Why Socialism? (1949)

https://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism/

by celtoid • 3 years ago

270 595 3 years ago

hirundo• 3 years 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• 3 years 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.

pphysch5• 3 years ago

It was also published when USA was de facto more "socialist" than it had ever been (FDR admin/1950s).

LanceH• 3 years ago

One can just take a look at the UN's Human Rights Council for the potential that a supranational government has.

LordDragonfang4• 3 years 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.

beebmam• 3 years ago

The UN's biggest flaw is the security council veto power.

nordsieck• 3 years 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.

pphysch5• 3 years ago

Why?

pydry6• 3 years ago

The UN without SC veto is basically just a rehash of the league of nations.

brigadier1324• 3 years 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.

consilient9• 3 years 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.

legitster18• 3 years ago

Von Neumann was right about everything

For all of the recent attention Oppenheimer is getting, we all are living in Von Neumann's world.

tcmart142• 3 years 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.

dragonwriter7• 3 years 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.

celtoid7• 3 years 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."

WalterBright6• 3 years ago

Government control of the main sources of information hasn't worked out very well.

hotpotamus• 3 years 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.

celtoid7• 3 years ago

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...

csb63• 3 years ago

Neither has corporate control.

waihtis8• 3 years ago

Despite its potential flaws, modern capitalism is still a thousand times more preferable than any kind of communism.

celtoid7• 3 years ago

Einstein never mentions communism. The essay's topic is socialism.

soperj5• 3 years ago

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.

beepbooptheory• 3 years ago

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!

HardlyCurious2• 3 years ago

That last bit about the media is both true and perhaps uncomfortable for Democrats today whose political will aligns with the media narratives.

sabarn013• 3 years ago

More hands than ever before in history.

LordDragonfang4• 3 years ago

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• 3 years ago

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)

kyleyeats• 3 years ago

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

brigadier1324• 3 years ago

Exactly, the same power hungry people will play the game under the rules of any system.

alwayslikethis2• 3 years 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.

legitster18• 3 years ago

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.

celtoid7• 3 years ago

Capitalism is just another form of concentrating power. It would seem the problem with all systems is in distribution of power.

NoMoreNicksLeft10• 3 years ago

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.

DesiLurker• 3 years ago

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.

pphysch5• 3 years ago

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• 3 years ago

It's almost like the best solutions are somewhere in the middle between the two extreme ends.

earthboundkid• 3 years ago

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.

legitster18• 3 years ago

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.

systemvoltage• 3 years ago

Yep, I can (as well as Bill Gates) has access to chatGPT for $20/month. Same for airline travel (with a difference of a comfy chair).

Capitalism tends to edge towards maximality through high margin, high volume. Followed closely by low margin, high volume. And small ventures at low margin, low volume. All can coexist to improve the society.

Often, capitalism is discussed in the context of cronyism.

UtopiaPunk4• 3 years ago

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.

robertlagrant3• 3 years ago

It's not spicy, just silly. Using citizens buying things as the way to flow demand and value through companies that anyone can set up is about as far from power concentration as you can get.

1letterunixname4• 3 years ago

Power isn't the problem. It's an amoral, nebulous concept.

There are no actual -isms in the world.* These are utopian fantasies supported as tribal, jingoist footballs not worth arguing about. Governments are varying degrees of:

1. Influence corruption of the rich directing elected (or military junta) officials

2. Proportion of embezzlement-adjacent and actual embezzlement corruption of officials spending money on their own needs and wants

3. Overall functionality and responsiveness of police and justice extending protections or harm balancing individual and collective interests, including positive and negative rights to liberties, property, trade, and taxation

4. Distribution of competency across government departments

The problem in the US specifically is that money concentrates power because elected officials are beholding to campaign financing. As a consequent, primarily celebrities and public figures are the only ones who are "electable" in 2 flavors of corporate-owned, tribal factions. As John McCain discovered, there is absolutely no will to fix it from within the system. As such, it can only be resolved outside of it through applying great, sustained pressure in a nonviolent manner.

