The issue is that leaders and factions always emerge. Even if everyone could 'keep their excess labor', you get groups of people that position themselves to get higher value jobs or easier jobs.

As much as people claim this is not inevitable, I've yet to see this happen IRL or in history.

It may be inevitable that people may rise up to seek power over others, but the question is what is the best way to respond to this? Do we leave them to rule over others without restrictions, or do we limit the damage they can do? Do we reward this impulse of control of the few over the many to their general detriment, or do we treat it as a mental health issue (like sociopathy or hoarding)?

Just mention them. There is no need for citing a book that will take me a few months to read before I respond.

I have a feeling I know about the ones you are about to mention. They had leaders or factions that controlled the resources(not classless) or they only lasted for a few months or years before getting conquered.

As for scarcity: It seems to me from my research that it is most often the leaders and factions that create artificial scarcity in order to enforce their power, rather than there being a lack of resources in the first place.

If you're wondering why we don't see the other kind much - well, the socialist movements that won back in early 20th century were generally the most ruthless ones, whereas the more democratically minded movements (e.g. Luxembourgism or various anarchist groups) were crushed. So you had a kind of artificial selection for brutality to begin with - but then countries controlled by those winners would also subsidize similar movements elsewhere, and of course they demanded ideological conformance in return. This is largely why stuff like Marxism-Leninism and Maoism is still so pervasive on the left.

In theory, perhaps socialism doesn't require huge amounts of government power; or perhaps huge amounts of government power doesn't always lead to horrible outcomes. But that's just a theory and has little evidence to back it up at the scale of millions of people.

Bernie Sanders said "These days, the American dream is more apt to be realized in South America, in places such as Ecuador, Venezuela and Argentina, where incomes are actually more equal today than they are in the land of Horatio Alger. Who's the banana republic now?"[1] in 2011, less than a decade before collapse. If he can't tell the difference between a socialist utopia and a recipe for disaster, how is a layperson supposed to know?

Just like a tech startup: don't call your users stupid and keep pushing your theoretically-good product. Listen and try to understand why it's not working for them.

[1] https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/campaigns/sanders-di...

If incomes were equal, how could a Horatio Alger story possibly happen at all? Do people even think about what they say?

The man who "hijacked" the word socialism would probably be Marx himself, as he declared his theory to be the (scientific) socialism, as opposed to various (he said) "utopian" and "naive" thinkers who hadn't subscribed to views like historical inevitability of communism, or dictatorship of the proletariat. Then in the Eastern Bloc the local political systems were called "real socialism", i.e. the one put into actual functioning, on the road to future communism. So association of socialism with command economy is well established and not really one-sided ideologically, I think.

The terms to use if you want to distance yourself from that heritage would be 'social democracy' (if you mean the ideas that were partly implemented in capitalist Europe) or 'worker democracy', if you want something more akin to what the GP described. These ideas are easy to sympathize with on many levels, and what passes for "socialism" in the US is often just the not-really-disputed social contract on the other side of the pond.

Ultimately these ideologies advocate for reducing economics, to varying extents, to just democratic politics. Which is kind of boring: not necessarily meaning this as a bad thing. The calculation problem and related issues of organizing true command economy are more interesting as an abstract problems of engineering, organization etc., regardless of actually wanting this politically to happen. (Being formed in part by the Eastern experience, I am very much wary myself.)

That is a nice simplification, but it makes it sound like something that can just emerge gracefully within a market economy. There are employee-owned companies, for instance, and if that's all that's needed for socialism to work, then it would spread and show us all the benefits of socialism.

But the benefits are either not there or not amazing enough to spread. I'm left feeling like you left out the controversial parts, and I suspect that when you get into the details, there's lots of room for complicated power dynamics and ownership rules, perhaps much worse than non-socialist alternatives.

https://mcmillan.ca/insights/publications/budget-2023-employ...

I would expect there are similar barriers in many countries.

Socialism is just a word, you can define it however you like. In theory it can be some sort of vague co-op of co-ops. In practice it always leads to a centrally planned economy. There's a good reason for that. The ultimate root cause that generates socialist ideals is not the plight of the workers or anything so surface-level, it's the intuition that intellectuals should run society. Thomas Sowell has done a lot of excellent work elucidating this and explaining why it happens.

