If I met a four-star general and he told me he was a socialist, I’d understand where he’s coming from. After all, this is a man who lives and breathes logistics. He leads for a living. His job is to make master plans, then carefully monitor his underlings so they actually implement said master plans. Location, timing, manpower, supplies, margins of error – a general takes all of them into account. Sure, he knows the proverb that “No plan survives first contact with the enemy.” But a general still strives to craft systems that run like clockwork.
What’s the socialist connection? After a lifetime of daily experience as a planner, it’s easy to see why a general would be appalled to realize that our society has no plan at all. There’s got to be a plan. And who better to give society its much-needed plan than the general and his colleagues?
Yet strangely, none of the socialists I’ve personal encountered has a military background. Quite the opposite. Virtually 100% of the socialists I’ve met are “free spirits.” They live in the moment – and act from the heart. They’re not the kind of people who obsess over master plans. Instead, they’re the kind of people who would casually crash the best of plans with a last-minute bad hair day.
Don’t get me wrong; most of the socialists I’ve met seem like nice people. But they radiate incompetence. I doubt their families would trust them to plan a simple trip to Sea World. So what on Earth convinces these socialists that people like themselves should run not only the government, but the economy as well?
I’d like to offer a charitable resolution of this puzzle, but have none to offer. The socialists of today aren’t experienced logisticians who fail to see the disanalogies between running an organization and running a whole society. They’re dreamers who want to lead before they learn to follow. So while I’d gladly give a socialist general a lecture on the economics of socialism, today’s typical socialist needs to hear a simpler message: They should learn to make solid mundane plans for their own lives before they think about imposing grandiose plans on the rest of the world.
READER COMMENTS
nobody.really
Oct 31 2018 at 1:45pm
Clearly, Caplan needs to meet more bald socialists.
Peter Raasch
Oct 31 2018 at 1:57pm
Honest question: Who are the socialist thought leaders (even historical) who are worth engaging. Who can match the treatment of say David Friedman’s vision of society? Are there pro-socialism or even democratic-socialism authors who based their work on mathematical models?
Barry
Oct 31 2018 at 3:16pm
Sure, many. John Roemer is a good starting point.
Peter Raasch
Oct 31 2018 at 4:37pm
Thanks for that lead! Found this quote on wikipedia: “The World Bank (2006, 2009) has employed this approach to evaluate inequality of opportunity in developing countries.” The 5th plank of Communism (central bank) following its thought leaders =D=D
Josh S
Oct 31 2018 at 2:07pm
This seems like an uncharitable view of socialists, though to be fair I’ve probably not run into the same ones you have. From my experience, I wouldn’t trust the majority of people I’ve met to plan a trip to Sea World, and socialists don’t make up an especially skewed percentage of those people.
I haven’t met any die-hard, old-fashioned socialists, and I don’t consider myself a socialist either, but “socialism” as a label is certainly enjoying a return to the mainstream. I’d venture that most of today’s “socialists” are merely signaling that they see a government that is already large, already makes many decisions about their lives, and seems to benefit mostly large donors and special interests. Is it really so absurd that they would ask why that same level of government couldn’t be turned to better serve more people and society as a whole? And given that the framing drilled into most Americans’ heads is the black-and-white “the US runs on capitalism, to which the only alternative is socialism,” I suspect they latch on to socialism because of a lack of salient alternative proposals, not due to some deep philosophical attachment to historical socialism. I don’t doubt there are some “true” socialists, and perhaps you’re referring only to them, but otherwise I believe the new “socialist” resurgence is more about social democracy and anti right-wing extremism than is it about a proper Marxian revolution.
Sadly, nuanced arguments for well-balanced mixed economies with properly constructed restraints on both government and corporations don’t seem to get much mainstream attention. And from what I see, both “socialists” and “capitalists” could do with more education in this space. We could do with some more sensible, mundane plans from today’s leaders.
Michael W
Oct 31 2018 at 2:23pm
Agree. Your point is even more salient when considering how utterly reliant many (most?) Americans have become upon their government. You don’t need to take a survey to know most reject socialism but will also say that social security and Medicare are untouchable needs. These two programs are the largest but by no means the only ‘socialist’ programs on which most Americans rely. What would the price of milk actually be without the meddling ‘socialist’ hand of government propping up dairy farmers?
