[HN Gopher] Why Socialism? (1949)
___________________________________________________________________
Why Socialism? (1949)
Author : celtoid
Score : 84 points
Date : 2023-09-06 16:21 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (monthlyreview.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (monthlyreview.org)
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| This article has had substantial previous discussion:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1182518 (2010) (66 comments)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2315391 (2011) (45 comments)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4653939 (2012) (19 comments)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21384600 (2019) (28
| comments)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30676628 (2022) (19
| comments)
| dang wrote:
| Thanks! Macroexpanded:
|
| _Why Socialism? Albert Einstein (1949)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30676628 - March 2022 (16
| comments)
|
| _Why Socialism? Albert Einstein (1949)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21384600 - Oct 2019 (27
| comments)
|
| _"Why Socialism? " by Albert Einstein (1949)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21187870 - Oct 2019 (1
| comment)
|
| _Einstein: Why Socialism? (1949)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8745873 - Dec 2014 (12
| comments)
|
| _Einstein: "Why Socialism?"_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4653939 - Oct 2012 (19
| comments)
|
| _Albert Einstein: Why Socialism? (1949)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2315391 - March 2011 (44
| comments)
|
| _Albert Einstein: Why Socialism?_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1182518 - March 2010 (66
| comments)
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| 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/einstei...
|
| https://archive.ph/5mXgz
| mushbino wrote:
| The US has started more wars than any other country in modern
| history. Largely to stop socialism. The goal of Socialism is to
| fulfill the will of the people and benefit the working class.
| Socialist countries are anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist, and
| are supposed to be more in favor of cooperation over global
| dominance. Ex: The US
| celtoid wrote:
| 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."
| HardlyCurious wrote:
| That last bit about the media is both true and perhaps
| uncomfortable for Democrats today whose political will aligns
| with the media narratives.
| waihtis wrote:
| Despite its potential flaws, modern capitalism is still a
| thousand times more preferable than any kind of communism.
| celtoid wrote:
| Einstein never mentions communism. The essay's topic is
| socialism.
| AlgorithmicTime wrote:
| [dead]
| wernercd wrote:
| potato, patato. The only difference is methodology and
| extremity. otherwise the results are largely the same.
| celtoid wrote:
| Socialism and communism are two different things. It's
| sloppy thinking to conflate them.
| waihtis wrote:
| They're the exact same except socialism is a more
| "watered down" version.
|
| Definitions:
|
| > Socialism is a political philosophy and movement
| encompassing a wide range of economic and social _systems
| which are characterised by social ownership of the means
| of production, as opposed to private ownership._
|
| > Communism is a political and economic ideology that
| positions itself in opposition to liberal democracy and
| capitalism, advocating instead for a classless system in
| which the _means of production are owned communally and
| private property is nonexistent or severely curtailed._
| consilient wrote:
| In practice "Communism" means Leninism and its
| descendants, or occasionally revolutionary Marxism in
| general. No one reasonable would ever use it to refer to
| the likes of Olof Palme.
| wernercd wrote:
| "different" only in the definitions.
|
| not in effective results. two sides of the same failed
| coin and both full of the same failed promises (promises
| made with different reasons but still the same promises).
|
| Sloppy thinking is supporting either after 100+ years of
| proof that they fail on every level.
| soperj wrote:
| Modern capitalism has a lot of socialism in it. Socialized
| fire dept, sewage, roads, police, in most cases socialized
| healthcare, in the US they socialize bank & auto corporation
| losses whenever there's a recession, etc etc.
| HardlyCurious wrote:
| Socialism, despite what republicans want you think isn't
| any govt service. If that is true then the only socialism
| free model would be anarchy.
| Aunche wrote:
| Government has provided services long before socialism was
| a concept.
| wernercd wrote:
| Fire departments, police and roads aren't "socialism". They
| are not the means of production and are not industry in any
| sense other than a desire to lay claim to successes that
| socialism itself doesn't possess.
| soperj wrote:
| So, anything that isn't producing goods in a capitalist
| system should be publicly owned? Very good case for
| public health care then in the US.
| waihtis wrote:
| Healthcare is most definitely producing goods. People
| will consume it much over their needs if it is free. A
| fire department or police are not, people will not call
| the fire department for the fun of it, only if there is
| fire.
|
| That said, healthcare is definitely a troubling one
| because its interests do not align particularly well with
| a profit-driven model. It should probably have some kind
| of halfway model to discourage overt usage while ensuring
| people get healthcare in the scope they need it even if
| they have a bad financial situation. I don't have a good
| answer for it.
| soperj wrote:
| > Healthcare is most definitely producing goods
|
| Services?
|
| Unless you're talking pharma?
|
| > people will not call the fire department for the fun of
| it
|
| People phone 911 all the time for very stupid stuff.
| waihtis wrote:
| > People phone 911 all the time for very stupid stuff
|
| Is that so? In that case, it should cost money to call
| 911.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| It does. It's called salaries for emergency operators and
| it's paid for by your tax money.
