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JuicyMelonTech

As our country and globe gets richer and richer, our generations get more and more privileged and lackadaisical,  new, flawed ideas will enter the political stream, as well as more support for old ones. This is shown through the rise of politicians as Bernie Sanders, and the support of such ideas like Socialism. Socialism has been tried many times, and has always been found to fail all across the globe, from China to Cuba, to Laos and Vietnam, there is one "leitmotiv", socialism doesn't work, it is  flawed ethically, it is flawed as an ideology, and most importantly, it doesn't work in practice. So why is Socialism so wrong? why does it fail? and most importantly, why is there a growing support for it despite its obvious failures? These are the questions I will be answering today in my opening statement, starting with Socialism as an ideology, which I will debunk below:


Why Socialism is a flawed ideology
1.On a moral level, it is flawed.
before we address the many, many economic flaws and implications of socialism, let us first understand why it is wrong on a moral level. The concept of socialism derives from the "robin hood" philosophy, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. This is unjust, as everyone deserves his or her inalienable right to keep the fruits of thy labor. If a man planted an apple tree, tended to it every day, watered it, and made sure it got the ideal amount of sunlight each day, it would eventually grow into an apple tree, filled with the luscious red fruit atop its leaves. It would be morally unjust to take that tantalizing red delicious away from the man, to give it to one who has not put in the time and effort to produce their own apple tree.

2.Reduced incentives to work hard
incentives, the microeconomic buzzword, whether it be economic, social or moral, incentives are what drive the decisions behind our choices and ultimately, what drives our economy. Incentives, such as higher pay for doctors, are crucial to give people the energy they need to work hard in a difficult job. in socialist or communist states, where there are no extra incentives possible, where all reap an equal share in what others have worked harder to sow, the people in difficult jobs quickly lose their motivations to work hard. Why would Muhammed Ali spend countless days and nights, training his heart out, when he knew he would get paid the same as an unskilled dock worker?

3. The necessity of profits, prices, and entrepreneurship 

Socialism is the collective ownership of the means of production. It calls for the abolition of private ownership of factors of production. Wages and profits are two parts of the same pie, and socialism says the profit slice should be zero.

The inherent theoretical problems of socialism all emanate from its definition, and not the particulars of its application. However, the supporters of socialism define “collective,” as no exchange of the factors of production. And without exchange, there can be no prices, and without prices there is no way to measure the costs of production.

In an unhampered market economy, the prices of the factors of production are determined by their aid in producing things that consumers want. They tend to earn their marginal product, and because every laborer has some comparative advantage, there is a slice of pie for everybody. Another reason prices are needed is this, when a boy is stuck on an island, he makes a water source, however once he builds the general structure for a water source, he will move on to collect firewood, etc. he will move on from task to task, each one only slighlty more urgent then the last, because there is an alternative task. with prices, a certain good or service will see a boom in consumers and investors, this leads entrepreneurs to believe that this industry will profit them the most, getting rid of the alternative task dilemma

If technological changes make certain factors more productive, or if education and training make a laborer more productive, their prices or wages may be bid up to their new, higher marginal product. An entrepreneur would not like to hire or buy any factor at a price that exceeds its marginal product because the entrepreneur would then incur losses.

Entrepreneurial losses are more important than many realize. They don't just hit to the entrepreneur’s bottom line. Losses show that on the market, the resources used to produce something were more highly valued than what they were producing. Losses show that wealth has been destroyed.

Profits give the opposite signal. They represent economic growth and wealth creation. A profitable line of production is one in which the stuff that goes into producing some consumer good costs less than what consumers are willing to pay for the consumer good.

As such, profits and losses are more than just important incentives or cover in a conspiratorial capitalist class system; they are the only way to know that wealth is being created instead of destroyed in any line of production.

Under socialism, there is a single owner that does not bid factors away from some lines of production and toward others. Nobody is able to say, with any shred of certainty, that a particular tool or machine or factory could be used to produce something else in a more effective way. Nobody knows what to produce or how much to produce. It’s economic chaos.

4.  Without Markets, We Can’t Know What or How to Produce

Profits and losses guide and correct entrepreneurs in the process of producing things they expect consumers will demand. Without this information, including the costs of production specifically, entrepreneurs cannot engage in economic calculation, the estimation of the difference between future revenues and the costs of production necessary to gain those future revenues. Laborers are put to work in areas where they don’t have a comparative advantage. Farmers are sent to factories, and tailors are sent to the mines. Workers are in the wrong lines of production and have the wrong tools.