* Communism was attempted but never implemented anywhere because it's either a utopian delusion or was sidetracked by totalitarianism and/or inadequate leadership. Capitalism doesn't exist anywhere except in a libertarian's mind. There is no "pure" "socialism" anywhere. Every political jurisdiction implements a special snowflake blend of regulations, corruption, freedoms, autonomy, and force.

batmansmom1• 3 years ago

Can you explain what you mean by John McCain discovering there is no will to fix it? Have always admired him but I'm unaware of his efforts to change, outside of voting for ACA and admitting Obama is a decent man.

wahnfrieden2• 3 years ago

Not under anarchism, and not under human relations as a necessity, as Wengrow/Graeber for instance have done work to show

HDThoreaun13• 3 years ago

I don't think anarchism is realistic in any long term sense. Someone will always come around and consolidate power by forming(and forcing people into) a government.

confd2• 3 years ago

Good point. If not for power/authority how else do people think that their ideals will be successfully implemented?

totetsu• 3 years ago

Is it a human thing, or a mathematical game theory thing. If you have a group of agents with diverse motivations, power will become concentrated in many conditions.

jmyeet3• 3 years 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/Featur...

brigadier1324• 3 years ago

The lesson of the last 100 years was not that a Soviet aligned system was superior.

pphysch5• 3 years 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• 3 years ago

Thank the reds we're not all forced to speak German.

celtoid7• 3 years ago

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...

dpig_5• 3 years ago

Wow, that's bang on.

pphysch5• 3 years ago

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...

qsdf381003• 3 years ago

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_math3• 3 years ago

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.

Draiken2• 3 years ago

Trade and money existed long before capitalism. Capitalism is not trade and never was. Trade will always exist regardless of the economic system.

law of the fittest

Fittest? Capitalism rewards who already has capital. Monopolies inhibit competition, stifles innovation, and effectively nullifies the "fittest" argument. Still, that's the ultimate dream of every capitalist.

This rhetoric is a result of propaganda funded by the very capitalists that need to justify their atrocities.

What really baffles me is that these arguments are, today, almost exclusively made by those that are not capitalists. They defend their overlords with more faith and fervor than most church goers. When in reality most are one medical emergency away from bankruptcy, but still think they might become a billionaire.

oconnor663• 3 years ago

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.

jrpt2• 3 years ago

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.

jmyeet3• 3 years ago

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...

wernercd10• 3 years 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• 3 years ago

You think Bernie Sanders has a Ferrari or something?

Edit: Multiple supercars? really?

1970-01-012• 3 years ago

Bernie drives a Chevy Aveo.

https://www.wcax.com/content/news/Sen-Bernie-Sanders-car-nea...

wernercd10• 3 years 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".

PM_me_your_math3• 3 years ago

Sanders has three houses and net worth of 2 million dollars.

CP3f6kMA• 3 years ago

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.

AnimalMuppet2• 3 years ago

They say they want that, yes. From a historical viewpoint, it seems reasonable to question whether they actually want that (or whether wanting it is enough to make it a realistic possibility).

wellanyway4• 3 years ago

Oh they want to, the just fail every time there's a chance to do so.

LordDragonfang4• 3 years 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

FireInsight3• 3 years 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).

PrimeMcFly8• 3 years 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.

hx84• 3 years ago

Would you care to showcase some of your favorite alternatives?

PrimeMcFly8• 3 years 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• 3 years 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_Struc...

PrimeMcFly8• 3 years ago

Interesting link/book - thanks!

bonyen• 3 years 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.

thereddaikon• 3 years ago

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.

handsaway• 3 years ago

If we boil the definition of of socialism vs capitalism into "who owns the means of production?" Capitalism answers "a small group of people by natural right" and socialism answers "everyone, collectively". These definitions leave you with the only alternative being "a different small group of people" (arguably the USSR did model this, ergo allegations of "state capitalism"). Given industrial production (assuming no one is advocating for a return to feudalism) it's one or the other, there's a privileged class or there's not.

