41 ms·

Why Socialism? (1949)

270 points by celtoid 3y ago

8bitsrule 3y ago
My favorite sentence in his article still rings completely right-on: "the ends themselves are conceived by personalities with lofty ethical ideals and—if these ends are not stillborn, but vital and vigorous—are adopted and carried forward by those many human beings who, half unconsciously, determine the slow evolution of society." Half unconsciously: Explains a lot. You've got your Joseph II's and you've got your Suhartos.
hirundo 3y ago
> I recently discussed with an intelligent and well-disposed man the threat of another war, which in my opinion would seriously endanger the existence of mankind, and I remarked that only a supra-national organization would offer protection from that danger. I believe that this is fundamentally the same opinion that Oppenheimer held, that resulted in the establishment seeing him as an enemy and a threat. I would like to resurrect these two gentlemen, bring them up to date on the history of the United Nations, and ask them if their opinions have altered.
- mitthrowaway2 3y ago
  This was also published before the Soviet nuclear bomb test, when the US had a nuclear monopoly and when Curtis LeMay was boasting about using it to win WW3.
  - pphysch 3y ago
    It was also published when USA was de facto more "socialist" than it had ever been (FDR admin/1950s).
- LanceH 3y ago
  One can just take a look at the UN's Human Rights Council for the potential that a supranational government has.
- john019 3y ago
  [flagged]
- LordDragonfang 3y ago
  Your comment seems to imply that you think the UN has failed as a solution to what they fear: a war which escalates into an existential threat. Considering no such war has materialized, I'd say they would only feel more justified in their opinions.
- brigadier132 3y ago
  Oppenheimer was naive bordering on stupidity. He advocated against nuclear weapon detection systems. Somehow the foremost expert on nuclear weapons believed these detection systems would not work but some random amateur physicist that happened to be head of the NEC was right in that they would. This was also how we learned that the Soviets had a bomb. Oppenheimer advocated for cooperation amongst nations in nuclear weapons and guess what, the Soviets rejected it. Von Neumann was right about everything and him having personally experienced Soviet brutality didn't have the luxury of being ignorant of reality.
  - consilient 3y ago
    > him having personally experienced Soviet brutality didn't have the luxury of being ignorant of reality. Allied troops didn't reach Hungary until 1944, and the Soviet-backed coup occurred in 1947. von Neumann moved to Germany in 1926, and to the US in 1933. > Von Neumann was right about everything He wanted the US to start WWIII with a nuclear first strike on the Soviet Union.
    - brigadier132 3y ago
      > and the Soviet-backed coup occurred in 1947. von Neumann moved to Germany in 1926, and to the US in 1933. He personally experienced communism. > He wanted the US to start WWIII with a nuclear first strike on the Soviet Union. If we look at the past 100 years of Soviet existence what can we say has happened? The spread of soviet arms across all of the world, hundreds of millions dead from famine, war between Russia and Ukraine today. What is the alternate history where the US does invade the Soviet Union? Also given we are talking about the smartest person from the 20th century, I'm going to guess his logic when coming to the conclusion of first strike was sound.
    - everybodyknows 3y ago
      > He wanted the US to start WWIII with a nuclear first strike on the Soviet Union. Source?
      - 3y ago
- beebmam 3y ago
  The UN's biggest flaw is the security council veto power.
  - nordsieck 3y ago
    > The UN's biggest flaw is the security council veto power. 100% the opposite. The UN doesn't have any power to do anything that its members don't want to do. Because there's no enforcement mechanism except military action. And no one is going to use military force to enforce anything against a nuclear power. Which means that, in order for the UN to function, it needs to keep countries willing to participate. And the security council veto is a pragmatic means to that end.
  - pphysch 3y ago
    Why?
  - pydry 3y ago
    The UN without SC veto is basically just a rehash of the league of nations.
- tcmart14 3y ago
  I think it depends on how you explain the history and structure of the UN. One one hand, eh, maybe the UN was just enough for the US and USSR to hold off launching nukes. On the other hand, they may look at the structure with the US and USSR/Russia being permanent security council members (or the idea of permanent members in general) self defeating since we are often opposed and the UN can't really do much without the sign off from the Security Council. So they may say, the UN isn't an argument against because the UN is badly structured designed to not have any real teeth in the first place.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > the UN can't really do much without the sign off from the Security Council. Yes, it can; it has deployed peacekeeping missions without Security Council signoff (UNEF I), by the UNGA after France and the UK vetoed action in the UNSC, it adopted broad sanctions against South Africa, through the UNGA, after a triple veto by the US, UK. and France. The UNGA has taken various action, including expelling Russia from the Human Rights Council, in respect to the Russo-Ukrainian war in a process starting with a Russian Security Council veto. The common underlying factor in all of these is the UNGA “Uniting for Peace” resolution pit forward by the US during the Korean War because, while dodged initially in that situation because of the Soviet boycott of the UN over other issues, the problem with letting the Security Council veto be the end of the story was made very clear in that context.
    - tcmart14 3y ago
      I'll amend my statement then. The UN has no teeth against big players. The UN has done some things, but they tend to be with smaller nations without as much clout on the world stage. The UN, still has yet to really wrangle in the major powers on the world stage. The UN wasn't really effective in preventing US wars in the middle east (Afghanistan and Iraq), isn't really effective in the currently unresolved situation in Ukraine, nor is it effective in wrangling in China's territorial claims or their tensions with Taiwan. The US refuses to allow the UN's International Criminal Court to oversee war crimes committed by US troops, as I suspect the same is true for Russia. Or has it been effective in negotiation in the Israel-Palestine relationship. Nor, as a guess, will the UN do anything mention-able in easing China-US relations. It would be better to say, mutually assured destruction has probably done more to wrangle in world powers than the UN has. And the UN's structure is such that it ultimately will never really be able to reign in world powers.
celtoid 3y ago
This observation seems to hold true no matter the time or place: "Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights."
- WalterBright 3y ago
  Government control of the main sources of information hasn't worked out very well.
  - hotpotamus 3y ago
    I'm rather a fan of the BBC and not aware of anything particularly equivalent to it in the US. I have certainly seen the immense degradation that private ownership has had on the half century journalistic career of my mother however - she's extremely skilled as a reporter, but is basically reduced to a few soundbites between songs and commercials and a few weekend shows that I suspect are to fulfill an FCC mandate.
    - hackererror404 3y ago
      Isn't PBS/NPR sort of close to the BBC?
LordDragonfang 3y ago
This article has had substantial previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1182518 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1182518 (2010) (66 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2315391 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2315391 (2011) (45 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4653939 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4653939 (2012) (19 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21384600 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21384600 (2019) (28 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30676628 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30676628 (2022) (19 comments)
- dang 3y ago
  Thanks! Macroexpanded: Why Socialism? Albert Einstein (1949) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30676628 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30676628 - March 2022 (16 comments) Why Socialism? Albert Einstein (1949) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21384600 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21384600 - Oct 2019 (27 comments) “Why Socialism?" by Albert Einstein (1949) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21187870 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21187870 - Oct 2019 (1 comment) Einstein: Why Socialism? (1949) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8745873 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8745873 - Dec 2014 (12 comments) Einstein: "Why Socialism?" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4653939 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4653939 - Oct 2012 (19 comments) Albert Einstein: Why Socialism? (1949) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2315391 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2315391 - March 2011 (44 comments) Albert Einstein: Why Socialism? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1182518 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1182518 - March 2010 (66 comments)
kyleyeats 3y ago
Human social structures concentrate power, not capitalism. It's all still there under socialism.
- brigadier132 3y ago
  Exactly, the same power hungry people will play the game under the rules of any system.
  - alwayslikethis 3y ago
    Moreover, capitalism is the least game-able of all systems, because it presumes that everyone is trying to game it. In practice there will be some structural inefficiencies and failures, but at least it starts from somewhere that is difficult to game.
    - BoiledCabbage 3y ago
      No capitalism in itself is not the least game-able. It entirely depends on what flavor of it is in discussion. Free-market capitalism is inherently power centralizing. As a result, you need to ensure government is enforcing market competition. Every actor is looking for a way to avoid market competition. Every time you hear a company discuss building a moat, that is a company that doesn't want to compete in a market and is actively working against the benefits of capitalism. Every time you see a monopoly, it is again a marketplace working against the benefits of capitalism (i.e. market competition). At all times the government must strongly and actively maintain market competition or capitalism simply eats itself.
      - fsckboy 3y ago
