The United States is a mixed economy with aspects of socialism and aspects of capitalism. We are far more capitalist than socialist.

You can have a mixed economy with a lot more socialism than the US and still have a great society (see Europe for examples).

Now the Soviet Union was pretty horrible, and it’s a shame we’ve decided that it should be the poster child / cautionary tale for any socialist policy in a mixed economy. It’s a shame because I think the Soviet Union was actually a poster child for some things far worse than, and not necessarily intrinsic to, careful application of socialist policies:

- Command economy where production was governed by a combination of ideology and information systems (human and technological) that were comically ill-equipped to attempt such a thing.

- Horrible autocratic leadership. I’m open to the possibility that an economy, past some hypothetical ratio of socialism, results uniformly in autocracy. But... in the Soviet Union’s case, I think we need to consider the proud, nearly homogeneous, legacy of horrible autocratic rule and horrible living conditions in Russia.

But maybe we will soon have the IT capability to efficiently run a command economy. Imagine a world in which Amazon captures an even larger share of global sales... eventually handling the vast majority of all economic transactions: Amazon insurance payments to Amazon networks of doctors. Homogeneously decent quality inexpensive Amazon Basics cookware, clothing, televisions. Amazon News Network. How would that be different than a command economy?

Maybe no one corporation would ever capture anything like the full economy. But maybe an oligopoly of corporations could...

I actually think we need to figure out some form of (partial) socialism that is compatible with a democratic society, because the capitalist economic end-game starts to looks rife with potential for exploitation. If Amazon and Walmart carve up the world’s economy and resources, I want damn sure I can have equal representation in electing their leadership.

It's a shame that you conflate socialism with authoritarianism. Implementing socialist ideas like providing health care and education to all, regardless of income, are not steps towards becoming Soviet Russia.

>Implementing socialist ideas like providing health care and education to all,

Sir, you are a noble soul! Where can I send a cheque to you, so that you can implement healthcare and education for all?

Most people understand that the choice is not between Ayn Rand style capitalism or Soviet style communism. Between these two extremes is quite a large space. There are examples of successful capitalist economies with good social programs.

Ayn Rand style capitalism wouldn't allow the "heads I win tails you lose style" of capitalism we're living under today, which is by far one of the biggest problems.

It would also eliminate a lot of the unnecessary laws that benefit those who hold power (selective enforcement, tying smaller players in red tape, etc). It does benefit monopolies though, that could be fixed with fairly enforced regulation, which granted would be contrary to her beliefs afaik.

Most people who criticize Rand don't know very much about her philosophy in my experience.

With the anti-regulatory view Ayn Randians have it most certainly would lead to a heads I win tails you lose style of capitalism. A wild west approach to capitalism would be disastrous. A society without proper regulation of corporations (especially ones as rich and powerful as currently exist in the world) would be a horrible one to live in.

Virtually all regulations are based on nonobjective standards, meaning that businessmen must constantly defer to the judgment of bureaucrats.

The above is the from the Ayn Rand institute.

https://ari.aynrand.org/issues/government-and-business/regul...

> With the anti-regulatory view Ayn Randians have it most certainly would lead to a heads I win tails you lose style of capitalism.

That sounds a hell of a lot like the system we have today. Wall street has a great run and pockets all the money, then boom and they get bailed out by the taxpayer. I don't know who "Ayn Randians" are, but they certainly aren't followers of her original writing. I consider myself a bit of an an old school Randian, and if I was running the show most people on Wall Street would be scared shitless, because a lot of them would be going to prison.

But then, perhaps she was less than honest, she was drinking buddies with Alan Greenspan, who I think is a criminal of the highest order.

> A wild west approach to capitalism would be disastrous.

Completely agree.

> Virtually all regulations are based on nonobjective standards, meaning that businessmen must constantly defer to the judgment of bureaucrats.

I agree with that more or less. People on the left tend to disagree with this because they want to regulate according to their personal beliefs, as if they were passed down from god. Personally, I'm more than happy to negotiate a compromise, but I sure don't get that feeling from today's left.

I don't think a lot of Rand's beliefs stand up to the test of time, or would be pragmatic in today's world - philosophy should change with the times. But an example of one of her beliefs that I disagree with is the FDA - while I think it has more power than it should, if I recall correctly she believed it should be abolished entirely. Not that this is impossible or would be the end of the world, but I consider it sub-optimal, considering the dishonesty of westerners. But then, we didn't used to be this dishonest either.