To try and summarize, socialism appeals to people who like the sound of the abstract ideas of intellectuals. If an intellectual posits a clever-sounding reorganization of society justified by high minded ideals, then this feels right to the socialist mind. The sort of people who most aggressively promote socialism are the sort of people who think society is ultimately pretty simple - after all, the way to cure all social ills is so simple it can be summed up in a single book or set of pamphlets. It can be understood and reorganized by a single mind. Marx was famously averse to detail about how communist societies would actually work in practice, as were all other socialists, but this didn't bother them because it didn't seem like you needed a lot of detail. Hence the "calculation debate" the article discusses, which kicked off only after communists gained power.

If you intuit that society is simple and the best minds can understand and reorganize it for the greater good, then a planned economy is the obvious next step. Why would you not plan it? The only possible justification would be if the planning process was too hard, but that would imply that society was too complex for any one mind or even a committee of minds to fully understand, and if you believed that, you wouldn't be a communist to begin with.

So socialism or communism invariably always leads to top-down authoritarianism in practice. Revealed preferences > stated preferences.

This is not the case. Marx and other writers repeatedly emphasize that the working class itself must take power and begin the process of getting rid of social classes altogether. They definitely did not advocate for a society run by highly educated intellectuals from the top-down. See “The Civil War in France”, where Marx discusses the Paris Commune - a working class uprising that was not lead by intellectuals.

> socialism appeals to people who like the sound of the abstract ideas of intellectuals. If an intellectual posits a clever-sounding reorganization of society justified by high minded ideals, then this feels right to the socialist mind.

This is just a description of zealotry and overoptimism in general - attitudes than can be found among proponents of any framework. Marx himself criticized earlier utopian socialist thinkers for trying to plan out an idealized society from their armchairs, rather than actively organizing with workers to create a better one. He saw theory and practice as deeply connected, and he definitely was not a utopian thinker.

> the way to cure all social ills is so simple it can be summed up in a single book or set of pamphlets. It can be understood and reorganized by a single mind.

Marx didn’t believe this. He was a prolific author and corresponded with many other contemporary socialist writers. He published a whole series of books just focused on analyzing capitalism, and he died before completing them. There is a wealth of Marxist writing and many conflicting strands - there is no “one mind” or “one committee” with the final say.

> Why would you not plan it? The only possible justification would be if the planning process was too hard, but that would imply that society was too complex for any one mind or even a committee of minds to fully understand, and if you believed that, you wouldn't be a communist to begin with.

There is a whole area of thought known as market socialism that rejects both capitalism and central planning. Central planning is not fundamental to socialism; it is simply one kind of economic strategy that could be used by a socialist society.

I would encourage you read accounts of socialist thought besides those written by a deeply conservative economist. Marx himself can be challenging to read, but David Harvey has a book called “A Companion to Marx's Capital” that helps explain some of the context.

Marx wrote a lot of things. How many times did this champion of the working class visit a factory? How much time did he spend in working men's clubs, talking to the miners? Did he ever go down a mine to investigate conditions for himself? Did he form a political party to try and put his ideas into practice?

If you read a biography of him you'll find the answer to all these questions is no. His friend Engels even offered to give him a tour of the factory he conveniently happened to own, and Marx didn't bother taking him up on it. He didn't need to, for he'd already learned everything he needed to know about the world from books written by other people. And thus he devoted his life to ... writing more books.

> Marx didn’t believe [society is simple].

Sure he did! He was advocating revolutionary violence to implement his ideas despite not having worked out the details of what a communist state would actually look like. His books focused almost entirely on why capitalism should be abolished, not what would replace it. To him, it was easy peasy. Overthrow the ruling classes by organizing a class of "professional revolutionaries", get them to take power then put the working classes in charge, everything is now great. Done.

> There is a whole area of thought known as market socialism that rejects both capitalism and central planning

There are books that contain every possible permutation of social concepts, but that doesn't mean they make sense or any significant number of people believe them. In practice there is no such thing as anarcho-communism beyond, perhaps, tiny groups of people who live in tents. And even then, it doesn't last. Invariably someone takes power and then starts issuing plans that have to be obeyed.