If you mean why has no one come up with different ideas for _accomplishing_ socialism post-Marx (or Lenin or Mao), well they have. There's all kinds of weird and wild ideas out there. Searchable terms for interesting ideas on organizing society include "participatory economics" and "democratic confederalism".

PrimeMcFly8• 3 years ago

These definitions leave you with the only alternative being "a different small group of people"

Or the same group of small people with significantly more restrictions and caps.

it's one or the other, there's a privileged class or there's not.

There doesn't have to be a privileged class in either system.

slothtrop5• 3 years ago

Which seems to be very much a false dichotomy.

We live in a mixed economy. The false dichotomy is generally one purported by Socialists as the worldview depends on it. The ranks of "anarcho-Capitalists" are comparatively very few.

avgcorrection4• 3 years ago

“Radical centrism“ (rejecting this dichotomy) are failures that either can't go beyond the crank armchair or which languish in political parties that are about piecemeal reforms (some Green parties).

Simply produce something better than this dichotomy. But apparently that is too hard.

PrimeMcFly8• 3 years ago

Simply produce something better than this dichotomy. But apparently that is too hard.

There are proposals out there, but people dismiss them outright in favor of their adherence to one of the two existing religions.

rqtwteye• 3 years 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. "

It seems a very US habit to think only two extremes can exist on any issue. There are plenty of examples of other paths when you look at the different countries in Europe. They all strike different balances between socialism and capitalism. Heck, the US is not very "pure" capitalistic either. We have socialized healthcare (for some), welfare (for some), progressive taxes and more.

I would be very curious about totally different approaches.

PrimeMcFly8• 3 years ago

It seems a very US habit to think only two extremes can exist on any issue. There are plenty of examples of other paths when you look at the different countries in Europe.

I don't think it's a US thing at all. I don't deny EU countries have a more hybrid system in some ways, but then so do man US states. That isn't what I'm talking about though. Online arguments/debates for this stuff always revolves around the two extremes, as do political parties, even in EU.

I would be very curious about totally different approaches.

We all should be! It should be a priority!

satvikpendem3• 3 years ago

In which countries do workers own the means of production? Socialism does not mean social programs.

hx84• 3 years 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?

legitster18• 3 years 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• 3 years ago

That's plain false. The entire point of Marx is that capital is what creates massive productive forces.

sdfghswe• 3 years 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.

sudosysgen5• 3 years ago

You can do that in planned economies, and historically that's what's been done. You let people try products with the surplus, basically acting as a VC fund, and if people buy that product at a price beyond that of production you make more, otherwise you make less. A market for labor and for consumer goods has been a part of every planned economy.

It really is the optimization and the logistics that was the difficult problem historically.

notacoward• 3 years ago

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?

UtopiaPunk4• 3 years ago

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• 3 years ago

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.

corimaith• 3 years ago

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.

marcusverus• 3 years ago

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• 3 years ago

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.

sabarn013• 3 years ago

Due to the war a lot of economies were planned circa 1945. With the war and the depression in peoples recent memory the idea of free capital allocation seemed insane.

avgcorrection4• 3 years 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.

AAPL? MSFT? AMZN?

A large corporation is internally a planned economy. Why do they keep outcompeting small businesses?

shrimp_emoji• 3 years ago

Market capture and high barrier to entry to producing the same caliber of service/product, particularly given network effects.

These are not good examples.

codeulike2• 3 years ago

Yes I've wondered about this - the market-vs-planned economy question got decided in an era with completely different networking and information processing technologies. There's this famous story:

Sometime before 1989, a Soviet official asked economist Paul Seabright who was in charge of London’s bread supply. Seabright gave him an answer that is comical but also true: ‘nobody’. The bread we eat turns up on our tables thanks to an incredible team effort (bakers, machinists, electricity suppliers, distributors etc etc). And even more incredibly, there is no-one in charge of that team. It just happens.