She also had a tendency to put principle before pragmatism, I disagree somewhat with that as well.

One should be fairly open minded about these sorts of things.

Is every attempt to establish communism going to end up like the Soviet Union?

There are quite a few attempts at communism that have failed very severely when it comes to human rights. The risk of becoming like the Soviet Union is a great one. To know the extents of how people thought about their government, there is an example from the Gulag Archipelago...

A woman was accused of saying things against the state and was sentenced to death. She lied to her daughter and told her daughter of her guilt, so that her daughter would not think bad thoughts against the state, the same state that was going to falsely execute her.

They used to bury people in mass graves, alive. Burying them alive was not out of cruelty, but convenience. They found that live bodies were easier to take from the carts into the graves than if they had to lift dead bodies.

The worst thing about capitalism is so much better than the worst thing about communism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gulag_Archipelago

Given the use of slave child labor on cocoa plants, blood diamonds and the chopping off of hands, abuses in the pursuit of rubber in Africa, the willful dumping of toxic chemicals that cause birth defects, etc. that occur in the pursuit of profit by capitalists I’m not sure one can conclude that the worst thing about capitalism is much better than for communism.

Perhaps you could say that capitalism does a better job of dispersing the benefits but it’s worst aspects are quite bad. Overall, the thing to fear is concentrated power in too few hands and unregulated markets.

If someone is a hand chopper-offer, people will not want to do business with them. Capitalism will punish him. And he does that not as a result of capitalism, there is no competitive edge to hand chopping off, it's just evil.

Also, lets pretend the hand chopper-offer is not an individual running a business, lets say he's in charge of an all-powerful communist government. When you centralize power too much, you risk a tyrant seizing control of that power.

I believe your first paragraph is naive. There are lots of examples of bad actors in capitalism that are never punished by the market or the government. Your belief in the wonders of the market correcting abuses is especially hard to understand when not everyone has perfect market information. As an example look at De Beers and how many people bought diamonds from this company that willingly did business with the hand choppers.

I believe you aren't objectively comparing the ills of capitalism with the ills of communism, or you simply can't do math.

Communism means the government seizes control of the means of productions. There are few businesses that I would rather see ran by the government than by a citizen with skin in the game.

I haven’t added the sum total of all misery (how can this be meaningfully quantified?) caused by capitalists and compared with the sum total of all misery caused by autocracies. Both are horrible and good people ought to strive for a world in which neither occur. Capitalism is better overall in that it does a much better job of dispersing benefits. But the misery caused by capitalists in the pursuit of profit ought not be overlooked. I believe the Bible is correct when it says that the root of all evil is the love of money (which includes power).

Hm, the starvation of millions during Mao's control were pretty bad. Not sure mistreatment even comes close to 30 millions dead?

The worst of capitalism is sort of like death by a thousand cuts. It occurs in pockets and has a much more diverse set of bad actors. But a few slaves here and a few deformed babies there and pretty soon we are talking about misery On a grand scale. It’s just spread out over the planet in pockets and doesn’t have a single person to blame. The worst of Mao and Stalin was more concentrated and was more efficient. But let’s not delude ourselves into thinking that the worst of capitalism is anything less than evil and abhorrent.

Its all tragedy, agreed, every life is important. But nothing is more tragic than well-meaning people trying to run everything themselves, because they know better than the rest of us. E.g. Communism etc.

Yes. And E.g. Ayn Rand style capitalism and capitalism without proper regulation.

No, it could end up like China, Cuba, Vietnam, or Cambodia.

Or it could end up like Sweden or Denmark. (Referring to socialism as the article does, not communism as the comment does. It's Denmark that Bernie & his supporters want to emulate, not communism)

Sweden and Denmark are often described as socialist countries because they have major political parties with historical ties to classical socialism but the reality is that classical socialism and social democracy (what Sweden and Denmark currently practice) are really different. Socialism involves the state control over the entire economy whereas social democracy is basically a market system with an especially large welfare state. If your goal in the United States is just to increase the size of the welfare state then there is a good change that it won't end up in dictatorship, but if your trying to completely suppress the market system, you'll have a more difficult time of it, I think.

Well, Nordic countries are usually called Social Democracies, though Americans usually don't make the distinction.

Those are very homogeneous cultures. America is perhaps one of the least homogeneous cultures. Everyone does not value the same things, so having a state enforce that everyone values the same things would only be the result of too much force.