        > Free-market capitalism is inherently power centralizing I understand the argument you're making, but I don't think these are the words to use to do it, makes it more confusing, and you're glossing over some thorny issues. One could just as easily and more accurately say "power is inherently power centralizing". I assume you are equating "free-markets" with "laissez-faire" markets which I don't think is accurate, else why would we separate the two concepts? Better to use the term "perfect market capitalism" (essentially markets where no player has the power to affect prices) and then specify market imperfections and failures as the cause of "inherent flaws" and worthy of regulation. markets don't eat themselves, participants with power eat them. But we also need to understand the difficulty of regulation. Keeping this brief thru a lot of hand waving and overgeneralization, Microsoft monopolized the personal computer market in the 1990's, and made buckets of money doing it, but they were not able to then leverage that into enduring monopolies in (the internet and) cell phones and cloud services, which together supplanted the personal computer as "what was popular" for personal information and communication. Would an evolving government regulatory regime applied to Microsoft have been able to create a better outcome in the same time frame without stifling industry than did what Schumpeter called the "creative destruction" of progress through free market forces? (yes I could word that more and better, but I want to hit reply and be done, so hopefully my point is not lost.) When you talk about "free markets" failing, you feed the idea that socialism is a good idea, which is a serious baby/bathwater problem. Better that people learn more about perfect markets.
jmyeet 3y ago
The Red Scare did such massive damage to the working class in the United States. McCarthyism, the Cuban Missile Crisis (which the US precipitated with MRBMs stationed in Turkey) and of course Ronald Reagan, who spent $3T+ of the Social Security surplus on military build-up. Remember that whenever anyone talks about Social Security going bankrupt and also why SS is even taxed. Fun fact: Abraham Lincoln was essentially a Marxist too [1]: > Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Of course Americans don't know what socialism is because of this history but the more disturbing part is most Americans don't even know what capitalism is yet defend it anyway. Capitalism is the exploitation of surplus labor value to the hands of the very few, the capital-owning class. It's not markets. Markets occur in every economic system. It's not "free" (no such thing) markets. It's simply the system of exploitation. We've replaced the monarchs of feudalism with oligarchs. That's all. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Organized_Labour/Featured_Quote/9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Organized_Labour/Featur...
- brigadier132 3y ago
  The lesson of the last 100 years was not that a Soviet aligned system was superior.
  - pphysch 3y ago
    Where did the parent comment make that claim? It's possible for both USSR to be bad and totalitarian reactions to it (Red Scare) to be bad.
  - dancemethis 3y ago
    Thank the reds we're not all forced to speak German.
    - PM_me_your_math 3y ago
      Think of the context. WW2 was absolutely a team effort.
wernercd 3y ago
"Since the real purpose of socialism is precisely to overcome and advance beyond the predatory phase of human development" That assumes that "socialists" are really trying to do this and not simply 1) jealous of those with more and 2) simply trying to replace who's in power - with them at the helm. Why socialism? 70+ years ago? why not. Today? why not socialism? 100+ years of history of the abject failures on every level of every promise and the hell on earth socialism creates. For every promise of moving past the "predatory phase of humanity" that socialism makes... it breaks and does so in worse ways than capitalism. Imperfect capitalism has proven better than imperfect socialism at every level of analysis. IE, from the article: "Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands" Inequality exists with capitalists? Guess what? No socialism structure shows that inequality ends with socialism - the inequality remains. But... we can watch someone like Bernie talk about how evil capitalism is as he flys between his 3 houses, with all his super cars and buy seats to his shows and all his books. You can read all about it and talk about it on your iPhone at Starbucks drinking a latte.
- m0ped 3y ago
  You think Bernie Sanders has a Ferrari or something? Edit: Multiple supercars? really?
  - 1970-01-01 3y ago
    Bernie drives a Chevy Aveo. https://www.wcax.com/content/news/Sen-Bernie-Sanders-car-nearly-towed-511224982.html https://www.wcax.com/content/news/Sen-Bernie-Sanders-car-nea...
  - wernercd 3y ago
    I may be wrong about his car (I read previously that he had multiple sports cars - sorry, not "super" cars). He still has multiple homes and will sell you tickets to dinners and books to tell you how bad capitalism is. And even if I happen to be wrong about the cars... he still has multiple cars, multiple houses and has the balls to talk about inequality. Never forget that Bernie hated "millionaires" until he became one... then MAGICALLY his tune changed to hate "the rich" even though by every metric he's in the top %'s and has done so by... using capitalism to sell the lies of socialism/communism. Bernie is the epitome of socialist: Hypocrite that doesn't follow his own religious preaching because he's one the elite who think's he's better than "evil capitalists". When Bernie voluntarily gives his millions to the IRS to redistribute to the poor? Then we'll move past my mistake about how fancy his car(s) are. because at the end of the day he talks the talk but doesn't walk the walk. He's a walking banner of inequality that doesn't follow the rules he preaches. The mark of the truly religious - both on him for being a hypocrite... and his faithful for ignoring his hypocrisy and "sins".
LordDragonfang 3y ago
I'd like to highlight one of the previous comments on this article: >Here's some important things to think about: >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. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2315657 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2315657
- FireInsight 3y ago
  I live in an european country with a large social democratic party and it's not socialism, it's a vaguely leftist liberal welfare state party. Democratic socialism can be considered socialism, though, but nothing a single party (which gets around 8% of the vote here) can do to create a socialist state. "democratic public control of resources" is a nebuluos definitiob, and the meaning of regular non-"democratic" socialism or communism can be interpreted as such. Usually the adjective considers more the means and not the ends, (democratic, revolutionary, but sometimes the ends too as in libertarian, authoritarian).
PrimeMcFly 3y ago
It's continually amazing to me that more than 100 years after Marx and Engels wrote their papers on Socialism and Capitalism, people can't see past much more than those choices. Which seems to be very much a false dichotomy. We have so much more, significantly more data and analytical and modeling capability, and no alternative proposals are taken seriously? It's not like they don't exist, they just never make it as part of the conversation. It's almost religious with which people limit themselves to the most known options and ignore any alternatives.
- hx8 3y ago
  Would you care to showcase some of your favorite alternatives?
  - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
    Not really, I don't have time for a debate on the pros and cons of each which is what providing some examples would lead to, nor do I have them handy at the moment. I was just making a point which I think stands firm without providing an example set of alternatives.
- imtringued 3y ago
  They exist but Marxists and faux Marxists are very militaristic and don't want anything that threatens their monopoly even if it has a chance of working, worse, if it works then it makes them look stupid (barking up the wrong tree). This here is the go to book I recommend: https://www.dieter-suhr.info/files/luxe/Downloads/Suhr_Structure-of-Money.pdf https://www.dieter-suhr.info/files/luxe/Downloads/Suhr_Struc...
  - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
    Interesting link/book - thanks!
- bonyen 3y ago
  Indeed, we have significantly more data. However, it seems that we have significantly less _truth_ than at any point in my lifetime, at least. "Data" evokes images of objective, agenda-less sensors just sitting there, measuring, and passing on what was measured. But in reality, there is a substantial human element in capturing and recording "data" (e.g. SF crime statistics). I'm not saying other options can't work. I am saying data is overrated in our current, heavily-divided and politicized, world.
hx8 3y ago
Einstein talks of a planned economy towards the end. It's easy to see how someone in 1949 might think it's a good idea, but in 2023 the idea seems antiquated. All of the major economies are largely not planned. Now I wonder if the idea of a planned economy was just tried too early. Was it missing the quantized world we live in now, with increases in information processing and communication? Is there an AI advancement in our near future that can outperform the free economy?
- legitster 3y ago
  It's a good reminder that at this time, the purpose of planned economies and Communism specifically was to make everyone collectively richer. Everyone kind of assumed that competition was destructive and a bad thing. Marx wrote about it, progressives believed it (which is why Americans begrudgingly put up with trusts and monopolies for long periods), and you can see it here in Einstein's writing. Only in hindsight looking at the failure of Communism do we frame it as "choice vs equality". There's a good semi-fictionalized book about how this framing changed called "Red Plenty".
  - mik1998 3y ago
    That's plain false. The entire point of Marx is that capital is what creates massive productive forces.
- sdfghswe 3y ago
  > Was it missing the quantized world we live in now, with increases in information processing and communication? Is there an AI advancement in our near future that can outperform the free economy? Einstein would tell you that we should be quantizing less, not more! :-) No, it's not just a matter of quantifying more. The hard part of planning an economy is less "if I gather all the data in the world then planning an economy just becomes an optimization problem" and more "the biggest components in planning an economy is that A) how much individuals "need" of something depends on how painful it is for them to get it, and B) the individuals themselves wouldn't be able to tell you what this relationship is". The best known way for you to get feedback on how much someone wants something is putting it out there and see how much they'll pay for it.
adasdasdas 3y ago
Can we stop rehashing arguments for planned economies; they are terrible because they ignore the million micro signals that drive the economic engine. Instead they over and under produce just about everything because the central planners have an impossible job. Furthermore, older socialist theories still operate under the assumption that production is the biggest economy, rather than service. You can't translate the theories since the value add of service economies are rarely bound by the "means of production"(factories) and the labor value add fluctuates wildly with skill which breaks any sense of worker solidarity.
