Is socialist collapse possible without sabotage?

Economics Political Theory
1

Let’s play out two scenarios. Common themes between both scenarios:

  • The majority of a population (enough to have physical superiority) are in favor of socialism.
  • The minority are in favor of libertarianism or anarcho-capitalism (pick either, but assume all agree) (I’ll use anarchy as a reference from here on).
  • The amount of side switching between socialism and anarchism will be equal unless one side is proven wrong (not logically, but rather by actual success/failure).

Scenario 1:

The anarchists do not exploit the state. They obey the laws of the land, they utilize resources that are necessary to survive (such as public roads, hospitals, education, etc.). They do not go out to the middle of no-where and homestead, but they also do not ask for anything from the state beyond what is required to get along moderately well and generally behave the same way the socialists do in the society, contributing their part and not asking for much in return.

Scenario 2:

The anarchists exploit the state. They utilize every resource they can swindle out of the state be it roads, welfare, police, tax loopholes, unemployment insurance, public health insurance, etc. They obey the laws imposed by the state only as far as they can be enforced. Anything an anarchist thinks they can get away with they do. The anarchists don’t directly steal from or harm anyone, they only exploit the state into serving their interests (not other people).

Outcomes:

In scenario 1 the situation will never change. As far as the socialists are concerned, the system “works”. People generally behave altruistically which is what the entire concept of socialism is founded on. People all particpate in society, do their share, and everyone lives happily whether you are capable or not. There is no suffering, but there is no true prosperity either. Technology mostly stagnates since there isn’t a significant motive for making things better. Everyone does their share, but no one really works super hard (40 hours a week, 2-4 weeks vacation, no overtime).

In scenario 2 the system will collapse over time. While the anarchists don’t have the numbers to win out physically, they are sabatoging the system from the inside. Just as a smaller force can’t win against a larger force in a direct battle but they can via infiltration and sabatoge. The anarchists exploit the system and over time things get worse and worse as the system fails to sustain itself. While there are still a lot of altruists in the system support it there are not enough to support it indefinitely. Eventually things get so bad that the entire system collapses which forces people to rethink their position on many topics. Once the collapse is complete more socialists move to the anarchist side than anarchists moving to the socialist side and now the anarchists are on more even footing. From the rubble of the collapsed society a new one needs to be forged and, if enough people switched sides, it will be anarchist rather than socialist.

Potential Argument Points:

  • The number of people switching from socialism to anarchism in a functioning socialist society outweigs the number of people switching from anarchism to socialism.
  • Socialism is unsustainable, even with everyone behaving altruisticly.
  • The ends don’t justify the means (it’s better to stay socialist and not sabatoge than it is to become anarchist through sabatoge).
  • There is a more effective way to bring about societal collapse than through sabatoge of the current system.

I personally don’t agree with any of the above argument points but I can see them as points of contention in this example and am open to discussing them. There also may be other points of contion that I have not thought of.

So Rothbard is okay with taking government money?
2

“Socialism” is a vague term. Should this platform be assumed?:

http://socialistparty-usa.org/platform/economics.html

I think if there were a transition to socialism, the economy would immediately and permanently collapse so I can’t really consider the situation without knowing some specifics.

3

For the sake of the discussion, let’s say not extreme socialism, but something inbetween. Like what most of the EU is now and where the US is heading. A certain amount of capitalism is allowed, but a lot of services are socialized and redistribution of wealth is a how the society is run. A coercive monopoly (government) is used to enforce this redistribution of wealth.

4

Don’t you know that the socialist paradise of Sweden exists?

5

Great link. :smiley:

6

Lol @libertyandlife

I have hunch it`s biased

Is Jon Stewart a Libertarian?

7

Based on their political comedy, Jon Stewart seems to be more of a socialist and Steven Colbert more of a libertarian.

8

An-caps have quite little power against state. State’s own stupidity and natural tendecy towards growing makes states to face crises from time to time, and we are facing/about of facing one right now. With current amount of libertarians and preferred inefficent strategies(example voting instead of Free State Project) it’s not possible to take advantage from current crise, but it’s most likely to turn more people towards libertarianism. I’m quite sure that with right stragies the next crise which state faces will be the long awaited chance for secession or something like that.

9

All states have a tendency to grow more centralized and more interventionist. However, the state interventions eventually cause the economy to collapse. Libertarians don’t need to encourage a collapse, it will happen eventually. What we need is enough people to understand the truth and embrace liberty.

I’m no very convinced that actual events are a reliable way of convincing people of anti-statism. “Court historians” can spin any situation to blame capitalism. Look at the average American’s opinion of labor unions in the late 19th century or how FRD “saved” us from the great depression. Look at how everyone in the media blamed 2008 on unfettered free markets.

