Widespread appeal of Socialism (and related doctrines)

Economics Political Theory
1

Please help me understand this. I have been actively involved in politics for the past fifteen years and yet I still struggle to understand how can Socialism and all its by-products have such a widespread appeal. I have been unable (until now) to buy a copy of Mises’ Sozialismus or The Anti-Capitalist Mentality but I don’t really know if these books will help me understand the root of the problem. I’ll explain now.

Over the course of the years I’ve met many activists from many different, often contrasting ideologies: Secessionists, Communists, Anarchists, self-styled Moderates etc. What has always struck me, and is a constant source of amazement, is how self-proclaimed left-wingers (mostly self-styled Socialdemocrats or Progressives), or at least the bulk of them, tend to come from those classes which have traditionally been portrayed as “enemies of the people”. In my personal experience the average Socialist has above average wealth, good education, lives in a (not impoverished) urban area, comes from a well-to-do family etc. While you’d expect a starving Andean peasant to embrace Socialism as a naive escape from his horrid background you won’t expect an European borgeouse to be a fervent Socialist, much less an industrialist.

While it’s pretty clear to understand why industrialists usually pay lip-service to Socialist ideas (taxpayers-backed health care and pensions, trade unions on a leash, perhaps the chance of a few incentives to pervert market rules), I find it much much harder to understand why someone would support an idea which would much reduce his/her lifestyle. Of course there’s always the hypochrisy clause: everyone is to be robbed blind, except for me. Everyone has to pay a carbon tax, except for me. I often wonder what’s inside these persons’ heads (water and sawdust, like my elementary teacher used to say, perhaps?) when they complain neverendingly about the latest tax hike and keep on electing the same officials, keep on supporting the same system which is robbing them blind. The best they can do is tell their accountant to “find a way to pay less taxes”. Everybody has to pay his fair share, but me.

Socialism has wrecked Europe beyond recognizition, more in the spirit than anywhere else: how can such a terrifying ideal be so deep-rooted? Will we ever get rid of it? Napoleon used to say “space and money I can always recover, time never”… how right he was! Wealth can be recreated through hard work and sound politics but who will give us back more than a century of lies?

2

This is an excellent topic and its sorta related to another topic I opened up on this subforum, Political and Economic jargon. I think Hayek’s Road to Serfdom addresses this issue quite well. Hayek is far from perfect and poses some questionable alternatives which appear to be at least quasi-socialistic but his core explaination about why socialism became and remained popular in the western democracies is good stuff. I think Professor Long’s lecture about Left and Right ( promoting Rothbard’s ideas) was pretty good too.

I think Mises hit the nail on the head. It is an anti-capitalistic mentality which for many represents socialism as the only viable alternative. It is Marx’s definition of capitalism that has survived and became more popular than the Austro-Free Market definition of the same term. Personally, I’m not against socialism insofar as society cooperating and individuals helping eachother out. However, there is a difference between VOLUNTARY and COERCIVE socialism and I obviously I support the former. In fact, I firmly believe that Free Market Capitalism ( as libertarians and anarchocapitalists define it) IS voluntary socialism since the market wouldn’t function without trade. Capitalism works because it acknowledges that it is in the entrepenuer’s self-interest to provide something that benifits society at large. Those benifits translate into helping himself as well as enriching the lives of the consumers ( society).

Socialists are hesitant and can only grudingly acknowledge that free market capitalism has helped the common man more than any other socio-economic system known to date. Capitalism allowed the common man to be able to own property, accumulate capital, and determine his own lot in society. In other words, it is economic freedom. Capitalism furthermore serves the common man ( middle and lower class) more than anyone else. If Capitalism was a rich-only exclusive club, then it wouldn’t be very successful since the majority of consumers are the middle class. Capitalists ( businesmen and entrepenures) must meet the demands of the majority middle class consumers in order to be successful , it is in their own best interest.

But as Hayek explained, the majority of socialists ( or quasi-socialists, social democrats) are not evil by nature. In fact, most of them have very good intentions and really do care about the more unfortunate in society. However, many social-democrats do not have the guts or desire to enact a ‘revolution,’ as described by Marx, to institute a full-fledged socialist government.