5. horrible living conditions, and it just doesn't work

Some cases are funny; others are not. About seven million people died of starvation in the USSR just in 1932–33. The deaths of close to 100 million people are attributable to communist and socialist regimes. That’s more than 200 times the number of US deaths in WWII (and a case could be made that their deaths are attributable to socialism, too).

Even today, in Cuba, the average wage is about $20 a month. In North Korea civilians are routinely rounded up by the dozens for public execution for the crime of watching South Korean TV smuggled into the country.

When people are hungry and unhappy, the state cannot survive if the people know others are better off. The state uses propaganda, misinformation, and censorship to make an already captive citizenry even more confused and submissive.

In conclusion, socialism is a horribly flawed idea, it is unethical, an economic nightmare and derived from an overall hatred of those with more, and a pity for those with less. It was developed by a man who never worked a real job in his entire life, supported only by his wealthy brother, perhaps he formed socialism out of envy of his brother's wealth. so why does socialism infect souls to  such a degree? Because people are born out of greed, capitalism is often criticised for producing greed, however socialism is founded on the most greedy philosophy ever, i'm living, give me crap.

I would now like to invite my hopefully sane and not deranged 76-year-old opposition 

CYDdharta

JuicyMelonTech said:

The concept of socialism derives from the "robin hood" philosophy, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.

I believe a bit of a correction is in order.  Robin Hood didn't steal from the rich so much as he stole from government officials (dukes, duchesses, lords, etc.) and gave to the poor.  Socialism steals from the poor and gives to the government; the complete opposite of Robin Hood.

Erfisflat

Lost me at the 5th word

JuicyMelonTech

CYDdharta said:

JuicyMelonTech said:

The concept of socialism derives from the "robin hood" philosophy, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.

I believe a bit of a correction is in order.  Robin Hood didn't steal from the rich so much as he stole from government officials (dukes, duchesses, lords, etc.) and gave to the poor.  Socialism steals from the poor and gives to the government; the complete opposite of Robin Hood.

socialism steals from the rich and gives to the poor, or the government, socialism does not steal from the poor, however the robin hood example wasn't the best

JuicyMelonTech

Erfisflat said:

Lost me at the 5th word

not a valid argument, however i understand why you may not like my writing style

Nightwing

@CYDdharta

Socialism steals from everyone, not just from the poor.

CYDdharta

Nightwing said:

@CYDdharta

Socialism steals from everyone, not just from the poor.

Yeah, I was going to say that in response to Melon's reply.

Oakchairbc

@JuicyMelonTech Hey.
1) Being moral has nothing to do with if something works. Also note that "moral" is subjective. The point made by Melon contradicts itself when you realize how employment works. The workers labor is their apple and the capitalist takes that apple and then uses it to run a business. 
2) I'd quibble that wages don't necessarily have to be exactly the same for everyone. However I'll just stick with your parameters.
Melon and I agree that a wage increase can cause people to work harder. Imagine if we equalized wages in America right now. Mathematically half would see their wages increase. This would in part counter act those that saw lower wages. Also there are other incentives besides wage increases. Especially internal incentives which are powerful. These and other incentives would still be around. So its not as if there is little pressure to work hard.
3) I'm not exactly sure what you meant in all this. So I'll respond to what I can and anything I fail to address maybe you could help us out and try explaining it in a different way.
I feel like part of what you're talking about in this section is stuff that occurs because of markets which is addressed in the next section.
Melon mentions Entrepreneurship which I agree is a beneficial part of society. It gives anyone with the resources the ability to start a business. In socialism entrepreneurship would still occur though it would at a different rate since the ownership of capital is socialized. Some people might not want to start a new business if the ownership rights are given to the workers or the state.
4) There is no reason markets have to be absent in socialism. In fact there is a thing called market socialism[1]. Socialism is where capital and  power are controlled by the workers or the state. You could still let markets set price levels. Now in the real world there are industries where markets fail and in these cases the government is preferred. I will elaborate on this later. 
5) I would say that 'horrible living conditions' are not a reason why socialism is bad but instead a measure of it. If a country has horrible living conditions then its economy is not working.
The failure of the USSR, Cuba and other similar states are definite examples of attempts at socialism that failed. However many developed countries today are mixed economies because they include attributes of both systems. These are examples of socialistic policies working.
6) There are industries where markets fail. One of the best studied ones is the health care industry. Kenneth Arrow a Nobel prize winner in economics authored a major paper on it. Because of this government control of health care is far more efficient then private sector control. Countries with government run health care have half the costs of America. That is despite America having worse outcomes, worse quality, and less services. Even in America government run health programs are more efficient. Medicare costs have increased 61% less, and the VA has been rated by RAND, the internals of medicine, and the annuals of medicine as the best in quality of care in the country. 
Other sectors that are better run by the government are education, courts, prisons, insurance, banking, and utilities.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_socialism

Erfisflat

JuicyMelonTech said:

Erfisflat said:

Lost me at the 5th word

not a valid argument, however i understand why you may not like my writing style

I know, it was just an observation.