10

GooPC:

You are then suggesting that prolonging collapse of the government is more beneficial to society? That given time and no problems people will tend to become more anarchist whereas given time and problems people will tend to become more socialist?

I can see some merit to that. When things are going badly people want someone else to “save” them. When things are prosperous they want the government to go away. However, with the state spinning everything to make the world think there are problems (drugs, terrorism, etc.) how then can we achieve anarchy (or something closer than what we have)? That is, how can we convince people that everything is fine when the government (who has more economic power) is constantly trying to convince people that everything is not fine?

11
  1. Things would go well for awhile.
  2. Slowly it would begin to fall apart.
  3. System would collapse.
  4. Everyone would blame the small amount of capitalism remaining.
  5. Full socialism implemented.
  6. No success would come from that. Things would get worse.
  7. Communism would takeover with a proletariat dictatorship.
  8. That would fail miserably. Society would be completely structureless, no one would know how to run anything, heads of industry would be long one.
  9. Chaos would ensue.
  10. Radical left-anarchist and right-fascist groups begin to form.
  11. Anarchists overthrow everything. Riots in the streets.
  12. Nothing is run efficiently. People keep to themselves, but many continue to riot.
  13. Rage for order.
  14. New fascist government formed violently.
  15. People successfully commanded to get back to work under a police-state society.
  16. The economy begins to return and society drags on. Order return but people feel suppressed and tension builds.
  17. Multiple coup d’etat attempts fail due to fascist government wiretapping.
  18. Leadership division.
  19. Division of land.
  20. Civil war ends with legal land agreements but secret centralization.
12

It seems to me that one point that’s not addressed by the OP is the true nature of sacrifice. The assumption seems to be that if everyone functions altruistically, that will allow society to function, although perhaps at a less-than-optimal level. That’s simply not correct. By its nature, altruism is a state of steady destruction.

You can see this by remembering that one of the premises of altruism is that as long as anyone is poorer or more destitute than you, it is your duty to give; the good and successful are steadily and progressively sacrificed to the lazy, the corrupt and the non-productive.

Another way to look at it is that the real goal of altruism is the destruction of the good for being the good. Such a society is ultimately doomed.

On the “sabotage” concept – I suppose it’s possible to do things that will cause a socialist society to fail faster. However, people tempted to do so would be better served by keeping in mind that living a moral life is the path to happiness. It’s better, in my mind anyway, to act consistently morally and to prepare for failure.

13

Can you extrapolate a bit on why you think an altruistic society is doomed to fail (rather than doomed to be sub-optimal)? There are things like the Amish where altruism reigns supreme yet they have not failed. An abbey could be another example of an altruistic self sustaining community. History also has many examples of societies surviving before the advent of market economics and everyone just “did their part”.

These all give good real world examples that show that if a large enough portion of a society behaves altruistically the society can survive in socialism. I think that all these examples also show how a socialist society does not thrive, but the question is whether or not socialism is doomed to fail if you assume the members of it’s society behave altruistically.

14

There are a huge number of variables. A moderate socialist society (if we’re assuming, something like, say, France) is not destined for collapse. Certain actions might bring it there, for instance most governments today have a number of factors which are going to bring them close, but there is nothing that eventually destines them for this fate. As tendencies go its a mixed bag. In Europe there are socialistic countries which are doing rather well (Germany, France) there are socialistic countries which are doing very badly (Ireland, Greece), so we cannot determine exactly what will happen here, part of it depends upon the general attitude. However, the more altruistic people are in an advanced society the worse of they are in socialism and the better off they are in capitalist (The Irony!!) because of the fact that in a socialistic system they will attempt to forcibly allocate more and more resources to the poor (everyone is better off because in a capitalistic system there will be a greater number of things such as charity which will help all members of society and rehabilitate them into a better economic state).

So we cannot tell whether or not in example one the state is doomed for destruction or not. We would need a greater number of details. However, we can disregard the third bullet in your assumption set. That never happens and it makes the model almost unrealistic. If we disregard that part of it then it partly depends upon whether or not there are outside or past models people can look to and say “hey things worked better/grew more swiftly back then”. But if we assume an enclosed world then no such leanings would occur. There are too many variables, I would simply like to point to the effectiveness and the sense in the anarchist argument which could become really big without sabotage in an economically ok society.

As for the second example you would have the problem of pointing fingers. Ask a democrat why healthcare costs are high, the stock market crashed, or why the streets aren’t yellow and sparkly and the answer is “the republicans”. Why did the socialist society fall apart? It was the anarchists. And they’d be correct now wouldn’t they? If everyone had simply worked with the system then it would have thrived. Once again a problem of empiricism and theory and if things are not argued in terms of theory then they could be proven absolutly right. Don’t Austrians argue “well the U.S is a fairly free market system BUT…” so there’d be a lot of stuff in the air there too.