The social-democrats promote the ‘lighter side’ of Marx’s ideas without all the violence. They still hold fast to democratic institutions and believe socialism is achievable within democracy. Many of them, unfortunatly, are blind to the fact that the road towards socialism leads to one destination and that is a totalitarian state. The family resemblence to communism among the various lesser degrees of socialism; social democracy , democratic socialism, green democracy, democracy , socialism, is undeniable though. Additionaly, the cousins of socialism; fascism,ultranationalism,nationalist socialism, nazism, are not as clear to the sociailst but they are all branches of coercive COLLECTIVISM.

Hayek was stunned when he arrived in London. The popular thought in London before and during WW2 was that Hitler’s Nazi Germany was a CAPITALIST State, i.e. capitalism at its worse. Since many intellectuals in England flirted with socialism at the time ( still do) they were quick to blame capitalism for the rise of fascism and nazism when in fact Hayek showed great evidence that, in fact, the ‘right wing’ extremism in Germany, Italy, Spain, Croatia, etc were traits of totalitarian socialism ( collectivism). This is what inspired Hayek to write Road to Serfdom.

But reinvented socialism ( or apologetic socialism) has gained much ground up to today because of the Cold War period. As far back as the Russian revolution, social democrats and democratic socialists have made a break with the communists and actually, in time, became anti-communists because they rejected the clumsy speed and authoritarian methods of communism to achieve a pure socialist state ( as described by Marx.) Only during WW2 did the social democrats make alliances with their communist cousins because of the greater threat of fascism which they wrongly percieved as capitalistic. After WW2 the ‘left,’ even in the United States, resumed its anti-communist agenda. For example, the modern neo-cons have their roots on the ‘left’ because at one time they were democratic socialist that aggressively stood up to communism in the cold war era. Let there be no mistake, even the diet socialists ( thats what I call the social democrats and neocons) desire a type of socialist State much like the communist did but the means they use to achieve that end are different and the end itself is subject to degree based on the various ideologies among the socialist camps.

I talk to Europeans all the time and sometimes I get discusted how infatuated a lot of western Europeans with different degrees of socialism. As if they forget their true liberal heros ( classical liberal) such as Bastiat and Lord Achon who believe what many of us anarchocapitalists and libertarians believe today, the idea of individual liberty trumping all because less government always equals more freedom.

Like I said, the majority of the diet socialists are not bad people and really do desire to help the struggling people in society. However, they look at us as enemies of the struggling man ( and society) because the wrongly percieve us as the spokesmen of the rich. This is mostly because of the modern transformation of the ‘right’ and they wrongly associate us with the same ‘right.’ In reality we seek to achieve the same ends as the diet socialists, that being helping society as a whole, but we suggest a totally different means of achieving that end. They merely want to hand the poor some food to hold them over until they demand more, we want to hand them ECONOMIC FREEDOM. It sorta reminds me of an old but wise proverb: ’ Give a man a fish and you’ll feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you’ll feed him for a lifetime.’

3

Pure ignorance or pure malice, or maybe both.

4

Socialism is easy. You don’t like poverty? Simply take from the rich and give to the poor. You don’t like the health system? Grant the government total control over it. The philosophy required to understand why it can’t work is inaccessible to most. People can believe in socialism on purely emotional, instinctual grounds. That is not true for liberty.

5

One assumption that many individuals supporting socialistic ideas is that the current system is a true capitalistic free market. However, the current market we have is a controlled-mixed market. The current market is not delivering the “needs and wants” of people, adequate healthcare, education, etc. The current market is not working. Since the perception of the current market, is that it is a “free market”, the apparent alternative is socialism.

It is ironic, that the apparent failure of the current market, brings in more laws, more control, more restrictions, and thus more failure.

6

Thanks everybody for your comments, particulary to Z Man and Vienna.

Socialism is so deeply enrooted in European and Western culture that it’s often very difficult even to explain persons the basis of the problem. For example recently I caused more than one eyebrow to be raised in horror when I contended that a popular European “pro-market” politician is politically and economically a Socialist. Even self-proclaimed anti-Communists have difficulties grasping the point, perhaps I should say that they are the ones who find it really difficult to understand that “opposing Socialism” means a little more than shouting a stream of profanities when a red flag is waved and that “free market” actually means equal opportunities for everyone and not just handing out doles to ailing manufacturing conglomerates. Classical Anarchists are much better under this point of view.

I also have another couple of questions which have developed from the original topic.