We do need more “sensible, mundane” plans from today’s leaders alas I think it’s more likely we’ll slide slowly into a social democratic model prevalent among the other western democracies. Is that a bad thing? Hard to tell as we have no discussion of the alternatives on local, regional or national political stages.
Peter Raasch
Oct 31 2018 at 4:25pm
Can you continue this line of thought to a concrete policy? Whenever i try having “some socialism” “some restraint on corporations” i never see how it could work out without “voting the right people in” which i don’t believe in since the “power corrupts” just has too much empirical evidence and i dont know of a voting system that has good incentive structures. Even without those problems, any disruption of price theories assumptions has to be a justified quantitative trade-off which i dont know a reasonable basis for in any concrete policy issue.
Jay
Oct 31 2018 at 6:16pm
I think this is a case where terms have shifted and “socialist” now basically means anybody who supports unions, antitrust regulations, increased minimum wages, and generally favors economic policies similar to those seen in America in the ’50s and ’60s. Bernie Sanders was generally regarded as a “socialist” in 2016 but plausibly claimed to be more conservative than Eisenhower (a Republican, and also a five-star general who pulled off some of the most logistically complex victories in military history).
Anon
Oct 31 2018 at 2:42pm
As a former socialist and someone who believes could still pass a Turing test for socialism, I think that they would dispute the whole notion that running the economy is difficult at all. In the socialist mind, workers are the ones who create all of the value in the economy and managers exist solely to depress worker’s wages. The only important thing is making sure that the position of manager-of-the-whole-economy (which already exists in a socialist mind, since emergent orders are a naive myth) is occupied by a person which has the interest of society at heart and not the interest of the capitalistic class.
Jon Murphy
Oct 31 2018 at 2:53pm
If I might respond, I’d ask “why, then, have a manager-of-the-whole-economy at all?” There appears no reason for it since the manager provides no value. Merely changing who is the manager wouldn’t do anything.
Anon
Oct 31 2018 at 3:16pm
The manager would be little more than a guard-dog from greedy people that wanted to exploit workers. Of course, this ignores how complicated the economy is, and how unrealistic it is that we could somehow make sure that a “good” person would run the economy. That’s why I am a former socialist…
Pajser
Nov 2 2018 at 10:08am
That’s exactly what I think – as relatively well informed Marxist. It is not that difficult to manage economy. And it is easy to prove that – many Leninist economies during their existence had better economic progress than capitalist average. These were merely the first attempts to plan economy – and they already worked well.
I was in army, as soldier only – it did influenced my thinking, because I saw that “incentives” are not as difficult to provide as economists usually think. All soldiers – no matter if they did their duties excellent or borderline poor had almost the same living standard, yet it didn’t made people lazy. Of course, officers had tool to punish people who consistently cross the line and do less than they should, so it is obvious it is result of their lack of effort, and not only of them being not capable; but all economies have that tool as well – firing; even in countries which provide objectively good support to those who do not want to work at all, very few mentally healthy people want to spend their life like that.
Mark Z
Nov 2 2018 at 9:16pm
Most sub-saharan African economies consistently outperform western European economies; that hardly recommends the systems of the former over the latter. Less developed economies have more ‘room for growth’ and therefore will tend to have higher growth rates given the same policies (and Leninist countries have historically tended to be relatively underdeveloped).
It’s also a strange choice of terminology you use. You say “Leninist” rather than communist or Marxist. But Lenin himself gave up on full-throated communism because even the Bolsheviks couldn’t deny it was a colossal failure fairly soon into his leadership and adopted the pseudo-capitalist New Economic Policy. Of course Stalin’s abandonment of it in favor of collectivization brought back disaster.
So if Leninist refers to Lenin’s ‘reformed’ Marxism, it coheres well with my general observation that socialism does better and better the more it tries to emulate capitalism.
