The author rebuts three softball “common claims” of his own selection and declares them silly. Because they are. It’s a straw man fallacy of the highest order, conjuring up a bogus opponent which...
The author rebuts three softball “common claims” of his own selection and declares them silly. Because they are. It’s a straw man fallacy of the highest order, conjuring up a bogus opponent which is easy to vanquish. It amounts to yet more of this mindless collectivizing us-vs-them antagonism that’s reached a fever pitch of late. From everyone.
“X group says this and that’s stupid.”
“As a member of X group, we never said that, and Y group is all the same, jumping to conclusions about us.”
“Not this Y grouper, I’m looking for an actual debate.”
“Yeah right, Y group is nothing but intellectually dishonest trolls.”
I’m exhausted by the constant back and forth and failure of anyone to actually listen. And I say that as an outsider, an anarchist, who is neither right nor left.
For an actual mindful critique of socialism, I refer you to the FEE’s excellent compilation Clichés of Socialism from 1970. I have a paperback copy of this that also includes Frédéric Bastiat’s essential 1850 essay The Law. I recommend both if anyone’s curious what this excercise could look like if it were attempted with rigor.
Meh. The FEE compilation does a pretty bad job too. Lots of softball clichés with poor responses based on some rather ridiculous assumptions. The response to #11, in particular, is full of...
what this excercise could look like if it were attempted with rigor.
Meh. The FEE compilation does a pretty bad job too. Lots of softball clichés with poor responses based on some rather ridiculous assumptions. The response to #11, in particular, is full of unsupported claims about the magic of the free market that are not reflected in the world we live in.
The truth is that the unhampered market society allocates to every member the undiminished fruits
of his labor.
The economic principles of the free market, the competition among employers, a man's mobility and freedom of choice, assured him full wages under the given production conditions.
In a free market economy, labor productivity determines wage rates.
Perhaps all these things are how things should work, but reality is quite a different story. Wages are typically based on how replaceable you are (supply and demand), not on your level of productivity. Workers do not typically have great mobility and do not have the resources or clout to individually stand up for themselves against corporate juggernauts.
The Foundation for Economic Education is a right-wing think-tank pushing the Austrian school of economics, a brand of economics formulated by economists like Murray Rothbard and Ludwig von Mises...
The Foundation for Economic Education is a right-wing think-tank pushing the Austrian school of economics, a brand of economics formulated by economists like Murray Rothbard and Ludwig von Mises that's somehow even friendlier to corporations and the rich than the mainstream Chicago school.
When you say this do you mean you're an anarchist, or a follower of the hard right invention that is Anarcho Capitalism? Looking at your links I'm led to believe it's the latter.
And I say that as an outsider, an anarchist, who is neither right nor left.
When you say this do you mean you're an anarchist, or a follower of the hard right invention that is Anarcho Capitalism?
Looking at your links I'm led to believe it's the latter.
Yeah, I guess you could call me an anarcho-capitalist but I take issue with the characterization that it's a "hard right invention." Certainly the economics favor zero government intervention,...
Yeah, I guess you could call me an anarcho-capitalist but I take issue with the characterization that it's a "hard right invention." Certainly the economics favor zero government intervention, which is conservative to the extreme. But ancaps (and I'm speaking for myself, not on behalf of a group) veer left on a lot of social issues too. You'd be hard-pressed to align my anti-war, pro-drug, pro-lgbt, pro-immigration stances with anything the right would claim. When I say I'm neither right nor left, I'm talking about an alignment that the single-axis spectrum is insufficient to describe. The Nolan Chart is more useful in that matter.
I'm not wild about anarchist gatekeeping, the suggestion that if I'm not a Marxist I can't be a true anarchist. I oppose government coersion, that should be enough.
You can't have private property without a government to enforce laws against trespassing, theft, robbery, rape, and murder. You can't have corporations without a government to grant charters, thus...
I oppose government coersion, that should be enough.
You can't have private property without a government to enforce laws against trespassing, theft, robbery, rape, and murder.
You can't have corporations without a government to grant charters, thus intervening in the market.
You can't have a market without an authority capable of settling contract disputes and enforcing laws against fraud.
Not to put too fine a point on things, and I don't think anyone has been rude in this exchange, but isn't this thread supposedly about addressing criticisms of socialism? I'm a little confused...
Not to put too fine a point on things, and I don't think anyone has been rude in this exchange, but isn't this thread supposedly about addressing criticisms of socialism? I'm a little confused about why we're launching into a criticism of a fairly unrelated political philosophy.
Do you see socialism as necessarily opposed by, what appears to me to be, an extreme end of market-supporting libertarianism?
In my experience, most criticism of socialism from the right depends is based on the assumption that a market that's completely free of government coercion is the ideal. The problem is that the...
In my experience, most criticism of socialism from the right depends is based on the assumption that a market that's completely free of government coercion is the ideal. The problem is that the ideal is incoherent. You can't live in civilization without being subject to coercion.
I would be careful about continuing to call someone “from the right” when they just got done commenting about their personal liberal tendencies and framing their self placement in the Nolan Chart....
I would be careful about continuing to call someone “from the right” when they just got done commenting about their personal liberal tendencies and framing their self placement in the Nolan Chart. That can come across as rude, especially when the only thing you need to do to show that you’ve read what you’re reacting to is add the word “economic” before “right.”
That said, I think you’ve made a decent case for how it’s fair to wonder about the weaknesses of economic-right/libertarian extremes here. So long as you’re not looping in all criticism of socialism as coming “from the right.”
Thank you. Money is power. No individual or organization should have too much of either. In my experience the only difference between a conservative and a libertarian lies in whether the state...
I would be careful about continuing to call someone “from the right” when they just got done commenting about their personal liberal tendencies and framing their self placement in the Nolan Chart. That can come across as rude.
Thank you.
especially when the only thing you need to do to show that you’ve read what you’re reacting to is add the word “economic” before “right.”
Money is power. No individual or organization should have too much of either. In my experience the only difference between a conservative and a libertarian lies in whether the state should partner with the church or with capital to oppress the individual.
So long as you’re not looping in all criticism of socialism as coming “from the right.”
Of course not. Traditional state socialism can also be assailed from an left-anarchist viewpoint, but @balooga was citing the Foundation for Economic Education rather than Proudhon, Kropotkin, Goldman, Luxembourg, and their successors.
I feel like socialist talk has been on the rise recently because America is in late stage capitalism and laws continue to benefit companies that merge and use other anti-consumer techniques in...
I feel like socialist talk has been on the rise recently because America is in late stage capitalism and laws continue to benefit companies that merge and use other anti-consumer techniques in order to make profits that far exceed what should be considered acceptable. The greed and things that companies today are allowed to get away with isn't fundamentally broken, it's just missing a lot of regulation. Socialism doesn't work because workers feel mistreated when other workers are lazy and still receive the same benefits. Consumers benefit in an innumerable amount of ways from having an open and free market, but it's the governments job to ensure they don't rip us off in the process, and they've failed at that recently.
I think it's a bit of cop out to dismiss it for this reason, partly because what you're describing is closer to communism, but primarily because workers now are already mistreated and prejudiced...