| wernercd wrote:
| Yeah... if it wasn't for examples around the world of
| "publicly owned" healthcare being absolute dog shit.
|
| IE: the VA.
|
| The VA is publicly owned healthcare for our nations heros
| and how are they treated? They kill themselves in the
| parking lot waiting to get treated.
|
| Look at any public option around the world and you'll see
| okay results to start with... with long wait times,
| rationing, lower outcomes, etc as it ultimately fails.
|
| I wouldn't wish the VA on my worst enemy and you're blind
| - purposely or religiously - if you don't see the massive
| problems with systems like it.
|
| People don't run from Socialist/Communist countries
| because they are successful. Quite the opposite.
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| The impulse to quantify like this is always fascinating to me
| in positions like this, as if the only thing a person can
| muster for a rebuttal is an appeal to some kind of vulgar,
| assumed utilitarianism. Where are the true believers anymore?
| Can the ultimately existential nature of humanity really only
| be of the form "worse-than/better-than"?
|
| People treat the whole world as if they are choosing the
| right laptop!
| waihtis wrote:
| Rest assured I truly believe communism is one of the most
| idiotic ideas in existence.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Government control of the main sources of information hasn't
| worked out very well.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Isn't PBS/NPR sort of close to the BBC?
| WalterBright wrote:
| PBS and NPR both tilt strongly to the left.
| celtoid wrote:
| The combine of government/corporate control of information
| isn't so great either.
|
| "Interlocking directorates, revolving doors of personnel and
| financial stakes and holdings connect the corporate media to
| the state, the Pentagon, defense and arms manufacturers and
| the oil industry." [0]
|
| [0] https://commonreader.wustl.edu/how-a-company-called-
| blackroc...
| WalterBright wrote:
| Is HackerNews part of that government/corporate grip on
| information?
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Bizarre non sequitur
| csb6 wrote:
| Neither has corporate control.
| [deleted]
| ryan93 wrote:
| Revealed preference is that people move to countries with
| free speech
| dukeyukey wrote:
| People move to places with economic opportunity. That
| _tends_ to be places with free speech, but look at how
| many people move to places like Saudi Arabia or the UAE.
| WalterBright wrote:
| You have a choice with that. Corporations cannot stop you
| from publishing your own blog.
|
| Is HackerNews a thrall to corporate media and is
| controlling what you see?
| Apocryphon wrote:
| People complain of shadow bans, the amorphous algorithm
| pushing links away from the front page, comments getting
| eaten, and all sorts of supposed control on Hacker News
| every day.
| angrysaki wrote:
| Without government regulations, are you sure the
| corporate merger of Amazon, Google, Verizon Walmart &
| Microsoft would let you?
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| 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
| dist-epoch wrote:
| True communism was never tried.
| hnarn wrote:
| But no _true_ Scotsman...
| intalentive wrote:
| >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 wrote:
| Value is a negotiation between cost and desire. Communists want
| to know the _actual cost to make something._ Prices erase this
| data.
| nwah1 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| Jensson wrote:
| There is no objective cost to things, the amounts you need to
| offer to entice individuals to do that work isn't a solved
| problem.
|
| If the person is tired today and wont work unless you pay him
| a thousand dollars, then it costs a thousand dollars today.
| If the person is already fully booked, then you have to pay
| more than the previous customers plus pay those customers for
| the inconvenience you cause by taking their spot in that
| system, to be fair, so now it got very expensive.
|
| How do you avoid this in your system? Do you enslave people
| and force them to work? Soviet did that, you weren't allowed
| to not work, you had to work, nobody was free.
| orthecreedence wrote:
| > There is no objective cost to things
|
| What? How do you produce things? Do you will them into
| existence? That's great for you, most everyone else uses
| resources and labor to produce things. These represent
| objective costs.
|
| > If the person is tired today and wont work unless you pay
| him a thousand dollars, then it costs a thousand dollars
| today.
|
| Or you don't hire them today.
|
| > How do you avoid this in your system?
|
| A labor market.
|
| > Do you enslave people and force them to work? Soviet did
| that, you weren't allowed to not work, you had to work,
| nobody was free.
|
| ...calm down.
| jiofj wrote:
| >These represent objective costs.
|
| That's the point, they don't. Nothing has an objective
| cost. What's the objective cost of one hour of work
| painting a house? Of one kilogram of rice?
| PrimeMcFly wrote:
| 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.
| thereddaikon wrote:
| It is odd. Especially since their ideas are built around an
| older form of economy that we have long since moved beyond.
| Materialism as a guiding philosophy for economic theory seems
| outdated when in the developed world, economies are built upon
| services and information rather than production and many types
| of goods are already post scarcity.
| imtringued wrote:
| 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_Struc...
| PrimeMcFly wrote:
| Interesting link/book - thanks!
| bonyen wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Would you care to showcase some of your favorite alternatives?