Pajser
Nov 2 2018 at 11:23pm
Convergence is long expected, but only very recent phenomenon. For instance, in 1913, USA was ~6 × wealthier [GDP(PPP)/cap] than African average; the gap increased until 2000, when USA was 19 × wealthier. Only from 2000, Africa progresses faster than USA. USSR is one of few below-average countries that in period 1913-89 developed faster than wealthy countries; but it also developed faster than world average.
“War communism” was disaster; but NEP was not meant to be long-term measure, in 1921 USSR was very exhausted due to poor economic politics (but war, revolution, civil war too) and Bolshevik leaders believed they can’t risk another experiment at the moment. NEP lasted to 28, when Soviet Union reached pre-war level. However, from 1928 to 1989 USSR progressed 100% -> 520%, while world average progressed 100%-> ~290%. Data from Maddison project, 2013 database.
Mark Z
Nov 3 2018 at 8:50pm
Using per capita GDP and Africa in particular as a point of comparison ignores the demographic differences at play: Africa’s population skyrocketed during the 20th century (one of the most unprecedented and widespread population booms in human history in fact), so production most certainly was increasing much faster than in the west, but, not to sound a bit Malthusian, the population was expanding so fast producition per capita stayed fairly stable; the number of mouths to feed grew almost as fast as the supply of food. Contrast that with the Soviet Union, where population growth was far more modest as industrialization took off. Between 1950 and 1990, the Soviet Union’s population grew by a little over 50%, while, in the same period, Africa’s grew by something like 200%.
Early Soviet growth, moreover, was largely due to its ability to just copy western technology and methods in industrialization (or, in the case of Germany, literally take the machinery); once the low hanging fruit became sparse and the Kruschev era reforms were quashed, growth waned and by early 80s productivity was actually declining. It’s poignant that the US didn’t merely grow faster than the Soviet Union throughout the postwar era, but the rate at which it outgrew the Soviet Union increased steadily throughout that era. The same goes for Western Europe and Japan relative to the USSR, though Japan started out poorer than the Soviet Union after the war yet had almost 3X its GDP per capita by 1990.
Pajser
Nov 4 2018 at 7:59am
I used Africa as example that poor countries do not automatically progress faster than wealthy countries. Fast growth of the population is one of the reasons; but fast growth itself is result of the economy, i.e. poverty, inequalities, child mortality, poor chances for education …
Of course, USSR was able to copy more advanced technology. But other capitalist countries were able to copy it too. Or import it – USSR was never able to import most advanced technology. Or they could accept foreign investments – USSR couldn’t. Still, if whole period of 1913-89 is taken into account, USSR progressed significantly better than capitalist countries – including poor capitalist countries (African average, Asian average), or those nearly equal (Latin American average.)
American economy didn’t grow faster than USSR in post-war era. In 1947, when USSR reached its pre-war level, it was 24% of American GDP(PPP)/capita. In 1989, it was 31%.
Japan had better growth than USSR, it is true – but Japan was among few best countries in that period, probably the best one. I didn’t say that USSR had better growth than all capitalist countries. Better than capitalist average.
Ekl
Oct 31 2018 at 4:54pm
George Orwell’ diagnosis of the British socialists was that they are driven by envy of the rich more than sympathy for the poor.
Anecdotally, the socialists I’ve encountered fit your description, they are usually the “free spirits” with a serious case of the Dunning-Kruger effect who think that if only everyone else was as “nice” as they are, the world would be perfect.
Maximum Liberty
Nov 1 2018 at 3:24pm
Ekl:
My own is that modern progressives see poverty and similar issues through a lens of aesthetics. I often get a sens that they are fundamentally objecting to things that look ugly, and pay no attention to the less visible bad things.
CZ
Oct 31 2018 at 6:24pm
One explanation: most people do not think of socialism in the classic sense of a centrally planned economy. Instead they just want more sharing and redistribution so that they don’t have to work as hard and have more time to do their free spirit stuff.
Seth
Nov 2 2018 at 11:48am
Agreed. There seems to be some distance between what they imagine socialism to be (fairness, sharing, etc.) and what socialism actually is (somebody calling the shots).
