Who here can refute Einstein on socialism?

Economics Economics Questions
41

Einstein himself “refuted” this in other things he wrote…

e.g.:

It is no accident that Capitalism has brought with it progress, not merely in production but also in knowledge. Egoism and competition are, alas, stronger forces than ‘public spirit’ and ‘sense of duty.’ In Russia they say it is impossible to get a decent piece of bread. Perhaps I am over-pessimistic concerning State and other forms of communal enterprise, but I expect little good from them. Bureaucracy is the death of achievement.

~ Albert Einstein, The World As I See It: Culture and Prosperity (1954), pp.88-89

An autocratic system of coercion, in my opinion, soon degenerates. Force always attracts men of low morality, and I believe it to be an invariable rule that tyrants of genius are succeeded by scoundrels. … The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the State but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; the individual alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling.

~ Albert Einstein, The World As I See It: Culture and Prosperity (1954) p.13

Every individual should have the opportunity to develop the gifts which may be latent in him. Alone in that way can the individual obtain the satisfaction to which he is justly entitled; and alone in that way can the community achieve its richest flowering. For everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labour in freedom. Restriction is justified only in so far as it may be needed for the security of existence.

~ Albert Einstein, Out of My Later Years (1950), p.19

42

It’s very interesting, but it serves to prove what I always tell friends. If a person has Phd in physics, it does not mean they are qualified to discuss Botany based on that.

I’m a biology nerd, and when I was growing up I heard, “Albert Einstein said that when all the bee’s are gone, man only has 3 years left on the planet”. To which I can only respond, “But Einstein isn’t a biologist or environmental studies professor. He also has not shown any great aptitude in studying the evolution of any environment, let alone one in which bee’s do not exist.”

The terrible thing about smart men is that they wield power over things that are out of their scope.

43

Well we have to remember that Einstein was an ethical humanist, and found this (and agnosticism) to be a middle ground between religion and atheism. Einstein preferred “an attitude of humility” over the two dogmas.

Now maybe Einstein was just doing the same thing with economics. Seeing the excesses of capitalism in the industrial-class American society, and the excesses of statism in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, socialism may have been his “middle ground” belief between the two.

Einstein’s assessment of history is true in the sense that capitalism and government have often been the twin tools of humanity at its worst: excessively greedy, monopolistic, and in favor of conquest and colonialization. This is even a view shared by one of America’s founders, Thomas Jefferson: “I hope we shall crush… in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." It was not government alone, nor capitalism alone, which allowed for the slave trade, for example. And since even America’s founders seemed to believe in a small government yet one that was big enough to make sure corporations did not become more powerful than people, Einstein seemed to be merely reflecting that capitalism needs a dose of humanity, and until they day that humanity comes from within, it will have to come from without (through democratic socialism’s government interventions). Women, black people, Asian immigrants, the Irish and other Catholics- I’m sure they all would have agreed with him at the time.

So as somebody who was trying to navigate between hardcore atheism and hardcore Christianity; and the excesses of the state as well as the excesses of corporations, it really makes sense that he would choose an ethically humanist middle ground. To refute Einstein, we need to look at psychology: is there a way we can ever get to a place where corporations have internal checks on their excesses, so that we do not need to rely on external ones that have potential for abuse (overly-bureaucratic potential- something Einstian was also against)?

Yes. Through education. Einstein was right to say we need to be educated in an ethical humanist framework. If everyone were socially responsible and valued their communities through action, we would not need government intervention in the free market. We need a campaign through media, schools, and parents to instill this. It has happened a little bit so far and now you hear about “socially responsible corporate practices,” which is a good start. Let’s continue this! Perhaps we can get more independent, NGO watchdogs to provide rating systems of corporations, documenting their practices (or lack of transparency), to better educate people on this; and instill in people, through social media, the importance of boycotting more. It is true that we often don’t care about human rights abuses for our cool toys (Foxconn’s Apple products made by terrible conditions in China, leading to mass suicides, but we didn’t boycott s***). We just need to work on that!

