- 24 May 2019 21:47
#15007199
Socialism can work locally in different segments of society. It can work economically for very backwards peasant societies. But on average and as a whole it doesn't work properly for half-developed or developed societies. Socialism is not exactly incorrect in its moral basis that wage slavery is a problem and that it chains the workers etc. But it does not provide a concrete way to get out of the situation that works. This is especially relevant in the modern world. There is no high-tech developed socialist country. The closest one got to that was the USSR but the problem is that everything developed in the USSR was for the military. Rockets that flew to space were ICBMs etc And it was done by investing 25-35% of the budget. This is very inefficient and left other areas underfunded.
Situation is even worse now for pure socialism. I do not think Apple, Huawei, Samsung, Facebook, Google could exist in a socialist society properly. Now having said that, Socialism is not a full failure in itself. It showed that it is possible to provide state funded healthcare and state funded education with that as efficient or actually more efficient than the capitalist model did before it.
So this legacy of Communism/Socialism still lives on. Same goes for regulations to improve working conditions for example or insurance.
As an economic model it fails because it:
1) Destroys motivation to improve. If everyone gets more or less the same then what is the reason to do more than the minimum required?
2) Destroys investment possibilities. If the profit is taken away and given to somebody else then it is almost impossible to invest in to something that is not mandated by the state.
3) State is usually less efficient compared to private enterprise. The same way large enterprises are less efficient compared to small and medium enterprises. I would argue that larger enterprises usually either don't compete(Because product is very complicated and it competes against other large enterprises) or simply have large advantage due to their resources, lobbying etc.
So its not a model that a half-developed or very developed society can maintain long term.
I do not think that any nation is hopeless to change; however, I think that some nations do require a lot more effort than others to become changed. - Verv
Pants-of-dog wrote:I just gave examples of where the proposed solutions have worked.
Socialism can work locally in different segments of society. It can work economically for very backwards peasant societies. But on average and as a whole it doesn't work properly for half-developed or developed societies. Socialism is not exactly incorrect in its moral basis that wage slavery is a problem and that it chains the workers etc. But it does not provide a concrete way to get out of the situation that works. This is especially relevant in the modern world. There is no high-tech developed socialist country. The closest one got to that was the USSR but the problem is that everything developed in the USSR was for the military. Rockets that flew to space were ICBMs etc And it was done by investing 25-35% of the budget. This is very inefficient and left other areas underfunded.
Situation is even worse now for pure socialism. I do not think Apple, Huawei, Samsung, Facebook, Google could exist in a socialist society properly. Now having said that, Socialism is not a full failure in itself. It showed that it is possible to provide state funded healthcare and state funded education with that as efficient or actually more efficient than the capitalist model did before it.
So this legacy of Communism/Socialism still lives on. Same goes for regulations to improve working conditions for example or insurance.
As an economic model it fails because it:
1) Destroys motivation to improve. If everyone gets more or less the same then what is the reason to do more than the minimum required?
2) Destroys investment possibilities. If the profit is taken away and given to somebody else then it is almost impossible to invest in to something that is not mandated by the state.
3) State is usually less efficient compared to private enterprise. The same way large enterprises are less efficient compared to small and medium enterprises. I would argue that larger enterprises usually either don't compete(Because product is very complicated and it competes against other large enterprises) or simply have large advantage due to their resources, lobbying etc.
So its not a model that a half-developed or very developed society can maintain long term.
I do not think that any nation is hopeless to change; however, I think that some nations do require a lot more effort than others to become changed. - Verv