I Realized Why Socialism Doesn't Work

[Husseinisdoingfine]

The U.S. sort of resolved this market inequality issue in WW2 with the food ration card system.

[Staples]

@Danioover9000 No. What I was talking about has nothing to do with Marxism. It's a critique of liberalism.

[Israfil]

15 hours ago, Danioover9000 said:

 Do you have a link to that debate?

Keynes is an economist. His main work is The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, where he describes how those three things interacted and what promotes economic growth.

Austrian economics is the foundation of libertarian/minarchist/"anarcho-capitalist" ethics and economics. Their leading proponents are Mises, Hayek, Rothbard, and Hans Hermann Hoppe. They were very critical of Keynesian economics throughout their works.

There's a lot to read from these authors and their private property ethics have some extreme implications that would make a libertarian society really strange. Rothbard said, for example, that parents have no ethical obligation to feed their children. Some libertarians would be fine with debt slavery. 

[Recursoinominado]

23 hours ago, Danioover9000 said:

   Okay, can you explain to me why taxi drivers here earned way more than doctors, if the assumptions in Socialism that the mean salaries and earnings are similar compared to capitalism where the means are more wider and different? Why hasn't socio economic communism economics haven't worked here for Cuba and Venezuela?

Cuba in one word: EMBARGO.

The US would turn into Mad Max in one year with the embargos that it was imposed on Cuba.

And Venezuela isn't a socialist experience. 

[TheAlchemist]

Markets are not intelligent, and especially not wise unless they are properly balanced with regulation

Edited April 24, 2023 by TheAlchemist

[Danioover9000]

@Israfil

6 hours ago, Israfil said:

Keynes is an economist. His main work is The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, where he describes how those three things interacted and what promotes economic growth.

Austrian economics is the foundation of libertarian/minarchist/"anarcho-capitalist" ethics and economics. Their leading proponents are Mises, Hayek, Rothbard, and Hans Hermann Hoppe. They were very critical of Keynesian economics throughout their works.

There's a lot to read from these authors and their private property ethics have some extreme implications that would make a libertarian society really strange. Rothbard said, for example, that parents have no ethical obligation to feed their children. Some libertarians would be fine with debt slavery. 

   I'll research them in my spare time, but from what you've described, I'm already intuiting that Keynes's economic theory is more feasible than the Austrian economics. What I think needs to happen for Austrian economics to be a bit more feasible, is that there are ways of dealing with selfish self interested people, which entails some form of regulation by state and law enforcement and court systems in place. However, if they're of libertarian ideology, and libertarians value private property, increase of property rights of owners, deregulating government and state affairs, political, economics and markets, education, welfare state, hospitalization and medical policies, basically overall deregulation of societal factors, then Austrian economics seems like it's less realistic than Keynes's economic theory.

   Until they find a solution to deal with the deep selfishness per human being, based on SD stages of development, cognitive and moral development, personality types and traits, states of being, life experiences and other lines of development, from personal to societal, and other ideologies, and put in place systems and infrastructures, and figure out ways of mixing the two economic theories then it's promising.  

[Schizophonia]

True freedom is above all economic. This forum would probably not have existed in a communist state.

[thenondualtankie]

Quote

The key thing is markets. You cannot replace markets with a top-down centralized beauracracy. Markets are like gaint brains. They have a deep distributed intelligence which no small committee of beauracrats can replace. The economy is too complex to be governed by a handful of guys top-down. All the economic systems that failed were governed top-down, impinging on the intelligence of markets. No single human is as intelligent as the whole market.

As you've said yourself, as society develops, government needs to get bigger, regulations need to become more complex, etc. This is basically the gradual takeover of government over the entire economy. You say that the market is basically a giant brain which determines how to run the economy. I agree with that. But there will necessarily come a time where government itself has enough brain power of its own that surpasses that of the market. Hence the gradual increase in government involvement with market happens (partially) because of the gradual increase in brain power of the government.

This is a fundamental limitation of capitalism: it must resist this process as it depends on the markets to survive.

Chinese communism understands this. One of the reasons why I believe China has a socialist economy is that the only reason they have markets is that, at their level of development, markets benefit society. Once society reaches a point where markets are no longer beneficial, they will be phased out. Capitalism, on the other hand, keep markets because it benefits the capitalist class (as opposed to society; not saying these are mutually exclusive).

[integral]

On 4/22/2023 at 3:20 PM, eTorro said:

Hello.

People who have their own companies are highly motivated to do a great job. Their love for their business is Paramount, and the competition is always stimulating — you don't want your business to go bankrupt, so you strive to improve the value of your product(s).

On the other hand, if the state takes over, nothing works properly — those who run state companies can not do a great job; they only do what's required and they almost never come up with new, practical ideas.

This is one of my insights, but there are more — you can find out other reasons why socialism doesn't work.

Your thoughts?

Thats true, but i think this says more about a failed implementation and not socialism.