…my opinion, anyway

44

So the brilliant Einstein’s automatic position on every question imaginable is that the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

He didn’t bother to examine the quality of the ideas on their own merits.

And this is to expalin how smart he was.

45

The purpose of what I wrote was clearly just to explain the historical context and philosophy behind his choice. I sure hope that if I am ever wrong about something in your entire life, people would be fair enough to judge me by taking into account my context.

People’s economic beliefs tend to follow after their beliefs about cosmology, metaphysics, ontology, and and human nature. To Albert Einstein, the problem of capitalism seemed to be a problem of human nature: that great power is dangerous to us humans, and so big business is dangerous to us humans. The quality of its own merits argument? I am not sure what you mean by that. What about the fact Einstein could look around at capitalism and saw its excesses? It’s not as if he was just like “I’m going to choose between two extremes on everything.” There was empirical evidence was already there for Einstein to believe in socialism.

“Charles Booth, a wealthy and politically conservative London ship owner who set out in 1886 to disprove claims by Marxists that one-fourth of the working class lived in severe poverty. Using his own money to fund the research, Booth and his assistants surveyed East London residents about many socioeconomic forces that affected their lives. It took 17 volumes of The Life and Labour of the People of London (1891-1903) to report the study. Ironically, instead of disproving the Marxists’ claims, Booth concluded that they had underestimated the proportion of people living in poverty. Booth even recommended social welfare measures that he termed limited socialism.”

Another example is How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York (1890) by Jacob Riis. This book convinced the conservative Theodore Roosevelt, then a police chief, to explore the idea of exploitation of the poor; he changed his mind to believing that it is true that in many cases, people are poor not because they do not work hard enough, but because of external forces (such as exploitative rent). Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle, describing the conditions of the meat packing industry- “where rats, putrid meat, and posioned ratbait were routinely ground up into sausages.” Roosevelt responded with the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.

Both Roosevelt and Charles Booth wanted social reforms not only because they were practical and ethical, but also to keep people from socialism (which is a stage leading to the dictatorship of communism). Democratic socialism (a limited socialism, with no pretext to any form of dictatorship, hence the word “democratic”) was the conclusion of both these conservative men, not simply because it was “the middle ground” but because it was the best idea at the time. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Booth_(philanthropist)#The_survey_into_London_life_and_labour) “Booth argued that such reforms would help prevent socialist revolution from occurring in Britain.”

(http://millercenter.org/president/roosevelt/essays/biography/4) “As chief executive, Roosevelt felt empowered by the people to help ensure social justice and economic opportunity through government regulation. He was not a radical, however; TR believed that big business was a natural part of a maturing economy and, therefore, saw no reason to abolish it. He never suggested fundamentally altering American society or the economy to address various economic and social ills. In fact, he often stated that there must be reform in order to stave off socialism; if government did not act, the people would turn to more extreme measures to seek remedies.”

Albert Einstien would have been accoustmed to Marx, Charles Booth, Jacob Riis, and Theodore Roosevelt. Even Einstein had criticisms of socialism gone-too-far. My argument was that it was rational of him, given the choices he was facing at the time, to choose democratic socalism.

46

The problem with marxists, socialists and social-democrats is that they actually believe in the false premise that WEALTH is humans natural state of things. Based on this error, they deformed the concept of RIGHT by creating “SOCIAL RIGHTS” and therefore an alleged “SOCIAL JUSTICE”.

47

Got carried away.

48

I’ve never heard this explanation before, and I find it very interesting. Where do Marxists, socialists, and social-democrats say that “Wealth” is the natural state of things? And if it is not, then doesn’t it play a big role in things? What is the natural state of things?

49

What is the natural state of things?

Growing up with Mom and Dad, did you “naturally” have money?

50

I read your response to my response through e-mail, but I cannot find it here. I am not a socialist, nor am I a social democrat, etc.

