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Real Socialism Has Never Been Tried
Ever heard that? From Greek economic collapse to Stalin’s gulags to Fidel and Raul’s zombie paradise, socialist policies have consistently wrought disaster. But somehow, this is never evidence of there being something inherently wrong with socialism. The cognitive gymnastics necessary to keep the socialist/progressive faith is quite remarkable.
I think it goes like this: Real socialism, let’s call it “My Socialism” starts off with the same premise as bad or unreal socialism in that there has to be a massive concentration of political and economic power such that no enumerated rights or institutions can stand in the way of social justice.
What makes My Socialism different is that, (a) that power will only be held by selfless, justice-seeking, highly competent people; and (b) all the actions they take such as replacing markets with planners, complete elimination of wealth concentrations, etc., will not have any adverse consequences (except for a few rich people) and will always work as intended.
Whenever an actual socialist project crashes and burns it has nothing to do with My Socialism by definition. How to pop that bubble?
This country was founded by men who shared a common insight that a great concentration of unchecked power was always a bad idea no matter what intentions or purposes led to its creation. The 2oth century served to prove them absolutely right. But around the world, and even in our own country, people still gravitate to totalitarian solutions.
A full century of bad ideas from government planners from Woodrow Wilson to Mussolini to Mao has actually produced a rich ecology of free-market ideas in response. Unimaginably powerful computers have only deepened our understanding the of the inherent information problem in market elimination in favor of central planning.
We can see the direct unambiguous result of lefty social policy played out in Ferguson and Baltimore. Yet the loudest voices on the air are those mentally locked into an utterly failed social policy mindset that the Moynihan Report diagnosed in detail 50 years ago.
I am not sure how to address the cognitive disorder that causes the socialist/progressive fantasy to persist. Some people seem receptive to public choice-based arguments because they tend to be creative and can be surprising. Reading Michael Oakeshott or Russell Kirk only works for well-formed intellects who are unlikely to be lefty drones in the first place.
Is discursive reason the wrong response to someone’s willingness to suspend empirical reason in favor of ideology? Or am I starting in the wrong place? Is it zero-sum stupidity that is the first domino (even the Pope seems to have that problem)? Is it a gross misunderstanding of the role of innovation versus raw capital?
The socialist mindset is much like Islam in that it is structurally incapable of detached reflection about adverse outcomes that flow directly from core premises. How does one bring about that needed reflection?
Published in General
Let me fix that: “The socialist mindset is much like any religious zealotry in that it is structurally incapable of detached reflection about adverse outcomes that flow directly from core premises.”
It’s important to remember that this is a religious system.
You don’t. Religious zealotry is in opposition to reflection.
These are good starting places. If the economy were a zero-sum game, moral distribution of wealth would be based on different mechanisms than in our capitalist system. I wouldn’t go so far as the Communist creed of “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”, but some system based more directly on individual effort and human capital (stored individual effort) would be the moral one. Fortunately (and unfortunately for those leftists in the ivory tower), we don’t live in a zero sum world. Innovation and capitalism creates new sources of wealth, and the majority of that new found wealth should accrue to those that created it.
Like the new avatar photo.
I am a religious zealot. I am quite sure that I reflect more than most.
I’m pretty sure you’re not a zealot.
If Wikipedia’s got that wrong, do let me know—I don’t speak Hebrew, so have to go by secondary sources. :)
I am
I am a religious fundamentalist who believes that the Torah is the unfiltered word of G-d. I live my life accordingly.
(The Talmudic reference is really by-the-by – not the way you meant it originally, either.)
Argument based on knowledge assumes instruction. The types you refer to cannot be instructed, since they we’re brought up incorrectly. If they could be instructed they would have been already persuaded by the many wiser thinkers that have come before.
At this point they are either willfully ignorant or unteachable. Either way, argument is a waste of time, and rhetoric is the appropriate tactic.
Or another way to put this is that you can’t argue someone out of a position that they hold for non-rational reasons. These positions aren’t irrational, as they are not necessarily opposed to reason, but they are non-rational. That is, the reason for their faith in these beliefs isn’t grounded in rational inquiry, but a desire for acceptance in a group.
They don’t even rise to the level of ignorance, which can be cured with knowledge, since no amount of knowledge will solve the problem. The ignorant man is merely uninformed, and can be taught.
Such a person needs to belong to something larger than himself, but it cannot be religion or government service, or family, or any other social construct he knows to be false. So he chooses to believe in Socialism, which is beyond truth, because he cannot believe in God, yet needs to believe in something.