- PartiallyTyped 3y ago
  One can argue that all those infinitesimal signals are akin to brownian motion, if so, who better to talk about it than the man himself?
  - PartiallyTyped 3y ago
    [flagged]
- ecshafer 3y ago
  Socialism isn’t a planned economy. That was one attempt, the Marx-Leninist attempt in the USSR, at socialism. Socialism is the fundamental reordering of society to benefit the lowest wrung. You can have socialism with markers still, which is what is done in syndicalist style socialism. You can have limited social programs as a form of socialism as per social democrats. Or you can have more extreme radical direct democracy. There are thousands of ways to implement socialism, not all of them are the same.
  - remarkEon 3y ago
    You can’t reorder society to benefit the “lowest wrung[sic]” without planning at least some extent of the economy through directed means. Yes yes, there’s a bunch of variations of this but they’re just window dressing for the underlying ideology, usually to make it more palatable for the less bureaucratically natured among us.
1970-01-01 3y ago
As to socialism, unless it is international to the extent of producing a World Government which controls all military power, it might more easily lead to wars than does capitalism, because it represents a still greater concentration of power. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/11/einstein-on-the-atomic-bomb/656626/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/11/einstei... https://archive.ph/5mXgz https://archive.ph/5mXgz
- mushbino 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - dingnuts 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - tap-snap-or-nap 3y ago
    Perhaps one should also consider that many significant socialists were killed by other socialists. I am not saying this to defend capitalism or its order, however socialist organisations did not have an international standards that can prevent such calamities nor could they prevent the conflict socialist institutions may have with the workers councils.
legitster 3y ago
> Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet socialism. A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual. The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralization of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured? It's a pretty well written piece. I think people from all perspectives should take careful note of what he is actually advocating: discussing and figuring out the mechanisms of what a modern society should like rather than blindly following an agenda. That said, this is a 70+ year old article, based on ideas and problems at the time. Capitalism will make people stop working and be less productive? If anything we worry about the opposite problem. College will only be a means to a career? Today academia is powerful and a political force unto itself. And we have so many welfare programs and safety nets and worker protects than Einstein was even able to dream about in 1949. In a way, we are living in a world he was advocating for. If it was written today, I have no doubt Einstein would still care about inequality and education and politics and common "workers" enjoying life. But I also don't think I would see him caring as much about Marxism and the labor theory of value specifically as a mechanism for understanding it anymore.
- hattmall 3y ago
  College has become mostly just that, a means to a career. It's even begun to wear that out and at higher levels become a means to a career in Academia. That's ultimately the beginnings of a massive ponzi scheme, it is now considerably detached from pure pursuits of knowledge, it's now become cannibalized for pursuits of funding.
  - legitster 3y ago
    This is kind of my point. In 1949 when Einstein wrote this, the US state colleges were little more than vocational schools. He was advocating for a world ruled by academic achievement, kind of unaware of the brave new reality it would come with.
  - 3y ago
1letterunixname 3y ago
See also: https://www.democracyatwork.info https://www.democracyatwork.info
intalentive 3y ago
>The essential point about this process is the relation between what the worker produces and what he is paid, both measured in terms of real value. Einstein of all people should understand that “real value” is relative to one’s reference frame.
- orthecreedence 3y ago
  Value is a negotiation between cost and desire. Communists want to know the actual cost to make something. Prices erase this data.
  - nwah1 3y ago
    Prices sometimes erase that data, when neoclassical economic rents are high. Which can be because the thing in question is just an item of speculative value, or it could be because of market asymmetries. Otherwise, in a free market with many buyers and sellers, the economic profit of a given commodity will tend towards zero. And that means that it offers a very close approximation of the minimum possible incentive for people to produce that commodity. And incenting people to undertake the production process is part of the true cost of production, as all other forms of human effort and risk-taking are.
    - orthecreedence 3y ago
      If we're just talking about prices as a singular aggregate number, then they erase vast amounts of data, whether they converge on cost or not. What it took to produce something isn't 34 currency. It took 2 hours of labor mill worker time, 3 hours of truck driver time, 6kg lumber, 6 minutes of oil refining, 3L diesel fuel, etc etc etc. Those are actual costs...and even those are still aggregate, but as separate buckets at least. The beauty of information like this is you can price things at PoS based on known information...how harmful are fossil fuels when used at-scale in production? Very? Ok, create a democratically-imposed pigouvian tax on them. Try doing that in a state where people have to claw over each other's backs just to make ends meet and the government is in the pocket of the oil industry. But yeah, if you just want to know what something costs in currency, then yes, I agree that price converges over time to cost in competitive markets. This is exactly what Marx argued, yet everyone screams about him being wrong for some reason. It's one thing he got right.
testfoobar 3y ago
[flagged]
- hnarn 3y ago
  Is this supposed to be profound? It is literally devoid of any argument and is functionally equivalent of saying ”people in ideological group X are so dumb they don’t even understand their own ideology lol”. You could re-use it for any ideology, religion or conviction and it’s equally intellectually vapid for each.
  - testfoobar 3y ago
    It is an observation that well established, non controversial, principles of economics such as the effects of price controls are still challenged by socialists. Are socialists ignorant of economics or something else? Example #1: Rent control. Why do socialists continue to demand rent control? Promoting better, cheaper and abundant housing for everyone is an excellent cause. It is critical to understand exactly how to achieve that outcome. Econ 101 classes all over the world teach the basics of supply, demand and pricing. These are well understood concepts that anyone involved in public policy should master. Paul Krugman is as liberal as they come and a Nobel prize winner in economics. This is what he had to say about rent control in NYT: "The analysis of rent control is among the best-understood issues in all of economics, and -- among economists, anyway -- one of the least controversial. In 1992 a poll of the American Economic Association found 93 percent of its members agreeing that ''a ceiling on rents reduces the quality and quantity of housing.'' Almost every freshman-level textbook contains a case study on rent control, using its known adverse side effects to illustrate the principles of supply and demand. Sky-high rents on uncontrolled apartments, because desperate renters have nowhere to go -- and the absence of new apartment construction, despite those high rents, because landlords fear that controls will be extended? Predictable. Bitter relations between tenants and landlords, with an arms race between ever-more ingenious strategies to force tenants out -- what yesterday's article oddly described as ''free-market horror stories'' -- and constantly proliferating regulations designed to block those strategies? Predictable."
  - topaz0 3y ago
pjlegato 3y ago
[flagged]
dist-epoch 3y ago
True communism was never tried.
- hnarn 3y ago
  But no true Scotsman…
- slothtrop 3y ago
  Speaking of Communism "the goal" (classless, stateless ) vs "the philosophy", then that's a nonsensical statement. What preceded in Russia and China was precisely meant to advance Communism. Trivially evident by answering the question: how does one "try" Communism? You have few choices: State Socialism, or anarchism, by way of vote or revolution. That has definitely been tried, with catastrophic results.
- vore 3y ago
  The article is talking about socialism. It does everyone a disservice to come in here, blur the lines, and post a trite self-satisfied comment like this.
- mythrwy 3y ago
  That might be true. Ever wonder why?
gorenb 3y ago
I’ve visited this site so many times before. I’m going to be frank with you. I’m not anti-socialist (I’m literally a communist myself) but I still believe that this off-topic, as this may not be the place for partisan economic discussion.
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FrustratedMonky 3y ago
The reason Socialism, Communism, Anarchy et.al. will never happen. Is because the Human Species naturally groups towards Autocratic Structures. The Human Natural State is Autocratic. Wealth and Power accumulate to the few, whether in a Socialist Government, or a Corporation. We can't handle Democracy. And Free Market Economy is just a myth that is maintained for Corporations to maintain their power and convince people they are free. Current Socialist programs are supported by the Rich. They are actually providing 'just enough' help to maintain the population above the subsistence level below which they will carry out a violent revolution.
WBrentWilliams 3y ago
I find socialism amusing. It is best, I think, to consider socialism as a critique of capitalism. My working thesis is that capitalism is unavoidable. Markets do not solve every problem, but they solve many. The fact that socialism creates anger among many capitalists is, in fact, a point in favor of socialism as a critique: The anger wouldn't be there if the critique had no merit. It is silly to attempt to achieve socialism. Better to use it as a gauge. Otherwise, it ceases to be a good measure and critique. Is the current system everything it could be? If not, then how could it be better and at what cost? This is like asking if a Market accounts for all costs. If it does not, that is, if a Market creates externalities, then it is time to consider, argue over, and politically implement alternatives.
- thescriptkiddie 3y ago
  Socialism doesn't mean no markets. In fact, no attempt at building socialism so far has ever done away with markets.
  - WBrentWilliams 3y ago