| PrimeMcFly wrote:
| 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.
| legitster wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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.
| kyleyeats wrote:
| Human social structures concentrate power, not capitalism. It's
| all still there under socialism.
| legitster wrote:
| If anything, capitalism provides an alternate path for people
| craving money and power. _If_ the estates remain sufficiently
| separated, they will tend towards balancing each other out and
| creating more stable governments.
| pphysch wrote:
| Knowing this, we ought to design an economic system
| accordingly!
|
| The inevitable concentration of power should be out in the
| open, broadly consented to, and held accountable. We could call
| it "government".
|
| Instead, in the most "anarchic" corners of capitalism we have
| "shadow governments" where power is tightly concentrated and
| undemocratic, but it's okay because "if you can't see it, it
| doesn't exist". Insurance giants, tech giants, finance giants,
| etc.
|
| Edward Bernays was writing about this exact phenomenon 100
| years ago ( _Propaganda_ ).
| ajmurmann wrote:
| It's almost like the best solutions are somewhere in the
| middle between the two extreme ends.
| UtopiaPunk wrote:
| Human social structures don't _have_ to concentrate power,
| though. At its best, that 's the goal of the socialist project.
| Noam Chomsky makes the spicy take of calling the USSR "state
| capitalism" for precisly the reason that it is a concentration
| of power. He argues that the USSR largely just replaced
| capitalists with the state, but the power imbalance was not
| significantly changed.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Well of course that's something Chomsky would say. Course
| like everything he says it's wrong or immoral.
|
| What the Communists did was eliminate what capitalism existed
| in the Russian Empire and replace the Russian Monarchy and
| Aristocracy with another.
| brigadier132 wrote:
| Exactly, the same power hungry people will play the game under
| the rules of any system.
| legitster wrote:
| Well, if you divide your power hungry people into enough
| different lanes, and they spend their time duking it out with
| each other, and they end up having to compete among the
| citizenry for support, funding, etc than that seems like a
| pretty good system.
| textide wrote:
| Of course the angelic souls who suddenly find themselves in
| charge of arranging such a system would have to be chosen
| somehow. Or would they just need to be ambitious creatures
| that take the reins and become benevolent dictators?
| Knowledge of human nature has to be a prerequisite here,
| does it not?
| legitster wrote:
| Well, in almost every functional democracy in the world,
| at some point the founders of it decided on a way to
| split up power. In the US, that meant 3 different
| branches of federal government, individual state
| governments, separation of church and state, and giving
| every citizen the right to establish a corporation and
| engage in trade (aka capitalism). So three separate
| estates, and subdivisions within each one. So we were
| lucky to have enough angelic (enough) souls who did
| arrange such a system (flawed as it is).
|
| Contrast this to something like China where there is a
| single party and a single government with no checks or
| balances. And such as there is some free enterprise, it
| is not a universal protected right and even the richest
| citizens have no ability to affect politics. It does not
| seem like a favorable alternative.
| alwayslikethis wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > _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.
| earthboundkid wrote:
| That's why you need to have an ideology of democratization that
| ruthlessly crushes the spirit of those who try to excel. :-) Or
| give them some harmless sandbox to play in, like sports or art.
| celtoid wrote:
| Capitalism is just another form of concentrating power. It
| would seem the problem with all systems is in distribution of
| power.
| DesiLurker wrote:
| What I want is the structure of free market capitalism but
| more weight towards labor. essentially the problem (IMO) is
| that Capital can be super concentrated & is inherently mobile
| but Labor is distributed & wants to be immobile/stable
| because our main goal is to live life and raise family. this
| is the fundamental weakness in labor's negotiating position.
|
| Unions are a solution but they also have power concentration
| problems. IDK whats a good solution but perhaps a state
| administered sustenance UBI that indexes to inflation &
| always comes out preferentially (like SS/medicare) from tax
| revenue. and slowly over time we grow the definition of
| baseline human necessities as economy advances.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| People who say things like you say don't usually seem to have
| a very good definition of "capitalism".
|
| For me, the word means that I can trade what I own to other
| people who want it and are offering me something I want in
| return. It means that, if I scrape and save, I'm allowed to
| turn around and invest those savings in another endeavor of
| my own and that whatever profits I make from it are mine to
| keep.
|
| I know it's not a very eloquent definition, but I think it's
| rather objective, and I think it describes the western world
| today, more or less. Is this what you mean by it? Do you mean
| something else?
|
| I don't see how it concentrates power. There are people who
| do capitalism poorly, and then they whine about how it was
| unfair to them.
| CraigJPerry wrote:
| is that not just a no true scotsman argument? what you
| describe doesn't exist anywhere at scale, humans have never
| found a way to do this idea at scale.
|
| Same faulty logic affected the communists too.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| Your comment is incoherent. What specifically are you
| saying that we don't do at scale? (I never mentioned
| "scale", but apparently it is important to you, so...)