I think it's a bit of cop out to dismiss it for this reason, partly because what you're describing is closer to communism, but primarily because workers now are already mistreated and prejudiced against. Income and wealth inequality in the US is one of the worst in the world, with workers earning many times less than their CEOs, but also workers in the same position can have vastly different salaries for doing the same job
I agree income and wealth inequality is atrocious here and think there are definitely some things we could gain from adapting a "for the common good" and "for your fellow human" mindset in a...
I agree income and wealth inequality is atrocious here and think there are definitely some things we could gain from adapting a "for the common good" and "for your fellow human" mindset in a variety of sectors.
Workers are lazy because they've realized that their work is pointless and only done for pure survival. Humans are beasts of labor, we enjoy working. Just not when the our work is coerced,...
Workers are lazy because they've realized that their work is pointless and only done for pure survival. Humans are beasts of labor, we enjoy working. Just not when the our work is coerced, pointless, or has its product stolen away for the benefit of the capitalist.
The first definition of "work" in the Oxford Dictionary is "Activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result." Working for income is only a subset of that....
I think you're using a definition of "work" that is completely disassociated from the standard English meaning.
The vast majority of people are perfectly content to spend their life doing nothing much.
Why do people volunteer? Why are most volunteers retired people? Why do artists make art? It's because, as much as people say they want to do nothing, they actually want to do something. They might not want to do the something that's required of them in order to earn money - but, while they're forced to do that paid labour, they don't have time to do the something they want to do. When people retire, they're more likely to take up volunteering because they can finally do the something they want to do without having to worry about earning money to survive.
Sure, we like to play up the stereotype that the average human just wants to sit on the couch and watch TV or play computer games, but I think we'd find that, if humans weren't tethered to paid employment for survival, many people would still go out and do something productive with their lives - even if only for a day or two per week. They would still do something instead of nothing.
Writer here. Speaking strictly for myself, I don't write because writing is fun. Writing is a pain in the fucking ass, especially when you're the husband of a breast cancer survivor and you work...
Why do artists make art?
Writer here. Speaking strictly for myself, I don't write because writing is fun. Writing is a pain in the fucking ass, especially when you're the husband of a breast cancer survivor and you work full-time as a software developer.
It's lonely, thankless, painstaking, and frustrating work. I do it anyway because nobody else is writing the stories I want to read. If I were wholly satisfied with the stories other people were writing, I wouldn't try to write my own. I wouldn't feel the need to. I'm not that much of a masochist.
However, I am not satisfied with the stories others tell. I'm not even satisfied with my own work. But I'll won't stop. I won't give in. I will leave behind a work that is mine.
What this worthless world does with it after I'm dead isn't my problem.
I think this is well said, and hopefully not just because I largely agree with the sentiments. In my experience, most of art is an exercise in self-expression, engaged in because we see no one...
I think this is well said, and hopefully not just because I largely agree with the sentiments. In my experience, most of art is an exercise in self-expression, engaged in because we see no one else saying what we want to be said. If it achieves acclaim or market success can linger as part of the equation for what we say, but it's not always a huge part of it.
I don't think Asimov is trying to downplay the activity by saying it's fun though. In the context of his argument, it seems more that he's saying these are activities that are productive materially for a community, but come more often as a sort of donation by the people engaging in them. Because they're not likely to be financially rewarding, people will table these activities while they pay the bills but might engage in them more with a little less financial stress.
Good summary of my intentions. Thank you. By the way, we can be on a first-name basis. You can call me "Algernon". :)
I don't think Asimov is trying to downplay the activity by saying it's fun though. In the context of his argument, it seems more that he's saying these are activities that are productive materially for a community, but come more often as a sort of donation by the people engaging in them. Because they're not likely to be financially rewarding, people will table these activities while they pay the bills but might engage in them more with a little less financial stress.
Good summary of my intentions. Thank you.
By the way, we can be on a first-name basis. You can call me "Algernon". :)
I never said or implied that writing - or any other volunteer activity - is fun! I've written, directed, and produced my own play, and written some short pieces. Of course it's not easy. It was,...
I don't write because writing is fun. Writing is a pain in the fucking ass
I never said or implied that writing - or any other volunteer activity - is fun! I've written, directed, and produced my own play, and written some short pieces. Of course it's not easy. It was, however, fulfilling.
And, to my main point, it's also productive. You are producing stories for people to read even though you're not being paid for it. You're doing this without financial motivation.
Just like people volunteer and do all sorts of other unpaid work. We do it because there's something in us driving to do these things, not because someone's dangling a pay cheque in front of us.
A little from column A, a little from column B. I found the writing process to be exciting and invigorating (in part, because I was working to a deadline). I enjoyed putting words together and...
A little from column A, a little from column B.
I found the writing process to be exciting and invigorating (in part, because I was working to a deadline). I enjoyed putting words together and creating dialogue and scenes on a page. I still do enjoy writing, even if inspiration hasn't struck in quite a long time. Of course I was happy when I had a finished product, but I wouldn't have gotten there if I hadn't enjoyed the writing process to some degree.
Correct. But, in this context - a discussion about economic systems - I'll assume that someone is using a more academic definition for a word than a casual definition. Riddle me this. Why do...
Part of discussing tense topics is avoiding phrasing that is intentionally confusing.
Correct. But, in this context - a discussion about economic systems - I'll assume that someone is using a more academic definition for a word than a casual definition.
we humans will literally poison ourselves out of boredom instead of taking up a hobby.
Riddle me this. Why do retirees make up the largest portion of volunteers? Why aren't hospital emergency rooms filled with old-age pensioners strung out on ice?
These people (often) have financial security. They don't have to worry about where their next pay-cheque is coming from. They can therefore indulge themselves. Some potter around on hobbies. Some take up golf. Some go back to university. Some keep working part-time, even if they don't need the money. Some volunteer for charities or other helpful organisations. They find something to do.
If all humans were tomorrow prevented from earning money for labor
That's not what I meant at all. I said "if humans weren't tethered to paid employment for survival". In other words, if our survival didn't depend on working for someone else to earn money. Yes, it's a hypothetical world. I'm not saying that everyone gets fired tomorrow, and has to survive with no money. I'm positing a world where survival is not tethered to paid employment. If we told people they no longer had to work in paid employment to receive housing and food and other essentials, I believe that many people would still voluntarily find something productive to do with their lives. If nothing else, simple boredom would drive them to it.
This was never my point. I joined this discussion to make the point that people will find something productive to do with themselves, even when they're not motivated by money. However, you've...
And now we're at the core of the matter:
This was never my point. I joined this discussion to make the point that people will find something productive to do with themselves, even when they're not motivated by money.
However, you've ignored everything I wrote about people finding something productive to do, in order to play your "gotcha!" game about something that wasn't even central to my comments, to somehow drag me into an argument I obviously wasn't engaging with.
If this isn't debating in bad faith, I don't know what is.
Sorry, but I'm not playing. Go find yourself another patsy.
Surely you both have a point. People prefer idleness and leisure to working for subsistence. But they enjoy earned leisure the most of all. The problem is that when left unforced, most people have...
