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It's that plus the corrupt totalitarian government. A free market country with a moderately corrupt govt can work, a mostly socialist country with a good govt c

by Asooka 9y ago

It's that plus the corrupt totalitarian government. A free market country with a moderately corrupt govt can work, a mostly socialist country with a good govt can work, but when you put the management of the entire country exclusively into the hands of crooks, this happens. Socialism mainly fails because it requires a totalitarian government to pull off in its fullest form (everything managed by the state).

ameister14 9y ago
I don't think that's entirely it - Socialism fails because we're not post-scarcity.
- adventured 9y ago
  If we were post-scarcity (in the sense it's commonly meant) it would still fail, because no two desires are the same (either in actual shape/scale or desired implementation). What you want, versus what I want, will never be the same and in most cases it won't be even remotely close to the same. That's true about life ambitions and it's true about basic material desires. You'd have to reach a state in which all people can have all/any things at all/any times. It's an impossible condition. Humanity's desire for things is unlimited (as witnessed by the last 5,000 years of development). Conceptually if Joe's neighbor has seven boats, Joe is going to want 10 boats. That's human nature and it can't be smashed out of humanity with force and or mental conditioning. Then what? It requires infinite materialism. And that's to say nothing of the basic human desire to be different (frequently via material objects), to want to stand-out, to be unique, to own unique things, to have a unique expression, that by itself destroys the post-scarcity premise (ie there are many other factors that confound systems like Communism beyond base materialist scarcity questions). That aspect is as old as humanity, is represented even in most primitive tribal systems and it perpetually clashes with Communism's collectivist ethos (which you routinely would see in the rebellions against Communist rule in the 20th century). The sole means for it to work, is to convert humanity into something else.
Yetanfou 9y ago
State socialism - the precursor to communism according to Marx/Lenin/Engels - does not just 'need' a totalitarian government, it also needs automatons instead of evolved primates to be implemented successfully. While 'by each according to their means, to each according to their needs' may sound fine it only works in the confines of the circle of personal acquaintances - from family to small-scale collective. Large (state) scale socialism inevitably fails because it has its feedback loops twisted: it rewards slacking and punishes those who go the extra mile. As long as the providers have social control over the consumers this can be worked around but this fails on a larger scale.
- Yetanfou 9y ago
  Douglas Murray wrote an article on the subject of the mysterious glamour which socialism and communism manage to retain, even though these doctrines have been at the base of several of the largest-scale massacres in the history of the world. Venezuela is mentioned a few times but he focuses on the apparent resurge of openly socialist and communist politicians in 'the west': http://www.nationalreview.com/article/453223/russian-revolution-100-years-its-enduring-allure-menace http://www.nationalreview.com/article/453223/russian-revolut...

by Asooka 9y ago

ameister14 9y ago

I don't think that's entirely it - Socialism fails because we're not post-scarcity.

adventured 9y ago
If we were post-scarcity (in the sense it's commonly meant) it would still fail, because no two desires are the same (either in actual shape/scale or desired implementation). What you want, versus what I want, will never be the same and in most cases it won't be even remotely close to the same. That's true about life ambitions and it's true about basic material desires. You'd have to reach a state in which all people can have all/any things at all/any times. It's an impossible condition. Humanity's desire for things is unlimited (as witnessed by the last 5,000 years of development). Conceptually if Joe's neighbor has seven boats, Joe is going to want 10 boats. That's human nature and it can't be smashed out of humanity with force and or mental conditioning. Then what? It requires infinite materialism. And that's to say nothing of the basic human desire to be different (frequently via material objects), to want to stand-out, to be unique, to own unique things, to have a unique expression, that by itself destroys the post-scarcity premise (ie there are many other factors that confound systems like Communism beyond base materialist scarcity questions). That aspect is as old as humanity, is represented even in most primitive tribal systems and it perpetually clashes with Communism's collectivist ethos (which you routinely would see in the rebellions against Communist rule in the 20th century). The sole means for it to work, is to convert humanity into something else.

Yetanfou 9y ago

State socialism - the precursor to communism according to Marx/Lenin/Engels - does not just 'need' a totalitarian government, it also needs automatons instead of evolved primates to be implemented successfully. While 'by each according to their means, to each according to their needs' may sound fine it only works in the confines of the circle of personal acquaintances - from family to small-scale collective. Large (state) scale socialism inevitably fails because it has its feedback loops twisted: it rewards slacking and punishes those who go the extra mile. As long as the providers have social control over the consumers this can be worked around but this fails on a larger scale.

Yetanfou 9y ago
Douglas Murray wrote an article on the subject of the mysterious glamour which socialism and communism manage to retain, even though these doctrines have been at the base of several of the largest-scale massacres in the history of the world. Venezuela is mentioned a few times but he focuses on the apparent resurge of openly socialist and communist politicians in 'the west': http://www.nationalreview.com/article/453223/russian-revolution-100-years-its-enduring-allure-menace http://www.nationalreview.com/article/453223/russian-revolut...