|
| People trade things at scale all the time. Some trades
| are apparently valued in the millions and billions of
| dollars. Some people have savings that are large
| fortunes, and they often invest them.
|
| You must be talking about something I am not, but it's
| difficult to figure out what the words even mean to you.
| nielsbot wrote:
| That is not what people generally mean when they say
| capitalism.
|
| Most generally: "A socio-economic system based on private
| ownership of resources or capital."
|
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/capitalism#English
|
| As for the unfairness:
|
| Capital accumulates capital, debt accumulates debt. When
| you accumulate capital, you can own resources (land). This
| means those with capital will accumulate power.
|
| You can talk about being "bad at capitalism" but the
| implies you assume everyone starts with equal opportunity
| (capital, land, power).
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| > Most generally: "A socio-economic system based on
| private ownership of resources or capital."
|
| That's circular and moronic.
|
| Even the big about "private ownership of resources" is
| couched in terms that make it sound as if the person
| saying it is being excluded and treated unfairly. Do you
| know which resources capitalism lets a person own, or
| which person might own it?
|
| Your money in your savings account, and you.
|
| > You can talk about being "bad at capitalism" but the
| implies you assume everyone starts with equal opportunity
| (
|
| It doesn't. It does assume they're adults that don't
| whhine about not everyone ending with inequal outcomes.
| celtoid wrote:
| You're describing commerce, a practice as old as humanity.
| Capitalism is a relatively recent development with very
| specific traits.
| BoiledCabbage wrote:
| > I don't see how it concentrates power. There are people
| who do capitalism poorly, and then they whine about how it
| was unfair to them.
|
| And the fact that you (and others) can't see how it
| inherently concentrates power is exactly what's wrong with
| the current views of pure free-market proponents.
|
| Free markets are bad. Market competition is good. It's that
| simple and people still don't seem to be able to
| distinguish them.
|
| The only way to have market competition is to soundly
| enforce it. Any free market left alone eliminates market
| competition and consolidates power - that consolidated
| power then eliminates any efficiency gained from
| capitalism.
|
| One of the single most important roles of government is to
| eliminate heavily unbalanced concentrations of power un
| order to maintain competition.
|
| In the marketplace that means swift eliminating monopolies,
| in individuals it means maintaining some tempers
| inequality, and in democracy it means ensuring any
| concentrated power cannot perform regulatory capture. But
| you cannot do the latter without ensuring the former two.
| Everyone seems to recognize regulatory capture and the
| imbalance of power it involves in democracy, but some how
| cannot see the exact same issues in the individual or the
| marketplace. All three require market competition to be
| healthy and thrive - and aid concentration of power.
| kbelder wrote:
| Freedom is control, and competition requires a firm
| controlling organization.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| > The only way to have market competition is to soundly
| enforce it.
|
| Which is why NYC taxis are so cheap. All the market
| competition cultivated by their sale of taxi medallions
| for $1mil+.
|
| > One of the single most important roles of government is
| to eliminate heavily unbalanced concentrations of power
|
| I've seen no historical evidence that any government,
| ever, has even attempted this "role". It would be a
| little weird if they could manage to do it considering
| that they are heavily unbalanced concentrations of power
| themselves.
| vimsee wrote:
| > I've seen no historical evidence that any government,
| ever, has even attempted this "role".
|
| It is normal where I am from. We have an entity that
| govern the competition and its role is to enforce
| competition whenever a company gains to much market
| share. That way us, the consumers can avoid monopolies
| where we would otherwise not have the voting-power within
| our wallets.
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| >For me, the word means that I can trade what I own to
| other people who want it and are offering me something I
| want in return. It means that, if I scrape and save, I'm
| allowed to turn around and invest those savings in another
| endeavor of my own and that whatever profits I make from it
| are mine to keep.
|
| No offense, but your definition (as distinguishing
| capitalism from socialism) isn't very good either. Your
| first sentence is merely the definition of a market, which
| can still exist just fine under socialism (even the
| authoritarian varieties extant today feature markets).
|
| As for the second part, that's the exact thing that
| proponents of socialism assert you are _not_ free to do
| under capitalism. Your average worker has no hope of saving
| up to be able to "start an endeavor", and even well-off
| ones often are beholden to investors, which forces you to
| part with a substantial part of your profits _you made_ to
| people who contributed no work to your endeavor. Likewise,
| if your business does become profitable, it is usually
| going to be as a result of work _others_ did, not profits
| "you" made.
|
| The key part of capitalism is that any profits in excess of
| the bare minimum go to the owners of capital, not the
| workers. Unless you have capital yourself, you either have
| no access to the means of production, or are forced to give
| up a substantial part of the value you produce.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| > which can still exist just fine under socialism
|
| Theoretically, it's claimed.
|
| Where are the markets in Venezuela? Which bakery could
| you go to in the Soviet Union when the bread line was
| long and the shelves empty at the state store?