Fascism

Socialism fails to take into value the importance of individualism. Too much individualism is bad, but so is too much collectivism. Socialism has so much collectivism to a point where there is no incentive. 

DrCereal

Fascism said:

Socialism fails to take into value the importance of individualism. Too much individualism is bad, but so is too much collectivism. Socialism has so much collectivism to a point where there is no incentive. 

Could you please elaborate on what you mean by this? I have heard this argument many times, but I seem to always lack the context it relies on.

DrCereal

Also, could you please define what you mean by the usage of the word "socialism"?
There are many interpretations, and I can see that those interpretations are clearly playing a role in this debate.

George_Horse

@DrCereal I really do appreciate your presence here my friend! 

Fascism

@DrCereal
Basically what I mean is that too much socialism is bad because it views humans as one large group instead of individual beings. This is collectivism. Individualism is where every person is viewed completely individual from one another. This is caused by too much capitalism. I'm saying that their should be a balance in both. Too much socialism is like an ant colony. Humans shouldn't be viewed as ants. Too much individualism causes imbalances in society where one group can take advantage of the other. This is freedom only for the rich, and false freedom for everyone else. 

MissDMeanor

If there are 3 people in a room. one person has 100 dollars and the other two have 1 dollar, it is not morally correct to take money from the richer person
. That is theft, that man worked for the money, that man deserves it.

DrCereal

Fascism said:

@DrCereal
Basically what I mean is that too much socialism is bad because it views humans as one large group instead of individual beings. This is collectivism. Individualism is where every person is viewed completely individual from one another. This is caused by too much capitalism. I'm saying that their should be a balance in both. Too much socialism is like an ant colony. Humans shouldn't be viewed as ants. Too much individualism causes imbalances in society where one group can take advantage of the other. This is freedom only for the rich, and false freedom for everyone else. 

Yes, but why do we necessarily need to throw out individualism to adopt socialism?
Just so you know, I do not support socialism in the form of state-ran industry; I support socialism in the form of cooperatives.

DrCereal

MissDMeanor said:

If there are 3 people in a room. one person has 100 dollars and the other two have 1 dollar, it is not morally correct to take money from the richer money. That is theft, that man worked for the money, that man deserves it.

See, this concept is related to socialist ideology, but it itself is not socialism. The concept you described here would be an extreme form of wealth redistribution.

MissDMeanor

@DrCereal
We can play the hypothetical socialism game all day, just like how we can play the hypothetical communism, fascism, and communism game. The point is socialism has never proved to be successful ever. Are we considering socialism as this: a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole. In an nutshell socialism is communism without the government involvement. Redistribution would happen under socialist rule, or the market would level of and tax rates would rise, this can be seen in the case of Venezuela.

DrCereal

MissDMeanor said:

@DrCereal
We can play the hypothetical socialism game all day, just like how we can play the hypothetical communism, fascism, and communism game. The point is socialism has never proved to be successful ever. Are we considering socialism as this: a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole. In an nutshell socialism is communism without the government involvement. Redistribution would happen under socialist rule, or the market would level of and tax rates would rise, this can be seen in the case of Venezuela.

"The point is socialism has never proved to be successful ever."
You also have to realize that socialism has always had political opponents as well. Most socialist systems were defeated or gradually changed to be less socialistic over time.

"In an nutshell socialism is communism without the government involvement."
I wouldn't advocate total community involvement. I (as I said in another post) advocate an economy dominated by cooperatives.
Furthermore, what other arguments do you have against socialism in this form? I completely understand the fear of state involvement, but I'm unaware of your particular stance on this.

"Redistribution would happen under socialist rule, or the market would level of and tax rates would rise, this can be seen in the case of Venezuela."
How do you mean? Why would the market necessarily "level off"?

MissDMeanor

For transparency, I should have said this earlier, I am a classic american conservative. Less government involvement the better/

"You also have to realize that socialism has always had political opponents as well. Most socialist systems were defeated or gradually changed to be less socialistic over time."