We need to motivate people to do the job and we do see this in Holacracy business structures. 

 

Edited April 24, 2023 by integral

[Israfil]

16 hours ago, Schizophonia said:

True freedom is above all economic. This forum would probably not have existed in a communist state.

What do you define as the economy?

[BlueOak]

One day every single observer here will realise they are cutting off their toe and wonder why we are still not walking right.

Every ism is needed in balance. Including the dreaded demon of them all socialism. The one everyone has made out to be the villain so they can maintain a separation of their ideology, and structure their own version of what is right or wrong.

[thenondualtankie]

What about every-ism-is-needed-in-balanceism?

[Israfil]

5 hours ago, thenondualtankie said:

What about every-ism-is-needed-in-balanceism?

Does it include the need for obsession and disregard for balance itself?

[vindicated erudite]

On 22/04/2023 at 8:20 PM, eTorro said:

Hello.

People who have their own companies are highly motivated to do a great job. Their love for their business is Paramount, and the competition is always stimulating — you don't want your business to go bankrupt, so you strive to improve the value of your product(s).

On the other hand, if the state takes over, nothing works properly — those who run state companies can not do a great job; they only do what's required and they almost never come up with new, practical ideas.

This is one of my insights, but there are more — you can find out other reasons why socialism doesn't work.

Your thoughts?

I disagree because very few people can own businesses since capitalism eventually leads to monopolies. The majority of people work for other businesses which is often soul destroying. 

Socialism means workplace democracy. You're still able to create new ideas in a social economy you just can't horde the profits of that idea. Public services in most countries run on a model of neoliberalism which is capitalist and thus is the reason why they can be inefficent.

[SeaMonster]

On 4/24/2023 at 11:19 AM, Recursoinominado said:

Cuba in one word: EMBARGO.

The US would turn into Mad Max in one year with the embargos that it was imposed on Cuba.

And Venezuela isn't a socialist experience. 

Not really. Countries like Sweden and India were more socialist in the 1970s, and became less socialist because it wasn't working well.

The US could give a shit about embargoes; it produces its own oil and food.  The problem with socialism is that it destroys the pricing mechanism in the economy (since the government wants complete control over prices.)  This automatically means a black market, which simply pushes "capitalism" underground.

This was the story in the Soviet Union.  

Socialism forces the normal person to become a criminal just to have a normal life.

[SeaMonster]

On 4/26/2023 at 0:29 PM, vindicated erudite said:

Socialism means workplace democracy. You're still able to create new ideas in a social economy you just can't horde the profits of that idea.

That doesn't make any sense. It's like saying you can have all the sex you want, there just aren't any women for you to have sex with.  It destroys the incentive for any innovation.

[SeaMonster]

On 4/25/2023 at 2:29 PM, BlueOak said:

Every ism is needed in balance. Including the dreaded demon of them all socialism.

That's nonsense.  People confuse regulated capitalism or capitalism with a welfare state with socialism.

Socialism is simply massive government control over economic activity which creates black market capitalism.

Edited May 14, 2023 by SeaMonster

[Recursoinominado]

1 hour ago, SeaMonster said:

Not really. Countries like Sweden and India were more socialist in the 1970s, and became less socialist because it wasn't working well.

None of those were ever socialist. Not even close. Not even todey, Sweden doesn't have "socialistic tendencies", it is a capitalist state with a big well fair state that only works because of very specific historical and geographical context. 

Quote

The US could give a shit about embargoes; it produces its own oil and food. 

LOL

That's why the US is interfering in every fucking country and marked in the world for more than a century?

Wars are fight for Oil control outside the US, not because this is fun, but because it is essential.

If that ALONE would somehow stop, the US would collapse very quickly.

Embargos affect EVERYTHING, including technology exchange.

ALL socialist experiences suffered huge embargos from birth, including the Soviet Union.

China survived because it has LEVARAGE.

HUGE population = huge market.

Most megacorporations depends on China to produce its products like Apple.

It made itself essential to most of the world, including the US so the US has to tolerate it.

If China were to cut all relations with the US and its corporations, what a disaster to the US it would be...

[Recursoinominado]

1 hour ago, SeaMonster said:

Socialism is simply massive government control over economic activity which creates black market capitalism.

Black market exists in every market, stop this non-sense.

[vindicated erudite]

On 14/05/2023 at 1:32 PM, SeaMonster said:

That doesn't make any sense. It's like saying you can have all the sex you want, there just aren't any women for you to have sex with.  It destroys the incentive for any innovation.

Think about all the people who are stuck in a dead end job because they wanted to a painter or a musician or an engineer but where too poor to afford the education to achieve it - that is a problem that doesn't happen in a socialist system because everyone has an equal opportunity to achieve their dreams.

Also money isn't everything. People achieve goals because it provides them with satisfaction, purpose, helps their community. It's neoliberal brainwashing to think that life has no meaning if you're not working for a wage.