Talk:Criticism of socialism/Archive 1

message: This article needs a References and Further Reading section, which certainly should include Hayek's The Road to Serfdom and von Mises' Socialism.
  --Serge 18:34, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  References 

message: :"Even anarchists usually advocate some form of coordination, so that different groups of workers function smoothly together, no matter if in a local community or on the scale of the world. Furthermore, it is not possible to vote about everything, if for no other reason than that information gathering, discussion, and voting takes time. Meaning that much power must be given to leaders, at least temporarily."
No anarchist would argue that "power must be given to leaders, at least temporarily". Anybody who gives power to leaders is not an anarchist. True, anarchist socialism would not be achievable overnight, but as long as leaders are in power the society is not functioning under anarchist socialism, and any central planning that occurred would be the result of those hierarchical structures from capitalism which have not yet disappeared. Anarchists do not believe in the "central planning" of society, which is the blunt of most criticisms of socialism. We advocate rather the most decentralized planning possible, a society where power flows entirely from the bottom up rather than from the top down. Anything less, to the anarchist, is not true socialism.
The absurdity continues...
:"But central planning or anarchist coordination requires very good knowledge of the future in order to make good decisions. But in the real world it is often impossible to make long term predictions as discussed in chaos theory. In capitalism this is solved by simultaneously trying many possible solutions and letting the real world and competition find the best. But anarchist coordination or central planning means that often one or only a few solution will be chosen. And in many cases these solutions will be the wrong ones due to the faulty forecasting."
By substituting competition for cooperation, anarchist organizations do not come to "one or only a few solution (sic)" to problems. Anarchists do not demand uniformity of opinion. In an anarchist society, each community is free to pursue whatever solutions it desires to the various problems presented to it, and thus, the anarchist argues, a much wider diversity of economic systems and general problem-solving options would be possible than under capitalism. Through trial and error those systems which work well would be discovered and adopted elsewhere. Those which work badly would obviously fail and be rejected. Every individual, every commune, every federation would be free to enact their own solutions to their own problems, rather than having these decisions made by people at the top of hierarchical organizations, as in the capitalist corporation or the modern bureaucracy. How in the world would this cause a diminution of the number of available solutions for problems? — Ливай | Ⓣ 02:58, 7 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  False claims about anarchist beliefs 

message: Mihnea deleted somebody's sensible observation about the effect of potential competition on mitigating the pricing effects of a monopoly. The existence of a monopoly logical implies that actual competition is absent, but nothing more. I restored the point, making it more explicit. This has brought to my attention the fact that wikipedia has no entry for potential competition, which is odd since its an important and basic concept in economics, covered in all introductory texts. 
On the scholarly level, here's one recent discussion of the effects of potential competition in one industry. (yale seminar) --Christofurio 19:07, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Potential Competition 

message: There seems to be a dispute between Ultramarine and myself that has emerged largely as a result of misunderstanding (as far as I can see). Ultramarine, your edit summary suggested that I reverted your edits, when in fact that was not the case. I merely edited your text, while keeping all your points. The only thing I removed was a criticism of primitive societies in the Historical Examples section. I did this because primitive societies are only admired by a subset of anarchists, who are in turn only a subset of socialists. Further, the anarchists that admire primitive societies - namely anarcho-primitivists - oppose socialism (indeed, they oppose all of the "Left" and traditional politics in general) and do not describe themselves as socialists. Perhaps you should add your criticism to the anarcho-primitivism article (if it isn't already there). Not all non-capitalism is socialism. -- Nikodemos (f.k.a. Mihnea) 21:08, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm glad to see that most of our misunderstanding has been resolved, Ultramarine. All we have left to do is discuss the Incentives for individuals section. I believe it is a straw man, or at least not appropriate for criticisms of socialism as a whole. Why? Because it seems to rest on the assumption that there is no wage differential in a socialist economy: "All people earn the same, so there is no incentive to work". This is not true for most theoretical socialisms, and certainly not true for any of the real-world societies that have been called "socialist". Granted, socialism does aim to reduce wage differentials, but not necessarily eliminate them altogether. One may argue that a more egalitarian distribution of wealth would reduce incentives to work, but this is empirically false: Many of the richest nations in the world have a low Gini index. -- Nikodemos 20:55, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Add the above. However, not all socialists agree with you and then this is an argument against those socialists. Also, socialists may have different views on the reward for different genetic ability and inheritance.Ultramarine 10:05, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I rewrote the Incentives for individuals section, adding the information above and eliminating the rather tangential reference to Parecon. I have also merged the two incentives sections, for no other reason than because I find their old titles to be misleading (the "Incentives for organizations" section discussed many individual incentives too). Please review my edits and tell me your opinion. -- Nikodemos 05:49, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent edits 

