Have you ever disagreed with a decision your parents made when raising you? Have you ever disagreed with your best friend about what activity to do or where to go to eat? Have you ever disagreed with a business practice of the company you work for?
What I described last week I think encompasses all the things that bring people to socialism. The good communal values and the valid criticisms of the established system and the flawed nature of the world are why people become socialists. Explicit theories on a replacement economic system come later.
After all the books I’ve read, lectures I’ve listened to, and debates I’ve watched, I know there is no one economic system called “socialism”. As socialist economics professor Richard Wolff once said, “capitalism did not emerge out of feudalism all finished in one swell foop… it took centuries. Socialism wasn’t born all at once either.”
But there is a common thread. One fatal flaw poisons every economic system and, indeed, every economic policy conceived on the foundation of socialism: it treats the society as the core economic unit. Whether the society is a commune, a country, or all of humanity, society is a group composed of separate individuals and individuals sometimes disagree. No amount of government force, no economic system, no inculcation of culture can eliminate the essential individuality of the human being. And as long as society is organized so that every member must operate as one with every other member, disagreements will tear society apart. And the rare genius of today’s evolved economic system we call Capitalism is that it treats every individual as the core economic unit.
Let’s take the best possible scenario and say the Socialist economy is run by a well-functioning democracy. Decisions are made by popular vote. So minority opinions get no say.
You know what’s a minority opinion right now? That it’s worth paying more for organic fruits and veggies. So if economic decisions are made by popular vote, there will be no organic fruits or veggies available to society. Society operates as one. It’s all or nothing.
But maybe you’re not a state socialist. Maybe you just want the employees of a business to also run the business. How? Do you hold votes for every policy change? Every change of offices? Every salary? Do you want equal power over the business you’ve learned the ins and outs of over the last 15 years with the 18-year-old intern who delivers your coffee?
Or do you rotate management jobs through the entire workforce equitably even though there are clearly some employees who are better managers than others?
The truth is, you don’t need to answer me. If you’re not a state socialist, then socialism isn’t a separate economic system. It’s just a new business plan. You don’t need a revolution. You don’t need to restructure the entire international economy. If you want businesses run like that, you just need to start businesses and run them like that. And if your ideas work, then they will be competitive. And if it’s so much better for workers, then workers will swarm to them, forcing traditionally organized businesses to raise wages to attract them back. Win-win.
So that’s the best possible scenario. Now let’s talk about the worst possible scenario.
Part of the socialist critique of society is the idea that hierarchy is evil. But when you want to go to McDonald’s and your friend wants to go to Burger King and society may only choose one, one of you will get your way and the other will not. When you want the company’s standard font to have serifs and your coworker wants the standard font to be sans-serif, one of you will get your way and the other will not. That is hierarchy. No decision can be made, democratic or not, without the emergence of hierarchy. Therefore, at the end of the day, some members of society will get their way and other members of society will not.
When economic decisions are made by society rather than by individuals, some individuals will still exert control over society. And when all of society operates as one, those individuals control everyone else.
Even the radically unpopular power-grabbing Donald Trump managed to get 74 million people to vote for him. While the milktoast Joe Biden that no one was really excited about got 81 million. If this were a socialist democracy, that would mean that we could vote for one person who half the country hates to not just run the government, but run every single company too. That’s not a consolidation of power of the 1%. That is a consolidation of power of the 1.
At least in a capitalist economy, if you’re running the government, you’re not also running the oil industry. And if you’re running the oil industry, you’re not also running the car industry. And if you’re running the car industry, you’re not also running the grocery industry. And if you’re running the grocery industry, you’re not also running the government.
And no one runs the government because the president has to fight for control with congress. And no one runs the oil industry because BP has to fight with Exxon. And no one runs the car industry because Honda has to fight with Tesla.
Now it might sound good for us to vote one great, noble, selfless, wise leader like Bernie Sanders to be in charge of everything so he can make everything better for everyone. But what do you suppose happens to the position of supreme overlord once it has been created? Every evil, power-hungry, lying, cheating, sociopathic bastard in all of society will make it their one mission in life to be that supreme overlord. And one of them will win.
Power naturally consolidates. Ancient civilizations had kings and pharaohs. Armies have warlords. Tribes have chiefs. Schools have the cool kids. CHAZ had Raz Simone. It happens everywhere and always. Capitalism is the best system humans have ever designed to prevent or at least slow the consolidation of power. It still doesn’t work perfectly but there has never been a system that works better. Keeping government and the economy in conflict is the key.
John D. Rockefeller used every dirty trick in the capitalist handbook — starvation wages, threats and lies, operating at a loss until the competition goes out of business — to build one of the most powerful monopolies in industrialized history. And how long did it last? Less than 40 years. Because, for all his money, Rockefeller didn’t run the government. Meanwhile, the Dutch East India company, a mercantilist monopoly — a monopoly with government blessing — oppressed people around the world for 197 years and Gosplan — the Soviet economy planning bureau — oppressed every laborer in Russia for 70 years and only ended when the entire country collapsed.
Capitalism is dangerous. Hierarchies are dangerous. Tyranny and abuse emerge in capitalism all the time. But, to mangle a famous Winston Churchill quote: “Capitalism is the worst economic system, except for all those other systems that have been tried from time to time.”