So to sum it up

  1. There are a lot of blanks here which really effect the outcome

  2. Ideology and attitude in particular will play a major role but there’s no reason why either society is doomed for failure, it party depends upon the history of the society and outside influences

  3. Your third assumption is impossible

  4. In the second scenario people will blame the anarchists

  5. In either case the anarchists need to prove themselves upon theoretical grounds, and in the first situation they may well be able to change the system

15

Before I go any further, I’d like to say that I do not see anything wrong with helping someone, “altruism” is beneficial for both parties in one way or another as long as it’s voluntary.

First you will have to define altruism. The altruism that most socialists describe is the “mindless selfless drone” kind. That idea is unrealistic. There is absolutely now way to be selfless because you have a self. Complete selflessness will lead to self denial which in turn will lead to you becoming an automaton.

That type of society can only be complete if everyone is a “zombie”, people have to either be drugged to follow or forced.

16

The only point of contention I have is #4. The anarchists will be blamed only if the anarchists (as a group) are deemed the ones who exploited the system. In your examples of finger pointing these are all things done in the public eye and it is easy to identify who pushed through what bill/law or which party was for X and who was against Y.

That being said, given my simplistic example with only 2 political parties and the assumption that the socialists were in fact altruistic I can see how the finger pointing would logically go to the anarchists. In a more realistic scenario though I don’t see this happening (a large part of the success of infiltration and sabotage is maintaining anonymity).

17

I’ll admit ahead of time that altruism may not be the best word for what I want to describe and if you have a better one I am open to suggestions. What I am going for is that people behave in a way that supports the ‘greater good’. In the original example this would mean that people go to school, get a job, work until they are 65, if they lose their job they quickly find another, they pay their taxes, they don’t look for loopholes, etc.

I use the term altruism because generally altruists do the above because they believe in the ‘greater good’. They believe that if everyone does ‘their part’ the system will work. In my scenario 1 the anarchists do it perhaps for some other reason (moral, etc.) but the point is they do it. They do what is asked of them by the state and they do not try to avoid ‘paying their dues to society’ as people like to call it. They also do not try to utilize exploitable holes in the system to meet their own ends. In short, their actions (though not their motives) are equivelant to those of the altruists that believe in the system and want to see it work.

18

I’m certainly no expert, but as I understand it, there are severe penalties for breaking the rules of Amish and Abbey type “societies” – in the sense of losing your personal freedom, one could consider them both to have already collapsed.

Historically, all socialist societies have collapsed. Look at Cuba as an example of a modern socialist haven. The ones in Europe today are on their way to collapse – the recent financial turmoil there is just the tip of the iceberg.

Also, what does it really mean for a “large enough portion of society” to behave altruistically? So, if enough people are willing to sacrifice for the benefit of others, then it will be OK? OK for who? If enough people are willing to be the slaves of others, then that society hasn’t failed?

The advocates of altruism often fail to see it for what it really is. Voluntarily giving when you want to give, and to whom you want to give is not altruism – that’s charity, and I have no problem with it. Altruism is giving to those who you do not value, and doing so out of duty; giving up a higher value for a lesser one.

19

I would definitately not classify that as collapsed. It is not a situation that you would be happy with but the society continues to exist and there are no signs that it will cese to exist at any point in time. That is, if they keep behaving the way they do their society will continue to exist as it does indefinitely.

Again, this isn’t collapse. Having slaves in a society doesn’t mean the society doesn’t exist. It just exists with slaves. What eventually destroyed slavery was an attitude change by a large enough portion of the populous toward it, not any actual problems maintaining it’s existance.

20

We probably do not share the same definition of collapse (Im at school and I have a french keyboard, sorry). Either way, I doubt anyone here wants to live in a oppresive country like Cuba. Theyre free to do so, but I expect the same civility in return.

I think we can all agree on the definition of altruism. What we cannot agree on, is how it`s performed.

Some people think it`s selfish to help this number of poor people and that we should all be like Mother Theresa. Some believe that we should pay 50% taxes other 20%, both altruistic acts, apparently…

There is no way for someone to decide how much altruism an individual should exhibit towards a non entity like Society``` because how muchandwhy`` is subjective, altruism should be voluntary. Someone has to force they`re ideal of altruism on others and even then you have no guarantee that it could work.

Also Society does not exist, political systems do. A political system like Cuba doesn`t (have) give the individual the chance to improve his lot. Cuba is an example of institutionalized slavery, assuming we share the same definition.