message: Please quit making complete reversions to early edits.  The reversions are changing a number of edits made by different people.  If you want to have an edit war, at least isolate the changes you are warring about to reduce the collateral damage. – Doug Bell talk•contrib 22:33, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please quit making blanket reversions 

message: This article is so unclear and unbalanced that it doesn't even hold my interest. It seems more like a "defense" of socialism than an explanation of why opponents object to it. 
Tactics like changing the subject in the middle of the paragraph are more suited to propaganda: "Many people don't even consider this to be socialism." (A subtle and effective way of saying that this criticism doesn't apply.)
Also inadequately addressed is the tension between (a) the profit motive as something which may benefit all of society or enrich a powerful few and (b) centralized planning by elected administrators, which may benefit all of society or enrich a powerful few.
A more balanced critique would classify various socialist experiments into types and then list criticisms by type:
*Dictatorships as in Soviet-style Communism (including Eastern Europe, China, North Korea & Cuba)
*Elected governments (er, would that include Chile?) such as Sweden, Venezuela (nationalized oil)
*Mixed systems, i.e., essentially free market but with anti-monopoly controls; welfare state entitlements; protectionism; government-owned transportation, mail delivery, trash pick-up; etc.
I have no particular bone to pick with any of these economies (but I'll admit to some pre-judgment against any dictatorship which treats a professed desire for emigration as de facto treason).
I'm more interested in as objective an analysis as possible of the major variants of socialism which have been tried. --192.195.66.45 20:56, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There are no "socialist experiments", either today or at any point in history, which have been universally considered socialist by all socialists. Saying that any particular historical example constitutes "socialism" would be an endorsement of a certain point of view. Analysis of the "major variants of socialism which have been tried" belongs in separate articles, and should not be collected here. Criticism of Soviet-style Communism is covered extensively in the article on criticisms of communism. If you want to read about Sweden, Venezuela, or whatever other country, please see Sweden, Venezuela or the specific article on the country you are looking for. -- Nikodemos 22:50, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Unclear and unbalanced

message: This article is opaque. At the moment, it gives few straight answers, probably since the article, like most, has evolved rather than been written structurally. As 192.195.66.45 pointed out, criticisms are effectively left in the air: they don't attach to those types of socialism to which they belong, and they hang over where they oughtn't. Therefore, each criticism should name the types of socialism to which it is and isn't pertinent, if it can be applied to any one generally. If it is a result of the specific policy of one or more countries, then it should either go in the articles for those countries or, if a policy which is likely to be common to socialist theory, should be included here noting that it is variable based on what policies are enacted. Certain general claims, e.g. anti-planned economy claims (unless covered elsewhere) should be given initially (and exclusions made where socialist theory permits work arounds, e.g. "Except in Left-Anarcho-Polyhedral Socialism and other camps which adopt a policy of zero tolerance on pidgeons").
I'll leave this suggestion for a little while, and if there are no objections I'll try and begin. Help would also be appreciated, especially from people who know the taxonomy.--Nema Fakei 00:13, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Precision!