And how does all of this translate to him thinking that intellectuals should run society?

Also, he was politically active, but you know that since you read his biography...

He was politically active only in a very superficial way. He engaged in rhetoric, but that wasn't the same as engaging with democratic politics (which living in London he could have done).

However, if you'll notice, here on HN a lot of people calling themselves socialists don't believe in the idea of central planning, so maybe there's more to it that socialists are just a sort of person.

- Health authorities should run society and the economy during a pandemic.

- Government policy should be made by experts, not politicians.

- The EU's constant attempts to create national tech champions via grants.

- "Reparations"

- Net Zero

These are all examples of plans for top-down planning of society and the economy by supposedly rational and disinterested intellectuals. We don't use the exact term central planning for these things, but they have the same sort of effect.

Yes, on the internet you can find people who claim to be anarcho-communists, just like you can find people claiming to be a lot of extremely niche things. Good luck finding them in the world of real offline politics!

Definition of ad hominem: "directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining."

My post: no specific person mentioned, it's all about a particular position.

That's a sugarcoated way of saying "imposing restrictions". You're not allowed to have private ownership of means of production. You're not allowed to just sell your labor without taking on risks.

You can practice socialism in a capitalistic society. You are forbidden to practice capitalism in a socialistic one.

No sane person believes that having option to sell your labor without taking risks is slavery.

If anything, slavery is being forced to be paid in the proceeds of a futile endeavor instead of just being paid how much you think you're worth.

People have different life circumstances and preferences, so naturally they want different risk options. Having better control over your risks is an indisputable benefit of capitalism.

Apparently, socialism ignores this benefit by assuming that people are robots that don't actually have different circumstances and preferences.

How many people really get paid how much they think they are worth under the current system? Not many I know.

How much does the person with the capital risk compared to the employee who might lose their home with the loss of their livelihood? Do most employees really believe that they have a rational and fair choice of the risks they enter into? (including the risk of surviving on a low income)

I guess I'm not meeting these swathes of workers completely satisfied with their wages, risks, and the system they live in.

I know plenty of Socialists who believe in different benefits for different levels of effort or danger, especially as in Capitalism most of those people are the most poorly paid at present.

You're misrepresenting what I said in order to produce a cliché leftie rant.

I never said current system is not exploitative (though I have no idea what this loaded term means: what is the measure and threshold for exploitation in the system that makes it exploitative? Was Gulag exploitative?).

What I said is having an option to get paid for your job without taking on risks is obviously not slavery.

> I guess I'm not meeting these swathes of workers completely satisfied with their wages, risks, and the system they live in.

Another boring strawman. I never said there are "swathes of workers completely satisfied with their wages". Nobody should be completely satisfied with anything, otherwise there will be no progress.

But we can judge the satisfaction with different systems based on immigration flow. Throughout human history, we have witnessed plenty of people wanting to immigrate from socialistic states to capitalistic ones. In the opposite direction - not so much.

It is admittedly not traditional chattel slavery but I happen to agree with Frederick Douglas that, "there may be a wages of slavery only a little less galling and crushing in its effects than chattel slavery, and that this slavery of wages must go down with the other." Which was a sentiment echoed by Abraham Lincoln.

I'm pretty lucky with my profession, but many many people feel coerced into a narrow range of job options, alienated from their work, and robbed of a significant part of the value they produce.

Note: In most first world countries in the world outside of America losing a job or ill health does not lead to potentially losing a home, or no longer having access to medicine or care. America is quite unique in that regard, and more similar to third world countries.

As for the "Gulag" America has a larger proportion in prison than Russia (or China) ever has (and I am far from a fan of those authoritarian countries).

"immigrate from socialistic states to capitalistic ones"

Most mass immigration is coming from people fleeing dictatorships and / or poor third world and often war-torn countries which are far from Socialist. In fact they are often capitalist dictatorships supported by America (sometimes with previous left-leaning democratic governments overthrown by America).

It is true that many of them migrate to the relative peace of places like America, but great numbers also migrate to neighbouring more left-wing countries in places like Africa and South America.

