Categories:
Cross-country Comparisons
Economic Philosophy
Here’s the video for my Socialism vs. Capitalism debate with John Marsh. (Not to be confused with my earlier debate on the same topic with Elizabeth Bruenig). Marsh is an English professor at Penn State, but I’d say his knowledge of social science favorably compares to most tenured professors in the social sciences. (And he’s fun to talk literature with as well!) Here‘s an earlier exchange the two of us had on education and poverty.
Overall, I consider this one of the best debates I’ve been a part of, largely because Marsh is so reasonable and we actually find some common ground.
READER COMMENTS
Brooks Wilson
Jun 5 2019 at 2:20pm
There was too much agreement to call this a debate. Perhaps an enlightened discussion is a better description. Marsh was very good; I had hoped for someone less reasonable. I loved his definition of socialism. It was right out of EconTalk with John McWhorter on the Evolution of Language and Words on the Move. I like the old standard definition of socialism. It makes the comparison of economic systems much easier. This is clearly a case where spontaneous order should be suppressed.
Caplan’s use of the regulation of housing as an example of government imposing a burden on society that falls most heavily on the less educated and prosperous was of great importance. Although Caplan snuck in the myth of the rational voter a couple of times, I wish that it had been set out more formally when discussing policy formation.
John Alcorn
Jun 5 2019 at 6:51pm
The bottom 50%, too, have enjoyed a lot of broad economic growth; for example, computers, smart phones, air conditioning, a cornucopia of knowledge and entertainment at one’s fingertips, more reliable cars, crime reduction, cheaper air travel, and matching apps (dating, ebay, Uber, etc).
“The wealthy” don’t constitute a unitary class with homogeneous political preferences. And did Amazon rule in Queens? See Bryan Caplan’s book, The Myth of the Rational Voter, for a more accurate account of modern politics, focussing on majority rule and political psychology.
Mark Z
Jun 6 2019 at 12:41am
This is a quote that I find it disappointing intelligent people can believe. Standard of living has improved enormously for the very bottom since 1980, and that should be beyond dispute. Even measured real income has grown considerably for the second quintile (20-40%). (https://www.cato.org/cato-journal/winter-2019/us-median-household-income-has-risen-more-you-think). In order to see something looking like stagnation, one has to look at the bottom 20%, and much of that is because, at any given time, much of the bottom 20% is unemployed, or in entry level jobs. Looking at lifetime income would tell a different story.
And beyond not constituting a unitary class, it’s not even the same people who make up ‘the wealthy’ today as made it up 20 (let alone 40) years ago. One may question the extent to which income earned today is from productivity vs. rent seeking, or question whether productivity is a moral basis for allocating resources, but this sort of pseudo-Marxist class rhetoric is little more than a conspiracy theory that belongs in the dustbin of history.
Floccina
Jun 6 2019 at 10:51am
One other thing the bottom 50% have enjoyed is clear air and water and a cleaner environment in general.
I’d also say their jobs tend to be less tedious. Those lost high paying manufacturing job where much harder in harsher environments than today’s service jobs.
Thaomas
Jun 6 2019 at 11:49am
The “wealthy” whether a homogeneous voting class or not have enjoyed all those good things that the bottom 50% have plus a lot more money. 🙂 The way Libertarians harp on the non-immiseration of the poor, you’d think they actually feel defensive about inequality. 🙂
John Alcorn
Jun 6 2019 at 1:13pm
Growth in inequality is one thing. The bottom half treading water for forty years is quite another. Sound debate about the former won’t be helped by errors about the latter. Why is getting the facts straight “harping”?
Mark Z
Jun 7 2019 at 12:22am
I wouldn’t so much say inequality is to be defended, but rather that it is basically epiphenomenal. Bad things can cause inequality, but so can good things. An increase in inequality isn’t itself necessarily a problem, nor even necessarily a sign of a problem.
Nick Ronalds
Jun 6 2019 at 7:44am
Yes, good debate. A problem though is that as Marsh admits at the outset, he’s so relaxed about the meaning of words that it’s not clear what he’s debating for. Apparently a more generous welfare state, but not Socialism. And by the way, over the past 10 years countries like Denmark, the Netherlands, and Sweden have outranked the U.S. on the Index of Economic Freedom more often than not. They’re arguably more capitalist than the U.S. on most relevant measures in most of recent history.
Bryan, aren’t you overlooking one of the strongest answers to the charge that all the benefits of capitalism go tot he rich? Namely, that the the rich and poor today are different people. A lot of those in the top 10% or even 1% were at the bottom 30 or 40 years ago, so a big reason the distribution is top-heavy is that people earn more as they work, get experience, enhance their skills, and save. Russ Roberts has a great video on that topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcdqGUWj2oo. One might object to people getting richer as they get older, but it’s not at all the same thing as the poor getting poorer as they age and the rich getting richer at the same time.
Another reason the upper deciles have larger shares of income in the U.S. than elsewhere is that considerably more innovation is taking place in the U.S.
Mark Z
Jun 7 2019 at 12:43am
Yeah, the broadening of the definition of socialism makes debate rather confused. If the goal is what Denmark and Sweden have – a position with which I don’t sympathize with, but don’t regard as nearly so troublesome as Cuba or Venezuela – then why call oneself a socialist? Why not call oneself a social democrat, or just a progressive? Calling oneself a socialist only worsens one’s strategic position, given the (entirely justified) stigma associated with the word ‘socialism.’
Nick Ronalds
Jun 6 2019 at 12:29pm
One more comment: the stagnation, repression, and genocide that has characterized virtually all states that really make a go of Socialism arguably flows necessarily from the only way that a Socialist state can be organized, from the top down. Why let the advocates of Socialism off easy on the horrific history of this ideology? Saying that John Marsh certainly doesn’t want to replicate the policies of the Soviet Union overlooks the source of Socialism’s human catastrophes: the only way to approximate the goals of true Socialism is through coercion. That’s what leads to violence, repression, and so often, genocide.
Milton Friedman was perhaps right when he said: “The fundamental reason [why trying to do good with methods that involve force lead to bad results] is more profound: the most harm of all is done when power is in the hands of people who are absolutely persuaded of the purity of their instincts and of the purity of their intentions.”
BC
Jun 7 2019 at 11:50pm
Bryan made the much stronger case, but that was probably because he had the much easier position to defend. I liked his line that capitalism helps those that nobody cares about.
Caplan also made a slam-dunk case against universal welfare benefits. By the social democrats’ own standards, welfare should be directed at those that need it the most to reduce inequality. Marsh’s justification for universal welfare, which is the one that is given by most honest social democrats, is that universality is needed to maintain broad political support. That was also one of Caplan’s criticisms of it — that universality was primarily a way to trick people into supporting it. It’s not a good sign for one’s position that its best defense is that the policy is needed because, if people really understood it, then they wouldn’t support it.
On the question of why it’s so hard to implement carbon taxes — Marsh’s hypothesis of moneyed interests created by capitalism or Caplan’s hypothesis that the masses don’t want to bear costs — we should probably consider the yellow vest protests against French gas taxes. The yellow vests didn’t seem like wealthy elites to me. (Set aside for the moment that many people, such as those in colder climates, would actually benefit from carbon so that central planners lack the information to determine whether carbon should be taxed or subsidized.)
I do applaud Marsh for his intellectual honesty. It’s much harder to remain intellectually honest in defending social democracy than in defending capitalism just because the case is so much harder to make, at least in a coherent fashion.
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