Fair. I still view those countries as capitalist though, its still how most of their markets operate. They are just huge welfare states with a vast social safety net. Not disagreeing with what they do, just my 2 cents on what they actually are.

Social Democracies are not remotely socialist. They're capitalist, with welfare.

I'm not sure if a country as large as the US can faithfully emulate Denmark.

As a lot of people will point out, neither of those countries are socialist.

It doesn't matter what you call it. What matters is the policies of the people who the young people in the article are hoping to elect. That's Bernie, and the Danish welfare state.

There isn't one communist country in our history that I would ever want to live in. Even a modern communist country like China would be a terrible place to live.

Modern China isn't communist.

Yes, I would say they are a brutal authoritarian socialist country

Yes. Or worse. Human nature exists and it doesn’t change. Ignoring the Invisible Hand is to ignore what it means to be human.

Read the book Animal Farm if you haven’t already. That captures the psychology of communism perfectly and demonstrates why it never, ever works.

If that's what you took away from the book then I'm afraid you did a shallow reading of it. Animal Farm was specifically a critique of Stalin and the USSR, and how Stalin hijacked the revolutionary vanguard and turned it into a fiefdom for the loyal party members.

Orwell himself was a left anarchist and staunch antifascist and anticapitalist. His critique is that of authoritarianism. If you take away from Orwell that he supports capitalism in any form then you may have missed his point.

Animal Farm is not an anti-communist book. The first half captures communism working perfectly well under the rule of the Lenin-Trotsky analogue - the animals work hard, are well-fed, and organise themselves to create new industry - the windmill - with the goal of eventually eliminating the need for labour.

Everything goes to pot when the Stalin-analogue takes over, because the book is a reflection of Orwell's opinions of the Soviet Union and his experience fighting with the communes in Spain and the subsequent purges committed Stalinist factions against the Trotskyists. If you read the Ukranian prologue, which is included with most modern published editions, Orwell even outlines that Animal Farm is an attack on Stalinism, and he firmly believes in socialism.

The takeaway of Mao, Stalin, Kim Jong Il, etc. is not that communism is bad but rather that concentrating too much power in too few hands is bad. For instance Hitler, Shah of a Iran, etc. Especially when the leaders have simplistic notions. For example, Idi Amin, Maduro, Baby Doc Duvalle, etc.

Sure - communism simply requires the centralization and concentration of power and so is incredibly vulnerable to authoritarian takeover.

Since when a prerequisite for communism is nationalisation? As far as I'm aware the actual communism was supposed to be ran by worker committees and not "party" or "leader". And does not have to involve central planning at all. Do not confuse it with authoritarianism. Or stalinism which was a variant of it.

I'm not confusing it, I'm going from what Marx and Engels said.

"Only conscious organisation of social production, in which production and distribution are carried on in a planned way, can lift mankind above the rest of the animal world as regards the social aspect, in the same way that production in general has done this for men in their aspect as species. Historical evolution makes such an organisation daily more indispensable, but also with every day more possible."

"If it should become necessary for communist society to regulate the production of men, just as it will have already regulated the production of things, then it, and it alone, will be able to do this without difficulties. It seems to me that it should not be too difficult for such a society to achieve in a planned way what has already come about naturally, without planning, in France and Lower Austria. In any case it will be for those people to decide if, when and what they want to do about it, and what means to employ"

Organization and planning are not the same as centralization and concentration of power. It would be absurd to conflate the two. So do these quotes justify your claim or not?

In order to effectively execute such planning and transition from capitalist to communist, it required concentration of power in the federal government - further management was required to maintain equitable distribution of population, labor and resources.

That's why, in the transition period, power would end up concentrated in the hands of a small group of people.

Obviously eventually the idea was that the State would cease to be anything more than a mechanism for distribution of resources and stop managing people, but there are an awful lot of problems with that, conceptually.

Also, the guy I responded to said it didn't have to involve central planning. It kinda does, at least Marx and Engel's version does.

purposed organizations were worker committees or what is essentially the more democratic version of worker union. With some relatively minor central oversight. Sometimes committee of experts (not government ones). Definitely the policies were not supposed to be subsumed by national ideology or ideas of people in charge.

I’m upvoting this comment because it would be a shame for the excellent responses to lose their context.

I know, they may really like Communism!

https://www.rt.com/politics/340158-most-russians-regret-ussr...

Do you have parents who lived in the Soviet Union?

Can you put that card back in the deck please? Socialism is not equal to Soviet Union, who cares who have parents where.

It's you who should take the "No true Scotsman" card back.