Also - please do weigh in on this, its a genuine question - we are used to the idea that markets are efficient in that way - as described above. But that efficiency of the current state, but doesn't seem to take account of the evolution that happened to get to that point. Has anyone measured the work it takes to get the market to that endpoint? Is there even a name for this concept?

That is: For every business that is involved in the supply of bread to london today, there must also be lots of businesses that tried to be involved but failed. Is there an economic term for the work that goes into the failed businesses and initiatives that dont survive long enough to become players in the market? The bankruptcies, the people that had to sell their business off cheap to a competitor, the people who spent a few years trying then gave up and pivoted to something else. Is there a name for that lost effort?

Because it seems that if were comparing against a planned economy thats what we should compare with - the total effort over time to produce whatever X.

consilient9• 3 years ago

But that efficiency of the current state, but doesn't seem to take account of the evolution that happened to get to that point. Has anyone measured the work it takes to get the market to that endpoint? Is there even a name for this concept?

I don't know of a term for this in particular, but the keywords to search for are "entry" and "social inefficiency".

hx84• 3 years ago

I think food in general is a terrible example of the efficiency in the free market. Nearly 40% of all food in the US is wasted. The evolutionary pressure of the free market values high availability over efficient use of resources.

marcosdumay4• 3 years ago

The economy is still highly complex and chaotic. That means that computers or not, if you don't have complete information about what everybody is doing and the ability to simulate every mind in the world, then no, you can't perfectly optimize it.

You can only do some hacks here or there, estimate risks, and react. But guess what? That's exactly what our governments do.

indymike2• 3 years 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

From the article: "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. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society."

This has been tried, and results in horrible oppression within just a few years of implementation. I can see the appeal, but you have to re-invent humans to make it work.

LindeBuzoGray2• 3 years ago

This has been tried, and results in horrible oppression within just a few years of implementation. I can see the appeal, but you have to re-invent humans to make it work.

From 50,000 years ago to 10,000 years ago there were no capitalists, no kings, no slave owners.

production to the needs of the community, distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society.

It is not a system of horrible oppression, it is how the few remaining hunter gatherer bands live in the Amazon right now.

jamiepenney2• 3 years ago

I've seen it convincingly argued that large corporations like Walmart operate like a planned economy internally, even if they are acting in an externally unplanned economy.

JT from Second Thought talks about it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuBrGaVhjcI as well as early socialist attempts at doing the same thing with computers (Cybersyn in Chile).

adasdasdas• 3 years 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• 3 years 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?

ecshafer2• 3 years 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• 3 years 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.

slothtrop5• 3 years ago

Socialism is the fundamental reordering of society to benefit the lowest wrung.

That is not the definition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism

You can have socialism with markers still, which is what is done in syndicalist style socialism.

Co-ops have never operated outside the bounds of a democracy with a State. Notwithstanding, they don't appear to scale very well. The most common use case is related to agriculture, though there's a single mid-scale company in Spain that ancoms like to tout.

No one wants to take on all the risk of starting a business while socializing all the profit, hence, we don't usually see these spring up. But if the model is so good for workers, naturally, you'd expect popularity to rise. They've been around a long time and we're still waiting for that to happen.

You can have limited social programs as a form of socialism as per social democrats.

That's just mixed economy, part of the fabric of Liberalism. Socialism necessitates the elimination of Capitalism.

Aunche3• 3 years ago

People always discover that certain things they want require centralized planning, like welfare, a strong military, or high tech goods. The problem with socialism in practice is that it always ends up being more about being anti-capitalism than pro-syndicalism or pro-direct democracy, so you always end up with a scenario where power gets more centralized to the state.

neilk• 3 years ago

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• 3 years ago

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.

