3 ms·

There is socialism in the U.S. too. If you work for the government in some capacity you are participating in the socialist side of our nation in practice. IMO t

by asdff 4y ago

There is socialism in the U.S. too. If you work for the government in some capacity you are participating in the socialist side of our nation in practice. IMO the US military especially is a model of what a fully socialist US would look like, if it were allowed to scale to all sectors. WWII with the socialist centrally planned economy was an interesting case study for the U.S.; it showed how this manner of socialism can reorient an otherwise depressed labor economy into the dominant world power in a few short years.

wrycoder 4y ago
It works well, when all the other world economies have been devastated by war. The US government/military control in WWII was essentially totalitarian, with rationing and price controls.
- asdff 4y ago
  We went from 25% unemployment in the great depression to less than 2% unemployment during WWII. I'd say that was a remarkable economic recovery by any measure, and it amounted to offering government jobs to people. It would be interesting to imagine an alternate history where that historically massive labor effort went to infrastructure building rather than infrastructure destruction, however.
xmcqdpt2 4y ago
This is also true in the private sector. While large firms compete with each other, the internal organization of corporations is a lot closer to a centrally planned economy. You request what you need from the central authority and you get allocated resources on the basis of calculations and needs. You don't usually (in most firms that are halfway decent places to work) compete with other departments but work towards a common goal (improved earnings). This is/was a subject of debate amongst economists actually, at least the very pro free-market ones: If market economies are better than centrally planned ones, why aren't firms with internal markets crushing the other, internally "socialist" ones? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nature_of_the_Firm https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nature_of_the_Firm The orthodox answer is that market systems have higher transaction costs so for things you have to do very often (paying a salary) it's burdensome to use a market and easier to have long, somewhat undefined contracts.
- asdff 4y ago
  Maybe we should be using a market system for our monthly salaries and a contract system for our weekly groceries to undue some of the burden the status quo saddles upon us?
bart_spoon 4y ago
How is that any different than “central planning”?
Manuel_D 4y ago
The military relies on goods and services supplied by private companies, selected through competitions based on performance and cost. This is a lot more capitalist than socialist. Even during WWII, wartime production still went through private companies, not central planning. Just because the government is the exclusive customer of a product (e.g. tanks, bombers) doesn't make an economy socialist when these products are still being built by private enterprises.
- asdff 4y ago
  I wonder when the contract system really emerged. WWII struck me more as the government coming into these centers of production, which at the time might be auto factories, and mandating that there would be no more fords during the war years and instead p51 mustangs, versus ford retooling as a business decision to serve this newfound customer. The government also rationed remaining cars to people depending on things like their occupation and its value having a car would be to the social system, and the state of their existing car. That's a little different than how it works today, and I often think that today its a bit inefficient too. For example, Lockheed and Raytheon could be competing for the exact same contract. I'd expect they aren't privy to share technological secrets between eachother's engineering teams, just for the sake of beating the other to the contract. In the end you have engineers working competitively instead of collaboratively, information gets siloed, and novel findings that might have been happen with more sharing of information never see the light of day. Maybe it's different though, and the government enforces a degree of collaboration, I hope.
  - Manuel_D 4y ago
    Contract systems emerged well before WWII, before industrialized society, even. When some knight needed a new spear he hired a local blacksmith. Centrally operated foundries specifically producing arms were quite rare, usually a feature only in large empires with professional militaries. Rationing necessarily implies that there is a market economy to regulate: the whole reason why the government had to limit the production of civilian vehicles is because the wartime economy was still a market economy. Ford, GMC, etc. were still private companies at the end of the day, participating in a market economy. Rationing made it more attractive to cater to military acquisitions. Different companies working competitively has consistently proven to put outcompete and surpass centrally planned economies. Lockheed Martin and Raytheon continue to export way more arms than most other companies, competition may mean information gets siloed but evidently it gets results.

by asdff 4y ago

wrycoder 4y ago

It works well, when all the other world economies have been devastated by war. The US government/military control in WWII was essentially totalitarian, with rationing and price controls.

asdff 4y ago
We went from 25% unemployment in the great depression to less than 2% unemployment during WWII. I'd say that was a remarkable economic recovery by any measure, and it amounted to offering government jobs to people. It would be interesting to imagine an alternate history where that historically massive labor effort went to infrastructure building rather than infrastructure destruction, however.

xmcqdpt2 4y ago

This is also true in the private sector. While large firms compete with each other, the internal organization of corporations is a lot closer to a centrally planned economy. You request what you need from the central authority and you get allocated resources on the basis of calculations and needs. You don't usually (in most firms that are halfway decent places to work) compete with other departments but work towards a common goal (improved earnings). This is/was a subject of debate amongst economists actually, at least the very pro free-market ones: If market economies are better than centrally planned ones, why aren't firms with internal markets crushing the other, internally "socialist" ones? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nature_of_the_Firm https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nature_of_the_Firm The orthodox answer is that market systems have higher transaction costs so for things you have to do very often (paying a salary) it's burdensome to use a market and easier to have long, somewhat undefined contracts.

asdff 4y ago
Maybe we should be using a market system for our monthly salaries and a contract system for our weekly groceries to undue some of the burden the status quo saddles upon us?

bart_spoon 4y ago

How is that any different than “central planning”?

Manuel_D 4y ago

The military relies on goods and services supplied by private companies, selected through competitions based on performance and cost. This is a lot more capitalist than socialist. Even during WWII, wartime production still went through private companies, not central planning. Just because the government is the exclusive customer of a product (e.g. tanks, bombers) doesn't make an economy socialist when these products are still being built by private enterprises.

asdff 4y ago
I wonder when the contract system really emerged. WWII struck me more as the government coming into these centers of production, which at the time might be auto factories, and mandating that there would be no more fords during the war years and instead p51 mustangs, versus ford retooling as a business decision to serve this newfound customer. The government also rationed remaining cars to people depending on things like their occupation and its value having a car would be to the social system, and the state of their existing car. That's a little different than how it works today, and I often think that today its a bit inefficient too. For example, Lockheed and Raytheon could be competing for the exact same contract. I'd expect they aren't privy to share technological secrets between eachother's engineering teams, just for the sake of beating the other to the contract. In the end you have engineers working competitively instead of collaboratively, information gets siloed, and novel findings that might have been happen with more sharing of information never see the light of day. Maybe it's different though, and the government enforces a degree of collaboration, I hope.
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  Contract systems emerged well before WWII, before industrialized society, even. When some knight needed a new spear he hired a local blacksmith. Centrally operated foundries specifically producing arms were quite rare, usually a feature only in large empires with professional militaries. Rationing necessarily implies that there is a market economy to regulate: the whole reason why the government had to limit the production of civilian vehicles is because the wartime economy was still a market economy. Ford, GMC, etc. were still private companies at the end of the day, participating in a market economy. Rationing made it more attractive to cater to military acquisitions. Different companies working competitively has consistently proven to put outcompete and surpass centrally planned economies. Lockheed Martin and Raytheon continue to export way more arms than most other companies, competition may mean information gets siloed but evidently it gets results.