Why doesn't socialism work?

True.

 

Because government isn't accountable to consumers. The real reason socialism doesn't work is that it fails to understand the desire that people have to get ahead.

 

When people realize everyone will share equally they naturally began to produce less and less because there is no reward to work hard. Example: I once hired two teenage boys to connect together 8,000 units. The pay was a flat amount. Those kids played, talked, goofed off and failed to meet a deadline. So next time I divided the units into 4,000 and assigned each a specific pile. You should have seen them dig in and start working. They were competing on who could finish first.
Capitalism nourishes competition and pays rewards for hard work resulting in the USA becoming prosperous. Only the lazy benefit (if you call receiving less and less benefitting) from socialism. So simple and exactly why socialist countries just sink deeper and deeper into despair. The ideology looks perfect on paper and in thought, but human nature will doom it.

 

The core of it is concisely stated in a comment from the son of the founder of "New Harmony", Americas first attempt as socialism. It was an entire community of 800 people in 1825, lasted three years.
This is what the son, who later became a congressman, said of his fathers dream:

Owen's son, Robert Dale Owen, stayed at New Harmony after its collapse and went on to serve two terms in Congress. He had a different assessment of his father's experiment, writing: "All cooperative schemes which provide equal remuneration to the skilled and industrious and the ignorant and idle must work their own downfall. For by this unjust plan they must of necessity eliminate the valuable members and retain only the improvident, unskilled and vicious."

That's why socialism doesn't work- it punishes effort and success, and rewards failure and the unindustrious.

 

As stated in the OP, I am not referring to liberalism or the Democratic party or even Denmark. I mean Cuba, Venezuela, the USSR, China under Mao, Nirth Korea....

Any system where the economy is state controlled or directed.

"This form of socialism combines public ownership and management of the means of production with centralized state planning and can refer to a broad range of economic systems from the centralized Soviet-style command economy to participatory planning via workplace democracy. In a centrally-planned economy decisions regarding the quantity of goods and services to be produced as well as the allocation of output (distribution of goods and services) are planned in advanced by a planning agency."

Capitalism isn't perfect because private owners of industry are free to miscalculate consumer demand. But at least they are free to try their innovations, with exceptions for pharmaceuticals and some weapons.

I do still wonder why the lines for toilet paper and basic staples. My guess is that we are so interconnected that we cannot function without some foreign supply of something. If you were the CEO of Archer Daniel's, of Ford, or of Pfizer, how could you enter into a trade agreement with Venezuela or North Korea?

 

Yes, I actually have considered that and have two responses.

First, the embargo against Cuba didn't materialize out of thin air. The United States first imposed an embargo on the sale of arms to Cuba on March 14, 1958, during the Fulgencio Batista regime. Again on October 19, 1960 (almost two years after the Cuban Revolution had led to the deposition of the Batista regime) the U.S. placed an embargo on exports to Cuba except for food and medicine after Cuba nationalized American-owned Cuban oil refineries without compensation. On February 7, 1962 the embargo was extended to include almost all exports. The embargo does not prohibit the trade of food and humanitarian supplies."

So the embargo was a reasonable response to what was essentially thuggery and theft. Why reward it?

Second, the embargo may partially explain Cuba (though Fidel should have thought about that response before the revolution, not after .... bad planning).

But it does not explain the failures of planned economies in other countries ( as in 100% of them) to meet a similar fate.

There comes a point where you have to recognize that collectivism is incompatible with freedom.

Choose.

 

Good read, enjoyed it very much, thanks..

 

Not without toilet paper, you can't.

(Joke)

 

The marxists I have debated this subject with invariably sat that socialism, by which they mean control of the means of production by the workers, as opposed to capitalists and bureaucrats and dictators, has never been tried.

My answer to that is that it's never going to be tried because "the workers" don't really want to control the means of production. It's very time consuming and most just don't have the talent, the intelligence, or the energy. I freely admit that I could not run Microsoft, other than into the ground. I wouldn't do anything really bad, I hope, but I'd get lost in the forest and overwhelmed by regulations, consumer complaints/demands, labor demands and the regulators themselves.

 

Duplicate post

 

I'll just say this, assuming socialism is scalable the further down the road one travels the worse the society becomes.

 

True.

And a little depressing, if I'm honest. There is a passage in the Bible, the Acts of the Apostles, I think, where they are described as living in a commune and sharing everything. Good people. But there were no supply chains to manage and they didn't seem to care about consumer goods.

Look at us now.

 

Seems like you're on the team China approach.. Aren't they actively enforcing strict isolation in their populous these days? Seems rather more like the socialist government there is more autocratic, more likely to deny basic civil liberties, and human rights. Obviously, that truly is the goal of socialism, since it is the state, not the individual that counts. If the socialist nation were to choose to suddenly nationalize it's industry, it would. China, again, is a perfect example. Italy has done the same, Spain, Greece, I mean, really there is quite a list.

And when folks in socialism finally understand that their wants and needs aren't the point, then what? Do you suppose those folks are just SOL? It seems to be the prevailing expectation of the socialists in this country. It's part of the illusion of what socialism actually is. Labor under the yoke of plantation that expects your output, not your happiness.....