The difference between a zealot and a fundamentalist is the willingness to use violence, whether against person or property.
And not to be a pain, but I’m willing to bet you’ve never stoned a person. Despite the many opportunities to do so the modern world offers. ;)
Hm. I have used violence against people partly in defense of my property, partly because he had it coming. But it was not for religious reasons, per se. Does that make me a zealot?
I have swung and connected, and caused significant damage. I have not killed. When and if I do kill, I hope (and pray!) it is for good reasons.
I’m pretty sure it’s got to be for religious reasons. So sorry, but no. :)
BTW, the thoughtful consideration of whether or not you’re actually a zealot sort of rules it out on its own… LOL
Shucks. I was so counting on it!
I think it’s very easy if you apply some basic engineering concepts.
Let’s say, for the sake of discussion, that “My Socialism” exists at some point over here [pointing].
Around it is a sea of socialism variants that have at best failed, or at worst, killed many millions of people.
So you would need to create a passage from here, where we are, to “My Socialism” over there. How exactly do you do that? How can you guarantee that you’ll accurately hit that point and not land on any of those other socialisms instead? How can you guarantee that you won’t get deflected or drift along the way, killing millions of people?
And even if you do make it to that “My Socialism” point, and even if it does what you claim, what mechanisms do you have that guarantees you’ll stay there and not drift into those socialism variants where many millions of people die?
There ya go… easy!
See, I think you are just stereotyping zealots now. Zealots never think of themselves as unthinking, just as very religious Jews do not describe themselves as “ultra.”
Example: BdB is, I think we all can agree, a zealot. Yet, he arrived at those positions with considerable thought.
?
And insane people, apparently, don’t think of themselves as being insane. Which analogy works better for zealots than for Jews, I guess…
BTW, “measured zealotry” gets only two hits on google, one is a spam site, and one refers to measuring zealotry, so that’s something. “Reasoned zealotry” returns one hit, and that’s because it found “ill-reasoned zealotry”, which is I guess redundant. “Thoughtful zealotry” gets a hit.
So in terms of usage, at least, I think I’m on solid ground in observing that your thoughtful behavior rules out zealotry.
Which post? :)
Old Bathos: Is discursive reason the wrong response to someone’s willingness to suspend empirical reason in favor of ideology?
Well, the first question that needs to be asked is, do “we” on the other side (however you want to define we, i.e. the people on the opposite side of communists)…not operate that way?
Do we let ideology come in in the way of “empirical reason” (by which I suppose you mean empirical evidence)?
Of course we do. The Left has no monopoly on ideologues who suspend reality.
Most people who try to argue with the Left, end up doing so on ideological ground and precisely through “discursive reason”. That’s how humans are in general. But that isn’t going to change anyone’s mind.
Empirical evidence may be on our side, because usually the side with the right empirics usually wins out in the long term (since all that means is that reality wins out in the long term)…but that doesn’t mean that most people who argue with them understand the empirics well enough to argue them.
Not sure what you’re trying to say here. But that’s also an empirical argument, so as I said above, the need to actually understand the empirics and explain it in a convincing way…is a rare trait.
That’s a trait of all ideologies. No ideology is a “theory of everything” because no such thing exists. Hence, not being a “theory of everything”, there are always things it cannot explain or cannot be compatible with.
But then it becomes an empirical question: understanding where things fail within one’s world view is just as important as understanding where they work. Because everything fails at the boundaries.
In that sense, the Left, particularly communists, are like Libertarians. They don’t recognize boundaries or the failure points of their “theories”.
The rest between these two opposite extremes recognize at some level the existence of boundaries and failure points…but most can’t really tie those in with empirical observations.
So it all devolves into an ideological shouting match with pre-fabricated slogans and normative arguments.
We do this just as much as everyone else. So some caution is called for.
Turn it around on them.
Real Capitalism has never been tried.
How do you address the northern European model? I mean is Denmark socialist? It appears to me that they do incorporate elements of socialism supported by a relatively healthy “capitalist” economy. Of course, they do get a hefty break on spending for defense. All things considered, however, the Danes appear to be doing rather well.
I’m glad you ask. I once got into a debate with a standard-issue online lefty who made this argument, IIRC about Sweden. A quick trip to Wikipedia was all it took to get recent figures on how much Sweden exports, in particular to the United States.
Scratch a northern European socialist state, find out it exports goods to rich capitalist states so its citizens and corporations can pay the taxes. They’re spending other people’s money, all right. Ours.
Well, an an ideologues mind, things either are one thing or they aren’t. Hence, neither the Left or the Right can explain Denmark in any realistic way.