|
| Why is it that such places always end up using some sort
| of ration ticket instead of real currency?
|
| > As for the second part, that's the exact thing that
| proponents of socialism assert you are not free to do
| under capitalism. Your average worker has no hope of
| saving up to be able to "start an endeavor",
|
| No, they're just lazy losers. I read somewhere once that
| you can buy the hotdog cart at Costco for $400 or $450
| like that.
|
| But I suppose the ones that whine that they can't start
| an endeavor want to skip to the end of the game, where
| they own $500 million in McDonald's stock and a few dozen
| franchise stores... so my example doesn't count.
|
| There exist opportunities for people at all levels of
| capital.
|
| I'm not an entrepreneur myself, don't have any knack for
| it. But it's nice to know that the commies are always
| there, hiding in the shadows ready to swoop in and
| confiscate, if say, I did buy a food truck and put my
| brother-in-law to work running it.
|
| > The key part of capitalism is that any profits in
| excess of the bare minimum go to the owners of capital,
|
| You mean, the owners of the business. Sure. Why should it
| be otherwise.
|
| No one with capital would trust the sorts of people who
| do minimum wage scutwork to be the sorts of partners who
| should be cut in on the profit. Go read r/antiwork and
| tell me those are the people who you'd trust with your
| life-savings. All they bring to the table is talentless
| meniality and a bad attitude.
|
| > you either have no access to the means of production, o
|
| What is a "means of production"? Are you lusting after
| some billionaire's water-powered Jacquard loom?
|
| We're on Hacker News, if I'm not mistaken. The means of
| production for most of us is a laptop, and internet
| connection, and our brains. But maybe you're right, most
| people don't have access to that last one.
| plagiarist wrote:
| So go start your $450 hotdog cart and let us know how it
| goes instead of making unfounded assumptions and
| constructing strawman arguments on the internet.
| [deleted]
| jmyeet wrote:
| 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/Featur...
| qsdf38100 wrote:
| Any time I hear "Capitalism is [...]", it is when one forces
| his own, carefully worded definition, so that the subsequent
| arguments sound natural, logic, simple, irrefutable. "It's
| simply the system of exploitation".
|
| Let me try that game. Capitalism is what emerges from trade and
| money. You can fight it, you can embrace it, but you won't
| eradicate it. Black markets and barter will emerge, which are
| forms of capitalism. In the end, all you can do is regulate it
| (or not). Then I would define socialism as an attempt to
| regulate it so it doesn't turn into the law of the fittest.
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| Socialism turns into the survival of the fittest as the
| civilians start fighting each other for food, and positioning
| themselves favorably for scraps by burying their neighbors
| for "crimes against the state." Everything anybody needs to
| know about socialism was already experienced by and written
| about by Solzenichen.
| oconnor663 wrote:
| > Markets occur in every economic system.
|
| Voting occurs in every political system too, but who gets to
| vote and what the votes are about is important.
| jrpt wrote:
| There's so much wrong with this comment but to start: the US
| didn't cause the Cuban missile crisis by first placing missiles
| in Turkey. This is known because historians have read documents
| and talked with people after the fact. The actual Soviet
| motivation was to use missiles in Cuba as a bargaining chip
| with respect to Berlin. Militarily, neither missiles in Cuba
| nor missiles in Turkey made much of any strategic difference.
| jmyeet wrote:
| Kruschev begs to differ [1]:
|
| > It's little wonder, then, that, as Stern asserts--drawing
| on a plethora of scholarship including, most convincingly,
| the historian Philip Nash's elegant 1997 study, The Other
| Missiles of October--Kennedy's deployment of the Jupiter
| missiles "was a key reason for Khrushchev's decision to send
| nuclear missiles to Cuba." Khrushchev reportedly made that
| decision in May 1962, declaring to a confidant that the
| Americans "have surrounded us with bases on all sides" and
| that missiles in Cuba would help to counter an "intolerable
| provocation." Keeping the deployment secret in order to
| present the U.S. with a fait accompli, Khrushchev may very
| well have assumed America's response would be similar to his
| reaction to the Jupiter missiles--rhetorical denouncement but
| no threat or action to thwart the deployment with a military
| attack, nuclear or otherwise. (In retirement, Khrushchev
| explained his reasoning to the American journalist Strobe
| Talbott: Americans "would learn just what it feels like to
| have enemy missiles pointing at you; we'd be doing nothing
| more than giving them a little of their own medicine.")
|
| [1]:
| https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/01/the-
| rea...
| splitstud wrote:
| [dead]
| brigadier132 wrote:
| The lesson of the last 100 years was not that a Soviet aligned
| system was superior.
| dancemethis wrote:
| Thank the reds we're not all forced to speak German.
