From: Otteson, James. The End of Socialism. Kindle sample. A large proportion of people endorse policies— … a political worldview— that is what I will call socialist-inclined. [remainder of this section will leave out “…” marks where edited to condense] Socialist-inclined policy is that which tends to prefer centralized over decentralized economic decision making. It also tends to distrust granting local people or communities a wide scope to organize themselves especially when their decisions conflict with larger social goals. Socialism tends to prize material equality over individual liberty and is willing to limit liberty in the service of equality. It tends to hold self-interest is either morally suspect or can be eradicated from human behavior by the proper arrangement of political, economic, and cultural institutions. The conclusion I draw is socialism is a difficult and costly system of political economy that the specific conceptions of its moral values do not justify. That constitutes the end of socialism in both senses of the word end: - an attempt to implement it will inevitably end in heavy costs to its community - the philosophical case for socialism ends in failure Today, the term “capitalist” is usually meant as a pejorative epithet, carrying with it the connotation that someone is greedy and selfish, uncaring toward others, and probably indifferent toward values such as fairness and equality. Similarly, being a “socialist” means allying oneself with unrealistic utopian schemes and failed or dictatorial political experiments. Some recent defenders of versions of capitalism have argued because the term is so widely misunderstood and has so many negative connotations, we should abandon it and go with something else: commercial society, free enterprise society, market society, innovation society. Perhaps the logical complement to socialism is not “capitalism” but “individualism.” Since the word “socialism” seems to emphasize the primacy of the community or society over the individual, then “individualism,” which reverses the preference, might be what is called for. Socialism has come to refer not just to social or cultural claims but also to economic and political claims. Thus, “capitalism” seems the better opposing choice because it, too, seems to encompass not only economic but also political and even cultural institutions. Socialism’s traditional definition is the public ownership of the means of production. That definition reflected the central method for achieving socialism’s goals at a time— late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries— when “means of production” were almost exclusively things like factories and land. Owning them enabled the reorganization of society’s political economy in the service of socialism’s ends. By the dawn of the twenty-first century the digital age has utterly transformed economic production. What constitutes “means of production” has now broadened to become indefinitely open-ended. The socialist inclination has had to adapt to the times. Rather than owning the means of production outright, it now typically proposes to regulate, canalize, or “nudge” people’s behavior and redistribute portions of their productive output in preferred directions. The principal values that motivate socialism have been— and remain—equality, community, and fairness. What will always be required for socialism to serve its ends is to centrally organize political-economic decision making. Without that, there is no socialism. With it, the fairness, equality, and community of socialism can be achieved. By contrast, socialism’s antithesis—capitalism—has at its core decentralized political-economic decision making. Its preferred values might be justice, liberty, and individuality, but it holds that allowing individuals or voluntary groups of individuals to make political-economic decisions for themselves with little state interference is what enables the realization of the values it holds dear. The socialist-inclined position tends to favor planned patterns of social order—or the correction of unplanned patterns— according to principles and authority centrally derived and administered. The capitalist-inclined position favors unplanned or “spontaneous” patterns of social order that are deferential to what individuals and voluntary groups decide to do and skeptical of what third-parties might like to mandate or nudge them to do. I argue this is the real difference between socialism and capitalism.
Posted on: Sun, 28 Dec 2014 13:05:42 +0000
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