Surely you both have a point. People prefer idleness and leisure to working for subsistence. But they enjoy earned leisure the most of all. The problem is that when left unforced, most people have a hard time convincing themselves to get up and do something for future reward. Thus, given the option, many people will slip into depression and addiction. I don't think that this is showing their revealed preference: if you could take a drug addict out of their life and ask them if they'd do things differently, they'll say yes. It's just a discipline problem.
This is the crux of the matter that perhaps we can all agree on. People would like to feel accomplished, but given the option, they can't muster the motivation and determination to earn that accomplishment. By my lights, this makes a good argument for keeping society organized in a way that forces people to work a little bit to earn their leisure. Most people need a little push, but they appreciate it in the end.
Maybe you define it that way, but that's not a standard definition. Work certainly can be and often is unpleasant, but that's definitely not a requirement. There are plenty of things that I enjoy...
Most people define work and labor as activities they would prefer not to do
Maybe you define it that way, but that's not a standard definition. Work certainly can be and often is unpleasant, but that's definitely not a requirement. There are plenty of things that I enjoy working on. Some of them I get paid to do and others I don't.
The vast majority of people are perfectly content to spend their life doing nothing much.
People are often lazy and often aren't productive when they don't have to be, but few people are truly "content" living a life without any sort of productive activity. It's nice to chill for a while, but most people tend to be pretty unfulfilled existing in pure idleness.
My suspicion is that Reddit's /r/LateStageCapitalism and many of the comments, articles, etc talking about socialism are just more work by Russian bots trying to drive a wedge between Americans....
My suspicion is that Reddit's /r/LateStageCapitalism and many of the comments, articles, etc talking about socialism are just more work by Russian bots trying to drive a wedge between Americans. The propaganda is occurring HEAVILY on both sides.
The entire main stream media is set up to prop up the status quo and you think a few bots do any real damage to this ideology? There is real and growing discontentment with the way things are...
The entire main stream media is set up to prop up the status quo and you think a few bots do any real damage to this ideology? There is real and growing discontentment with the way things are going in this country - over 40% of the populace is poor or low income. The current economic system is broken. We are not bots, we are people and if you'd consider the reality that most people are living on the ground, the idea that Russian bots are driving this is farcical.
Everything you said can still be true AND it can still be true that another country/actor are using those things to drive a wedge between Americans. Everyone likes to think they're immune to it...
Everything you said can still be true AND it can still be true that another country/actor are using those things to drive a wedge between Americans. Everyone likes to think they're immune to it but no one is - just ask yourself why companies spend fortunes on advertising... because it works.
That "both sides" are being fed propaganda is demonstrably true - just look at the FB ads that the Senate Intelligence committee shared. BLM ads and Anti-Clinton ads - wedge, wedge wedge.
I'm somewhat to the left of the western mainstream and would agree that LSC is run by either: self defeating idiots, the Russian government or controlled opposition for the Western establishment....
I'm somewhat to the left of the western mainstream and would agree that LSC is run by either: self defeating idiots, the Russian government or controlled opposition for the Western establishment.
They just put way too much effort in sneering & then seem to purposefully leave no avenue for the dissatisfied they collect to engage in anything except making more viral sneers.
Ah you're upset about amazon factory workers forced to pee in bottles to make targets?
Here read these 100 year old books by some dusty intellectuals.
Well said! Most people fall into the trap of seeing this as a black and white situation. Capitalism is indeed the best thing the world have ever seen, but without some general "Let's play nice in...
Well said! Most people fall into the trap of seeing this as a black and white situation. Capitalism is indeed the best thing the world have ever seen, but without some general "Let's play nice in the sandbox" rules, things go to shit very quickly. Obviously, we need to find a balance between the two ridiculous political parties in the US... which let's face it, won't be happening anytime soon.
It isn't socialist to want some sort of rule preventing a company from screwing it's customers when they buy up all the competition and turn into a de facto monopoly cough COMCAST cough. Net Neutrality is a great example of a "sandbox rule" that will protect consumers from price extortion. The GDPR is another example of a positive rule protecting consumers.
There's been a ton of discussion recently about socialism, and much of it devolves into pedantic arguing over the definition of the word, and much of the rest is just "but Venezuela." This article...
There's been a ton of discussion recently about socialism, and much of it devolves into pedantic arguing over the definition of the word, and much of the rest is just "but Venezuela." This article deals with the common concerns in an approachable way. I was hoping to get a constructive, respectful discussion going about the actual nature of socialism
I found zero convincing argumentation in the article. (No particular offense meant @moriarty - I suspect we disagree on matters political, but that doesn't mean this article isn't a good object of...
I found zero convincing argumentation in the article. (No particular offense meant @moriarty - I suspect we disagree on matters political, but that doesn't mean this article isn't a good object of discussion!)
The first point he wants to disarm is that socialism is a vague term that refuses to stand still when you want to criticize it. I found this an odd choice of topic, because he fails utterly to dispel this notion and in my eyes strengthened it. By the end of this section, all we are left to conclude is that the author actually agrees that Socialism can mean many things. The author is trying to argue that so it is also with "Love" or "Democracy", and we still find use for those words. But notice: nobody would ever be tempted to argue in favor of Love! Love is a complex concept, and so our feelings about it can only take shape with more concrete details and examples. If being a Socialist is just as meaningless as being in favor of "Democracy", then I reject the proposition that this vague label is useful.
I wouldn't have chosen this point to dwell on if it weren't for the fact that I suspect many people politically aligned with "Socialism" are using it as a buzzword precisely for the reason that it generates push-back. They know that people react a certain way to the socialism moniker, and they're actually taking those reactions on board on purpose, because they want to cast their intellectual opponents in a negative light. They're saying "Look how close-minded my political opponents are! As soon as I say the word socialism, they see red! Have you ever seen such anti-intellectual bigotry?" But of course as soon as you explain your criticism in the context of states that might be considered socialist, or some of the more radical associations with the ideology, you get exactly the same sort of responses the author is making. "Ah, but I'm not actually proposing that!" "Those states aren't a good representation of what I'M proposing!" And eventually we find out that he's just a garden variety social democrat that wants to plug a couple so-called progressive policies. If that's all you really have to say, then you've made it patently clear that the only reason you ever took on the socialist label is for the shock value you knew it would create.
Beyond this complaint, I don't see the article engaging with the criticism of socialism that is proffered most frequently: the information problem. The central state hasn't the privilege of information that the distributed market has. This is a low-level, economic problem with the concept of a centralized state who plays a stronger role in re-allocating wealth distribution.
By the time you make it to the end of the article, I find the only concrete organizing principle that it admits is indispensable is the idea that wealth needs to be redistributed more fairly. I know a lot of people that seem to find this idea convincing. We need to tip the scales back towards the poorest - what could be more clear? But I would remind that this trend of a majority faction demanding wealth redistribution is exactly the kind of thing that the federalized and representative government was supposed to prevent. It's spelled out quite clearly in Madison's 10th Federalist paper (https://www.congress.gov/resources/display/content/The+Federalist+Papers#TheFederalistPapers-10). Mobs of the under-served class are always going to be predisposed towards clamoring for these debt holidays. The constancy of this and the utter predictability should give the careful thinker pause. Just because many people want it to happen doesn't make it a good idea. It's altogether more likely that our representative government simply needs to do a better job of serving their constituency's interests.