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| Think of the context. WW2 was absolutely a team effort.
| jmyeet wrote:
| Yeah, 400,000 dead Americans and 27 million dead Soviets
| [1]. I'm no fan of Stalin but one thing that's absolutely
| irrefutable is his efforts killing Nazis. The human toll
| for that was unimaginable.
|
| [1]: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-hccc-
| worldhistory2/ch...
| pphysch wrote:
| 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.
| celtoid wrote:
| The Lincoln quote you referenced really blew my mind the first
| time I read it. No president before or since has encapsulated
| the issue so clearly.
|
| "It is not needed nor fitting here that a general argument
| should be made in favor of popular institutions, but there is
| one point, with its connections, not so hackneyed as most
| others, to which I ask a brief attention. It is the effort to
| place capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labor in
| the structure of government. It is assumed that labor is
| available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors
| unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it
| induces him to labor. This assumed, it is next considered
| whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus
| induce them to work by their own consent, or buy them and drive
| them to it without their consent. Having proceeded so far, it
| is naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired
| laborers or what we call slaves. And further, it is assumed
| that whoever is once a hired laborer is fixed in that condition
| for life.
|
| Now there is no such relation between capital and labor as
| assumed, nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed
| for life in the condition of a hired laborer. Both these
| assumptions are false, and all inferences from them are
| groundless.
|
| 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 the superior of capital, and
| deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights,
| which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is
| it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a
| relation between labor and capital producing mutual benefits.
| The error is in assuming that the whole labor of community
| exists within that relation." [0]
|
| [0] https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-
| speeche...
| pphysch wrote:
| > Fun fact: Abraham Lincoln was essentially a Marxist too
|
| Along these same lines, watch at least the opening statements
| of first JFK-Nixon debate [1].
|
| Nixon sounds like a Biden or Bush, he could be on the debate
| stage in 2024. He wouldn't win, but he would sure fit in.
|
| JFK sounds like Xi Jinping. He won, but was assassinated 3
| years later.
|
| America is remarkably good at reinventing itself and what it
| means to be "American". Our history is worth studying in depth,
| without ideological blinders.
|
| [1] - https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-
| viewer/archives/TNC/TNC-172...
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| See also: https://www.democracyatwork.info
| testfoobar wrote:
| "If socialists understood economics they wouldn't be socialists."
|
| -- Friedrich Hayek
| hnarn wrote:
| 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.
| wernercd wrote:
| "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.
| CP3f6kMA wrote:
| Socialists want to place power in the proletariat, not
| themselves. This feels like a very emotional comment rather
| than one made from a logical standpoint.
| wernercd wrote:
| > in the proletariat, not themselves
|
| Real world examples says otherwise.
|
| They CLAIM they want to sceed power.
|
| What ACTUALLY HAPPENS is a violent overthrow of the previous
| power structure and... what do you know? The new power
| structure doesn't give up the power and they instead keep it
| themselves becoming authoritarian dictatorships and worse.
|
| > logical standpoint
|
| AKA: 100+ years of history is "emotional"
|
| ignoring all the real world examples of socialism and seeing
| what socialists actually do - actions and results speak
| louder than the words of a socialist - is "logical"?
|
| Socialism's results speak loud enough that it's not emotional
| to point out the failure. It's also not logical to ignore...
| well... the last 100 years of socialisms results.
| m0ped wrote:
| You think Bernie Sanders has a Ferrari or something?
|
| Edit: Multiple supercars? really?
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| Sanders has three houses and net worth of 2 million dollars.
| consilient wrote:
| He has a house in Vermont, a one-bedroom apartment in DC,
| and a lakefront cabin. For an upper middle class
| octogenarian, that's completely unremarkable. Most American
| software engineers could easily do the same by middle age.
| wernercd wrote:
| 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".
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Bernie drives a Chevy Aveo.
|
| https://www.wcax.com/content/news/Sen-Bernie-Sanders-car-
| nea...
| pjlegato wrote:
| Border guards in capitalist countries exist to keep people OUT.
| Border guards in socialist countries exist to keep people FROM
| ESCAPING.
| hirundo wrote:
| > 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.
| tcmart14 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| It was also published when USA was de facto more "socialist"
| than it had ever been (FDR admin/1950s).
| LanceH wrote:
| One can just take a look at the UN's Human Rights Council for
| the potential that a supranational government has.
| john019 wrote:
| [flagged]
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| 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.
| beebmam wrote:
| The UN's biggest flaw is the security council veto power.
| nordsieck wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| Why?
| pydry wrote:
| The UN without SC veto is basically just a rehash of the
| league of nations.
| brigadier132 wrote:
| 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.
| legitster wrote:
| > Von Neumann was right about everything
|
| For all of the recent attention Oppenheimer is getting, we
| all are living in Von Neumann's world.
| consilient wrote:
| > 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.
| everybodyknows wrote:
| > He wanted the US to start WWIII with a nuclear first
| strike on the Soviet Union.
|
| Source?
| consilient wrote:
| I'm having trouble finding a primary source, but here's a
| paper discussing the issue.