    I had to re-check what I said. I said alternatives to markets that create externalities. These are, in fact, markets. They just don't dump costs off the books. That said, I agree. No "socialist" economic system has been able to not have markets. This is exactly my point: trying to implement a "pure" form of "socialism" is a foolish game. Much like trying to implement a "pure" form of "capitalism" is a foolish game. Much better, to keep torturing metaphors, to allow iron to sharpen iron. The best outcome is achieved, I think, by allowing the debate to endlessly continue.
    - jancsika 3y ago
      Unfortunately for you, we live in the world where "socialist" anything is the work of evildoers in the minds of many older Americans. So you're going to have to choose a different word if you want to be not only understood but also to avoid reflexive contrarianism. May I suggest "Overton window?" It's scientistic enough that you could overload it to your use of "socialist" here. E.g., "We need to shift the Overton window to include C suite diversification." You won't get instead comprehension. But you'll at least get heads nodding instead of old grumps yelling their fears at you.
Deprogrammer9 3y ago
No system will last forever, especially capitalism. Money is debt & debt is money.
zackmorris 3y ago
The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor—not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules. In this respect, it is important to realize that the means of production—that is to say, the entire productive capacity that is needed for producing consumer goods as well as additional capital goods—may legally be, and for the most part are, the private property of individuals. This resonates for me in middle age, after rarely having more than $2000 free and clear despite a lifetime of hard work. I've lived movies like Pursuit of Happyness and In Time, but without the financial epifany. All I do is work. If capitalism worked, then prices would get lower over time with increased per capita productivity. We got a brief taste of that for the last time in the late 1990s, but most people stopped getting raises after that, and now duopolies provide nearly all name-brand goods and services. As it stands now, it's pretty much over. I don't think anyone seriously thinks that homes, vehicles, food etc will ever decrease in price now. We can generally agree on the causes being stuff like regulatory capture and not enforcing antitrust laws. But those aren't root causes. The real problem is power imbalance from wealth inequality. To address that directly, we could either provide more wealth to the working class via UBI or redistribute wealth from the owner class via taxation. Note that neither of those have been tried at a national level in anyone under 50's lifetime. Which means that the national debt was planned. It represents the share of wealth transferred to the owner class, skimmed from the working class as a result of trickle-down economics. The next 2-3 US elections are going to be really important though. Young people have a chance to democratically vote to substantially raise taxes on corporations and billionaires. This won't be so much anti-capitalist as trans-capitalist. I say that because socialism and communism require a roughly 6 hour workday to provide enough labor for the system. But the median value of labor will never rise again, because of AI and automation. Meaning that work hours will increase as pay decreases. Which is self-evidently unsustainable. Which means that the traditional alternatives to capitalism will most likely not be viable, but will still be used as straw men against the political left by politicians to lure in low-information voters. I believe that we passed the tipping point around the time of Bush v. Gore in 2000, when we were set to widely roll out renewable energy and electric cars, but chose not to (see Who Killed the Electric Car). Instead we invaded the Middle East at the behest of the owner class to protect established industries around fossil fuels. We're only achieving some semblance of self-sufficiency 20 years later despite capitalism, not because of it. Admittedly, I don't have much faith in the political system to correct itself. So I sympathize with the political right's sentiment that government bad. But the government is We the People in the US, so that's like saying people bad. Which is othering and division. As we grapple with the actual truth of our struggle and stop blaming victims for our collective plight, I have faith that we'll solve these problems, perhaps summarily. Until then, I'm manifesting a more independent/off-grid lifestyle in an attempt to provide resources that capitalism has so far failed to provide me beyond a subsistence level. The proof of everything I'm saying is in the failure of any billionaire to challenge the status quo in a material way. They claim that their money is tied up in stock and they pay themselves a trifle. Yet we watched as Musk made $44 billion liquid to buy Twitter. Their FUD should be a rudder for the rest of us towards real answers and strategy. Now I go back to my toil, hoping to win the internet lottery but knowing deep down that real work is in service to others. My separation from the real contributions to society that I would have made by following my heart is like being poor twice.
solatic 3y ago
> A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. Sometimes, the needs of the community are such that the work to fulfill those needs is distasteful to most people. Until such time as such jobs can genuinely be completely roboticized, to whom should janitorial work be distributed? Garbage collection? Plumbing out backed-up toilets? Going out in the freezing cold to plow snow from the roads? Does anyone seriously believe that such work would be happily accepted full-time by anyone over, say, an office job, because why, they'll be socially celebrated for it? Or that it would be politically tenable to draft the wealthy and middle-class to occasionally take shifts for these jobs, as if they were a new kind of jury duty? This is not a serious suggestion.
- fallingknife 3y ago
  The "we'll divide the work. You be labor, I'll be management" problem.
  - lost_tourist 3y ago
    Same problem as communism, no? "We'll need a preemptive stage where we have a few guys, "the party", calling all the shots for the entire population, but once we get things straightened out we'll return the power to the worker, pinky swear"
    - FireInsight 3y ago
      Unless you go to explicitly authoritatian circles most communists (atleast the western ones I interact with) are explicitly against so-called Vanguard parties. A hypothetical communist revolution can be a slow transition without needing an authoritarian party to rule foe the course of it. Autocrats don't really want to give up their power.
    - JuanPosadas 3y ago
      Another 30 years of wage stagnation, rising income inequality, and shared prosperity running on empty and the average Joe will be willing to give much shadier characters than "the party" a try.
dahwolf 3y ago
It seems most -isms inevitably leads to the superficially similar situation of a tiny elite either having total power or owning (almost) all resources, and thus power. Most would still prefer capitalism as at least it offers more personal freedoms and a chance of upward mobility. I think the recent rise of anti-capitalism gets it wrong. Capitalism within the context of a nation can be made to work in a way that whilst imperfect has a reasonable balance. It is specifically global capitalism (globalization) that is the problem. It allows for corporate super structures where workers nor governments have any leverage. Worker's rights cannot be defended so it's a race to the bottom. De-industrialization has hollowed out the middle class. Corporations pay little to no taxes. The triangle of government, business and worker that would ordinarily come to some kind of workable balance is gone. It's a never-ending stretch in one direction only: business. Similarly, global capitalism allows corporations to hide all their dirty externalities. Dumping toxic trash in other countries, sweatshops, wrecking the environment, you just place that shit out of sight. You would have considerable more outrage if a company would do that in their home country, close to their customer base. I'll end with the uncomfortable truth that the above has led to the stagnation of the West and various global problems. At the same time it has significantly uplifted the general wealth of many developing nations.
tap-snap-or-nap 3y ago
I wonder how many people here have genuinely read and comprehended the works of Marx. While he remains a controversial figure, his theories offer valuable insights into the complexities of capitalism and socialism. Marx provided a framework for understanding how the capitalist system operates and how it creates class contradictions through components like rent, interest, and profit. These ideas continue to be relevant today, especially in identifying and addressing the societal issues caused by large banks, major corporations, and big landlords, which collectively place burdens on us all.
hyperthesis 3y ago
\devil's advocate Why should we take political advice from theoretical physicists? Is it any better than from actors?
MagaMuffin 3y ago
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ArandomAccount2 3y ago
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maybenotmart 3y ago
[flagged]
wellanyway 3y ago
For the umphteenth time. Go, be a socialist. Africa is waiting. 99.9% of people visiting this website is orders of magnitude more wealthy than average african citizen. Eat the rich? You people are the rich. Set an example. Lead the way. Be the first communist to actually practice what they preach.
tim333 3y ago
>I am convinced there is only one way ... a socialist economy... In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. There you have the problem. Things are controlled by 'society itself' and practical decisions such as who to hire to do what for how much have to be made by humans and we end up with iffy corruptish politicians doing that. Maybe a way forward would be to have an AI make the decisions. At least that could be open source and non corrupt. I'd vote to give that a try providing you could vote it out again if it screws up.
ajuc 3y ago
Socialism is like LISP - at this point most languages adopted the best parts, and the remaining ones come with serious disadvantages. USA could really use some more socialism tho.
ppipada 3y ago
Maybe one of the fundamental differences between a socialist and a capitalist lies in their degree of optimism about human altruism. Socialists tend to be optimistic and believe that humans have the capacity to care for one another and collectively contribute to societal well-being. Capitalists may be more skeptical of human nature, leaning on the idea that self-interest drives societal progress. They often argue that individuals are most motivated to contribute when they stand to personally benefit. The article does shed a good light on humans relationship to the society it leans on and is hopeful of the possibility of a human system that can rely on a army of collective-good workers. May be some day we will see such a system that doesnt discount the inherent competitiveness and survival bias of a individual.