Although I don't consider China or Soviet Russia any more Socialist than most European countries which have Socialist inspired social programmes, there have been major mass migrations into Soviet Russia in the past (even from Americans during the Great Depression) and into China in more recent times (economic migrants from Africa especially). As for European countries with Socialist policies: they have millions of migrants per year, some as refugees, but many drawn by their "Social Democratic" ideals.

And many many people will feel that way under socialism because, for example, any form of freelancing is typically forbidden. Would you consider "he who does not work, neither shall he eat" a form of coercion?

> robbed of a significant part of the value they produce

So I joined a startup, but it failed in a few years. Apparently I created negative value and still got paid for it, therefore I robbed someone. Then I joined another startup, and it succeeded. This time someone robbed me. How exactly does socialism solve this weird robbery cycle? Ah yes, there are no startups in socialism. You can't be robbed if you have no wealth.

Maybe it's time for lefties to stop viewing every business interaction as "robbing", every salary as "slavery", every cheesy comment as "rape" and every disagreement as "genocide"?

> As for the "Gulag" America has a larger proportion in prison than Russia

Whataboutism isn't productive, America is not the only capitalistic country in the world. Also comparing US prisons to Gulag is laughable.

> Most mass immigration is coming from people fleeing dictatorships and / or poor third world and often war-torn countries which are far from Socialist

Here comes No True Scotsman. Isn't it a funny coincidence, that socialism and dictatorship usually go hand in hand? And what are the examples of countries that are close to Socialist?

> European countries with Socialist policies

What an obscure way to say "capitalistic". You do realize that none of them are even considering abolishing private ownership? And didn't you just say that Russia and China are far from Socialist? Well, European countries are even further.

Assuming this is true then we have two economic systems in which people feel limited in their opportunities - albeit in different situations and for different reasons: the capitalist one by prioritising roles that have value to those with capital (corporations etc.), and the Socialist one by prioritising value to the community. I suppose it is a question then of where we individually find greater personal value and what fits in with our values.

> Would you consider "he who does not work, neither shall he eat" a form of coercion?

I would consider it a form of coercion, because artificially restricting access to food when it is plentiful is intentional cruelty. "Serve me or starve" is an abusive relationship. Where there is safety net - at least to the basics needed for life - people can make more rational choices, and hold out for better choices.

Note: This aphorism attributed to St. Paul seems to be diametrically opposed to the rest of the Bible, especially the teachings of Jesus as well as to basic human decency, and is one (of the dozens of) reasons I think Christians should reject Paul as an authentic apostle (as Jefferson, Shaw, Tolstoy, Ghandi, Kierkegaard & Sagan did).

> any form of freelancing is typically forbidden

I suppose this is question of what you mean by freelancing. There are always highly skills craftsman and experts in very specific fields whose work isn't limited to one workplace etc. But who is forbidding it? Are you mistaking Socialism for the authoritarian Soviet system?

> Apparently I created negative value and still got paid for it, therefore I robbed someone.

Value is very subjective in Capitalism. Luxuries may be cheaper than essentials (television vs house), some eccentric professions are valued far more highly than those necessary for human survival.

But a worker is almost always in a far more precarious position than an owner.

> there are no startups in socialism

Really? I see Socialism as the possibility for all sorts of start ups that would provide human benefit that no share holder looking for a profit would ever invest in, but would enrich humanity greatly.

> Maybe it's time for lefties to stop viewing every business interaction as "robbing", every salary as "slavery", every cheesy comment as "rape" and every disagreement as "genocide"?

If one has the basic assumption that value is created by the worker and that capitalism is taking that value unethically then robbing seems an appropriate word for it, likewise a system in which a worker's choices of employment and the wages from it are limited artificially to support this system then people may feel like serfs (although it could be argued that serfs had more capital and a higher return on their labour - at least in England after the Black Death when they were in a better bargaining position).

Who is saying cheesy comments are rape though? Who sees disagreements as genocide? Did those disagreements lead to actual deaths?

> comparing US prisons to Gulag is laughable.

As someone with family in the US prison I have become very familiar with its human rights abuses, which would not be tolerated in any other European country.

> Isn't it a funny coincidence, that socialism and dictatorship usually go hand in hand

I guess I wasn't clear. I was talking about capitalist dictatorships that people wish to escape from. See Pinochet's Chile, Putin's Russia, Orbán's Hungary, Erdoğan's Turkey for examples.