|
| Field, A. (2014). Schelling, von Neumann, and the Event
| that Didn't Occur. Games, 5(1), 53-89.
| doi:10.3390/g5010053
|
| https://sci-hub.se/10.3390/g5010053
| brigadier132 wrote:
| > 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.
| hx8 wrote:
| 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?
| marcusverus wrote:
| On the one hand, I think we're probably already at the point
| where a workable planned economy is possible---one in which
| everyone has an apartment and gets 3 square meals a day. But
| it's hard to imagine a planned economy which wouldn't
| underperform a free economy in the long term. You cannot expect
| to reduce the incentives for innovation without reducing
| innovation.
| J_Shelby_J wrote:
| We have an example of how a planned market works in practice:
| the housing market.
|
| The housing market is one of the most regulated "planned"
| markets. We've made it impossible to build in some cites and
| impossible to build density in almost all suburbs. And so we
| have a massive housing shortage that's doubled the fair
| market price of housing.
|
| If we let the market build enough homes to meet the demand,
| an apartment would be incredibly affordable. Someone working
| as a fry cook could afford a two bedroom. That being said,
| one could argue this planned market is working as intended...
| renters and first time home buyers are taking 30-50% of their
| incomes and giving it to property owners... who voted for
| this system.
| notacoward wrote:
| In theory it _might_ be possible, but it 's just as possible
| that it would go in the exact opposite direction - increasing
| inequality, exploitation, etc. Given who is best able to
| influence the development and deployment of AI, which way do
| you think that will work out?
| UtopiaPunk wrote:
| There was a big discourse called the "socialist calculation
| debate" that basically revolved around whether a planned
| economy could ever "beat" a market economy. To summarize a big
| complicated thing in a nutshell, a market system is pretty neat
| because market forces are determine the price (a reflection of
| the value) of goods and services in an unplanned manner. It's a
| system that takes in information, and the various actors in the
| system respond accordingly. It's never 100% accurate, but given
| enough time and stability, it's usually pretty close.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_calculation_debate
|
| However, a pure free-market systems is always a reaction to
| information, so there's a lag in whether the price accurately
| reflects the value of a good or service. At the worst of times,
| prices can suddenly skyrocket and/or plunge, and if this
| ripples out, this creates the familiar boom and bust cycles in
| capitalism.
|
| In the socialist calculation debate, proponents of a planned
| economy say it should be possible to determine the accurate
| prices of things faster than the market can. Opponents say that
| the economy is simply too complicated to ever take in enough
| information to calculate such things.
|
| This discourse was all occurring well before computers and the
| Internet were common. The most recent serious attempt at a
| socialist planned economy was in Chile under Allende, who saw
| the potential of using technology to gather and organize such
| information. Chile in the 70s effectively built a proto-
| Internet to send information from manufacturers to a
| centralized location, where macro-economic decisions could be
| made based on the information (google "Project Cybersyn"). It
| would have been a really interesting test of the idea, but
| unfortunately the United States could not allow a
| democratically elected socialist leader to stand, and the CIA
| backed a coup to overthrow Allende. The US then installed
| Pinochet in his a place, a brutal dictator :(
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn
|
| I'm of the opinion that with widespread computer and Internet
| adoption, such calculations are not only possible but happening
| all the time. However, such "planned economies" exist to serve
| capitalist corporations such as Wal-Mart and Amazon rather than
| the economy at-large. A book called "The People's Republic of
| Wal-Mart" is a good discussion on that topic:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_People%27s_Republic_of_Wal...
| dietmtnview wrote:
| > To summarize a big complicated thing in a nutshell, a
| market system is pretty neat because market forces are
| determine the price (a reflection of the value) of goods and
| services in an unplanned manner. It's a system that takes in
| information, and the various actors in the system respond
| accordingly. It's never 100% accurate, but given enough time
| and stability, it's usually pretty close.
|
| No. A massive majority of the prices of things in the US are
| distorted by the government or the Federal Reserve.
| Agriculture is propped up by the government, the prices of
| healthcare are distorted by capitalist interests, landlords
| have benefited from lax government oversight, the railway
| workers strike was made illegal by Biden.
|
| The list goes on and the prices are a reflection of these
| distortions. To say prices reflect reality is to be
| delusional to the political situation.
| UtopiaPunk wrote:
| I'm sorry that wasn't captured in my nutshell explanation.
| A pure, "free" market would not have any such distortions,
| at least in theory. A pure free market would also not have
| any government services, such as roads, landfills, or the
| military/police, so that would affect market prices. I
| would also argue that such a pure "free" market system
| would still not collect all the information needed to
| accurately determine the "cost" of a thing, as certain
| costs are often not naturally captured in the price without
| some kind of government intervention (for example, a
| factory dumping toxic waste into a river for free without
| any government environmental oversight to say that is not
| allowed).
|
| So yeah, I don't think there's a pure free market system in
| the United States.
| corimaith wrote:
| If you calculate the true price of an item faster than the
| market can you would make billions of the stock market.