So to argue with either side, one really needs to understand what “capitalism” is, as a model.
95% of the people arguing these things, just don’t get what capitalism is. Both sides try to condense things into 5 word slogans, and then try to explain the world with that.
“Socialism” is safety nets and weekends off. Capitalism is markets and private property. Or some variation of this. Neither of these even scratches the surface, or correctly describes either of the two systems.
In fact, the distinction between the two is more or less empirical. How much of one or the other, where, and with what boundaries.
So by that explanation, is the US spending Canada’s and Mexico’s money?
Arguments on “pop-economics” fail for this reason: you can always find a “counterfactual” to arguments that simply describe a system which exists in all economies.
Hence, the distinction between the two is empiric.
To argue about economic systems, one needs to start from the basic “economic laws”. Which describe basic human behavior which is common among all humans, whether they live in North Korea or in Texas. North Korea does not violate economic laws…try as it might.
So the only way to argue with a Leftist or a communist is start at the beginning: laws developed thorough empirical observations. Then you move up.
You can’t argue in ideologies because ideologies are simply…condensations of empirical observations into small enough chunks that Joe Schmo can pretend to understand.
Yes, but it seems like a safer bet we wouldn’t have to than in Sweden’s case.
Fair enough, but in this case, the reminder that Sweden is not, in fact, a closed economic system was sufficient to undercut the “successful socialism” meme. One could indeed dig into the details of “OK, how much export wealth goes into taxes, how much of that is redistributed, etc. and if that’s socialism, what’s wrong with it?” My interlocutor did no such thing, cf. “standard-issue online lefty.” There are lefties who could and would engage on the point. This wasn’t one of them.
But Leftism doesn’t argue for a “closed system” either.
Marxist arguments, as the extreme for of Leftism, argue that there is “unfair” distribution of value due to their belief in the “labor theory of value”. But that theory can be overturned through empirical observation (and obviously has).
More basic, their argument is that, from the perspective of a given individual, a particular arrangement, even if producing sub-optimal outcomes from someone else’s perspective, still provides better outcomes from the focal perspective. In their case, their focal perspective is “the worker” or “the poor” or whatever else they may want to use.
Which may indeed be the case…in a static system…but may not be so in a dynamic system (and isn’t). But that’s still an empirical question.
So they’ll say that yes, minimum wage laws produce sub-optimal outcomes for everyone else, but produce better outcomes from the person at minimum wage. And they would be right, if the argument stopped there. But it doesn’t in a dynamic system.
Topher, Great ghost of Godel:
I think the Scandavians may be more pro-corporate than us in many respects. Corporate taxes are lower and the regulatory burdens are becoming quite comparable, litigation risks are probably much lower. Their economies are not planned. They seem to recognize the need to let the productive sectors do their thing.
They tax individuals heavily because they have essentially voted to purchase their health care and all social insurance from government. Those aspects are socialized. With their low birth rates and loads of welfare-sucking new immigrants that may turn out badly but it would be unfair to dismiss their approach on ideological grounds alone.
I think this is where the confusion stems. If you define socialism as more than just a robust welfare state (as Kevin Williamson does,) then the Scandinavians are actually less socialist than we are; Denmark actually beat us in the last Heritage ranking.
Socialism is all broken eggs and no omelette. With shells abound and failure mounting the call is always for more eggs.
Yes, Denmark is about as “capitalist” as it gets.
So then the question becomes what is the distinction between one nation’s “system” or relative focus vs. another’s.
To me, that’s simply an empirical question. It depends on what the focal POV is. But even if one takes different focal POVs…the question of which one produces what outcome from that focal perspective is still an empirical question.
The distinctions are two fold I think:
1) The Left bases their arguments more on static analysis of the empirical evidence, the Right on dynamic. The empirics can separate out which one describes reality better. Ultimately, a description of economic reality is all this is…since one can’t change “economic laws”.
2) The theoretical economic bases. But these can be overturned or supported by empirics. Marx’s labor theory of value is easily overturned, for example. Lots of other Leftist theoretical bases too.
But over the last few decades, most Leftist economic theories have been disproved. Today, it would be ridiculous for example to propose price or wage controls to control inflation…
But to be fair, people on the “right” also hold on to disproved theories (like the gold obsession).
Supporters of this model certainly need to account for this. Selection below.
Sweden has about 14% non-Swedish population. 13% in Norway. About the same level of homogeneity as Kentucky.
Denmark is the only low one with about 8%.
Again, counters to this argument are too abundant to name. NK is 99% ethnically homogeneous.