Why socialism always fails

[marke]

That is the title to an excellent article which people should read if they have any doubts about the very bad economic effects socialist policies have on a nation.

Why socialism always fails - AEI

 

[joko104]

Money and wealth always will flee socialism - so it becomes increasingly poor people fighting over dwindling money, while the ruling masters suck up as much of the declining money as possible - and then uses that money to control the desperate and often literally starving population.

The wealthy NEVER turn over their wealth to socialism. If they can not be the bosses of the socialistic state - which converts the population to beggars - they flee with their money. For this reason alone (though other reasons), socialism will always make the population poorer and poorer - with less and less legal and civil rights.

 

[JeffreyB]

Socialism/Communism doesn't work because human nature interferes; capitalism works so well because it uses human nature to drive the economy instead of trying to push against human nature. A good visual would be trying to row upstream (socialism) and going with the flow (capitalism).

 

[marke]

Money and wealth always will flee socialism - so it becomes increasingly poor people fighting over dwindling money, while the ruling masters suck up as much of the declining money as possible - and then uses that money to control the desperate and often literally starving population.

The wealthy NEVER turn over their wealth to socialism. If they can not be the bosses of the socialistic state - which converts the population to beggars - they flee with their money. For this reason alone (though other reasons), socialism will always make the population poorer and poorer - with less and less legal and civil rights.

Socialist democrats in America must be as dumb as a barrel of rocks when it comes to actually understanding the need for budgeting for socialist programs they so freely offer to everyone in hopeful expectation of garnering massive new votes for them and their party. Americans who also seem to know nothing about fiscal issues and the need for balanced budgeting seem a ripe field for harvesting massive numbers of poorly educated votes from poorly educated voters.

 

[Hawkeye10]

That is the title to an excellent article which people should read if they have any doubts about the very bad economic effects socialist policies have on a nation.

Why socialism always fails - AEI

A Taste would have been nice.

Was that too much for me to expect?

 

[AlbqOwl]

I've always appreciated Maggie Thatcher's explanation for why socialism fails, i.e. sooner or later you run out of other people's money.

 

[ecofarm]

I've always appreciated Maggie Thatcher's explanation for why socialism fails, i.e. sooner or later you run out of other people's money.

And the next step: But, hey, who needs money if the state controls the means of production...

 

[Nap]

I've always appreciated Maggie Thatcher's explanation for why socialism fails, i.e. sooner or later you run out of other people's money.

I was thinking the same thing when I saw the thread title.

 

[Aristaeus]

I've always appreciated Maggie Thatcher's explanation for why socialism fails, i.e. sooner or later you run out of other people's money.

nice soundbite, but lacking in sense or understanding.

 

[Aristaeus]

Why socialism has failed (we'll skip the question of what actually is socialism for brevity).

There are a number of reasons, but the ideology itself is not the issue. You had a dozen or so already poor countries experimenting with it, and the other 300 countries used capitalism. In a parallel universe where you had 300 countries using socialism and a dozen poor countries tried a new idea called capitalism, you would find that capitalism would fail. You would need a large percentage of the world's nations to use it, including many of the wealthiest, in order for it to succeed.

Another issue is time. 100 years after capitalism became the dominant system, you still had 6 year old children working down mines and huge amounts of people living in slums. Socialism was tried for 70 and for most of that time, the US was waging economic warfare on it.

 

[Conaeolos]

the ideology itself is not the issue.

Care to expand and debate on a thought experiment of your choosing? Ideology is the fundamental issue.

You had a dozen or so already poor countries experimenting with it, and the other 300 countries used capitalism. In a parallel universe where you had 300 countries using socialism and a dozen poor countries tried a new idea called capitalism, you would find that capitalism would fail. You would need a large percentage of the world's nations to use it, including many of the wealthiest, in order for it to succeed.

Sure sure, not what the data shows, but of course the standard should be adjusted to the condtions of the country attempting it. Choose which ever wealth level, country, culture or block you'd like as your example. If it's ideology, as I content, the proof will still be staring us back in the face.

Another issue is time. 100 years after capitalism became the dominant system, you still had 6-year-old children working down mines and huge amounts of people living in slums. Socialism was tried for 70 and for most of that time, the US was waging economic warfare on it.

Correct. Capitalism doesn't work on magic. It develops over time, correction after correction. It's chaotic not orderly. I don't expect any different for socialism, but it's pattern has and will always be spend big today suffer bigger tomorrow not the incremental slow build we find with capitalism.

