Left Behind wrote:It seems to be a universal tenant of socialism that the economy/means of production, must somehow be owned socially (under the control of the people/workers/proletariat etc.). Different individuals seem to take the phrase "socially owned" to mean different things, to more authoritarian varieties of socialism "socially owned" can simply mean a despotic state and on the other end of the spectrum "socially owned" can mean an anarchic commune. I would like to ask the question, which is the most effective way of "socially owning" the means of production? Not what is the most moral or utopian way, but which method is the most effective in an economic sense and in the sense of successfully distributing goods and services?
P.S "Capitalism" is not a valid answer
Economists know that the answer to your question is always "it depends". My kingdom for a one-armed economist.
Economists also know that there is no answer because every answer entails costs. No matter the advocate's preference in an economic system, he is merely saying that he likes the system's benefits and is willing to tolerate its downsides.
Capitalism, defined as "private ownership in competition" has undoubted benefits, but well-known costs as well. Consider, as Edward Glaeser does in his book
Triumph of the City, that capitalism gets it mostly right while supplying cities with the myriad goods and services it needs. Nobody is controlling the thousands of suppliers, small and large, who feed the city every day. There is slippage, and inefficiency, and even occasional violence, but the biggest of cities is reliably supplied each and every day. Some of the suppliers are ruthless, heartless people who care little about their workers or their customers except as sheep to be sheared, and whose social instincts are nonexistent. Still, their actions produce what the city needs. No central authority could possibly do the job better.
Extending this backward into production, again we find capitalism's inefficiencies as firms compete and duplicate efforts, but out of that messy maelstrom comes (for the most part) things the society at large needs to consume. Again, there are doubtless externalities (outcomes that the company itself doesn't have to pay for, but others do), and we have agreed as a capitalist society to put fences in place to prevent the most egregious of them, then pay for the maintenance of the fences and the political arguments that arise over them. All of these are costs.
Really, I think there are two things here that you're conflating. The first is the efficiency of outcome to the society, which is generally agreed to be some form of competitive capitalism, and the other is who owns those suppliers. There are many examples of worker-owned companies and even government-owned companies that have succeeded in a capitalist structure. My favorite is the Green Bay Packers, a community-owned NFL team that has had enormous success both financially and on the field.
Other countries, notably Nordic ones, may shift the costs and benefits around a bit, but for the most part capitalism, the way I'm defining it here, seems to be the best method of getting things to those who want them, while battling many difficulties (some of which we're asked to battle). Nations that have opted for centralized control did so out of a legitimate concern for fairness and scarcity, but ultimately they fail to do as good a job. That's not to say that capitalism is a panacea. Many countries have capitalism but allow substantial segments of their populations to fall into terrible poverty. The best system seems to be a government shepherding of squabbling companies, something that requires delicate handling.