People do not change something they like. As I have brought up, in Venezuela Socialism was introduced by Hugo Chavez. In 1980 a professor could buy a slab of beef for 15 minutes work of work, now that same beef would cost 18 hours work. In the 1980s, a full professor with his monthly salary could buy 17 basic baskets of essential goods. Today, he can buy just one-quarter of a basic basket with the same amount of money. Well, in March 2007, the largest denomination of paper money in Venezuela was the 100 bolivar bill. With it, you could buy 28 US dollars, 288 eggs, or 56 kilograms of rice. Today, you can buy .01 dollars, 0.2 eggs, and 0.08 kilograms of rice. In July 2017, you need five 100-bolivar bills to buy just one egg. This is what I mean by the economy leveling off, the hyperinflation leads to the economy not growing, and new products not being introduced.

" I (as I said in another post) advocate an economy dominated by cooperatives."

http://cultivate.coop/wiki/Cooperative_economy This is what I found when I googled this topic. I am not well versed on what this means, If you could enlighten me that would be nice. The source i found was clearly biased strongly in favor of a cooperative economy, I understand bias but I want a more or less objective view on what this is in a nutshell. My basic understanding is that is like democracy, but for the economy. My question is that every business and sector of the economy and such was run by the workers, what is stopping the people from hiking prices. The answer is nothing, and that is is happening in Venezuela prices keep on rising, resulting in massive inflation. Workers do not know how to run companies, that is why workers are workers. 

Again I would like to say, I do not pretend to be well versed on this subject. I have opinions on Communism, and redistribution socialist ideas(I am against both), but not cooperative economies.

Fascism

@DrCereal
It depends on the definition of socialism we are using. 

MayCaesar

I think this is a very good description of problems with socialism that explain why it looks so much better at the first emotional glance, than it really is. I agree on almost all points, especially on its moral corruption. Let me provide, however, my outlook on your questions, and also possible criticism of your points (emphasizing that I completely agree with them; but I like looking at the problem from different points of view, so there is that).


So why is Socialism so wrong? why does it fail?

While, I believe, you answered these questions very well, I want to expand on the second question. There are many reasons that can be listed explaining why all socialist experiments failed so spectacularly - but I think that most of them can be briefly summarized in two points:

1. Socialism does not feature a system of checks and balances.
2. Socialism contradicts human nature.

The first point is illustrated best by characterizing socialism with the popular term: "Rule of the mob". This is essentially what happens: socialism takes all the economical power away from individuals and gives it to the community. The problem is that this community becomes a new tyrant, there is no protection against its tyranny on the individuals. While in a regular democratic state the government polices itself via separation of powers, and individuals police the government via democratic mechanisms and constitution protecting human rights - in a socialism the mob is a sole ruler over individuals that have to serve it. If for some reason this mob decides to install a dictatorship (as always happened in practice), or to lynch some minority, then this is exactly what will happen: since the mob holds all the power, it is unstoppable and will crush every deviation on its way. 
There is no scenario in which socialism does not result in a mass murder and imprisonment.

The second point is easy to see if one asks themselves: how often, when at a grocery store, do they think about benefiting the society with their choice of food? Almost never. People shop for themselves and their families, they buy what they like and not what will benefit the society. People do spend money on charity every now and then, but this sector of the economy is minuscule compared to the personal consumption sector.
Socialism tries to force everyone to live their life based on the idea of a "common good". But this is not how humans are wired. This social engineering would require extensive artificial alteration of human physiology to become functional; trying to "break" people into the desired behavioral state by forcing it on them will always result in another North Korea.


and most importantly, why is there a growing support for it despite its obvious failures?

I am still struggling with answering this question. That said, I think I understand the general psychological phenomenon behind it.

You see, economical development has one unpleasant aspect to it: the more developed the country becomes, the harder it is to maintain a high economical growth. It is easy to assure rapid economical growth in such a state as China, even with lousy economical policies, since there is a ton of room for improvement due to the economy being so poor and flawed. But, for example, Switzerland has long solved all the obvious economical shortcomings it had; the economy is saturated, and it is very difficult to improve it at a noticeable pace, since it is not very clear what to improve on. The economical output is already incredibly high; increasing it would require extraordinary measures and significant innovations.

