[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
No no, there’s nothing ethical or unethical about it, period. Marx’s argument, that is presently being so dramaticaly confirmed, was that capitalism doesn’t work. That’s why we need an alternative, because eventually, we’ll have to change.[/quote]
Part of the issue on this thread currently, and in real life generally, is that many folks do in fact feel there ARE ethical issues with either system (thus the highly charged rhetoric we see). I am not concerned with the ethics for the time being though.
To the point about capitalism failing and thus needing socialism, I will again employee the less-than-scientific glance around the world and recent history method. Using the start of the United States (~250 years) we can surmise which countries and economies have done the best or simply survived at all. I am genuinely going to try and avoid cherry picking and it is also very important to note that different types of government interventions exists which have different effects on the efficiency of an economy (e.g. high taxes with low regulatory measure effects the economy much differently than medium taxes and high regulatory measures).
- Soviet Russia has fallen as well as virtually all of its satellite nations.
- Cuba has an economy which is performing so poorly that its own leaders have publicly admitted socialized agriculture and other measures have failed and must be redressed (in line with ‘socialism’)
- America has become the wealthiest country on the planet and remains so by some margin
- China’s economic renaissance has come in lock step with its liberalization of its economy, starting with its “economic development zones” along the coast which were far less regulated than the hinterland based on the idea freer markets do better
- Greece and the rest of the more socialized PIIGS have or are on the brink of financial insolvency
- France, the most highly socialized of Europe’s economies in many respects, has had chronic high-unemployment for the better part of a decade particularly among young workers.
- The UK went from being one of the worst performing economies in Europe before Margret Thatcher and the ‘Tall Poppies’ reforms to be one of, if not the, best performing economy in Europe
- New Zealand, while having in general a highly socialized society, has the most productive per capita agricultural sector in the world. It is also the only pure free market agricultural sector in the world with zero subsidies. After an initial period of shock, the market recovered and now their farmers are the highest paid and most productive workers in the world by some measure. Compare this to highly regulated continental Europe and the difference is striking. To be fair, they are also better than the US in this respect as our agricultural sector is highly subsidized and highly regulated
- The Scandinavian countries enjoy a generally robust economy while still being highly socialized, but despite very high tax rates have surprisingly low regulatory measures in place for the market.
- Somalia, one of the only stateless or near-stateless societies on earth, has had one of the fastest growing economies and life spans of any country in Africa. Periods of outsider intervention (e.g. Ethiopia, the US, the United Nations, etc.) have caused notable disruptions to these trends. Certainly not a utopia as some anarchists would claim, but shows economies can do much better without a government than with one, socialist or “capitalist”.
The list goes on and their are outliers in every instance, but I do not think that history or evidence is on the side of socialism.
Regarding Marxisms predictive power, I would also point out the Austrians do in fact have a high predictive power compared to other schools of economic thought. Many Austrians predicted the dotcom and housing bubbles accurately for example.
Of course for a number of reasons predictions in general are often not a sign of efficacy as anyone who has seen a fortune teller before can attest.