Joseph Hertzlinger
Nov 1 2018 at 1:17am
As far as I can tell, stereotypical socialists disapprove of plans made by one person. They believe plans should only be made by groups.
Noah Carl
Nov 1 2018 at 3:30am
In China, more socially conservative people are more likely to be socialists, so what you say about military types probably does apply there:
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/694255
A
Nov 1 2018 at 4:43am
I’ve only lived in larger cities, where many socialists seem to have college degrees. A shared trait across races, family income, and age, is that they all believed they would be very rich if only they were less ethical.
j r
Nov 1 2018 at 6:54am
When I worked in DC, I walked home most nights through the site of Occupy DC. This is pretty much the exact set of thoughts that I had then. There are plenty of problems with the corporatist nexus of banks, non-banks, and government that run the financial sector, but it was really difficult to see how any of those people in that dirty, rat-infested encampment had enough comprehension of the system to reform it in any meaningful way for the better.
That said, it would be fair to acknowledge some differences within socialism. The “five-year plan” socialists tend to be of the scientific socialist variety, while the DSA socialists tend be of a hipster utopian strain. The scientific socialists claimed that capitalism would cede to communism because competition was less efficient. The utopian socialists tend to see capitalism as some constraint that stifles competition were it to go away, we’d all be free from exploitation and the spontaneous organization of labor would provide all that we need. Utopian socialism seems less rooted in belief in central planning than in the belief that our existence creates needs (often couched in the language of rights) that, in turn, create obligations on the part of the larger society.
This reminds me that I would love to see an anarcho-capitalist and an anarcho-socialist, from two positions supposedly on opposite ends of the political spectrum, site down and hash out exactly what their differences are. I am not quite clear.
Richard Wallace
Nov 1 2018 at 8:44am
I recall reading a story (perhaps apocryphal) of a journalists interviewing a member of the recently created Soviet central planning committee. When asked whether the planning committee were prepared to manage an economy of a country with over 100 million inhabitants, the response was a sincere “Oh yes, certainly. We have read over a hundred books.”
This struck me as incredibly naive, given the whole Hayekian knowledge problem and the importance of tacit knowledge. What am I then to make of the new would-be central planning committee members who have no experience and have read no books.
Pajser
Nov 2 2018 at 12:57pm
But did you checked their results? They did created economy that progressed significantly better than average capitalist economy, in terms of GDP(PPP)/capita, child mortality, life expectancy, literacy, equality … so it did worked. Just search for objective data instead of anecdotes, and you’ll see that.
Mark Z
Nov 2 2018 at 9:26pm
So, aside from my above mentioned remark about developing countries (most socialist countries historically being underdeveloped) having higher growth rates than developed ones (which have tended to be capitalist), it would be a bit naive to trust the statistics put forth by authoritarian socialist regimes. The favorite one Americans cite demonstrating the ‘success’ of socialism is supposedly lower infant mortality rate in Castro’s Cuba. But that ‘statistic’ is a product not of superior medical care but of forced abortions and/or denial of treatment to women pregnant with children with medical problems (Cuba having the highest abortion rate in Latin America has a lot to do with it’s low infant mortality rates), not to mention plain old ‘juking’ the numbers.
As with China’s astonishing increase in steel output following the great leap forward, the statistical success stories of socialist economies tend to fail to tell the whole story.
Mark Z
Nov 2 2018 at 9:27pm
Here’s a good link on Cuba’s statistics in particular:
https://academic.oup.com/heapol/article/33/6/755/5035051
Pajser
Nov 3 2018 at 12:12am
It wouldn’t be wise to uncritically believe to Soviet official data back then, but no one believed that either. All international institutions did their best to estimate accurate data. In retrospective, CIA Factbook turned to be very reliable source, as they had channels other institutions had not. Any case, For USSR and Eastern Europe it is not actual problem anymore, almost everything is known by now.
Spencer Broome
Nov 1 2018 at 11:49am
While I can see why it would make sense for a socialist leader to come from military background, I do not think it is entirely necessary. Though both the military and socialism have common attributes as mentioned in the article, anyone can be a socialist successfully regardless of military background. All it takes is the right mindset.