First. Can we say that Nationalism and Socialism are closely related? I remember reading somewhere that Fascism is domestic Socialism while Communism is international Socialism and I tend to agree with this (not-so-standard) definition. I have come to believe that without the nation-state trappings and muscle Socialism would have never developed into the present monster. I may have been influenced by the fact that most Socialists tend also to be Nationalists or, at very least, chauvinists: the old mantra “my country is better than yours” is continously echoed and usually free health care, powerful police forces, strong bureaucracies etc are considered something to be proud of and to be used to belittle the “barbarians” from abroad.

Second. How long will it take for the whole system to collapse? I have read van Creveld’s and Barzun’s theories and I tend to agree with them that the present Socialist nation-state will disintegrate not because of external attacks by terrorists or foreign armies but because, plainly put, they will go broke. High taxes and rampant inflation can only be used to an extent since, even if you have a subjugate population (like is the case with Europe) and a very strong police force soon or late the economy will simply grind to an halt and then you simply won’t have any more money to pay you thugs with. But while I tend to agree that the inability to defend citizens from violence (despite the ever-increasing number of policemen and ever-tightening security measures) and the inability to fulfill promises of income security (particulary to retired persons) will be the main causes for the disintegration, I simply cannot agree with them that smaller entities (towns. counties etc) will simply step in to replace the dying Colossus. Most of my political activity has been at local level and I have come to have even less respect for local politicians (mayors etc) than for their national counterparts. Towns spend money faster than a drunken sailor would and local politicians are even more imbued in Socialist values than their “national” colleagues. “Income redistribution” is one of the most frequently employed phrase and in those European countries where “local government” reforms have been carried out (France, Italy etc) local taxes have litterally spiralled out of control, while there’s an ever-increasing burden of local legislature which is often even more Socialist in scope than national one. Not a pretty picture I would say…

7

Unfortunately I do not see any permanent collapse occuring of its own accord.

Sure the current system will fail soon enough, as it cannot indefinitely sustain the fiscally disastrous policies forever. But as we have seen throughout history, the statist regime will be overthrown, or will crumble itself, only to be replaced by another statist regime. While you would think that perpetual government failure would lead most people to realise that governments do more bad than good, instead they stick to the completely unfeasible idea of a good government. This is an unrealistic fantasy sustainable only in the short run, and as we have seen with the US, no system of checks and balances can prevent ambition and special interests from taking over, since the entire system depends on the presence of more good politicians than bad ones, and this simply never occurs due to the very nature of politics.

In the rare possibility that we may see a more free society replace the previous one, since it will still be a variant of the mixed economy, it will inevitably tend towards more intervention, as the government will have to interfere more and more to fix its own mistakes. Moreover, such a society is likely to occur in the presence of a strong background socialist ideology developed over the ages, and this will likely corrupt the minds of the masses, no matter what their disillusionment may have been during the previous regime.

Only some sort of concerted effort to show people the real dangers of socialism through the process of education can possibly reverse this trend, but given that public educaion is in the hands of the government, this is incredibly hard to do. Eitherway, I don’t see this collapse happening by itself.

8

How would Nationalism be defined in this case? Loyalty to ones nation? Ego-centricity to ones nation? Love for one nation? Other?

On another note, can libertarian nationalism exist, or is that an oxymoron?

9

Chodorov explains the popular appeal. Rothbard explains the intellectual appeal.

10

Great topic. I wish I had more to add, but no less important I think, is the observation that it often takes far fewer words to be wrong than it takes to unravel a misconception.

It’s not fair, but on Socialism’s ‘side’ is that it is intellectually simplistic. The greater the economy of words of an argument (the soundbite, for instance) the greater the impact/the more damage inflicted.

Of course, this doesn’t account for why simplistic sounding free-market soundbites don’t gain traction. I don’t have an answer to that.

11

There are probably several factors involved, but one that occurs to me is a poor understanding of the economics involved. Every family or individual is constrained in their purchases by their budget or income–the economics of it is more or less clear. But when one talks of government and politics, the economics of the issue is ignored, sort of a free lunch fallacy. It’s not so easily perceived that political power is still constrained by economics. When people talk politics or vote, they rarely consider how much their various proposals would cost, or understand why government proposals will tend to be less efficient and more costly than private alternatives. Education and health care are good examples here.

A related factor might be the “magical” powers of government. That is, government has the authority to compel people to do things, but once again, people ignore how expensive enforcement is, especially if significant numbers of people resist the government’s laws or regulations. And of course, the legitimacy of government granted by many people tends to overlook the moral issue of social coercion, and its unintended consequences.