I would argue that the exact opposite is happening, as outlined by anti-federalists here: I disagree with their proposed remedy, not having a strong federal government, but I do believe they had a...
But I would remind that this trend of a majority faction demanding wealth redistribution is exactly the kind of thing that the federalized and representative government was supposed to prevent. It's spelled out quite clearly in Madison's 10th Federalist paper.
I would argue that the exact opposite is happening, as outlined by anti-federalists here:
In a large republic there are men of large fortunes, and consequently of less moderation; there are trusts too great to be placed in any single subject; he has interest of his own; he soon begins to think that he may be happy, great and glorious, by oppressing his fellow citizens; and that he may raise himself to grandeur on the ruins of his country.
Mobs of the under-served class are always going to be predisposed towards clamoring for these debt holidays.
As opposed to the wealthy being predisposed towards clamoring for debt holidays so they repatriate the money they have skirted taxes on? After all, we've seen how the most recent "tax cuts" from Bush II and Trump have worked out: the overwhelming supermajority of money flowing back into the hands of the wealthy.
Just because many people want it to happen doesn't make it a good idea. It's altogether more likely that our representative government simply needs to do a better job of serving their constituency's interests.
I would argue there is plenty of data to show that is in their constituency's best interest to reduce the income inequality by regulation and wealth inequality by clawing-back the ill-gotten excess that the wealthy have accumulated over the past few decades. Massive wealth and income inequality is correlated with civil unrest and other societal problems.
I actually agree 100% that the anti-federalists were prescient here. I want to say more on the topic, and right now I’m stuck on my phone, but to start: can’t we both be right? I think it’s...
I actually agree 100% that the anti-federalists were prescient here. I want to say more on the topic, and right now I’m stuck on my phone, but to start: can’t we both be right? I think it’s absolutely clear that the sheer size of the country has precipitated many of the anti-federalist fears about disconnected-ness, and representatives who don’t represent their constituents. The ratio of representatives to populace has ballooned astronomically.
The size of the country has also scaled the stakes of business, making the biggest fortunes bigger. This naturally creates stratification between the landed class and the working class, which eventually becomes fuel for discord and a devolution of political discourse - again, just as the anti-federalists feared.
The federalists, on the other hand, rightly worried about the tyranny of the mob. They perceived that the impassioned faction would be harder to form as the country scaled, and that good representatives would be easier to find, creating better representatives in an absolute sense. And my take is that these were good arguments at the time, but they simply didn’t anticipate the ease of mass organization in the internet age, nor the perverse dynamics of winning an electorate as gigantic as the one we have now.
So in other words, I think both the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists has fears that materialized. The Federalist agenda was by and large the one that was realized (and who knows what other problems we’d have if it hadn’t), and it turns out the Anti-Federalist concerns were warranted. On the other hand, some of the problems the Federalists thought they were fixing get worse again once you scale to a truly huge electorate in the Information Age.
We possibly can both be right. I don't think you can stop the trends caused by increasing globalization though. As borders mean less and less, cooperations will get larger. Governments will have...
We possibly can both be right.
I don't think you can stop the trends caused by increasing globalization though. As borders mean less and less, cooperations will get larger. Governments will have to increasingly work together (the EU is only going to get tighter and more interconnected) and wield more power to counteract them. Weak governments get steamrolled by large international corps now-a-days. I don't believe that anyone can seriously maintain that market forces will fix any of this.
We absolutely need better representation (more reps/people in the US), but we're going to have to look at how federal power of distributed at some point. The tyranny of the minority is really starting to tear this country apart. Systematic disenfranchisement of the majority is not a tenable, long-term state.
One of the interesting complications is that as you improve the reps/people ratio by increasing the absolute number of reps, you create a miniature pure democracy amongst the representatives,...
One of the interesting complications is that as you improve the reps/people ratio by increasing the absolute number of reps, you create a miniature pure democracy amongst the representatives, along with all of the issues that entails.
It's almost as if the only clean solution is to simply not have such a big country.
I want to thank you for the response you've made here. It gave me some ways to think about this topic that I hadn't considered before. Especially this bit: Out the gate, it's a different side of...
I want to thank you for the response you've made here. It gave me some ways to think about this topic that I hadn't considered before.
Especially this bit:
Beyond this complaint, I don't see the article engaging with the criticism of socialism that is proffered most frequently: the information problem. The central state hasn't the privilege of information that the distributed market has. This is a low-level, economic problem with the concept of a centralized state who plays a stronger role in re-allocating wealth distribution.
Out the gate, it's a different side of the coin I'd have used to talk about the biggest weakness of socialism: its difficulty flexibly adapting to unique, local challenges when applied at the national level. You frame this as an information problem, that the policy makers don't have enough information to implement policy that is adapted to the specific needs of a locality. I would say that even if they did have the information they needed, they would still struggle to implement fitting policies in time to match those conditions.
That's the main reason that socialism can work fine at a local level: there is less inflexibility built into the local government that is trying to implement socialist-style policies. You don't also have a state/province level socialism structure to contend with, or a regional/national level to contend with on top of that. As you add these layers in, you introduce the scaling problems that can make socialism so unworkable. Whether the problem is information or implementation speed, the effect is the same: policies that are top-down as well as a poor fit for the local circumstances they're meant to address.
hurr durr capitalism bad socialism always work On a more serious note, I don't think one could make a nation work off of socialism alone. There have been so many examples of people trying and...
hurr durr capitalism bad socialism always work
On a more serious note, I don't think one could make a nation work off of socialism alone. There have been so many examples of people trying and failing spectacularly at socialism in many forms that it will likely never work as long as people exist.
A lot of socialism defenders make claims along the lines of "If the people behave, the system works flawlessly", but you can never trust a general populace to do anything right or uniform. There will always be somebody who wants more for the work they're putting in and, more often than not, you will get what you pay for, which is completely average because there are no incentives to climb up the ranks.
The thought of people saying America needs to adopt socialist traits is ridiculous as a shit ton of Americans still remember the Red Scare and will never accept socialism/communism in any form. Many people already have negative connotations attached to socialism as it is seen to be a primitive relic of tyrannical, dictatorial, long dead nations. You need a new population and a serious revision of the system altogether, because now with the advent of the Internet and information sharing, a socialist country will see the successful capitalists and envy them, and even the smallest seed of doubt can overthrow a system with enough time to grow
I don't think that is a fair argument to trot out here. It's basically the same flawed argument as people who think that market forces will fix things via the "invisible hand", which is predicated...
A lot of socialism defenders make claims along the lines of "If the people behave, the system works flawlessly", but you can never trust a general populace to do anything right or uniform.
I don't think that is a fair argument to trot out here. It's basically the same flawed argument as people who think that market forces will fix things via the "invisible hand", which is predicated on people being both "well-informed" and "rational" market actors.
Neither pure socialism or pure laissez faire capitalism work, and they both fail for the exact same underlying reason: people are uninformed and do not behave in rational manner.
Oh yeah for sure. Going too hard down one governmental path will lead to rules being far too strict for the ever changing world we live in. I feel the best government system would be one that...