I think it is unfair of you to judge each person who identifies with the socialist party the same, only because the few you have met happen to be lacking of knowledge when it comes to the previously mentioned party. Just based off the fact that you are grouping them all together based on that merit, I believe that your entire argument is invalid. I think if you met someone who identified as socialist and had a good understanding of it, you would see that they are not complete imbeciles as you said they were.
Simon Lvov
Nov 1 2018 at 4:09pm
One of my favorite philosophers – Bryan Caplan, channeling my another favorite philosopher – Jordan “Clean your room before attempting to change the world” B. Peterson. 👍
Kevin
Nov 2 2018 at 2:26pm
I was just going to post something similar! Very JP.
Jay
Nov 2 2018 at 7:52am
Healthcare is the one area where people actually do propose single-payer, command-and-control socialism. There’s some logic behind that:
The American healthcare system is uniquely horrible (I see you know Mr. Wienersmith).
There are many countries with functioning universal healthcare systems. It is not implausible that we could improve our system by following the herd, and in principle we could benefit from the lessons they’ve already learned.
If Burkina Faso can do it, we can probably do it.
America already has a Veteran’s Health Administration that provides socialized medical care for a limited population. Its evaluations are generally superior to other American health care providers.
Individuals are generally poorly informed about their needs and options related to medical care, both in acute cases and over the long term. In general, market systems may not function well if consumers are uninformed.
The American health care system is already extremely bureaucratic. Having a single government bureaucracy is likely to actually be more efficient than having a different nightmarish bureaucracy for each insurer (our current system)
Mark Z
Nov 2 2018 at 9:36pm
A serious issue I have with this line of argument (aside from my skepticism that the redundant bureaucracies would actually just go away, rather than live on an equally of more annoying form) is that it creates horrible incentives for politicians. It says: if you screw up a market badly enough, we’ll eventually give in and let you just take it over.
There’s a pattern of this happening. Government imposes regulations, which drives up prices; government responds by imposing price control. The latter two disproportionately hurt small/medium size businesses, leading to oligopoly; eventually, during a crisis, one or more of the oligopolists fails, and government has to bail it out due to save the now fragile market. Now, oligopolists/monopolist becomes increasingly inefficient due to near total lack of market discipline; and eventually, voters decide, “why not just nationalize it?”
The defeatism (from a free market perspective) won’t likely end with health care. Similar arguments are already being made with respect to finance, energy, and other major industries.
Jay
Nov 3 2018 at 8:32pm
I see your point, but in general politicians aren’t playing long-con schemes. My impression is more of overpromoted underwear models trying to look as good as possible while taking as little risk as possible. An intelligent person wouldn’t want a job that required speaking the same ten sentences to TV cameras for years.
Also, a lot of people need healthcare. Maybe not you, if you’re young, but it will happen to you unless something worse happens first. If there’s a different system with a provably better track record, that’s going to greatly improve lives for millions. And the evidence I linked above leads me to believe that there is.
Thaomas
Nov 2 2018 at 7:58pm
I guess it must be different there in Fairfax County, but I’ve never run into a Socialist, free spirited or otherwise. Even those few who “call” themselves “Socialists,” turn out just to want capitalism with a bit more redistribution of income through higher taxes on the rich and by subsidizing consumption of certain kinds of services that would be provided by the private sector — higher education, health insurance, child care. The truly radical ones want employees represented on corporate boards.
Felix
Nov 3 2018 at 9:23pm
I knew an astrologer. She was the kind f person who is too smart to suffer through four years of college, but she would have been a wonderful engineer.
I believe she took up astrology because it had all the trappings of engineering without needing the four years of college. Books, formulas, tables, calculators, computer programs, everything she enjoyed, but without requiring the four years study.
I sometimes think politicians (of all stripes) have the same envy of business people. They fall for the Hollywood treatment where business people shout orders — Get me the Jones report! — answer questions decisively — Tell him we will only pay $80 million if he agrees today — and sign papers like crazy. They want that too, but with the political shortcut of just pressing the flesh and making speeches to win elections.
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