Again though, pick whichever conditions you'd like it will always end the same way: greater suffering due to a shrinking total wealth as a population's processing power is bypassed to an arbitrary central club of do gooders, who will likely begin to horde resources and power, then collapse via internal competitive pressures and their own infighting(reaction to dire scarcity).

 

[augustus]

Jeremy Corbyn used to hold Venezuela up as an example of how great socialism is. Don't think he does that anymore. And guess who's cozying up to him? AOC. The future is terrifying.

 

[Aristaeus]

Care to expand and debate on a thought experiment of your choosing? Ideology is the fundamental issue.


Sure sure, not what the data shows, but of course the standard should be adjusted to the condtions of the country attempting it. Choose which ever wealth level, country, culture or block you'd like as your example. If it's ideology, as I content, the proof will still be staring us back in the face.


Correct. Capitalism doesn't work on magic. It develops over time, correction after correction. It's chaotic not orderly. I don't expect any different for socialism, but it's pattern has and will always be spend big today suffer bigger tomorrow not the incremental slow build we find with capitalism.

Again though, pick whichever conditions you'd like it will always end the same way: greater suffering due to a shrinking total wealth as a population's processing power is bypassed to an arbitrary central club of do gooders, who will likely begin to horde resources and power, then collapse via internal competitive pressures and their own infighting(reaction to dire scarcity).

So are people suggesting China is a failure??

 

[Aristaeus]

Jeremy Corbyn used to hold Venezuela up as an example of how great socialism is. Don't think he does that anymore. And guess who's cozying up to him? AOC. The future is terrifying.

Venezuela is not and has never been socialist. Left-wing, sure, but not socialist. The vast majority of business is via private enterprise. Venezuela's problems are complex, including a fall in oil prices, a terrible leader in Maduro, and US economic sanctions.

Venezuela's economy remained market-based and private-sector dominated throughout Chavez's time in office. Though the social economy and the public sector were heavily promoted, including through nationalisation, the private sector was expected to remain dominant, and it did. A centrally planned socialist economy like Cuba's was neither the aim nor the reality.

 

[augustus]

Venezuela is not and has never been socialist. Left-wing, sure, but not socialist. The vast majority of business is via private enterprise. Venezuela's problems are complex, including a fall in oil prices, a terrible leader in Maduro, and US economic sanctions.

Regardless of how they identify themselves, they're socialist.

 

[Aristaeus]

Regardless of how they identify themselves, they're socialist.

It is market-based and private-sector dominated, how is that socialist? Venezuela is a left-wing, mixed-market economy.

 

[marke]

A Taste would have been nice.

Was that too much for me to expect?

A taste of what? Universal poverty and unrest, like what the formerly well positioned citizens of Venezuela are experiencing?

 

[OrphanSlug]

Strict socialism tends to fail for damn near the same reason strict capitalism tends to fail, eventually what is formed is a wealth based aristocracy (you end up with oligarchical capitalism,) a government based aristocracy (you end up with tyranny,) or some horrible combination of the two where everyone else is in misery and poverty.

This is why just about every modern economic model is mixed.

The main problem with articles like that quoted by the OP is the silly assumption an economic model is either one or the other, where governance magically lines up behind the economic model desired and all things opposite end up as Venezuela.

It is easy to argue that Venezuela leaned left, leaned authoritarian, leaned socialism, and ultimately destroyed itself. But suggesting that socialism was the reason itself is bumper sticker thinking, what really happened is what I pointed out above. Aristocracy formed to the point that wealth held by the elites ended up held outside the nation away from the populace. What was being sold to the populace was only for them, those with power and influence arrived at a different conclusion.

What "always fails" is the accumulation of wealth and power by the few, and no matter if capitalism driven or socialism driven you end up at the same point of poverty for everyone else at the hands of very few holding the majority of wealth, resources, assets, what have you.

 

[Conaeolos]

So are people suggesting China is a failure??

The elements of socialism in the Chinese system do threaten the prospect of a successful future and limit the progress of many chinese. If you are disadvantaged, poor, low skilled or average you would prefer a Taiwan to mainland China. What big benefit has 'socialism' given China?

What "always fails" is the accumulation of wealth and power by the few, and no matter if capitalism driven or socialism driven you end up at the same point of poverty for everyone else at the hands of very few holding the majority of wealth, resources, assets, what have you.