Oh yeah for sure. Going too hard down one governmental path will lead to rules being far too strict for the ever changing world we live in. I feel the best government system would be one that pulls from many different systems and to craft new rules for checks and balances. The USA doesn't have many checks or balances anymore because companies can do whatever the fuck they want if they just sue their attackers into bankruptcy. We shouldn't be thinking "How can socialism help us?", but "What parts of socialism can benefit us?"
This may be my own ignorance speaking, but I wasn't aware that socialism meant that everyone gets paid the same wage no matter what work they do or how well they do it. I thought that socialism...
There will always be somebody who wants more for the work they're putting in and, more often than not, you will get what you pay for, which is completely average because there are no incentives to climb up the ranks.
This may be my own ignorance speaking, but I wasn't aware that socialism meant that everyone gets paid the same wage no matter what work they do or how well they do it. I thought that socialism just meant the company which pays the wages is owned by the workers, rather than by someone with a large bank balance.
Here's a hypothetical example:
A group of workers own a factory. The profits of the factory's output go to the factory's owners - who are the workers. The workers elect a management committee to run the factory, because it's impractical to have a thousand people all making day-to-day management decisions.
That management committee looks at the factory, and decides they need to hire an accountant. They put out the call, take applicants, and hire someone to do the books. They negotiate a salary for that accountant, and hire them (the accountant also becomes a part-owner of the factory).
Later, the accountant decides they need an assistant. Again, the committee hires someone, and negotiates a salary for the assistant, which is lower than the accountant's salary because they're doing less-skilled work.
The accountant is paid more than their assistant because the accountant went to college and has more experience. The accountant's assistant has an incentive to increase their skills and experience to become an accountant in the future, and earn more salary. Meanwhile, both the accountant and the accountant's assistant are part-owners of the factory that employs them.
Then there's another factory down the road which is need of an accountant. That factory has its own management committee, and they decide they want to hire the first factory's accountant (because of their excellent skills and experience), so they offer the accountant a higher salary to come work for them. The accountant is happy to take the higher salary, and leaves the first factory to take up employment in the factory down the road.
And so it goes.
There's plenty of scope for promotions and advancement and salary variations in this (admittedly, hypothetical) model. It's still socialist, in that the workers own the means of production, but it also provides scope for some market forces to operate in the labour market.
There are two main things that, if implemented in the US, would begin to change things for the better in a very short amount of time (1 or 2 presidential terms). An outright BAN on lobbying. No if...
There are two main things that, if implemented in the US, would begin to change things for the better in a very short amount of time (1 or 2 presidential terms).
An outright BAN on lobbying. No if ands or buts. NO MORE!
100% transparency with regards to political campaign donations. If a candidate is caught cheating this rule, they are automatically disqualified from running the race that time around.
These two rules will ensure that the laws being implemented are in the best interest of the people as well as ensuring that corporate interests are not buying seats in office.
I fear it's not that simple. Lobbying isn't really the root of the problem, so far as there is a 'problem'. The issue is that large corporate interests simply stand to win or lose tremendous...
I fear it's not that simple.
Lobbying isn't really the root of the problem, so far as there is a 'problem'. The issue is that large corporate interests simply stand to win or lose tremendous amounts of money based on the political action of a very small set of people. No matter how many barriers you put up in their way, people must always be able to speak and act on their own behalf. If you take this right away, then you are lost. And so these corporate interests are going to try to influence political decisions however they can, whenever it befits them, just as average citizens try to influence political decisions when they think it befits them. Today this happens to be by paying people to talk ... "persuasively" ... to the politicians, i.e. lobbying. Tomorrow it will be to run a public ad campaign. Hell, next week, they will just send $1000 to a majority of voters in each relevant district. There's no amount they won't pay if it saves them from having an even greater sum legislated away from them in taxes and levies.
To truly solve this problem, you need representatives who genuinely represent the fears and interests of their constituency. And even then, you may find them approving some big mining project or whatever it is that the electorate is against. That's the point of having a representative though: sometimes the mob gets it wrong. You put a well-educated, down-to-earth, politically savvy person in that role because they can make the hard decisions that popular vote will never make.
Right now, I would argue that there are too few representatives and too little local power to make meaningful changes. If you have a representative for a small number of people, you will feel much more personally accountable to them. Only then will you turn down the promises that a lobbyist is whispering in your ear.
The author rebuts three softball “common claims” of his own selection and declares them silly. Because they are. It’s a straw man fallacy of the highest order, conjuring up a bogus opponent which is easy to vanquish. It amounts to yet more of this mindless collectivizing us-vs-them antagonism that’s reached a fever pitch of late. From everyone.
“X group says this and that’s stupid.”
“As a member of X group, we never said that, and Y group is all the same, jumping to conclusions about us.”
“Not this Y grouper, I’m looking for an actual debate.”
“Yeah right, Y group is nothing but intellectually dishonest trolls.”
I’m exhausted by the constant back and forth and failure of anyone to actually listen. And I say that as an outsider, an anarchist, who is neither right nor left.
For an actual mindful critique of socialism, I refer you to the FEE’s excellent compilation Clichés of Socialism from 1970. I have a paperback copy of this that also includes Frédéric Bastiat’s essential 1850 essay The Law. I recommend both if anyone’s curious what this excercise could look like if it were attempted with rigor.
Meh. The FEE compilation does a pretty bad job too. Lots of softball clichés with poor responses based on some rather ridiculous assumptions. The response to #11, in particular, is full of unsupported claims about the magic of the free market that are not reflected in the world we live in.
Perhaps all these things are how things should work, but reality is quite a different story. Wages are typically based on how replaceable you are (supply and demand), not on your level of productivity. Workers do not typically have great mobility and do not have the resources or clout to individually stand up for themselves against corporate juggernauts.
The Foundation for Economic Education is a right-wing think-tank pushing the Austrian school of economics, a brand of economics formulated by economists like Murray Rothbard and Ludwig von Mises that's somehow even friendlier to corporations and the rich than the mainstream Chicago school.
When you say this do you mean you're an anarchist, or a follower of the hard right invention that is Anarcho Capitalism?
Looking at your links I'm led to believe it's the latter.
Yeah, I guess you could call me an anarcho-capitalist but I take issue with the characterization that it's a "hard right invention." Certainly the economics favor zero government intervention, which is conservative to the extreme. But ancaps (and I'm speaking for myself, not on behalf of a group) veer left on a lot of social issues too. You'd be hard-pressed to align my anti-war, pro-drug, pro-lgbt, pro-immigration stances with anything the right would claim. When I say I'm neither right nor left, I'm talking about an alignment that the single-axis spectrum is insufficient to describe. The Nolan Chart is more useful in that matter.
I'm not wild about anarchist gatekeeping, the suggestion that if I'm not a Marxist I can't be a true anarchist. I oppose government coersion, that should be enough.
Anarchists are not Marxists though. It's a very different political philosophy.
Not to put too fine a point on things, and I don't think anyone has been rude in this exchange, but isn't this thread supposedly about addressing criticisms of socialism? I'm a little confused about why we're launching into a criticism of a fairly unrelated political philosophy.
Do you see socialism as necessarily opposed by, what appears to me to be, an extreme end of market-supporting libertarianism?