270 points by celtoid 3y ago

My favorite sentence in his article still rings completely right-on: "the ends themselves are conceived by personalities with lofty ethical ideals and—if these ends are not stillborn, but vital and vigorous—are adopted and carried forward by those many human beings who, half unconsciously, determine the slow evolution of society." Half unconsciously: Explains a lot. You've got your Joseph II's and you've got your Suhartos.

hirundo 3y ago

> I recently discussed with an intelligent and well-disposed man the threat of another war, which in my opinion would seriously endanger the existence of mankind, and I remarked that only a supra-national organization would offer protection from that danger. I believe that this is fundamentally the same opinion that Oppenheimer held, that resulted in the establishment seeing him as an enemy and a threat. I would like to resurrect these two gentlemen, bring them up to date on the history of the United Nations, and ask them if their opinions have altered.

mitthrowaway2 3y ago
This was also published before the Soviet nuclear bomb test, when the US had a nuclear monopoly and when Curtis LeMay was boasting about using it to win WW3.
- pphysch 3y ago
  It was also published when USA was de facto more "socialist" than it had ever been (FDR admin/1950s).
LanceH 3y ago
One can just take a look at the UN's Human Rights Council for the potential that a supranational government has.
john019 3y ago
[flagged]
LordDragonfang 3y ago
Your comment seems to imply that you think the UN has failed as a solution to what they fear: a war which escalates into an existential threat. Considering no such war has materialized, I'd say they would only feel more justified in their opinions.
brigadier132 3y ago
Oppenheimer was naive bordering on stupidity. He advocated against nuclear weapon detection systems. Somehow the foremost expert on nuclear weapons believed these detection systems would not work but some random amateur physicist that happened to be head of the NEC was right in that they would. This was also how we learned that the Soviets had a bomb. Oppenheimer advocated for cooperation amongst nations in nuclear weapons and guess what, the Soviets rejected it. Von Neumann was right about everything and him having personally experienced Soviet brutality didn't have the luxury of being ignorant of reality.
- consilient 3y ago
  > him having personally experienced Soviet brutality didn't have the luxury of being ignorant of reality. Allied troops didn't reach Hungary until 1944, and the Soviet-backed coup occurred in 1947. von Neumann moved to Germany in 1926, and to the US in 1933. > Von Neumann was right about everything He wanted the US to start WWIII with a nuclear first strike on the Soviet Union.
  - brigadier132 3y ago
    > and the Soviet-backed coup occurred in 1947. von Neumann moved to Germany in 1926, and to the US in 1933. He personally experienced communism. > He wanted the US to start WWIII with a nuclear first strike on the Soviet Union. If we look at the past 100 years of Soviet existence what can we say has happened? The spread of soviet arms across all of the world, hundreds of millions dead from famine, war between Russia and Ukraine today. What is the alternate history where the US does invade the Soviet Union? Also given we are talking about the smartest person from the 20th century, I'm going to guess his logic when coming to the conclusion of first strike was sound.
  - everybodyknows 3y ago
    > He wanted the US to start WWIII with a nuclear first strike on the Soviet Union. Source?
    - 3y ago
beebmam 3y ago
The UN's biggest flaw is the security council veto power.
- nordsieck 3y ago
  > The UN's biggest flaw is the security council veto power. 100% the opposite. The UN doesn't have any power to do anything that its members don't want to do. Because there's no enforcement mechanism except military action. And no one is going to use military force to enforce anything against a nuclear power. Which means that, in order for the UN to function, it needs to keep countries willing to participate. And the security council veto is a pragmatic means to that end.
- pphysch 3y ago
  Why?
- pydry 3y ago
  The UN without SC veto is basically just a rehash of the league of nations.
tcmart14 3y ago
I think it depends on how you explain the history and structure of the UN. One one hand, eh, maybe the UN was just enough for the US and USSR to hold off launching nukes. On the other hand, they may look at the structure with the US and USSR/Russia being permanent security council members (or the idea of permanent members in general) self defeating since we are often opposed and the UN can't really do much without the sign off from the Security Council. So they may say, the UN isn't an argument against because the UN is badly structured designed to not have any real teeth in the first place.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > the UN can't really do much without the sign off from the Security Council. Yes, it can; it has deployed peacekeeping missions without Security Council signoff (UNEF I), by the UNGA after France and the UK vetoed action in the UNSC, it adopted broad sanctions against South Africa, through the UNGA, after a triple veto by the US, UK. and France. The UNGA has taken various action, including expelling Russia from the Human Rights Council, in respect to the Russo-Ukrainian war in a process starting with a Russian Security Council veto. The common underlying factor in all of these is the UNGA “Uniting for Peace” resolution pit forward by the US during the Korean War because, while dodged initially in that situation because of the Soviet boycott of the UN over other issues, the problem with letting the Security Council veto be the end of the story was made very clear in that context.
  - tcmart14 3y ago
    I'll amend my statement then. The UN has no teeth against big players. The UN has done some things, but they tend to be with smaller nations without as much clout on the world stage. The UN, still has yet to really wrangle in the major powers on the world stage. The UN wasn't really effective in preventing US wars in the middle east (Afghanistan and Iraq), isn't really effective in the currently unresolved situation in Ukraine, nor is it effective in wrangling in China's territorial claims or their tensions with Taiwan. The US refuses to allow the UN's International Criminal Court to oversee war crimes committed by US troops, as I suspect the same is true for Russia. Or has it been effective in negotiation in the Israel-Palestine relationship. Nor, as a guess, will the UN do anything mention-able in easing China-US relations. It would be better to say, mutually assured destruction has probably done more to wrangle in world powers than the UN has. And the UN's structure is such that it ultimately will never really be able to reign in world powers.

celtoid 3y ago

This observation seems to hold true no matter the time or place: "Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights."

WalterBright 3y ago
Government control of the main sources of information hasn't worked out very well.
- hotpotamus 3y ago
  I'm rather a fan of the BBC and not aware of anything particularly equivalent to it in the US. I have certainly seen the immense degradation that private ownership has had on the half century journalistic career of my mother however - she's extremely skilled as a reporter, but is basically reduced to a few soundbites between songs and commercials and a few weekend shows that I suspect are to fulfill an FCC mandate.
  - hackererror404 3y ago
    Isn't PBS/NPR sort of close to the BBC?

LordDragonfang 3y ago

This article has had substantial previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1182518 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1182518 (2010) (66 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2315391 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2315391 (2011) (45 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4653939 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4653939 (2012) (19 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21384600 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21384600 (2019) (28 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30676628 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30676628 (2022) (19 comments)

dang 3y ago
Thanks! Macroexpanded: Why Socialism? Albert Einstein (1949) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30676628 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30676628 - March 2022 (16 comments) Why Socialism? Albert Einstein (1949) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21384600 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21384600 - Oct 2019 (27 comments) “Why Socialism?" by Albert Einstein (1949) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21187870 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21187870 - Oct 2019 (1 comment) Einstein: Why Socialism? (1949) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8745873 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8745873 - Dec 2014 (12 comments) Einstein: "Why Socialism?" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4653939 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4653939 - Oct 2012 (19 comments) Albert Einstein: Why Socialism? (1949) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2315391 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2315391 - March 2011 (44 comments) Albert Einstein: Why Socialism? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1182518 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1182518 - March 2010 (66 comments)

kyleyeats 3y ago

Human social structures concentrate power, not capitalism. It's all still there under socialism.

brigadier132 3y ago
Exactly, the same power hungry people will play the game under the rules of any system.
- alwayslikethis 3y ago
  Moreover, capitalism is the least game-able of all systems, because it presumes that everyone is trying to game it. In practice there will be some structural inefficiencies and failures, but at least it starts from somewhere that is difficult to game.
  - BoiledCabbage 3y ago
    No capitalism in itself is not the least game-able. It entirely depends on what flavor of it is in discussion. Free-market capitalism is inherently power centralizing. As a result, you need to ensure government is enforcing market competition. Every actor is looking for a way to avoid market competition. Every time you hear a company discuss building a moat, that is a company that doesn't want to compete in a market and is actively working against the benefits of capitalism. Every time you see a monopoly, it is again a marketplace working against the benefits of capitalism (i.e. market competition). At all times the government must strongly and actively maintain market competition or capitalism simply eats itself.
    - fsckboy 3y ago
      > Free-market capitalism is inherently power centralizing I understand the argument you're making, but I don't think these are the words to use to do it, makes it more confusing, and you're glossing over some thorny issues. One could just as easily and more accurately say "power is inherently power centralizing". I assume you are equating "free-markets" with "laissez-faire" markets which I don't think is accurate, else why would we separate the two concepts? Better to use the term "perfect market capitalism" (essentially markets where no player has the power to affect prices) and then specify market imperfections and failures as the cause of "inherent flaws" and worthy of regulation. markets don't eat themselves, participants with power eat them. But we also need to understand the difficulty of regulation. Keeping this brief thru a lot of hand waving and overgeneralization, Microsoft monopolized the personal computer market in the 1990's, and made buckets of money doing it, but they were not able to then leverage that into enduring monopolies in (the internet and) cell phones and cloud services, which together supplanted the personal computer as "what was popular" for personal information and communication. Would an evolving government regulatory regime applied to Microsoft have been able to create a better outcome in the same time frame without stifling industry than did what Schumpeter called the "creative destruction" of progress through free market forces? (yes I could word that more and better, but I want to hit reply and be done, so hopefully my point is not lost.) When you talk about "free markets" failing, you feed the idea that socialism is a good idea, which is a serious baby/bathwater problem. Better that people learn more about perfect markets.