> What an obscure way to say "capitalistic".

As the meme goes - Socialism never works! But Norway is Socialist and they are doing great. They're not Socialist - they are Capitalist! The lets adopt their policies. No, that's Socialism!

These countries are Socialist when a Capitalist wants to criticise them and Capitalist when a Capitalist wants to praise or excuse them.

It is true that they are not wholly Socialist. They are "Social Democratic" (what Bernie Sanders calls "Democratic Socialism") But Socialist parties seeking to implement Socialist-inspired principles were the ones who usually introduced universal* healthcare, pensions, housing, vacations etc. This is because the concept of decommodification is integral to production for use and need (rather than profit). It is an underlying assumption about the worth of people that motivates the worker led, owned and shared workplace.

*free at the point of delivery for lower taxation by shared liability (public insurance)

> You do realize that none of them are even considering abolishing private ownership?

The abolishment of private property is Communist - not Socialist. Now, some Socialists are in favour of it, and most Communists (at least those who fit Marx's stateless, classless, moneyless definition) are Socialists too. Some of these European governments have a great deal of social housing, public land, public utilities etc. that was - at least in part - seen as progress toward minimising the negative effects of (rent seeking) private property and working toward it's elimination, but as I said that isn't strictly Socialism in itself.

In the modern world, capital is typically created by providing value to community. There are exceptions, of course, but nobody will defend those exceptions (i.e. inheriting wealth or committing crimes obviously doesn't provide value).

The problem with socialists is that nobody knows what is the "value to community" and how to measure it, yet everybody has a strong opinion on it. That's why socialists are typically dictators: you need the arrogance to think that you know what is better for community than the community itself.

> There are always highly skills craftsman and experts in very specific fields whose work isn't limited to one workplace etc. But who is forbidding it?

Socialism. There's plenty of debate on self-employment in socialism, and socialists always settle on one of two points: either self-employment is strictly forbidden, or it is only allowed if we have some regulations protecting workers (but those could be implemented in capitalism too, which makes socialism pointless).

> Value is very subjective in Capitalism

Value is subjective by it's nature, and capitalism recognizes that. I'm not interested in debating the downsides of labor theory of value which offers "objective" measurements - the only people supporting it are zealots.

> I see Socialism as the possibility for all sorts of start ups

You seem to blissfully ignore the challenges socialism imposes on start ups. To begin with: who provides the capital?

> These countries are Socialist when a Capitalist wants to criticise them and Capitalist when a Capitalist wants to praise or excuse them.

No, they are always capitalistic: all of them are in favor of private ownership and market economies. I don't care what Bernie calls them.

> The abolishment of private property is Communist - not Socialist

This is false. But I'm really curious, what is your definition of socialism?

This is the probably the best point to start from when discussing Socialism. So it was the point I started with:

"Socialism is about how workers organise their workplace (owning, managing and sharing the produce and profit of their labour)"

As the Oxford Dictionary says:

"a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole."

So Socialism is something very specific, but Socialists often associate themselves with other principles that they believe are in line with their moral values, see as a helpful strategy for achieving their ideals, or their Socialism is part of a larger political philosophy (Communism etc.) This association (and some detractors using the word Socialism to define everything they don't like) are what lead to confusion.

Socialists joke that detractors believe "Socialism is when the government does stuff, and the more stuff it does the more Socialist (or Communist) it is." But some commentators - see current popular right-wing American opinion pieces - really do seem to believe this.

There is no mention of state, government or rulers of any kind in most definitions of Socialism (most Anarchists are Socialists too). Of course some Socialists have believed that the state can act in the interest of the public by being stewards over these resources with the ideal of later devolving this to the communities and workers. Which has led to State Socialism (which Lenin called State Capitalism) on the one hand, and Social Democracy on the other. Some (like myself) think both strategies are flawed as do non-hierarchal Socialists (Anarcho-Communists, Syndicalists, Libertarian & Council Marxists, Democratic Confederalists, and maybe Agorists etc.)

There is also no mention of private - non-personal - property (although some Socialists like myself are against that too, but other Socialists see the issue as an irrelevance or inevitability).