Matl2• 3 years ago

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.

Jensson4• 3 years ago

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.

IMSAI8080• 3 years ago

There's a book "The People's Republic of Walmart" that makes these arguments. Walmart is a massive company, as large as some entire countries even, that operates an internal economy based on central planning. They tell all their suppliers exactly what will be produced, in what quantities, when it will be delivered and largely what it will cost. Modern stock control systems and supplier integration make it feasible.

Gunax• 3 years ago

This argument is 75 years old. I take it to be less of an argument, and more like history.

xg152• 3 years ago

I dunno, but China seems to do pretty well economically.

creer3• 3 years ago

they over and under produce just about everything because the central planners have an impossible job.

A free economy is full of over and under production also - probably because exact production is an impossible goal. I feel the better difference is in how free and responsive all the actors can be. Free to over-sheep in a bubble. Free to copy-cat when there is demand. Free to try and exploit any perceived imbalance. Responsiveness and freedom from dogma is a more important characteristic?

pitaj• 3 years ago

A free economy is full of over and under production also

Not nearly to the same degree, especially if you take into account various distortionary government policies.

1970-01-012• 3 years 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/einstei...

https://archive.ph/5mXgz

legitster18• 3 years 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• 3 years 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.

legitster18• 3 years 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.

1letterunixname4• 3 years ago

It's less of a Ponzi scheme and more of a gamified, time and treasure expensive hazing ritual whereby the sheepskin "proves" "quality" and some measure of aptitude, intelligence, baseline of problem-solving ability, and ability to finish something. It has been and is also 4-N years of extended adolescence. And in the distant past, when universities were more selective and cheaper, it's where people often met their spouses.

How else should we prepare people for the various workforces: knowledge work, financial services, skilled trades, etc.?

Universities fear 2 things: bad publicity and losing accreditation. Perhaps accreditation orgs such as ABET (in the US) need to get off their collective, perfunctory rubber-stamping posteriors and ensure financial and fiduciary stewardship are occurring, and that a university doesn't become tantamount to a white-collar human trafficking recruiter demanding the life savings of their victims on the vague promises of a bright future.

CrackerNews3• 3 years ago

I would say that Marx and labor theory of value are still relevant as mechanisms for understanding capitalism. According to Marx, Capitalism is a mode of economics that has unleashed the productive forces, but its internal contradictions give rise to increasing crisises. There is a constant downward pressure on labor costs versus rising costs of living.

Crisis has been averted multiple times, and the productive forces continue to be unleashed. To prevent total collapse, concessions like welfare have been made.

However, there is a real possibility of potential growth being stifled by self interests of powerful economic actors. This bleeds out now into identity politics as people view the liberal system as incapable of providing the growth and future they thought would be delivered. Either unprivileged groups want to be paid high wages or the privileged groups want to protect their high wages from being cut down. This is a form of class warfare that isn't too different from what Marx observed in his days.

This still is far away from achieving the socialist mode of production where the workers become the planner and rulers of the economy to further unleash the productive forces.

legitster18• 3 years ago

Marxism is kind of like the chiropracty of economics. Just because Marx can explain everything and point out contradictions doesn't mean they are true.

QoL is still in an upward climb. Average lifetime working hours is still marching down. We've peaked out on literacy and child mortality and preventable diseases with available technology.

You have to ignore 120 years of intellectual progress on economics to still want to apply labor theory of value to problems. There may be a day when we can achieve some semblance of a "socialist" mode of production - but I can almost assure you it will not be from people following Marx's flawed analysis. It will be from people who understand either classical or keynesian economics, or whatever new understanding come from it, and apply them towards actual functional policies.

MarkMarine• 3 years ago

It seems the many of the only people who really read and understood Marx looked at it and said “well ok, I’m going to be one of the capitalists, and this is actually good.”