The problem with this statement is capitalist elements fight this accumulation of scarce wealth by way of facilitating investment based on logarithmic growth curve putting more and more people in positions of 'elite' over time to counter monopolization by set of centralized actors who act to pursue power at the cost of scarcity and suffering.Can it fail? Sure. It's subject to foul play. Capitalism requires an effective judiciary and equality before the law. This is where socialism get's its in. Cycles of poverty are also an issue. For example, if there is an untouchable class, capitalism can nothing to intervene against the natural accommodation of antisocial elments and disproportionate representation of poverty.

Majority egalitarian values and charity are essential to a capitalist philosophy. Freedom and opportunity meaningless without responsibility.

'Socialist'(central [re]distribution) elements by contrast are monopolistic by nature and always drive for the limitation of growth in positions of 'elite' wealth. Socialism can never work exactly because it prevents real egalitarianism to take root which is where capitalism gets its magic[a natural equalization via a free market].

One would note here the invention of positive rights and their entanglement with socialism: right to housing, right to food, etc etc.

Positive rights are the essence of socialism push for centralize resources in the hands of a lessor and lessor few by requiring intervention. If positive rights where natural, everyone would be fed, housed….when they are not (as they are not) it is always considered a right the 'elite' to step in even when ill equipped. An infant - parent relationship. Infants must progress to become children yet by design there is no room for this guided independent learning in a centralized system. The infant-parent dynamic goes on indefinatly. Now we find unequal dependence. A giver and a taker. Unequal dependence given time will morph into de facto slavery regardless of the system in which it takes place. There can be no equality before the law when one party is expendable. When one party is an infant in the eyes of the law and the other an adult.

 

[independentusa]

Socialist democrats in America must be as dumb as a barrel of rocks when it comes to actually understanding the need for budgeting for socialist programs they so freely offer to everyone in hopeful expectation of garnering massive new votes for them and their party. Americans who also seem to know nothing about fiscal issues and the need for balanced budgeting seem a ripe field for harvesting massive numbers of poorly educated votes from poorly educated voters.

Ah, did not the GOP, apparently your party, just pass a massive tax cut that will lead to much higher deficits? And what do you know about fiscal issues? Do you have a degree in economics or an MBA?

 

[independentusa]

Money and wealth always will flee socialism - so it becomes increasingly poor people fighting over dwindling money, while the ruling masters suck up as much of the declining money as possible - and then uses that money to control the desperate and often literally starving population.

The wealthy NEVER turn over their wealth to socialism. If they can not be the bosses of the socialistic state - which converts the population to beggars - they flee with their money. For this reason alone (though other reasons), socialism will always make the population poorer and poorer - with less and less legal and civil rights.

It really seems to me that what you are saying about Socialism could be say what capitalism is doing to this country and has been doing over the past thirty years. We have more poor and fewer people in the middle class and the wealthy are getting wealthier and more of the country's wealth each year. The top 10 percent now own almost 90% of the country's wealth, up from about 80% in the 1990's. Wages have been flat and we have had a huge redistribution of wealth from the poor and middles class to the very wealthy. And this is what unfettered capitalism does to a society. You complain about providing for the poor and yet capitalism has created the poor, not socialism. Our economy is based on capitalism and not socialism as you and other conservatives would like people to think. Our government does have some social based programs, but the economy which has created our problems is not socialism but capitalism. Those are the facts.

 

[AlbqOwl]

And the next step: But, hey, who needs money if the state controls the means of production...

But somehow state run production is never quite as productive as that greedy old capitalism generally resulting in shortages and/or an inferior product. It is a lot cheaper for instance to utilize New Mexico's Motor Vehicle Department to get title transfers, register your auto, renew drivers' licenses etc. But the wait times are always very long bordering on intolerable at times. So a lot of us pay the hefty fee to the privately owned for profit MVD Express for such things.

 

[AlbqOwl]

nice soundbite, but lacking in sense or understanding.

Only for those who are unschooled in basic economics and/or who have not studied or observed world history as it unfolds or who have an underlying agenda they try not to expose.

 

[Deuce]

So, in the opinion of dip****s like the one who wrote this article...
is Canada a socialist nation?

 

[Rich2018]

Money and wealth always will flee socialism ....

So we can wave good bye to the billionaires when we start taxing them at 75%