|
| Some of the world's brightest minds, an entire industry has
| worked on the problem and can still barely beat the S&P 500.
| So I dont think we can or have the capability right to do
| such a thing.
| UtopiaPunk wrote:
| The process involves collecting and sharing information in
| a cooperative (not competitive) way. In a capitalist
| system, one of the roles of government at best is to
| regulate industries to encourage competition. Under
| capitalism, sharing information cooperatively usually looks
| like collusion or corruption, so we necessarily need laws
| preventing that.
|
| A planned economy just doesn't make sense at all _within_ a
| capitalist system, so there probably would be no stock
| markets, and no one would make billions.
| legitster wrote:
| 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".
| sdfghswe wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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?
| ecshafer wrote:
| 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.
| slothtrop wrote:
| > Socialism is the fundamental reordering of society to
| benefit the lowest wrung.
|
| That is not the definition.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
| remarkEon wrote:
| 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.
| crickey wrote:
| So taxes are a form of socialism ?
| remarkEon wrote:
| Is this where you do the silly Reddit tier gotcha game
| wherein if someone supports e.g. maintaining police and
| fire departments you exclaim "aha you support socialism"?
| Gunax wrote:
| If the taxes are performed to make the economy just or
| fairer (as opposed to finding public necessities),
| possibly.
|
| I understand the absurdity of it. We had taxes for a long
| time before socialism. And we obviously need taxes.
|
| But a long-term criticism of the welfare state has been
| that it co-opted taxes from being a means to fund public
| services to a means to reward/rebalance/rework society
| towards politically favoured groups.
| Gunax wrote:
| This argument is 75 years old. I take it to be less of an
| argument, and more like history.
| neilk wrote:
| I agree that the labor theory of value isn't useful, and
| pricing signals are more responsive than any command economy
| has yet been able to achieve.
|
| However, overproduction is also a problem in capitalism, from a
| lot of perspectives. The profit motive assures that surpluses
| are produced, sometimes absurdly bountiful surpluses, and then
| must be consumed. In the short term, many businesses will fail
| or be amalgamated if their inputs are too abundant and can no
| longer support a profit margin. Long term, capitalists will
| arrange the economy such that surpluses will be consumed by the
| creation of new desires, rentier capitalism on the necessities
| of life like housing or healthcare or education, or, failing
| that, wars.
|
| I'm not saying this is the _only_ factor creating an insatiable
| loop; humans are pretty good at that by themselves. What 's
| different about capitalism is that there just aren't any brakes
| you can apply, anywhere.
|
| Are there solutions? Well, we could go back to before
| capitalism, but that wasn't so great either. When Adam Smith
| wrote his treatises, the prevailing view among elites was that
| giving the poor more wealth was a bad thing. It was more
| important that they be obedient and content with their lot.
| Smith correctly saw that it mas moral to increase the general
| wealth, and the wealth of the people was (roll title) the
| wealth of the nation. So Smith's insight was an important
| corrective.
|
| I wouldn't want to go back to a system where elites arranged
| things so that I would be virtuous and poor. By many standards,
| I live a better life than an elite of the 18th century. But I
| also am part of a system that has no brakes at all, even as
| life becomes increasingly frantic and the externalities are
| piling up all around us.
|
| I'm not sure it's fair to say that it's the government's fault
| since capitalism has pretty much trounced good governance, at
| least in the countries where I live in. It's not politically
| possible to do things that reduce the power of capitalists,
| even if they are widely popular.
| ozim wrote:
| I don't have to be Adam Smith or elites to know how lottery
| winners from low end social strata end up.
|
| One cannot simply drop wealth on poor.
|
| So it should be a process.
|
| Only problem we have now is that rich are getting more rich
| than poor are getting wealth. Where ideally rich could get
| more rich as poor get out of being poor but they also should
| be bound by process and timelines.
|
| I think taxing any wealth that will last longer than one
| lifetime will be needed. But it has to be real and not that
| ultra rich hide wealth in bs trust funds.
|
| But it will be super hard to implement.
| Matl wrote:
| > Can we stop rehashing arguments for planned economies; they
| are terrible because they ignore the million micro signals that
| drive the economic engine.
|
| The economic engine you speak of today relies on an astonishing
| amount of centralization, it's an illusion that it is some kind
| of 'organic' engine.
| Jensson wrote:
| We have billions of literally biological brains making many
| economic choices every day. Our current economy is a very
| distributed organic engine, it wouldn't work unless everyone
| contributed by deciding what to buy with their money.
|
| It has central parts but the main decider in the engine is
| what consumers choose to buy.
| xg15 wrote:
| Which is influenced by what products consumers _can_ buy in
| the first place and what products they know and have a good
| impression of - which is in turn influenced by the decision
| of large distributors and media companies etc...
|
| This even before getting into financing and regulations.
| xg15 wrote:
| I dunno, but China seems to do pretty well economically.
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