There are actually planned economies in our system, Einstein would have been shocked by Walmart. I recommend “People’s Republic of Walmart” by Phillips and Rozworski if you want to read about it.

Natsu7• 3 years ago

The labor theory of value is bogus, though. A doctor doing work on their own car and a mechanic diagnosing their own illness are both worse off than if they exchange their labor with each other, even if Marxist thought wants to equate their labors.

mullingitover• 3 years ago

Capitalism will make people stop working and be less productive? If anything we worry about the opposite problem.

Well, unemployment is kind of a requirement of capitalism. You can't have the labor force calling the shots, it eats into profits. From the article:

There is no provision that all those able and willing to work will always be in a position to find employment; an “army of unemployed” almost always exists.

He's being generous here, it's not just that an "army of the unemployed" almost always exists, it's a goal. Captains of industry in the current low-unemployment environment have been saying the quiet part out loud, that we need to increase unemployment. There's generally a target of 5% unemployment, which means capitalism has built-in waste.

drekipus9• 3 years ago

It's not waste unless you think of humans as little units of work, like a resource to be mined.

People complaining about a problem doesn't mean it is a problem. I want cheaper milk, I complain about the price of milk, but the price is probably correct and that's for me to grumble about.

"Captains of industry" want a pool of unemployed people they can pick from. If the pool is dried then that's fine. It's not a sign that capitalism has failed.

legitster18• 3 years ago

Well, unemployment is kind of a requirement of capitalism.

Says who? The only "requirement of capitalism" is that individuals are allowed to have ownership rights. Outside of a few niche organizations that benefit from economic distress, I think you will find a general S&P 500 consensus that low employment is a good thing for their stock prices.

There's generally a target of 5% unemployment, which means capitalism has built-in waste.

That's because, in a free society, we have discovered that it's better to get people new and better jobs than be shackled to a milling machine from childhood.

marcosdumay4• 3 years ago

unemployment is kind of a requirement of capitalism

If you decide to define "capitalism" as cronyism, yeah, the things cronists demand are requirements.

enkid• 3 years ago

Every system has built in waste. If you have no waste, you have no slack room, which means when a system faces a crisis.

brightball• 3 years ago

Economics always win.

If the labor supply increases, new enterprises will be able to hire and grow. This will shrink the labor supply and increase the price of labor.

The only time there are massive shifts are when some sizeable factor creates a disruption. Sometimes that’s technology advancement.

Other times it’s a policy change due to government intervention. The area where I live used to be the textile capital of the world until a policy change shifted all of it overseas and gutted the entire area.

And now that same area is thriving after years of being destitute. Old mills converted to fancy apartments. Old train tracks used to ship product converted to bike trails. Thriving tech community.

It ebbs and flows. But nobody making centralized decisions would have made the choices that led to it.

losvedir• 3 years ago

I think worth noting 5% unemployment doesn't necessarily mean an "army of the unemployed", by which I take you to mean a sliver of downtrodden persistently unemployed people.

It's a metric taken by sampling the population and asking if they're looking for a job at that moment. It could equally be every worker looking for a job 2.5 weeks out of the year.

It's obviously somewhere in between those extremes but picks up a lot of the latter as seasonal workers shifting to where there's demand.

roguas2• 3 years ago

Well, unemployment is kind of a requirement of capitalism. You can't have the labor force calling the shots, it eats into profits.

This is internally conflicting. Profits is the required thing it seems - not unemployment.

lobocinza• 3 years ago

If you're worried about unemployment you should be against minimum wages.

dmn3223• 3 years ago

we have so many welfare programs and safety nets and worker protects

Not really, in the 40's and 50's the programs were stronger

kansface• 3 years ago

Federal expenditures as a function of GDP were ~12% or so in 1950 (ie, coming down from the war). They are 25% or so now, 20% before covid. I’d imagine the states are about the same.

legitster18• 3 years ago

Not really, in the 40's and 50's the programs were stronger

How so? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_programs_in_the_United_...

marcosdumay4• 3 years ago

It's a pretty well written piece.