Some see Socialism as sufficient in itself, others see it as part of the progress toward Communism (stateless, classless, moneyless as stated before).

Do you have a different definition of Socialism?

> Socialists joke that detractors believe "Socialism is when the government does stuff, and the more stuff it does the more Socialist (or Communist) it is." But some commentators - see current popular right-wing American opinion pieces - really do seem to believe this.

By your own words, the difference between socialist Norway and capitalist US is universal healthcare, housing, pensions... government does stuff!

You are laughing caricature capitalists, but don't you see that you are a caricature socialist? Norway is socialistic when it suits you, even though it contradicts your own definition of socialism.

> So Socialism is something very specific, but Socialists often associate themselves with other principles that they believe are in line with their moral values

If KKK starts preaching green energy, no one will listen to them. If you really want to achieve social policies similar to nordic countries, stop mixing them with your harmful political ideology. Nobody wants universal healthcare if it comes with famine caused by central planning.

> Do you have a different definition of Socialism?

Yours is fine, except that it is impractical - it doesn't draw the line anywhere. It doesn't define socialism, it describes it. How do I tell whether state is capitalist or socialist? Can it be both?

Given that socialists aren't happy with freedom to practice socialism they have right now, my pragmatic definition is that socialism is a state in which social ownership of means of production is enforced, meaning private ownership is banned. Most socialists seem to defend such policies.

It doesn't suit me that Norway isn't fully Socialist. I'm glad that some policies started by Socialists have been implemented that offer some relief from the worst economic injustices of Capitalism, but I don't think it is sufficient or goes anywhere near far enough.

I agree that those seeking to introduce universal social programmes in America could use some better strategies. For example pointing out that Americans already pay twice toward healthcare in taxes as what Canadians do (3 x what some Europeans do), but are getting nothing in return for their high taxes most of their lives (if they don't qualify for medicare / medicaid or pay for exorbitant insurance on top of their taxes). But the right has done a good job of labelling any universal benefit - even if it saves people money - as Socialism, so maybe it is an unescapable label.

The United States has it's own social welfare programs. Some of which can be traced back to American Socialists. But I'd say the biggest of welfare program these days by expenditure is the American military, followed by corporate welfare in various forms (subsidies, overlooking tax evasion, government contracts, paying for externalities by taxation). It would be a stretch to call these Socialist, but they are definitely the government doing stuff, and I reckon have a lot in common with Lenin's state capitalism or even Mussolini's corporate fascism in my eyes.

Having said that Americans with a positive view of Capitalism has been going down, and a positive view of Socialism has been going up (especially among younger people). This seems to be true across most of Europe too, where it has never been as dirty a word as it is in the U.S.

Capitalism also suffers from the same broadness. I'd argue it only means "an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit." But many people who aren't private owners of industry consider themselves Capitalists because they work for wages, have a house, and go shopping for things.

I'll admit that people calling themselves Socialists have done some pretty dumb things (bad crop planning, playing with missiles), especially in the early days, and a few so-called Socialists who sought for power and gained it abused it (Lenin and Mao). Capitalism has had it's share of major problems too (slavery and imperialism for example), and has had horrible dictators all of its own (Pinochet and Putin for example).

I would argue that when Socialism has failed it has been in trying to be more Capitalist (Lenin & Mao's biggest critics were Socialists and his harshest acts were against Socialists, and his worst acts were either against them or in response to trying to out-Capitalist the West). I'd also argue that Capitalism's biggest issues are inherent to Capitalism - see the Iron Law Of Oligarchy & overthrowing peaceful democratic countries for the benefits of corporations for example.

As for questions of state enforcement - maybe I associate with a different set of Socialists and maybe a different group are getting airtime here in Europe where I'm living right now, but I'm not hearing many people on the left speaking about enforcing state Socialism and banning much of anything. Most avowed Socialists parties here (which number millions of supporters this side of the pond) aren't arguing for this.

The most radical Socialists I know (Anarchists like me) don't want a state at all, and do want to see an end to the Capitalism that is being enforced at the moment, but I recognise I am in a minority, and offer solidarity in areas I can find agreement with other Socialists, with whom I may share some general ideals.