In my experience, most criticism of socialism from the right depends is based on the assumption that a market that's completely free of government coercion is the ideal. The problem is that the ideal is incoherent. You can't live in civilization without being subject to coercion.
I would be careful about continuing to call someone “from the right” when they just got done commenting about their personal liberal tendencies and framing their self placement in the Nolan Chart. That can come across as rude, especially when the only thing you need to do to show that you’ve read what you’re reacting to is add the word “economic” before “right.”
That said, I think you’ve made a decent case for how it’s fair to wonder about the weaknesses of economic-right/libertarian extremes here. So long as you’re not looping in all criticism of socialism as coming “from the right.”
Thank you.
Money is power. No individual or organization should have too much of either. In my experience the only difference between a conservative and a libertarian lies in whether the state should partner with the church or with capital to oppress the individual.
Of course not. Traditional state socialism can also be assailed from an left-anarchist viewpoint, but @balooga was citing the Foundation for Economic Education rather than Proudhon, Kropotkin, Goldman, Luxembourg, and their successors.
I feel like socialist talk has been on the rise recently because America is in late stage capitalism and laws continue to benefit companies that merge and use other anti-consumer techniques in order to make profits that far exceed what should be considered acceptable. The greed and things that companies today are allowed to get away with isn't fundamentally broken, it's just missing a lot of regulation. Socialism doesn't work because workers feel mistreated when other workers are lazy and still receive the same benefits. Consumers benefit in an innumerable amount of ways from having an open and free market, but it's the governments job to ensure they don't rip us off in the process, and they've failed at that recently.
I think it's a bit of cop out to dismiss it for this reason, partly because what you're describing is closer to communism, but primarily because workers now are already mistreated and prejudiced against. Income and wealth inequality in the US is one of the worst in the world, with workers earning many times less than their CEOs, but also workers in the same position can have vastly different salaries for doing the same job
I agree income and wealth inequality is atrocious here and think there are definitely some things we could gain from adapting a "for the common good" and "for your fellow human" mindset in a variety of sectors.
Workers are lazy because they've realized that their work is pointless and only done for pure survival. Humans are beasts of labor, we enjoy working. Just not when the our work is coerced, pointless, or has its product stolen away for the benefit of the capitalist.
The first definition of "work" in the Oxford Dictionary is "Activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result." Working for income is only a subset of that.
Why do people volunteer? Why are most volunteers retired people? Why do artists make art? It's because, as much as people say they want to do nothing, they actually want to do something. They might not want to do the something that's required of them in order to earn money - but, while they're forced to do that paid labour, they don't have time to do the something they want to do. When people retire, they're more likely to take up volunteering because they can finally do the something they want to do without having to worry about earning money to survive.
Sure, we like to play up the stereotype that the average human just wants to sit on the couch and watch TV or play computer games, but I think we'd find that, if humans weren't tethered to paid employment for survival, many people would still go out and do something productive with their lives - even if only for a day or two per week. They would still do something instead of nothing.
Writer here. Speaking strictly for myself, I don't write because writing is fun. Writing is a pain in the fucking ass, especially when you're the husband of a breast cancer survivor and you work full-time as a software developer.
It's lonely, thankless, painstaking, and frustrating work. I do it anyway because nobody else is writing the stories I want to read. If I were wholly satisfied with the stories other people were writing, I wouldn't try to write my own. I wouldn't feel the need to. I'm not that much of a masochist.
However, I am not satisfied with the stories others tell. I'm not even satisfied with my own work. But I'll won't stop. I won't give in. I will leave behind a work that is mine.
What this worthless world does with it after I'm dead isn't my problem.
I think this is well said, and hopefully not just because I largely agree with the sentiments. In my experience, most of art is an exercise in self-expression, engaged in because we see no one else saying what we want to be said. If it achieves acclaim or market success can linger as part of the equation for what we say, but it's not always a huge part of it.
I don't think Asimov is trying to downplay the activity by saying it's fun though. In the context of his argument, it seems more that he's saying these are activities that are productive materially for a community, but come more often as a sort of donation by the people engaging in them. Because they're not likely to be financially rewarding, people will table these activities while they pay the bills but might engage in them more with a little less financial stress.
Good summary of my intentions. Thank you.
By the way, we can be on a first-name basis. You can call me "Algernon". :)
I never said or implied that writing - or any other volunteer activity - is fun! I've written, directed, and produced my own play, and written some short pieces. Of course it's not easy. It was, however, fulfilling.
And, to my main point, it's also productive. You are producing stories for people to read even though you're not being paid for it. You're doing this without financial motivation.
Just like people volunteer and do all sorts of other unpaid work. We do it because there's something in us driving to do these things, not because someone's dangling a pay cheque in front of us.
Is it really the writing that's fulfilling, or is it having written? I'm not convinced that the journey is better than the destination in this case.
A little from column A, a little from column B.
I found the writing process to be exciting and invigorating (in part, because I was working to a deadline). I enjoyed putting words together and creating dialogue and scenes on a page. I still do enjoy writing, even if inspiration hasn't struck in quite a long time. Of course I was happy when I had a finished product, but I wouldn't have gotten there if I hadn't enjoyed the writing process to some degree.
I get to play God without actually hurting anybody. What's not to like?
I think I get a different benefit out of writing than you do. But that's fine. We're all individuals.
Correct. But, in this context - a discussion about economic systems - I'll assume that someone is using a more academic definition for a word than a casual definition.
Riddle me this. Why do retirees make up the largest portion of volunteers? Why aren't hospital emergency rooms filled with old-age pensioners strung out on ice?
These people (often) have financial security. They don't have to worry about where their next pay-cheque is coming from. They can therefore indulge themselves. Some potter around on hobbies. Some take up golf. Some go back to university. Some keep working part-time, even if they don't need the money. Some volunteer for charities or other helpful organisations. They find something to do.
That's not what I meant at all. I said "if humans weren't tethered to paid employment for survival". In other words, if our survival didn't depend on working for someone else to earn money. Yes, it's a hypothetical world. I'm not saying that everyone gets fired tomorrow, and has to survive with no money. I'm positing a world where survival is not tethered to paid employment. If we told people they no longer had to work in paid employment to receive housing and food and other essentials, I believe that many people would still voluntarily find something productive to do with their lives. If nothing else, simple boredom would drive them to it.
EDIT: Formatting.
This was never my point. I joined this discussion to make the point that people will find something productive to do with themselves, even when they're not motivated by money.
However, you've ignored everything I wrote about people finding something productive to do, in order to play your "gotcha!" game about something that wasn't even central to my comments, to somehow drag me into an argument I obviously wasn't engaging with.
If this isn't debating in bad faith, I don't know what is.
Sorry, but I'm not playing. Go find yourself another patsy.
Surely you both have a point. People prefer idleness and leisure to working for subsistence. But they enjoy earned leisure the most of all. The problem is that when left unforced, most people have a hard time convincing themselves to get up and do something for future reward. Thus, given the option, many people will slip into depression and addiction. I don't think that this is showing their revealed preference: if you could take a drug addict out of their life and ask them if they'd do things differently, they'll say yes. It's just a discipline problem.
