First, socialism is defined as worker or public control of the means of production and distribution. This has been interpreted in both libertarian and authoritarian ways.
Second, if socialism is worker control, then it is fully compatible with free markets. Mondragon and Semco are both worker democracies, and operate successfully in the global market.
If socialism is public control, this does not equal totalitarianism. Social democracy is a form of democratic public control of resources.
I understand people's reasoning for preferring capitalism (ownership defined by contract) or socialism (ownership defined by use), and I respect that, but I would love to be able to have political discussions about these issues which take into account the complexity and diversity of these two very broad terms.
I couldn't agree more about the defining of terms. While I find the article well reasoned given his assumptions, I think it's the assumptions that need to be addressed. Terms like, "social-ethical end", "inner equilibrium", and idea of a goal of life.
I think it's these terms and the basic assumptions behind them are what need to be addressed prior to attempting to construct a social system.
> I would love to be able to have political discussions about these issues
I'll bite.
> socialism is defined
From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. Socialism is the way. Communism is the unreachable goal.
> If socialism is public control, this does not equal totalitarianism. Social democracy is a form of democratic public control of resources.
You can discuss things ad nauseum and it will mean nothing. The human mind is too primitive to account for all the facets of reality. There is an almost infinite number of factors that play into the reality of the state.
In the end, the only way to know if something works is to try it.
Socialism was tried. Repeatedly. It always led to a totalitarian state.
Democracy is tyranny by the majority. When protections of the individual are removed for the sake of "social justice" or socialism or for any other reason, the majority is free to abuse the minority for its gain. And they do. Very quickly. This escalates over and over, until a totalitarian state is born.
Socialism was tried. Repeatedly. It always led to a totalitarian state.
Marxist-Leninism is what you're referring to, and yes, that has led to totalitarianism. However, socialism predated Marx, and there are non-Marxist (and anti-Marxist) socialist philosophies.
"From each according..." is not a tenet shared by all socialists.
Also, Marx was really good at critiquing capitalism, but he never actually had a plan for after the revolution. Except to think everybody would be happy and a collective, pretty much perfect, rationalism would be manifest because of the dynamics of history. Then we would all just see the answer, which is to share and be nice. (He was a hegelian, remember, even if he didn't like to admit it.)
Also ... its not like there was some blueprint that the Soviet Union applied as if they were building a machine tool on a large scale. The Soviet State has, in its large scale state organized brutality and corruption, is completely in line with Russian history (no offense to my Russian friends.... Russia is also soulful and brilliant).
> "From each according..." is not a tenet shared by all socialists.
Yes, of course. Something that is shared by all socialists is redistribution. If you're not redistributing something, then you're doing nothing. To redistribute something, you must infringe upon the liberties of the individual for the sake of another or a group of others. The more you do this, the faster you accelerate the march toward totalitarianism.
For example, a minimal state that only provides a police force to enforce the laws and taxes individuals accordingly may take hundreds or even a thousand years to collapse into a totalitarian state. On the other hand, when you throw individual protections out the window, it may only take a few years. For example, contrary to popular belief, the period between the Russian revolution and Stalin's takeover was really interesting. It would take too long to go into it, but they tried some really exciting stuff and some of it worked. Unfortunately, when you discard individual liberty, it creates an opportunity for totalitarianism to step through the door.
In this context it is worth noting the history of socialism among the Mormons based on that scripture. These days it's hard to find a group as opposed to what we consider socialism now but that wasn't always the case. Starting in the 1830s (well before Marx became influential) the Mormons began various socialist operations among its members. There are notable differences to modern socialism that I don't have time to get into here but the similarities are striking. For more detail you can look up information on the "United Order" and "Law of Consecration" in relation to Mormons. Quick summary: Very hard to implement.
I think that there are still a lot of "socialist" (for the greater good payed for by tax/tithe) programs within the LDS church; it's the US Federal government into what they consider their own sort of promised land they don't like.
Like most successful industrial countries, they have a strong government that works closely with private industry and "the people", as opposed to the naive laissez faire beloved by neoliberals. Think Japan/ Germany -- STILL the industrial leaders of the world.
A friend of mine also said the LDS shifted to republicanism in the seventies because of sexual politics, not economic policy. The genius of Reagan and friends was to use conflicts inspired by seismic cultural shifts of the seventies to push through economic policies that benefit a fairly small minority of the US.
This highlights one of the two major problems I have with religion: altruism. (The other thing I don't accept is faith as a valid method of obtaining knowledge.)
In Atlas Shrugged, John Galt says, "I swear by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."
Edit: Why the downvotes? The parent post quoted the Bible, so why is it invalid for me to quote the second most popular book next to it?
Is Atlas Shrugged the second most popular book next to the bible? A cite would be cool. Also, nobody likes people like John Galt or those who try to follow him; some of us think that there is as much blind faith to strictly follow economists silly models as it does to follow any other religion.
I believe that claim is a reference to a 1991 survey conducted by the Library of Congress of 2,000 Book Of The Month readers, so take that as you will. Atlas Shrugged has sold around 7 million copies since it was published, which puts it at around half as many copies as The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy.
John Galt is a fictional character in Atlas Shrugged.
Rand's philosophy is not about economics - it's a complete system, with distinct metaphysical, epistemological and moral positions, all of which give rise to applications in politics, art, science and other fields of human endeavor. (Not unlike Aristotle.)
It isn't fair to critique a philosopher (or anybody) without reading them, but ... I just can't take Ayn Rand seriously. Like, at all. And to compare her to Aristotle seems laughable.
So you haven't read her, and you admit that you're acting unfairly?