It's... Pretty mundane and usual.

If it didn't come from Einstein, nobody would even pay attention. It just states the same gains and problems everybody knows (and did know by decades at that time), and restates the large showstopper without going into how to solve it (what nobody knows how even today).

It's a really good piece of popular communication. He was very good at that. And the situation didn't change much since then (at least the things he describes). So yeah, if you don't know a lot about the subject, the article is for you. Just don't expect to learn anything deep.

Turskarama4• 3 years ago

Most people don't know anything about the subject. People in this thread are likely far more educated than average on the subject, but I'm still seeing a lot of comments from people who don't understand the basics of labour theory.

forgetfreeman• 3 years ago

We may have more programs by volume but the barriers to entry and weird-ass financial requirements to keep benefits often drives the outcomes those programs are notionally intended to address. The social safety net today is significantly less functional than it was 30 years ago.

jtode• 3 years ago

I think he'd be screaming "read it again" at you right now lol

hyperthesis2• 3 years ago

Capitalism will make people stop working and be less productive?

\aside: Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations has a story about men who worked themselves into the ground, because they were paid by-the-piece (not per hour). They needed to be protected from themselves. (The psychological mechanism wasn't speculated, but I suspect maybe competition rather than greed.)

jwestbury• 3 years ago

So Adam Smith was opposed to the gig economy, then?

demondemidi• 3 years ago

Yes, capitalism makes people less productive. Wall Street? The richest of the rich get rich by playing games with paper, not by doing something useful to society. Look at all the stupid skyscrapers in NYC that were simply built to launder wealth, aren’t occupied, and are beyond the means of 99.99% of US citizens, yet the dominate the skyline and shade the public parks. Capitalism is designed to have lazy winners.

1letterunixname4• 3 years ago

intalentive• 3 years 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.

orthecreedence12• 3 years ago

Value is a negotiation between cost and desire. Communists want to know the actual cost to make something. Prices erase this data.

nwah1• 3 years 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.

Jensson4• 3 years ago

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.

dist-epoch• 3 years ago

True communism was never tried.

hnarn• 3 years ago

But no true Scotsman…

slothtrop5• 3 years 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• 3 years 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• 3 years ago

That might be true. Ever wonder why?

gorenb• 3 years 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.

FrustratedMonky3• 3 years 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.

WBrentWilliams2• 3 years 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.

thescriptkiddie2• 3 years ago

Socialism doesn't mean no markets. In fact, no attempt at building socialism so far has ever done away with markets.

WBrentWilliams2• 3 years 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.

Draiken2• 3 years ago

if a Market creates externalities, then it is time to consider, argue over, and politically implement alternatives.

Until you can't, because gigantic corporations are stronger than states and can purchase even more power through capital.

It amuses me how often I see socialism dismissed as "amusing", only to see naive arguments against it. We live in this world RIGHT NOW. We have proof that the market does not regulate itself. Let me rephrase, they regulate themselves to extract maximum profit at the expense of anything and everything.

And again, as someone else pointed out, markets don't vanish under socialism. What most argue for is a baseline for every human being to exist and the removal of the profit motive.

Meanwhile capitalists gloss over all the inherent contradictions of capitalism like the need for infinite growth. Now that is amusing.

Deprogrammer9• 3 years ago

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

zackmorris• 3 years 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.

pizzafeelsright• 3 years ago

I too am a bit surprised that the billionaire doesn't do more but looking at Musk or the land grabbing in California for a new city for example, to get anything done requires dealing with haters and grifters and scammers at the speed of policy changes.

Eventually they give up and try to make a name and legacy.

Helping people is hard. Helping a lot of people is really hard.