This is the crux of the matter that perhaps we can all agree on. People would like to feel accomplished, but given the option, they can't muster the motivation and determination to earn that accomplishment. By my lights, this makes a good argument for keeping society organized in a way that forces people to work a little bit to earn their leisure. Most people need a little push, but they appreciate it in the end.
Maybe you define it that way, but that's not a standard definition. Work certainly can be and often is unpleasant, but that's definitely not a requirement. There are plenty of things that I enjoy working on. Some of them I get paid to do and others I don't.
People are often lazy and often aren't productive when they don't have to be, but few people are truly "content" living a life without any sort of productive activity. It's nice to chill for a while, but most people tend to be pretty unfulfilled existing in pure idleness.
My suspicion is that Reddit's /r/LateStageCapitalism and many of the comments, articles, etc talking about socialism are just more work by Russian bots trying to drive a wedge between Americans. The propaganda is occurring HEAVILY on both sides.
The entire main stream media is set up to prop up the status quo and you think a few bots do any real damage to this ideology? There is real and growing discontentment with the way things are going in this country - over 40% of the populace is poor or low income. The current economic system is broken. We are not bots, we are people and if you'd consider the reality that most people are living on the ground, the idea that Russian bots are driving this is farcical.
Everything you said can still be true AND it can still be true that another country/actor are using those things to drive a wedge between Americans. Everyone likes to think they're immune to it but no one is - just ask yourself why companies spend fortunes on advertising... because it works.
That "both sides" are being fed propaganda is demonstrably true - just look at the FB ads that the Senate Intelligence committee shared. BLM ads and Anti-Clinton ads - wedge, wedge wedge.
Source:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/business/russian-ads-facebook-targeting/?utm_term=.0fa81ad8c6ca
If you care about your cause you should be calling this out and expelling bad actors from your ranks, not ignoring that they exist.
I'm somewhat to the left of the western mainstream and would agree that LSC is run by either: self defeating idiots, the Russian government or controlled opposition for the Western establishment.
They just put way too much effort in sneering & then seem to purposefully leave no avenue for the dissatisfied they collect to engage in anything except making more viral sneers.
Well said! Most people fall into the trap of seeing this as a black and white situation. Capitalism is indeed the best thing the world have ever seen, but without some general "Let's play nice in the sandbox" rules, things go to shit very quickly. Obviously, we need to find a balance between the two ridiculous political parties in the US... which let's face it, won't be happening anytime soon.
It isn't socialist to want some sort of rule preventing a company from screwing it's customers when they buy up all the competition and turn into a de facto monopoly cough COMCAST cough. Net Neutrality is a great example of a "sandbox rule" that will protect consumers from price extortion. The GDPR is another example of a positive rule protecting consumers.
There's been a ton of discussion recently about socialism, and much of it devolves into pedantic arguing over the definition of the word, and much of the rest is just "but Venezuela." This article deals with the common concerns in an approachable way. I was hoping to get a constructive, respectful discussion going about the actual nature of socialism
I found zero convincing argumentation in the article. (No particular offense meant @moriarty - I suspect we disagree on matters political, but that doesn't mean this article isn't a good object of discussion!)
The first point he wants to disarm is that socialism is a vague term that refuses to stand still when you want to criticize it. I found this an odd choice of topic, because he fails utterly to dispel this notion and in my eyes strengthened it. By the end of this section, all we are left to conclude is that the author actually agrees that Socialism can mean many things. The author is trying to argue that so it is also with "Love" or "Democracy", and we still find use for those words. But notice: nobody would ever be tempted to argue in favor of Love! Love is a complex concept, and so our feelings about it can only take shape with more concrete details and examples. If being a Socialist is just as meaningless as being in favor of "Democracy", then I reject the proposition that this vague label is useful.
I wouldn't have chosen this point to dwell on if it weren't for the fact that I suspect many people politically aligned with "Socialism" are using it as a buzzword precisely for the reason that it generates push-back. They know that people react a certain way to the socialism moniker, and they're actually taking those reactions on board on purpose, because they want to cast their intellectual opponents in a negative light. They're saying "Look how close-minded my political opponents are! As soon as I say the word socialism, they see red! Have you ever seen such anti-intellectual bigotry?" But of course as soon as you explain your criticism in the context of states that might be considered socialist, or some of the more radical associations with the ideology, you get exactly the same sort of responses the author is making. "Ah, but I'm not actually proposing that!" "Those states aren't a good representation of what I'M proposing!" And eventually we find out that he's just a garden variety social democrat that wants to plug a couple so-called progressive policies. If that's all you really have to say, then you've made it patently clear that the only reason you ever took on the socialist label is for the shock value you knew it would create.
Beyond this complaint, I don't see the article engaging with the criticism of socialism that is proffered most frequently: the information problem. The central state hasn't the privilege of information that the distributed market has. This is a low-level, economic problem with the concept of a centralized state who plays a stronger role in re-allocating wealth distribution.
By the time you make it to the end of the article, I find the only concrete organizing principle that it admits is indispensable is the idea that wealth needs to be redistributed more fairly. I know a lot of people that seem to find this idea convincing. We need to tip the scales back towards the poorest - what could be more clear? But I would remind that this trend of a majority faction demanding wealth redistribution is exactly the kind of thing that the federalized and representative government was supposed to prevent. It's spelled out quite clearly in Madison's 10th Federalist paper (https://www.congress.gov/resources/display/content/The+Federalist+Papers#TheFederalistPapers-10). Mobs of the under-served class are always going to be predisposed towards clamoring for these debt holidays. The constancy of this and the utter predictability should give the careful thinker pause. Just because many people want it to happen doesn't make it a good idea. It's altogether more likely that our representative government simply needs to do a better job of serving their constituency's interests.
I would argue that the exact opposite is happening, as outlined by anti-federalists here:
I disagree with their proposed remedy, not having a strong federal government, but I do believe they had a grasp on one of the problems that could occur. We are far closer to tyranny of the minority in the US than tyranny of the majority, as shown here: https://journalistsresource.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Influence-of-U.S.-citizens-and-elites-horizontal.jpg?x10677
As opposed to the wealthy being predisposed towards clamoring for debt holidays so they repatriate the money they have skirted taxes on? After all, we've seen how the most recent "tax cuts" from Bush II and Trump have worked out: the overwhelming supermajority of money flowing back into the hands of the wealthy.
I would argue there is plenty of data to show that is in their constituency's best interest to reduce the income inequality by regulation and wealth inequality by clawing-back the ill-gotten excess that the wealthy have accumulated over the past few decades. Massive wealth and income inequality is correlated with civil unrest and other societal problems.
I actually agree 100% that the anti-federalists were prescient here. I want to say more on the topic, and right now I’m stuck on my phone, but to start: can’t we both be right? I think it’s absolutely clear that the sheer size of the country has precipitated many of the anti-federalist fears about disconnected-ness, and representatives who don’t represent their constituents. The ratio of representatives to populace has ballooned astronomically.
The size of the country has also scaled the stakes of business, making the biggest fortunes bigger. This naturally creates stratification between the landed class and the working class, which eventually becomes fuel for discord and a devolution of political discourse - again, just as the anti-federalists feared.