How do you know that comparing her to Aristotle is laughable if you don't actually know what she said?
I recommend "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology" if you'd like to compare her epistemology with Aristotle's.
Edit: again, why the downvote? Yes, I know some people don't like Ayn Rand (and others adore her). But there's nothing in this message that warrants a downvote.
> Has it's origins in the Christian Bible - Acts 4:34-35.
If you're suggesting that we should accept something because it is in the Christian Bible, you're suggesting that we should accept anything in said bible. (Why? Because your argument for that thing applies to everything in said bible.) Moreover, surely you accept everything in said bible.
But it is somewhat amusing to me that some of the people who argue rabidly against socialism are proud of the fact that they do accept everything in the Bible.
One difference is that the sharing is opt-in. You don't have to give up all your stuff, just to be "in". When it's part of a government, it's not optional.
By the way, I didn't say Socialism wasn't defined. I clearly said the assumptions that he laid out were not defined. The larger ideas, like the goal of life. I don't think those concepts are addressed often, they are assumed. Meaning is more basic than truth.
It seems to me that pointing to Mondragon[1] and Semco is misleading, as neither are sovereign nations with all the pesky little details that entails. It's great that Mondragon is (per Wikipedia): "the seventh largest Spanish company in terms of turnover and the leading business group in the Basque Country", but there are lots of other variables at work in the Basque/greater Spain dynamic. Besides, anyone who has watched the economic news recently would realize that Spain is not exactly a shining model of economic prosperity.
As I see it, the fundamental flaw in socialism always boils down the facts that a) a great many people like power and won't willingly give it up, b) these are the people who historically wind up in control of political structures (including unions), and c) as Dame Thatcher observed, sooner or later you run out of other people's money.
Albert Einstein was certainly smart, but he did not live to see how socialism worked out.
Einstein lived long enough to see how Stalinism worked out; he outlived Stalin. On the other hand, by some definitions Norway is socialist and things seem to have worked out pretty good there.
This kind of discussion is pointless: everyone uses "socialism" to mean whatever they think it should mean and then argues. It's like a bunch of people getting together to play a game, except one is playing chess, one checkers, and someone else poker. Then they all get indignant and yell at each other, which I suppose is the real game.
By how much would the world supply of argumentation deflate if people paid attention to whether they were even talking about the same thing?
"everyone uses "socialism" to mean whatever they think it should mean and then argues"
The general idea of socialism is the forced redistribution of wealth or property, which pretty much doesn't change in all of the different versions of socialism.
I consider massive taxes to pay for government programs a form of socialism (taxes that go above and beyond the basic funding of a nation/country. IE: fire, police, roads, schools). As these taxes get bigger and bigger, the wealth distribution becomes equal and it starts to really become more of a communist system.
It seems to me that the people that don't want it called 'socialism' want to hide the fact that it's exactly that.
The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. - George Orwell, Politics and the English Language (http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm)
This should be posted at the top of every political discussion, in my humble opinion.
As someone earlier had pointed out, the totality of Socialism is not Marxist-Leninism. If you read the article, Einstein also warned that a planned economy did not preclude the enslavement of the individual.
Living is essentially a contradiction - each human being is an individual and as a creature of nature, possesses instincts which guards against others who seek to deprive him/her of his individuality and his chance to live. Yet he/she benefits from cooperating with others to achieve a greater goal larger than the sum of his/her parts.
This is a never ending struggle and it has dominated political discussion for twentieth century. It disappoints me that most people would take an extreme position - i.e. capitalism is good/evil or socialism is good/evil - leaves us no room to negotiate solutions which will work out for the individual and society.
Good points. I didn't really understand Einstein's points about the individual being so dependent on society, though. Therefore what? We shouldn't be so selfish? When I see government workers protesting cuts, while regular workers are losing their jobs quietly, and going back to work somewhere else, I think those protestors are selfish for thinking that their paycheck is a right - at my expense.
There are two other issues that I have with the piece:
Economic: what the owner sells is the not the product of labor, but rather the product of all inputs (investment) that went into the production of the good or service.
Historical: nuclear war (or WWIII) was not prevented by a supra-national organization, but rather the collapse of a (inneficiently) planned economy. But how could he see that coming?
I think this has to be the 10th time this article was posted on HN. Seems as if every college student discovers this paper and thinks they are the first one.
really?! I'm a 35 year-old physician with a degree in physics. I just heard about in a biography and looked it up and posted it. Do you think that we should resist citing interesting articles in absolute favor of novelty at all costs? Is every character worth the same? In that case, we should probably fire you and get someone cheaper.
Technological progress frequently results in more unemployment rather than in an easing of the burden of work for all. The profit motive, in conjunction with competition among capitalists, is responsible for an instability in the accumulation and utilization of capital which leads to increasingly severe depressions.
One of the promises of increased automation was supposed to be more leisure time for the individual. If Einstein is correct, and he may well be, then future economic restructurings may be far worse than than the one we are experiencing now.
Meh. There's no unique claims in this essay, and it really does not matter that Einstein wrote it, it still has a lot of erraneous assumptions about value creation.
First, socialism is defined as worker or public control of the means of production and distribution. This has been interpreted in both libertarian and authoritarian ways.
Second, if socialism is worker control, then it is fully compatible with free markets. Mondragon and Semco are both worker democracies, and operate successfully in the global market.
If socialism is public control, this does not equal totalitarianism. Social democracy is a form of democratic public control of resources.
I understand people's reasoning for preferring capitalism (ownership defined by contract) or socialism (ownership defined by use), and I respect that, but I would love to be able to have political discussions about these issues which take into account the complexity and diversity of these two very broad terms.