jmyeet 3y ago

The Red Scare did such massive damage to the working class in the United States. McCarthyism, the Cuban Missile Crisis (which the US precipitated with MRBMs stationed in Turkey) and of course Ronald Reagan, who spent $3T+ of the Social Security surplus on military build-up. Remember that whenever anyone talks about Social Security going bankrupt and also why SS is even taxed. Fun fact: Abraham Lincoln was essentially a Marxist too [1]: > Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Of course Americans don't know what socialism is because of this history but the more disturbing part is most Americans don't even know what capitalism is yet defend it anyway. Capitalism is the exploitation of surplus labor value to the hands of the very few, the capital-owning class. It's not markets. Markets occur in every economic system. It's not "free" (no such thing) markets. It's simply the system of exploitation. We've replaced the monarchs of feudalism with oligarchs. That's all. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Organized_Labour/Featured_Quote/9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Organized_Labour/Featur...

brigadier132 3y ago
The lesson of the last 100 years was not that a Soviet aligned system was superior.
- pphysch 3y ago
  Where did the parent comment make that claim? It's possible for both USSR to be bad and totalitarian reactions to it (Red Scare) to be bad.
- dancemethis 3y ago
  Thank the reds we're not all forced to speak German.
  - PM_me_your_math 3y ago
    Think of the context. WW2 was absolutely a team effort.

wernercd 3y ago

"Since the real purpose of socialism is precisely to overcome and advance beyond the predatory phase of human development" That assumes that "socialists" are really trying to do this and not simply 1) jealous of those with more and 2) simply trying to replace who's in power - with them at the helm. Why socialism? 70+ years ago? why not. Today? why not socialism? 100+ years of history of the abject failures on every level of every promise and the hell on earth socialism creates. For every promise of moving past the "predatory phase of humanity" that socialism makes... it breaks and does so in worse ways than capitalism. Imperfect capitalism has proven better than imperfect socialism at every level of analysis. IE, from the article: "Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands" Inequality exists with capitalists? Guess what? No socialism structure shows that inequality ends with socialism - the inequality remains. But... we can watch someone like Bernie talk about how evil capitalism is as he flys between his 3 houses, with all his super cars and buy seats to his shows and all his books. You can read all about it and talk about it on your iPhone at Starbucks drinking a latte.

m0ped 3y ago
You think Bernie Sanders has a Ferrari or something? Edit: Multiple supercars? really?
- 1970-01-01 3y ago
  Bernie drives a Chevy Aveo. https://www.wcax.com/content/news/Sen-Bernie-Sanders-car-nearly-towed-511224982.html https://www.wcax.com/content/news/Sen-Bernie-Sanders-car-nea...
- wernercd 3y ago
  I may be wrong about his car (I read previously that he had multiple sports cars - sorry, not "super" cars). He still has multiple homes and will sell you tickets to dinners and books to tell you how bad capitalism is. And even if I happen to be wrong about the cars... he still has multiple cars, multiple houses and has the balls to talk about inequality. Never forget that Bernie hated "millionaires" until he became one... then MAGICALLY his tune changed to hate "the rich" even though by every metric he's in the top %'s and has done so by... using capitalism to sell the lies of socialism/communism. Bernie is the epitome of socialist: Hypocrite that doesn't follow his own religious preaching because he's one the elite who think's he's better than "evil capitalists". When Bernie voluntarily gives his millions to the IRS to redistribute to the poor? Then we'll move past my mistake about how fancy his car(s) are. because at the end of the day he talks the talk but doesn't walk the walk. He's a walking banner of inequality that doesn't follow the rules he preaches. The mark of the truly religious - both on him for being a hypocrite... and his faithful for ignoring his hypocrisy and "sins".

LordDragonfang 3y ago

I'd like to highlight one of the previous comments on this article: >Here's some important things to think about: >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. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2315657 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2315657

FireInsight 3y ago
I live in an european country with a large social democratic party and it's not socialism, it's a vaguely leftist liberal welfare state party. Democratic socialism can be considered socialism, though, but nothing a single party (which gets around 8% of the vote here) can do to create a socialist state. "democratic public control of resources" is a nebuluos definitiob, and the meaning of regular non-"democratic" socialism or communism can be interpreted as such. Usually the adjective considers more the means and not the ends, (democratic, revolutionary, but sometimes the ends too as in libertarian, authoritarian).

PrimeMcFly 3y ago

It's continually amazing to me that more than 100 years after Marx and Engels wrote their papers on Socialism and Capitalism, people can't see past much more than those choices. Which seems to be very much a false dichotomy. We have so much more, significantly more data and analytical and modeling capability, and no alternative proposals are taken seriously? It's not like they don't exist, they just never make it as part of the conversation. It's almost religious with which people limit themselves to the most known options and ignore any alternatives.

hx8 3y ago
Would you care to showcase some of your favorite alternatives?
- PrimeMcFly 3y ago
  Not really, I don't have time for a debate on the pros and cons of each which is what providing some examples would lead to, nor do I have them handy at the moment. I was just making a point which I think stands firm without providing an example set of alternatives.
imtringued 3y ago
They exist but Marxists and faux Marxists are very militaristic and don't want anything that threatens their monopoly even if it has a chance of working, worse, if it works then it makes them look stupid (barking up the wrong tree). This here is the go to book I recommend: https://www.dieter-suhr.info/files/luxe/Downloads/Suhr_Structure-of-Money.pdf https://www.dieter-suhr.info/files/luxe/Downloads/Suhr_Struc...
- PrimeMcFly 3y ago
  Interesting link/book - thanks!
bonyen 3y ago
Indeed, we have significantly more data. However, it seems that we have significantly less _truth_ than at any point in my lifetime, at least. "Data" evokes images of objective, agenda-less sensors just sitting there, measuring, and passing on what was measured. But in reality, there is a substantial human element in capturing and recording "data" (e.g. SF crime statistics). I'm not saying other options can't work. I am saying data is overrated in our current, heavily-divided and politicized, world.

hx8 3y ago

Einstein talks of a planned economy towards the end. It's easy to see how someone in 1949 might think it's a good idea, but in 2023 the idea seems antiquated. All of the major economies are largely not planned. Now I wonder if the idea of a planned economy was just tried too early. Was it missing the quantized world we live in now, with increases in information processing and communication? Is there an AI advancement in our near future that can outperform the free economy?

legitster 3y ago
It's a good reminder that at this time, the purpose of planned economies and Communism specifically was to make everyone collectively richer. Everyone kind of assumed that competition was destructive and a bad thing. Marx wrote about it, progressives believed it (which is why Americans begrudgingly put up with trusts and monopolies for long periods), and you can see it here in Einstein's writing. Only in hindsight looking at the failure of Communism do we frame it as "choice vs equality". There's a good semi-fictionalized book about how this framing changed called "Red Plenty".
- mik1998 3y ago
  That's plain false. The entire point of Marx is that capital is what creates massive productive forces.
sdfghswe 3y ago
> Was it missing the quantized world we live in now, with increases in information processing and communication? Is there an AI advancement in our near future that can outperform the free economy? Einstein would tell you that we should be quantizing less, not more! :-) No, it's not just a matter of quantifying more. The hard part of planning an economy is less "if I gather all the data in the world then planning an economy just becomes an optimization problem" and more "the biggest components in planning an economy is that A) how much individuals "need" of something depends on how painful it is for them to get it, and B) the individuals themselves wouldn't be able to tell you what this relationship is". The best known way for you to get feedback on how much someone wants something is putting it out there and see how much they'll pay for it.

adasdasdas 3y ago

Can we stop rehashing arguments for planned economies; they are terrible because they ignore the million micro signals that drive the economic engine. Instead they over and under produce just about everything because the central planners have an impossible job. Furthermore, older socialist theories still operate under the assumption that production is the biggest economy, rather than service. You can't translate the theories since the value add of service economies are rarely bound by the "means of production"(factories) and the labor value add fluctuates wildly with skill which breaks any sense of worker solidarity.