Humans, however, are impatient creatures. We always want more and more. What happens when the rate at which we gain more becomes low, when the economy seems rather stale, when we do not see rapid improvement in our lives on the scale of several months? We want to speed up the economical progress. And desperation in not being able to achieve it with the current saturated system makes us to want to try something drastically different. And since most general ideas have already been tried, we have to return to something that has been tried many times and failed, asking ourselves, "Maybe we can do better this time?"

It is a very irrational, but very human approach. Ironically, the better the economy is doing - the more people want to try old failed systems in its stead, because the economical growth slows down at its peak. And same goes for the individuals: it is usually the wealthy and privileged that want to try socialism, while poor rural farmers, for example, are mostly strongly against it. The more we have, the more we want - but also the more we have, the harder it becomes to get even more. We are trapped in this wheel of contradictions.


1.On a moral level, it is flawed.

Moral systems are, by their nature, subjective. What is flawed according to your morals, can be flawless according to someone else's.

That said, in case of socialists in particular, I see a lot of inconsistency in what they preach and practice. They vilify greed - but they are okay with resources being transferred to them from richer people (notebook example of greed). They say that corporations suppress worker rights - while wanting to eliminate worker rights altogether, making them directly controlled by the community. They preach about the importance of helping others - but when you talk to them, you will learn that they rarely, if ever, do any amount of charity, although they certainly do not mind accepting free resources from others.
What I see often is that socialism is advocated for to solve the problem that arises from the socialist him/herself. They are greedy, they want to have more than they do at someone else's expense - and they see socialism as a solution to this problem. Not realizing that the vast majority of people just want to be left alone, and focus on improving their own finances, as opposed to constantly looking into others' wallets and wanting a piece of them.

In other words, the problem that socialism is set to solve is caused by socialist mentality. And this is almost objectively morally inconsistent.


2.Reduced incentives to work hard

A popular objection is that it also opens up incentives to work on the projects the individual wants to, as opposed to those that improve their wealth. And I somewhat agree with this sentiment.

However, the economical outcome of this is not necessarily positive. The job positions on a free market form as a result of individual economical needs: someone needs certain work done, and they hire people to do this work for them. In socialism, where everyone is free to work on whatever they want (assuming the idealized version of socialism with benevolent society, which cannot exist in practice for the reasons pointed out above), there is a good chance that certain economical needs will not be fulfilled by workers - which endangers the entire system. Imagine if nobody in the society wants to produce food, for example, and everyone wants to produce Youtube videos instead...

Capitalism ensures that the job market is dictated by people's needs. Socialism makes this a product of chance, at best.


3. The necessity of profits, prices, and entrepreneurship 

I would say here that the points you raised in this paragraph can be irrelevant in case a well thought out price and wage control system is designed. For example, in the distant future, it could be possible to create an AI that would learn to determine the "best" economical numbers needed to both drive the economy most effectively, and ensure optimal wealth distribution. In this case, the problem of controlling profits, prices and business rights become trivial.

The caveat here is that such a system has to necessarily be based on a certain economical model, a certain scale of what outcomes for the economy are "better" or "worse". The inherent subjectivity of such a model results in the needs of many people practically being unfulfilled - only, unlike the case of capitalism, here people are no longer free to try to fulfill them on their own by using a free market to their advantage.


4.  Without Markets, We Can’t Know What or How to Produce

Closely related to the previous point. A very advanced economical model can predict what should be produced and how - but, again, since such a model is subjective, many people will be unhappy with such a market.


5. horrible living conditions, and it just doesn't work

In theory, socialism does not have to result in such a scenario. If we assume a society of perfectly reasonable, perfectly responsible, perfectly collectivist, perfectly conformist people, then, just like ants working together to push an object orders of magnitude their individual weight together, they can perform much better economically than individuals in a free market capitalist economy. A hive mind species would probably be perfect in this regard: a hive mind with a very solid understanding of economy could ensure such economical prosperity, that it would assimilate the entire Universe biomass into the system.

The problem here is: humans are not a hive mind. We are a large group of diverse, unique individuals, with different preferences, different needs, different abilities, different systems of values. In this case, socialism would be like taking a large car lot and putting the same drive train in each car, regardless of the fuel they consume, regardless of their body structure, regardless of their weight, etc. Sure, maintenance becomes easy and trivial, since we know what drive train is installed in each car... But many cars will just end up broken, and many others will have deep issues making their functionality suspect.

A good system accounts for all diversity of people. A good system features extended freedoms for people to live the life the way they want. And free market is the only logical answer to this concern.

Nathaniel_B

I agree. Capitalism is the best economic system. This is why America and China are top in the world economy.