I am a libertarian just trying to make sense of the appeal of socialism to Einstein. I never said my arguments were logical, just that I could see how a person believed them. At the time, there were excesses of capitalism (the term I’m using here is a market untainted by government)- excesses like great distances between the rich and the poor, with barriers preventing the poor to gain upward mobility as the rich often did not value competition once they made it but kicked the ladder of success to the ground to try to keep others from climbing; and rather than simply try and organize people to demand corporations stop mistreating workers and consumers and stop creating barriers to entry to the market place, Einstein thought that government was the answer (i.e., socialism), though took the diluted rat posion, as you called it. If you don’t think my brainstorming guesses make sense, then feel free to come up with different ideas why Einstein was a socialist, because that was the point of this whole mental exercise.

Some smaller points:

Charles Booth didn’t automatically declare everything Marx said was right because he was right about one thing; I never said that.

Neill-Reynolds report to Congress on June 4, 1906 substainted the claims of filthy conditions in the meatpacking industry. Roosevelt thought Upton Sinclair was hystertical and did not believe most of what he wrote (fiction), though a small amount turned out to be true (non-fiction) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle#Public_and_federal_response)

Also, when I said people’s political beliefs tend to follow from more fundamental beliefs, I was thinking about how people’s beliefs in dieties or lack thereof (substituted by “society” or “laws of nature” or something) often influence (or dictate, if diety) their ethics, and how their view of politics would naturally be a manifestation of their ethical beliefs. An example of people doing this is Ayn Rand with Objectivism. Us libertarians do it too. Our cosmology: “In the beginning, there was liberty. And it was good,” and from there ethics: “Thou shalt not mess with liberty, except to give up your right to be the cop, judge, and jury of cases against you,” and then politics: “therefore no government except for the creation, enforcement, and interpretation of the law, laws to protect liberty, and have courts to mediate between civil/corporate suits. No more government than that.”

Albert Einstein

Cosmology: "A human being is a part of a whole, called by us ‘universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

Ontology:

“Reality is merely an illusion, although a very persistent one”

Metaphysics:

Everything is relative

Epistemology:

“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.”

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

Ethics:

“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind"

To free ourselves from the areforementioned prison restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us using compassion

Politics:

A government based on socialism (as all are one) and compassion (we are all one family, so we ought to be our brother’s keeper)

When I said “great power is dangerous to us humans” I was thinking along the lines of the American Founders in their belief that power corrupts. I never said that this precludes good things to come from a big business. I just said that the more power a person has, be it due to their position of authority conferred on them by government or by wealth accrued through capital, then there is more temptation to abuse that power. It’s just an old adage that is the basis of the checks and balances in our government system, and there even have been a couple studies done on it as it applies to the busienss world (http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2012/02/27/are-rich-people-unethical/). Of course, I shouldn’t confuse cause and effect: does power make people greedier/less ethical, or are greedier/less ethical people more likely to seek positions of power? Either way, I thought the Founders were on to something and think checks and balances is a good idea. It’s hard to let go of power once it is held, that’s why George Washington is often celebrated for not crowning himself king, right?

51

I did not have money. I had a social support system in place, my family, who had their own family that helped them with baby shower gifts. How does this answer any of my questions? Are you trying to say that social support systems are the natural state of things? That makes sense actually. Families…tribes…socially isoalted chimps tend to find each other and join aggressive and co-dependent gangs…we’re basically like apes in that regard. I mean, technically we are part of the Great Apes.

52

Mises on the issue:

‘…[Freud] was very different from Einstein [1879–1955] who said, “I don’t know anything about economics, but socialism is very good.”’

53

I just remembered an idea: most people’s economic and political beliefs flow naturally from their beliefs about human nature. If you think human nature is mostly rational, you are not going to advocating for government intervention in the marketplace. According to this idea, Einstein mistrust human nature. does quick google search

“It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of man.”

“Small is the number of people who see with their eyes and think with their minds”

“We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive”

“Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves”

54

Good luck, Shep, and enjoy these fascinating topics.