Besides, socialism (and even communism) have noble, egalitarian goals, and people prefer to overlook the ignoble means required to achieve them, thus ignoring the point that an immoral means makes it difficult or impossible to achieve a moral goal.

12

That was a very good read, thank you. Sadly while Rothbard’s piece is really excellent in uncovering how the unholy alliance between Socialism and some religious movements and social elites came to be it still leaves open the big question: how could middle class fall for Socialism? Most Marxist writers considered the middle class probably worse than the aristocracy or the various oligarchies and the horrifying Bolsheviks’ eradication of the Kulakis (slightly richer farmers owning land, as opposed to the desperately poor muzhiks) should have rang an alarm bell. Aristocrats simply grabbed as much as they could and ran away: the Kulakis lacked both the means and the connections to flee. Failing that the present widening gap between modern day aristocracies and the ever-growing legions of paupers should be a sobering remainder of the evils of Socialism: owners of large, well-connected financial empires are taking the place of the Soviet nomenklatura, while national and supernational bodies are taking the place of the stern, implacable Soviet bureaucracy. The luckiest members of the middle class are clawing their way to the top (think of the Saxon or Frankish aristocracy of service) while most of it is constantly pushed towards the bottom. Progressive taxation is a major culprit (money aristocrats have legions of highly skilled lawyers and accountants who’ll ensure they’ll legally pay as little taxes as possible while middle class “tax dodgers” are usually made an example of) but not as bad as fiat money, which can litterally wreck even a household of savers.

Perhaps I should really read Paul Gottfried’s The Thanatos Complex.

Economic ignorance and envy are surely big factors but they are not enough to explain how Socialism became so incredibly popular, in spite of the immense body of evidence about its absolute evil. It will also be interest to see how Socialist leaders and intellectuals will justify the incoming economic collapse of most welfare-societies. We are already seeing the first cracks develop in Europe and at the moment “tax dodgers” are the favorite scapegoats. Problem is even a primary school student could do the math and see that even if all taxes were to be duly paid there would still be an immense gap left.

Again thanks to all of you who have taken part in this interesting conversation.

13

I suspect a book like The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins might be of use here - which discusses exactly what ideas (memes he calls them) need to do to survive.

It’s important to understand that some memes aren’t designed to be beneficial the the individuals that store and communicate those memes… instead they are memes which benefit the “social group” that the individual is a part of. Religion, Patriotism etc. are good examples of such memes - why else would hundreds of thousands or millions of people have perished in the crusades or so many of the various wars that we’ve embarked on throughout history?

As an aside, I think this probably explains the success of central banking as well. Where did the first central bank come from? England, at a time when the English government didn’t have enough money to pay soldiers to continue the war with France and they found themselves incapable of raising additional revenues (the market for bonds having been seriously discouraged by recent losses and the population in general being reluctant to cough up any additional tax dollars). The central bank that they developed to solve this problem was not of benefit to the vast majority of individuals in the English social group at the time but it was a serious competitive advantage for the English social group itself over, for example, other social groups that didn’t have central banks (i.e. subtle taxation) and weren’t able to as easily bleed resources out of the population to pay for troops. The English could then devote much greater resources to military than other nations in which people got miffed and refused to pay - in England their consent to pay wasn’t even required any more!

One additional book which might be of interest is Jared Diamond’s “Collapse”. In particular the chapter where he discusses New Guinea and the difference between Top Down and Bottom Up cooperation/planning… which roughly correspond to compulsory/voluntary social contribution.

14

I think it’s more to the point to explain why capitalism has any adherents. Socialism, government control and forced direct ‘cooperation’, aren’t new things. Capitalism is. People are wired to see and understand direct cooperation, and when they don’t see it occurring want to force it into existence where they think there will be a benefit. They can understand a person being responsible for something, like the president being responsible for ‘the economy’. They can’t as easily grasp implicit cooperation and individuals solving aggregate problems by pursuing the betterment of their own situations.

When people started moving out to the suburbs socialists looked at it as a problem to be solved. Where would these people live, buy food, get gas, do for leisure, etc? And from the point of view of a central planner it looks like a massive problem. It doesn’t occur to them that someone will open a gas station, someone will build more housing, open a movie theater, a grocery store, etc., without being told to do so by some authority.

People are hard wired to understand socialism. They are not hard wired to understand capitalism.

