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If you search “why did socialism fail” on the Internet you find many articles or post about this theme. Well I would like to write my own version about the reasons – and it has something to do also with Steem.
Failed
Because socialism undoubtedly failed everywhere where it was introduced, sooner or later. In the USSR, Eastern European countries, China and Vietnam… China and Vietnam? They are prospering – I can hear the arguments. But they have managed to bring in capitalism unnoticed; maybe we can call them “half socialist-half capitalist”. The growing economy and prosperity are due to capitalism, not socialism.
Cuba is a poor beggar, almost everyone wants to go out of there. Venezuela is starving, people are dying due to lack of medicines. The country is on the brink of civil war, and heading to a bigger humanitarian catastrophe. North Korea is a huge concentration camp with periodically starving people. And we better don’t even talk about other African or Asian experiments, they were terrible. Do you know a successful socialist country? (Sweden, Norway, perhaps, if we decide to call them socialists.)
1. Dictatorships are ineffective
One reason because I think the socialist attempts have failed is the dictatorship, the so-called “proletarian dictatorship”. All dictatorships are oppression, central power over individual entrepreneurial spirit. You cannot grant a creative, world-class performance by superior commands. Or only in certain areas such as chess or athletics. The dictatorship kills creativity, the two are fire and water. (There is an old joke: why the Soviet microchip did not enter the world market? Because it didn’t get out of the factory’s main gate ...)
2. People are selfish
The other factor that leads to the atrophy, suffering, and slow death of socialism, is that it has a completely wrong image of people. It assumes that people are able to do their best on a voluntary basis, to do everything for the community. It’s a complete mistake. The majority of people are severely selfish, and even if they do unselfish, voluntary activities, only to a lesser extent. The first things for people are: himself, his family, maybe his friends, his neighbors. Then, if all right, a little charitable or social work can be done.
Convincing people to work hard for a nice new future of the society (“Brave New World” – by Huxley) simply doesn’t work, according to practical experiences. Instead, they often steal from the factory all what they can, and build their own house from the prey. Or they take a second black market job to get extra money. The communist principle of “giving to everyone by his needs, everyone working according to his abilities” does not work in practice. It sounds only very nice.
2/A The Steemian bottom line
This also has practical lessons for the Steem world, in my humble opinion. Because neither do Steemians want to be always good. Most of them do not want to give all their Steem Power to others, to the community. The Steem Power which can be converted to money and can be used for the well-being of themselves or their families. You can build so many boards, committees and alliances how many you want. The real issue is making people really interested in voting for good content.
3. Killing market mechanisms
The third factor why socialism is doomed is the rape of market mechanisms. Since ancient times, when there was a strong demand for a product, people made more of it. If demand was strong, prices went up, indicating that it was worth manufacturing more. If there were few employees in some industry, wages went up in there. The work force also has a market price.
In contrast, in socialism, prices, wages, interest rates, culture, the theater program, the range of products offered in the warehouses and shops, even the form of new homes, all were centrally designed, uniformed. Assuming that if the thing is good for one of the factory workers, it will be good for the other, too. Huge mistake. The majority of people want to differ from the crowd, want to be unique. It’s very dangerous to completely eliminate the self-regulatory mechanisms of the market. With the central planning of prices, wages and supply, no one knew what people really needed. And because of the dictatorship, workers rarely dared to tell what they wanted in reality. (Socialism=scarcity.)
Bad or worse
That’s bullshit, man! Capitalism works even more terribly. Periodic crises, poverty, pollution, wars, etc. etc. Maybe, but if you look around, the countries where you live best are mostly capitalists, possibly mixed with a little socialism. They learned to deal with the crises somewhat, the 2008-2009 crisis was not as horrible as the crisis of 1929-1933. Wars are also becoming increasingly rare.
Wars, misfortunes, environmental pollution and hunger, and even genocide in socialism – very common. It is difficult to decide whether Hitler or Stalin killed more people. The correct answer is probably Mao Zedong (China):
his regime has been called autocratic and totalitarian, and condemned for bringing about mass repression and destroying religious and cultural artifacts and sites. It was additionally responsible for vast numbers of deaths with estimates ranging from 30 to 70 million victims through starvation, prison labour and mass executions. (Wikipedia)
You don’t want to live in socialism, I promise.
(Cover photo: Wikimedia Commons)
Indeed, socialism by itself would simply not work. I mean, where are they gonna get the money to support the populace?
First, they pillage (rob) the capitalists, larger farmers, nobles, real estate owners, all others having money or wealth. Later, they are selling natural resources. The Soviet Union was selling crude oil, natural gas, metals etc., for food and technology.
They sell all they can. Romania was even selling people for money: citizens of German origin to Germany. Many dictatorships do that to survive, not only communists: German Nazis in WW2 robbed Israelites but also pillaged all conquered nations and territories.
You speak about comunism here, not the socialism.
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If what you refer as "socialism" is "democratic socialism" or "social democracy" stop calling it "socialism" because it's not. Even more, stop calling it "democratic socialism" or "social democracy" and start calling it "welfare capitalism" because it's without a doubt right wing economically. Calling it "democratic socialism" or "social democracy" gives credit to socialism for the accomplishments of capitalism (at least in its terminology).
Socialism, just like communism has 100% failure rate so far.
Communists made so-called socialist countries, and the communism was supposed to be the perfect form of socialism. But see Wikipedia:
(And I'm not speaking about Social democracy)
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