I think about gasoline from the evil oil execs. I never had to return their product. It's always affordable compared the associated costs, and it's always available and convenient, and there's no discrimination. California gas would be 20% cheaper if it wasn't taxed 4x before use.

robocat• 3 years ago

If capitalism worked, then prices would get lower over time

Or alternatively consumer surplus would increase: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_surplus

Talking about prices is almost meaningless - since the worth of $1 changes (especially as individuals).

solatic10• 3 years 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.

fallingknife2• 3 years ago

The "we'll divide the work. You be labor, I'll be management" problem.

lost_tourist• 3 years 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"

threetonesun• 3 years ago

What people would want to do might look different if you took away all the bullshit jobs and jobs tied to peddling endless consumption on people. Both my Grandfathers were janitors, no one looked down on them, they enjoyed their jobs and took pride in it, they both got paid a decent enough for lower-middle-class wage.

Get rid of all the jobs that don't directly benefit your community and what people would want to do for their community would change drastically.

solatic10• 3 years ago

I'm not saying janitorial work isn't an honest profession, I'm saying nobody prefers janitorial work. Nobody in their childhood dreams of growing up and becoming a janitor. Your grandfathers can at the same time be someone who found dignity in that work and made the best of the hand they were dealt, and at the same time be someone who would prefer a different career path had a genuine choice been offered to them.

shadowfoxx5• 3 years ago

I mean, in America? Right now? Maybe not... okay definitely not but I ask the same thing about Higher-taxes for the betterment of all. No way it would happen here - the people wouldn't accept it but it does work elsewhere and the people there are, by the ways we currently measure, way happier than we are.

I think a culture that teaches the value of community and does a great deal to impart on the youth that we have the nice, comfortable lives (with arguably more freedom) is because we share those burdens and its part of our civic duty... that its patriotic to do so. I could see that working out.

Plus how crazy is it to think that cultures and societies did operate similarly in the past, pre-industrialization? Isn't this the basis for the family unit?

solatic10• 3 years ago

culture that teaches the value of community

I don't disagree, but you need to be very careful how you define community. A community that is defined by who is included nearly always cannot escape an implicit declaration of who is excluded, and a community which includes everybody is no community at all. When you have an in-group and an out-group, you sow the early seeds of conflict and discord.

Isn't this the basis for the family unit?

No, this is the basis for the tribe, with similar concerns about intertribal conflict. Modern societies enjoy such peace and improved quality-of-life outcomes precisely because the state largely subsumes these tribes, and where the state is unsuccessful at doing so (e.g. religious affiliation), has at least succeeded in eliminating much of the worst of intertribal conflict within the state's sphere of control.

biztos2• 3 years ago

Where I’m from (in California) the garbage collection is done by a private company, and it looks like a pretty nice job if you’re physically fit. And it’s not looked down on at all, people there know what hauling their own garbage is like.

Snow removal is very high status and pretty, er, cool because of the big machines involved, and its government work with the pay and benefits you’d expect. Probably only the postmaster is as universally appreciated up there.

I’d happily drive the snowplow if it paid half what a software job pays. The only downside is you can’t really drink in the winter.

Plumbing is very entrepreneurial, especially the emergency “unblock my pipe” kind. That person could easily be making more than you and I.

So while surely there are some jobs that are miserable, many of them connected to factory farming of meat, I don’t think “office job” is automatically enticing to everyone. And there is still plenty of social status in necessary jobs, if done in an actual community.

solatic10• 3 years ago

You're making my point. Today, under a capitalist economy, these undesirable jobs can be made desirable because of privatization or high or stable income that is offered as renumeration. But under a socialist system that simply assigns these jobs to people, "according to society's needs", with no other distinction offered, then you will find few takers.

dahwolf• 3 years 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• 3 years 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.

hyperthesis2• 3 years ago

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

wellanyway4• 3 years 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• 3 years 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• 3 years 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• 3 years 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.

8bitsrule• 3 years 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.

Why Socialism? (1949)

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