PartiallyTyped 3y ago
One can argue that all those infinitesimal signals are akin to brownian motion, if so, who better to talk about it than the man himself?
- PartiallyTyped 3y ago
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ecshafer 3y ago
Socialism isn’t a planned economy. That was one attempt, the Marx-Leninist attempt in the USSR, at socialism. Socialism is the fundamental reordering of society to benefit the lowest wrung. You can have socialism with markers still, which is what is done in syndicalist style socialism. You can have limited social programs as a form of socialism as per social democrats. Or you can have more extreme radical direct democracy. There are thousands of ways to implement socialism, not all of them are the same.
- remarkEon 3y ago
  You can’t reorder society to benefit the “lowest wrung[sic]” without planning at least some extent of the economy through directed means. Yes yes, there’s a bunch of variations of this but they’re just window dressing for the underlying ideology, usually to make it more palatable for the less bureaucratically natured among us.

1970-01-01 3y ago

As to socialism, unless it is international to the extent of producing a World Government which controls all military power, it might more easily lead to wars than does capitalism, because it represents a still greater concentration of power. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/11/einstein-on-the-atomic-bomb/656626/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/11/einstei... https://archive.ph/5mXgz https://archive.ph/5mXgz

mushbino 3y ago
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- dingnuts 3y ago
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- tap-snap-or-nap 3y ago
  Perhaps one should also consider that many significant socialists were killed by other socialists. I am not saying this to defend capitalism or its order, however socialist organisations did not have an international standards that can prevent such calamities nor could they prevent the conflict socialist institutions may have with the workers councils.

legitster 3y ago

> Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet socialism. A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual. The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralization of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured? It's a pretty well written piece. I think people from all perspectives should take careful note of what he is actually advocating: discussing and figuring out the mechanisms of what a modern society should like rather than blindly following an agenda. That said, this is a 70+ year old article, based on ideas and problems at the time. Capitalism will make people stop working and be less productive? If anything we worry about the opposite problem. College will only be a means to a career? Today academia is powerful and a political force unto itself. And we have so many welfare programs and safety nets and worker protects than Einstein was even able to dream about in 1949. In a way, we are living in a world he was advocating for. If it was written today, I have no doubt Einstein would still care about inequality and education and politics and common "workers" enjoying life. But I also don't think I would see him caring as much about Marxism and the labor theory of value specifically as a mechanism for understanding it anymore.

hattmall 3y ago
College has become mostly just that, a means to a career. It's even begun to wear that out and at higher levels become a means to a career in Academia. That's ultimately the beginnings of a massive ponzi scheme, it is now considerably detached from pure pursuits of knowledge, it's now become cannibalized for pursuits of funding.
- legitster 3y ago
  This is kind of my point. In 1949 when Einstein wrote this, the US state colleges were little more than vocational schools. He was advocating for a world ruled by academic achievement, kind of unaware of the brave new reality it would come with.
- 3y ago

1letterunixname 3y ago

See also: https://www.democracyatwork.info https://www.democracyatwork.info

intalentive 3y ago

>The essential point about this process is the relation between what the worker produces and what he is paid, both measured in terms of real value. Einstein of all people should understand that “real value” is relative to one’s reference frame.

orthecreedence 3y ago
Value is a negotiation between cost and desire. Communists want to know the actual cost to make something. Prices erase this data.
- nwah1 3y ago
  Prices sometimes erase that data, when neoclassical economic rents are high. Which can be because the thing in question is just an item of speculative value, or it could be because of market asymmetries. Otherwise, in a free market with many buyers and sellers, the economic profit of a given commodity will tend towards zero. And that means that it offers a very close approximation of the minimum possible incentive for people to produce that commodity. And incenting people to undertake the production process is part of the true cost of production, as all other forms of human effort and risk-taking are.
  - orthecreedence 3y ago
    If we're just talking about prices as a singular aggregate number, then they erase vast amounts of data, whether they converge on cost or not. What it took to produce something isn't 34 currency. It took 2 hours of labor mill worker time, 3 hours of truck driver time, 6kg lumber, 6 minutes of oil refining, 3L diesel fuel, etc etc etc. Those are actual costs...and even those are still aggregate, but as separate buckets at least. The beauty of information like this is you can price things at PoS based on known information...how harmful are fossil fuels when used at-scale in production? Very? Ok, create a democratically-imposed pigouvian tax on them. Try doing that in a state where people have to claw over each other's backs just to make ends meet and the government is in the pocket of the oil industry. But yeah, if you just want to know what something costs in currency, then yes, I agree that price converges over time to cost in competitive markets. This is exactly what Marx argued, yet everyone screams about him being wrong for some reason. It's one thing he got right.

testfoobar 3y ago

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hnarn 3y ago
Is this supposed to be profound? It is literally devoid of any argument and is functionally equivalent of saying ”people in ideological group X are so dumb they don’t even understand their own ideology lol”. You could re-use it for any ideology, religion or conviction and it’s equally intellectually vapid for each.
- testfoobar 3y ago
  It is an observation that well established, non controversial, principles of economics such as the effects of price controls are still challenged by socialists. Are socialists ignorant of economics or something else? Example #1: Rent control. Why do socialists continue to demand rent control? Promoting better, cheaper and abundant housing for everyone is an excellent cause. It is critical to understand exactly how to achieve that outcome. Econ 101 classes all over the world teach the basics of supply, demand and pricing. These are well understood concepts that anyone involved in public policy should master. Paul Krugman is as liberal as they come and a Nobel prize winner in economics. This is what he had to say about rent control in NYT: "The analysis of rent control is among the best-understood issues in all of economics, and -- among economists, anyway -- one of the least controversial. In 1992 a poll of the American Economic Association found 93 percent of its members agreeing that ''a ceiling on rents reduces the quality and quantity of housing.'' Almost every freshman-level textbook contains a case study on rent control, using its known adverse side effects to illustrate the principles of supply and demand. Sky-high rents on uncontrolled apartments, because desperate renters have nowhere to go -- and the absence of new apartment construction, despite those high rents, because landlords fear that controls will be extended? Predictable. Bitter relations between tenants and landlords, with an arms race between ever-more ingenious strategies to force tenants out -- what yesterday's article oddly described as ''free-market horror stories'' -- and constantly proliferating regulations designed to block those strategies? Predictable."
- topaz0 3y ago

pjlegato 3y ago

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dist-epoch 3y ago

True communism was never tried.

hnarn 3y ago
But no true Scotsman…
slothtrop 3y ago
Speaking of Communism "the goal" (classless, stateless ) vs "the philosophy", then that's a nonsensical statement. What preceded in Russia and China was precisely meant to advance Communism. Trivially evident by answering the question: how does one "try" Communism? You have few choices: State Socialism, or anarchism, by way of vote or revolution. That has definitely been tried, with catastrophic results.
vore 3y ago
The article is talking about socialism. It does everyone a disservice to come in here, blur the lines, and post a trite self-satisfied comment like this.
mythrwy 3y ago
That might be true. Ever wonder why?

gorenb 3y ago

I’ve visited this site so many times before. I’m going to be frank with you. I’m not anti-socialist (I’m literally a communist myself) but I still believe that this off-topic, as this may not be the place for partisan economic discussion.

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FrustratedMonky 3y ago

The reason Socialism, Communism, Anarchy et.al. will never happen. Is because the Human Species naturally groups towards Autocratic Structures. The Human Natural State is Autocratic. Wealth and Power accumulate to the few, whether in a Socialist Government, or a Corporation. We can't handle Democracy. And Free Market Economy is just a myth that is maintained for Corporations to maintain their power and convince people they are free. Current Socialist programs are supported by the Rich. They are actually providing 'just enough' help to maintain the population above the subsistence level below which they will carry out a violent revolution.

