It leads to corruption just as much as state-socialism(one is ruled by a small wealthy class, the other by a political class). What would work best IMO is eliminate the legislative branch, replace it with a direct democracy e-vote, and then extend this into the work place. If say you were to model it similar to the Mandragon Corporation, but in way that does not allow for a technical ruling class to form.
I think the author has confused socialism with communism. One is an economic system, the other is a form of government. There is no country on earth that is purely democratic, capitalist, communist, or socialist, because none of these systems work in pure form. When democracy works as it should, the people control how the government distributes wealth to social programs.
Socialism fails due to its inherent structure. It is not a form of government but rather a vehicle to another place, much like how democracy can be. As a form of government it cannot perform the functions necessary as continued regulation is needed for the unforeseen issues which arise. In the end you have a nation that finds itself under complete and total tyranny.
You may learn more about socialism and its inherent flaws as well as its repercussions upon any society at www.whatisaplanner.com . The site is dedicated to the socialist ideology, combating it and the effects of it. In turn it also covers how to avoid the progressive march of mankind to it.
WHY WOULD USA WANT SOCIALISM OR COMUSISTIC GOVT
? WHEN ALL THE REST TRIED TO GET AWAY FROM IT.
RKHenry 3 years ago
Brillant Writer!!! Fantastic read. Thanks.
Incredible informative knowledge.