15

This is a great point, and one that libertarians, like myself, often forget. I find myself saying “how is it not obvious to you that people are individuals, and you don’t have the right to treat them as cogs in a machine?” The answer is - throughout history people have been treated as cogs in a machine. It is a new idea that I ought to enjoy my life, and make choices. I do see some oddness with Marxism, though - Marx is seemingly concerned with production and material prosperity. The problem is, it’s not clear why these things are important if men are not supposed to enjoy their lives and pursue their own happiness. That’s what Marx was trying to do, I think - square this new idea, which was so powerful that people around the world quickly began to pay lip service to it - of individual rights, happiness, and so on, with the old conception of a brutual, unenjoyable life lived in poverty out of necessity. If no man is supposed to choose his own destiny, why is it good to have lots of stuff?

16

Socialism is intuitive. It is just like when government officials increase taxes and project tax revenues based on current revenue without taking into account the downturn that the taxes will cause the economy to take.

17

I suppose it’s more attractive to our stone age minds… it isn’t to me for whatever reason.

18

Socialism still has its appeal for a number of reasons. Hayek’s assertion certainly still ranks high on the list of determinants of socialism-belief, especially in academia. Academics and professors, since many failed to remain in the market do to “rivalrous behaviour” and competition, chose teaching in universities largely because incompetence is acceptabe there due to the fact that other market rejects are already there and also becasue much of academic work today is subsidized by government. Government subsidies ensure that competence is unnecessary and that ideas don’t have to work in academia to be popular. In the real world of the market, impractical, and ultimately immoral ideas, are rejected and thus the market requires rational, active minds, not subsidized ones.

This rejection by the market leads to envy and resentment and when these little, little minds amalgamate in academia, you create a left-wing vibe that has permeated nearly every field of study in some way. My first sociology professor had us read a book written by democratic socialists. My first political science professor was a self-professed “progressive” who explicitly believed in democratic socialism, and, of all classes, my constitutional law class was “taught” by a hot-headed, highly emotional, self-professed Marxist woman from Barbados. Hellish times indeed.

Another reason why socialism is still popular is that, ultimately, its evil nature has been distorted and capitalism’s benevolent nature has been equally distorted. Its as simple as that. And this distortion is done primarily by the “intellectuals” in academia.

19

I don’t actually think Socialism in it’s original form has a widespread appeal. Does anybody actually believe in building a perfect society where everybody works according to his ability and everybody gets paid according to his needs? I don’t think so.

What we have instead is “reflexionary anti-capitalism”. See it all comes from the Frankfurter School, from the invention of the idea of “critique”: basicaly they introduced they idea that an intellectual doesn’t have to do constructive crticism i.e. suggest practical ways to fix things, he can just criticize stuff that’s wrong and that’s it. Of course, this is a very seductive idea: by just criticizing, one can feel good about himself, one can feel and appear to be caring, enlighteneted, and compassionate, but there is zero responsibility, as he doesn’t need to suggest anything that would work better, and of course, it is very easy to find fault and even evil in everything people do, after all, people are people. This is a very cheap ego-drug.

Now, widespread critique, “critical stance” (as a sort of a lifestyle), “counterculture” etc. has a consequence: when enough people criticise whatever currently is even though not offering alternatives, sooner or later they will think any alternative would be better. They don’t have a clear plan because there is nothing scientific in that which they do, they concentrate on critique and then ususally support the simplest, most primitive state action against the given “issue” that happens to come around. To someone like Marx, they would look like moaning children who randomly bang rocks together hoping something will come out of it. He would be very annoyed with them :slight_smile:

Thus what is widespread isn’t a clearly thought out Socialist plan, but just a reflexive, gut-instinct anti-capitalism.

Intellectually it’s not dangerous at all, practically it is because they managed to lower the level of public education so much that people who haven’t ever read 100 books that weren’t on the curriculum call themselves intellectuals with a straight face and a lot of people believe they truly are.

20

I agree. The socialism espoused, if it is espoused, is never explicitly labelled as such. It is always covered in a false veneer of goodwill or comapssion for the poor and is usually promoted in the negative, anti-capitalist form.

But what ticks me off the most is the utterly corrupt conflation of neoliberalism and free-market capitalism. My former professor at SJC commits this fallacy with a frightening level of ease in his beginning statements in this latest diatribe in his February Monthly Review Article.