WBrentWilliams 3y ago

I find socialism amusing. It is best, I think, to consider socialism as a critique of capitalism. My working thesis is that capitalism is unavoidable. Markets do not solve every problem, but they solve many. The fact that socialism creates anger among many capitalists is, in fact, a point in favor of socialism as a critique: The anger wouldn't be there if the critique had no merit. It is silly to attempt to achieve socialism. Better to use it as a gauge. Otherwise, it ceases to be a good measure and critique. Is the current system everything it could be? If not, then how could it be better and at what cost? This is like asking if a Market accounts for all costs. If it does not, that is, if a Market creates externalities, then it is time to consider, argue over, and politically implement alternatives.

thescriptkiddie 3y ago
Socialism doesn't mean no markets. In fact, no attempt at building socialism so far has ever done away with markets.
- WBrentWilliams 3y ago
  I had to re-check what I said. I said alternatives to markets that create externalities. These are, in fact, markets. They just don't dump costs off the books. That said, I agree. No "socialist" economic system has been able to not have markets. This is exactly my point: trying to implement a "pure" form of "socialism" is a foolish game. Much like trying to implement a "pure" form of "capitalism" is a foolish game. Much better, to keep torturing metaphors, to allow iron to sharpen iron. The best outcome is achieved, I think, by allowing the debate to endlessly continue.
  - jancsika 3y ago
    Unfortunately for you, we live in the world where "socialist" anything is the work of evildoers in the minds of many older Americans. So you're going to have to choose a different word if you want to be not only understood but also to avoid reflexive contrarianism. May I suggest "Overton window?" It's scientistic enough that you could overload it to your use of "socialist" here. E.g., "We need to shift the Overton window to include C suite diversification." You won't get instead comprehension. But you'll at least get heads nodding instead of old grumps yelling their fears at you.

Deprogrammer9 3y ago

No system will last forever, especially capitalism. Money is debt & debt is money.

zackmorris 3y ago

The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor—not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules. In this respect, it is important to realize that the means of production—that is to say, the entire productive capacity that is needed for producing consumer goods as well as additional capital goods—may legally be, and for the most part are, the private property of individuals. This resonates for me in middle age, after rarely having more than $2000 free and clear despite a lifetime of hard work. I've lived movies like Pursuit of Happyness and In Time, but without the financial epifany. All I do is work. If capitalism worked, then prices would get lower over time with increased per capita productivity. We got a brief taste of that for the last time in the late 1990s, but most people stopped getting raises after that, and now duopolies provide nearly all name-brand goods and services. As it stands now, it's pretty much over. I don't think anyone seriously thinks that homes, vehicles, food etc will ever decrease in price now. We can generally agree on the causes being stuff like regulatory capture and not enforcing antitrust laws. But those aren't root causes. The real problem is power imbalance from wealth inequality. To address that directly, we could either provide more wealth to the working class via UBI or redistribute wealth from the owner class via taxation. Note that neither of those have been tried at a national level in anyone under 50's lifetime. Which means that the national debt was planned. It represents the share of wealth transferred to the owner class, skimmed from the working class as a result of trickle-down economics. The next 2-3 US elections are going to be really important though. Young people have a chance to democratically vote to substantially raise taxes on corporations and billionaires. This won't be so much anti-capitalist as trans-capitalist. I say that because socialism and communism require a roughly 6 hour workday to provide enough labor for the system. But the median value of labor will never rise again, because of AI and automation. Meaning that work hours will increase as pay decreases. Which is self-evidently unsustainable. Which means that the traditional alternatives to capitalism will most likely not be viable, but will still be used as straw men against the political left by politicians to lure in low-information voters. I believe that we passed the tipping point around the time of Bush v. Gore in 2000, when we were set to widely roll out renewable energy and electric cars, but chose not to (see Who Killed the Electric Car). Instead we invaded the Middle East at the behest of the owner class to protect established industries around fossil fuels. We're only achieving some semblance of self-sufficiency 20 years later despite capitalism, not because of it. Admittedly, I don't have much faith in the political system to correct itself. So I sympathize with the political right's sentiment that government bad. But the government is We the People in the US, so that's like saying people bad. Which is othering and division. As we grapple with the actual truth of our struggle and stop blaming victims for our collective plight, I have faith that we'll solve these problems, perhaps summarily. Until then, I'm manifesting a more independent/off-grid lifestyle in an attempt to provide resources that capitalism has so far failed to provide me beyond a subsistence level. The proof of everything I'm saying is in the failure of any billionaire to challenge the status quo in a material way. They claim that their money is tied up in stock and they pay themselves a trifle. Yet we watched as Musk made $44 billion liquid to buy Twitter. Their FUD should be a rudder for the rest of us towards real answers and strategy. Now I go back to my toil, hoping to win the internet lottery but knowing deep down that real work is in service to others. My separation from the real contributions to society that I would have made by following my heart is like being poor twice.

solatic 3y ago

> A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. Sometimes, the needs of the community are such that the work to fulfill those needs is distasteful to most people. Until such time as such jobs can genuinely be completely roboticized, to whom should janitorial work be distributed? Garbage collection? Plumbing out backed-up toilets? Going out in the freezing cold to plow snow from the roads? Does anyone seriously believe that such work would be happily accepted full-time by anyone over, say, an office job, because why, they'll be socially celebrated for it? Or that it would be politically tenable to draft the wealthy and middle-class to occasionally take shifts for these jobs, as if they were a new kind of jury duty? This is not a serious suggestion.

fallingknife 3y ago
The "we'll divide the work. You be labor, I'll be management" problem.
- lost_tourist 3y ago
  Same problem as communism, no? "We'll need a preemptive stage where we have a few guys, "the party", calling all the shots for the entire population, but once we get things straightened out we'll return the power to the worker, pinky swear"
  - FireInsight 3y ago
    Unless you go to explicitly authoritatian circles most communists (atleast the western ones I interact with) are explicitly against so-called Vanguard parties. A hypothetical communist revolution can be a slow transition without needing an authoritarian party to rule foe the course of it. Autocrats don't really want to give up their power.
  - JuanPosadas 3y ago
    Another 30 years of wage stagnation, rising income inequality, and shared prosperity running on empty and the average Joe will be willing to give much shadier characters than "the party" a try.

dahwolf 3y ago

It seems most -isms inevitably leads to the superficially similar situation of a tiny elite either having total power or owning (almost) all resources, and thus power. Most would still prefer capitalism as at least it offers more personal freedoms and a chance of upward mobility. I think the recent rise of anti-capitalism gets it wrong. Capitalism within the context of a nation can be made to work in a way that whilst imperfect has a reasonable balance. It is specifically global capitalism (globalization) that is the problem. It allows for corporate super structures where workers nor governments have any leverage. Worker's rights cannot be defended so it's a race to the bottom. De-industrialization has hollowed out the middle class. Corporations pay little to no taxes. The triangle of government, business and worker that would ordinarily come to some kind of workable balance is gone. It's a never-ending stretch in one direction only: business. Similarly, global capitalism allows corporations to hide all their dirty externalities. Dumping toxic trash in other countries, sweatshops, wrecking the environment, you just place that shit out of sight. You would have considerable more outrage if a company would do that in their home country, close to their customer base. I'll end with the uncomfortable truth that the above has led to the stagnation of the West and various global problems. At the same time it has significantly uplifted the general wealth of many developing nations.

tap-snap-or-nap 3y ago

I wonder how many people here have genuinely read and comprehended the works of Marx. While he remains a controversial figure, his theories offer valuable insights into the complexities of capitalism and socialism. Marx provided a framework for understanding how the capitalist system operates and how it creates class contradictions through components like rent, interest, and profit. These ideas continue to be relevant today, especially in identifying and addressing the societal issues caused by large banks, major corporations, and big landlords, which collectively place burdens on us all.

hyperthesis 3y ago

\devil's advocate Why should we take political advice from theoretical physicists? Is it any better than from actors?

MagaMuffin 3y ago

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ArandomAccount2 3y ago

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maybenotmart 3y ago

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wellanyway 3y ago

For the umphteenth time. Go, be a socialist. Africa is waiting. 99.9% of people visiting this website is orders of magnitude more wealthy than average african citizen. Eat the rich? You people are the rich. Set an example. Lead the way. Be the first communist to actually practice what they preach.

tim333 3y ago

>I am convinced there is only one way ... a socialist economy... In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. There you have the problem. Things are controlled by 'society itself' and practical decisions such as who to hire to do what for how much have to be made by humans and we end up with iffy corruptish politicians doing that. Maybe a way forward would be to have an AI make the decisions. At least that could be open source and non corrupt. I'd vote to give that a try providing you could vote it out again if it screws up.

ajuc 3y ago

Socialism is like LISP - at this point most languages adopted the best parts, and the remaining ones come with serious disadvantages. USA could really use some more socialism tho.

ppipada 3y ago

Maybe one of the fundamental differences between a socialist and a capitalist lies in their degree of optimism about human altruism. Socialists tend to be optimistic and believe that humans have the capacity to care for one another and collectively contribute to societal well-being. Capitalists may be more skeptical of human nature, leaning on the idea that self-interest drives societal progress. They often argue that individuals are most motivated to contribute when they stand to personally benefit. The article does shed a good light on humans relationship to the society it leans on and is hopeful of the possibility of a human system that can rely on a army of collective-good workers. May be some day we will see such a system that doesnt discount the inherent competitiveness and survival bias of a individual.