The federalists, on the other hand, rightly worried about the tyranny of the mob. They perceived that the impassioned faction would be harder to form as the country scaled, and that good representatives would be easier to find, creating better representatives in an absolute sense. And my take is that these were good arguments at the time, but they simply didn’t anticipate the ease of mass organization in the internet age, nor the perverse dynamics of winning an electorate as gigantic as the one we have now.
So in other words, I think both the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists has fears that materialized. The Federalist agenda was by and large the one that was realized (and who knows what other problems we’d have if it hadn’t), and it turns out the Anti-Federalist concerns were warranted. On the other hand, some of the problems the Federalists thought they were fixing get worse again once you scale to a truly huge electorate in the Information Age.
We possibly can both be right.
I don't think you can stop the trends caused by increasing globalization though. As borders mean less and less, cooperations will get larger. Governments will have to increasingly work together (the EU is only going to get tighter and more interconnected) and wield more power to counteract them. Weak governments get steamrolled by large international corps now-a-days. I don't believe that anyone can seriously maintain that market forces will fix any of this.
We absolutely need better representation (more reps/people in the US), but we're going to have to look at how federal power of distributed at some point. The tyranny of the minority is really starting to tear this country apart. Systematic disenfranchisement of the majority is not a tenable, long-term state.
One of the interesting complications is that as you improve the reps/people ratio by increasing the absolute number of reps, you create a miniature pure democracy amongst the representatives, along with all of the issues that entails.
It's almost as if the only clean solution is to simply not have such a big country.
I want to thank you for the response you've made here. It gave me some ways to think about this topic that I hadn't considered before.
Especially this bit:
Out the gate, it's a different side of the coin I'd have used to talk about the biggest weakness of socialism: its difficulty flexibly adapting to unique, local challenges when applied at the national level. You frame this as an information problem, that the policy makers don't have enough information to implement policy that is adapted to the specific needs of a locality. I would say that even if they did have the information they needed, they would still struggle to implement fitting policies in time to match those conditions.
That's the main reason that socialism can work fine at a local level: there is less inflexibility built into the local government that is trying to implement socialist-style policies. You don't also have a state/province level socialism structure to contend with, or a regional/national level to contend with on top of that. As you add these layers in, you introduce the scaling problems that can make socialism so unworkable. Whether the problem is information or implementation speed, the effect is the same: policies that are top-down as well as a poor fit for the local circumstances they're meant to address.
hurr durr capitalism bad socialism always work
On a more serious note, I don't think one could make a nation work off of socialism alone. There have been so many examples of people trying and failing spectacularly at socialism in many forms that it will likely never work as long as people exist.
A lot of socialism defenders make claims along the lines of "If the people behave, the system works flawlessly", but you can never trust a general populace to do anything right or uniform. There will always be somebody who wants more for the work they're putting in and, more often than not, you will get what you pay for, which is completely average because there are no incentives to climb up the ranks.
The thought of people saying America needs to adopt socialist traits is ridiculous as a shit ton of Americans still remember the Red Scare and will never accept socialism/communism in any form. Many people already have negative connotations attached to socialism as it is seen to be a primitive relic of tyrannical, dictatorial, long dead nations. You need a new population and a serious revision of the system altogether, because now with the advent of the Internet and information sharing, a socialist country will see the successful capitalists and envy them, and even the smallest seed of doubt can overthrow a system with enough time to grow
I don't think that is a fair argument to trot out here. It's basically the same flawed argument as people who think that market forces will fix things via the "invisible hand", which is predicated on people being both "well-informed" and "rational" market actors.
Neither pure socialism or pure laissez faire capitalism work, and they both fail for the exact same underlying reason: people are uninformed and do not behave in rational manner.
Oh yeah for sure. Going too hard down one governmental path will lead to rules being far too strict for the ever changing world we live in. I feel the best government system would be one that pulls from many different systems and to craft new rules for checks and balances. The USA doesn't have many checks or balances anymore because companies can do whatever the fuck they want if they just sue their attackers into bankruptcy. We shouldn't be thinking "How can socialism help us?", but "What parts of socialism can benefit us?"
This may be my own ignorance speaking, but I wasn't aware that socialism meant that everyone gets paid the same wage no matter what work they do or how well they do it. I thought that socialism just meant the company which pays the wages is owned by the workers, rather than by someone with a large bank balance.
Here's a hypothetical example:
A group of workers own a factory. The profits of the factory's output go to the factory's owners - who are the workers. The workers elect a management committee to run the factory, because it's impractical to have a thousand people all making day-to-day management decisions.
That management committee looks at the factory, and decides they need to hire an accountant. They put out the call, take applicants, and hire someone to do the books. They negotiate a salary for that accountant, and hire them (the accountant also becomes a part-owner of the factory).
Later, the accountant decides they need an assistant. Again, the committee hires someone, and negotiates a salary for the assistant, which is lower than the accountant's salary because they're doing less-skilled work.
The accountant is paid more than their assistant because the accountant went to college and has more experience. The accountant's assistant has an incentive to increase their skills and experience to become an accountant in the future, and earn more salary. Meanwhile, both the accountant and the accountant's assistant are part-owners of the factory that employs them.
Then there's another factory down the road which is need of an accountant. That factory has its own management committee, and they decide they want to hire the first factory's accountant (because of their excellent skills and experience), so they offer the accountant a higher salary to come work for them. The accountant is happy to take the higher salary, and leaves the first factory to take up employment in the factory down the road.
And so it goes.
There's plenty of scope for promotions and advancement and salary variations in this (admittedly, hypothetical) model. It's still socialist, in that the workers own the means of production, but it also provides scope for some market forces to operate in the labour market.
There are two main things that, if implemented in the US, would begin to change things for the better in a very short amount of time (1 or 2 presidential terms).
These two rules will ensure that the laws being implemented are in the best interest of the people as well as ensuring that corporate interests are not buying seats in office.
I'd love to hear feedback on this opinion!
I fear it's not that simple.
Lobbying isn't really the root of the problem, so far as there is a 'problem'. The issue is that large corporate interests simply stand to win or lose tremendous amounts of money based on the political action of a very small set of people. No matter how many barriers you put up in their way, people must always be able to speak and act on their own behalf. If you take this right away, then you are lost. And so these corporate interests are going to try to influence political decisions however they can, whenever it befits them, just as average citizens try to influence political decisions when they think it befits them. Today this happens to be by paying people to talk ... "persuasively" ... to the politicians, i.e. lobbying. Tomorrow it will be to run a public ad campaign. Hell, next week, they will just send $1000 to a majority of voters in each relevant district. There's no amount they won't pay if it saves them from having an even greater sum legislated away from them in taxes and levies.
To truly solve this problem, you need representatives who genuinely represent the fears and interests of their constituency. And even then, you may find them approving some big mining project or whatever it is that the electorate is against. That's the point of having a representative though: sometimes the mob gets it wrong. You put a well-educated, down-to-earth, politically savvy person in that role because they can make the hard decisions that popular vote will never make.
Right now, I would argue that there are too few representatives and too little local power to make meaningful changes. If you have a representative for a small number of people, you will feel much more personally accountable to them. Only then will you turn down the promises that a lobbyist is whispering in your ear.