 

Actually the U.S.S.R. didn't even do a very good job of producing weapons when it came down to it.

Socialism doesn't work because in the real world, economies work far and away best if workers are actually working to maximize their profits.

 

We really are in a catch 22

Consumer greed is both killing us and keeping us alive at the same time.

Peoples oak cabinets from the 80s and 90s are "dated" and "need" replacing. A complete waste but i have a job because of it..

 

Yes and no. Yes workers would like a place at the table (board of directors) and no they don't want to run the place. This isn't a bad setup because the laborers that make it to the boardroom are probably smarter than the average bear. Probably. That gives management a window on what's going on in the trenches.

Corporations control of production give them great power but they are still restrained by market forces. Corporations come in three favors plus a lot of in between stuff: Corporations that follow the market, corporations that anticipate the market, and corporations that change the market. Communism invented a fourth class: Outfits that (try to) manage the markets.

Communism looks to its computers and turns it ass on the consumers. Capitalistic and socialistic countries know better.

 

I was a boss once I hated it. It's a miserable flipping job. You really can't be friends with those who work for you because more than a few of them will try to take advantage and the rest will complain if you let them.

 

Those marxists must be pretty damn dumb. This massive statue of Karl Marx still stands in Revolution Square in Moscow. Marx is facing the famous Bolshoi Theatre, which is just across the street. Both are a stone's throw from Red Square.



The inscription translates to "Proletarians of all countries, unite". So what is a 'proletarian' you ask?

The proletariat is the class of wage-earners in an economic society whose only possession of significant material value is their labour-power. A member of such a class is a proletarian. Marxist theory considers the proletariat to be oppressed by capitalism and the wage system.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Sounds like a Bernie speech, huh?

Here's a short 1919 speech by Vladimir Lenin:

What is Soviet power? What is the essence of this new power, which people in most countries still will not, or cannot, understand? The nature of this power, which is attracting larger and larger numbers of workers in every country, is the following: in the past the country was, in one way or another, governed by the rich, or by the capitalists, but now, for the first time, the country is being governed by the classes, and moreover, by the masses of those classes, which capitalism formerly oppressed. Even in the most democratic and freest republics, as long as capital rules and the land remains private property, the government will always be in the hands of a small minority, nine-tenths of which consist of capitalists, or rich men.

In this country, in Russia, for the first time in the world history, the government of the country is so organised that only the workers and the working peasants, to the exclusion of the exploiters, constitute those mass organisations known as Soviets, and these Soviets wield all state power. That is why, in spite of the slander that the representatives of the bourgeoisie in all countries spread about Russia, the word "Soviet" has now become not only intelligible but popular all over the world, has become the favourite word of the workers, and of all working people. And that is why, notwithstanding all the persecution to which the adherents of communism in the different countries are subjected, Soviet power must necessarily, inevitably, and in the not distant future, triumph all over the world.

We know very well that there are still many defects in the organisation of Soviet power in this country. Soviet power is not a miracle-working talisman. It does not, overnight, heal all the evils of the past- illiteracy, lack of culture, the consequences of a barbarous war, the aftermath of predatory capitalism. But it does pave the way to socialism. It gives those who were formerly oppressed the chance to straighten their backs and to an ever-increasing degree to take the whole government of the country, the whole administration of the economy, the whole management of production, into their own hands.

Soviet power is the road to socialism that was discovered by the masses of the working people, and that is why it is the true road, that is why it is invincible.

 

“From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs”.

This goes against human nature. People want to keep what they’ve earned to support themselves and their family.

While growing up, my father paid more than 50% of his income in taxes. He used to tell us every year in July or August, “Ok. I’m done paying the government for the year. From now until the end of December, everything I earn is for us!”.

 

As opposed to the situation currently facing the nation of Venezuela? What is their GDP to debt ration?

 

I am reading "Profiles in Corruption" and one thing is clear.. Govt officials and their cronies get rich off tax money.. and it is apparent in socialist countries that is exactly the system. IOW in a socialist country you have the .00001 % and everyone else is facing starvation. That's why socialism/communism is always enforced at gun point. The people who truly understand socialism and still support it are more than likely psychopathic thugs looking for a system were their particular talents and tendencies are valued.

 

Simply put, socialism runs out of other peoples money.

 

There is another dimension to this, and I guess it falls under the human nature category own problems with socialism:

Here it is: I am happy to share what I have with my children, my wife, my friends, most but not all of my relatives, and 2 or 3 of my neighbors. With my fellow workers in a faraway place like Cincinnati or a hotbed of destructive lazy stupid anarchists in Portland? Not so much. And Marxism envisions a workers state encompassing the whole world. Do they really want me to share my beans with Taliban fighters, Al Qaeda terrorists, and narcos in Mexico?

 

The big problem with being a boss these days is the political climate that makes it dangerous to fire bad employees. And the fact that there are few good employees looking for work.

 

And the worst part is if you don't fire them and pronto everyone else starts to copy them.