Timothy Birdnow

You Can't Argue against Socialism's 100 Percent Record of Failure

They can only promote Sweden as an example of a successful socialist country, but Sweden is NOT even close to socialist. They have fewer regulations and lower corporate tax rates than does the U.S. They very briefly experimented with socialism in the '70's and gave it up when it tanked the economy. Of course, Sweden DOES have a fancy social safety net, purchased thanks to the U.S. providing defense for them. Oh, and if Sweden is the model in everything, why didn't we follow suit when they refused to close their economy down due to Wuflu? I mean, if it is so great in Sweden then we should have followed where they led, right?

From the article:

First, as much as the authors insist that previous examples of socialism were not "really” socialist, none of them can tell us what exactly they would do differently. Rather than providing at least a rough outline of how "their” version of socialism would work in practice, the authors escape into abstraction, and talk about lofty aspirations rather than tangible institutional characteristics.

"Charting new destinations for humanity” and "democratizing the economy” are nice buzzphrases, but what does this mean, in practice? How would "the people” manage "their” economy jointly? Would we all gather in Hyde Park, and debate how many toothbrushes and how many screwdrivers we should produce? How would we decide who gets what? How would we decide who does what? What if it turns out thatwe don’t actually agree on very much?

These are not some trivial technical details that we can just leave until after the revolution. These are the most basic, fundamental questions that a proponent ofanyeconomic system has to be able to answer. Almost three decades have passed since the fall of the Berlin Wall—enough time, one should think, for "modern” socialists to come up with some ideas for a different kind of socialism. Yet here we are. After all those years, they have still not moved beyond the buzzword stage.

Secondly, the authors do not seem to realize that there is nothing remotely new about the lofty aspirations they talk about, and the buzzphrases they use. Giving "the people” democratic control over economic life hasalwaysbeen the aspiration, and the promise, of socialism. It is not that this has never occurred to the people who were involved in earlier socialist projects. On the contrary: that wasalwaysthe idea. There was never a time when socialists started out with the express intention of creating stratified societies led by a technocratic elite. Socialism always turned out that way, but not because it was intended to be that way.

Contemporary socialists completely fail to address the deficiencies of socialism in the economic sphere.

Socialists usually react with genuine irritation when a political opponent mentions an earlier, failed socialist project. They cannot see this as anything other than a straw man, and a cheap shot. As a result, they refuse to address the questionwhythose attempts have turned out the way they did. According to contemporary socialists, previous socialist leaders simply did not really try, and that is all there is to know.

They are wrong. The Austro-British economist Friedrich Hayekalready showed in 1944why socialism must always lead to an extreme concentration of power in the hands of the state, and why the idea that this concentrated power could be democratically controlled was an illusion. Were Hayek to come back from the dead today, he would probably struggle a bit with the iPhone, Deliveroo and social media—but he would instantly grasp the situation inVenezuela.

Thirdly, contemporary socialists completely fail to address the deficiencies of socialism in the economic sphere. They talk a lot about how their version of socialism would be democratic, participatory, non-authoritarian, and nice and cuddly. Suppose they could prove Hayek wrong and magically make that work. What then?

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 10:56 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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