Socialism diminishes people's incentive to work to improve their circumstances by depriving them of the fruits of their efforts.
Image credit: Flickr-AK Rockefeller | CC BY-SA 2.0
Advocacy of "socialism," which the Socialist Party of the USA defines as a "social and economic order in which workers and consumers control production," has resurfaced in U.S. politics in recent years. Public figures such as Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders sing its praises. But the truth is that socialism profoundly undermines people's ability (and motivation) to improve their own living conditions. The misery that socialism has caused millions of people refute its promises, in a terrible way.
Socialism, its advocates claim, will bring prosperity and better living conditions for all, a claim that is also made for communism, in which the government controls the means of production and the distribution of the results. British philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote that socialism is "calculated to increase the happiness, not only of the proletarians, but of all but a small minority of the human race." Like its advocates throughout history, the now-defunct Socialist Workers Party of the United States described socialism as a utopia, writing, "Under socialism our farmlands would produce an abundance without great effort; factories, mines and mills would be the safest, the most modern, the most efficient possible and productive beyond our wildest dreams and without laborious work." The website does not specify how such magic would be produced.
The website further insists that socialism would improve virtually every aspect of life, stating, "Our natural resources would be intelligently conserved. Our schools would have the best facilities and would be devoted to developing complete human beings, not wage slaves [sic] who are trained to hire themselves out for the benefit of others. Our hospitals and social services would create and maintain the best health and recreational facilities."
But socialist policies, when enacted, have catastrophic effects on the lives of the people who live under them. To implement such policies, governments must take control of people's property - either by totally nationalizing enterprises, mandating what and how much an enterprise must produce, or confiscating and distributing its products - thus violating people's right to the product of their own effort. Among the victims are the entrepreneurs who have built or bought businesses, the owners who maintain and manage property, and everyone who earns a wage, from construction workers to artists.
By violating these rights, socialism diminishes people's incentive to work to improve their circumstances by controlling or taking away the results of their effort. No matter how hard you work, no matter how much you achieve, no matter how much value you create, it will not be reflected in your income.
Novelist Ayn Rand dramatized the effects of this doctrine in her magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged. In the novel, a small-town factory promulgated Marx's motto "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" as policy, so that each person's salary depended on what managers considered to be his level of need compared to that of his colleagues. They did this based on factors such as the number of children supported by employees, illnesses of family members, etc. People began to spend more time sharing their sorrows with management than working, and many of the best employees left the company altogether. Within four years, the factory closed. One character explained the hopelessness created by the policy: "Why were we supposed to want to work? For the love of our brothers? What brothers? For the bums, the slackers, the freeloaders we saw around us? And if they were cheats or simply incompetent, if they were unwilling or unable, what difference did it make to us? If we were tied for life to the level of their inability, feigned or real, how long would we care to go on?"
He explained that the company had once been a thriving enterprise where people were proud to work, but now hard times were the status quo: "We were beasts of burden struggling blindly in a kind of place that was half hospital, half barnyard, a place geared to nothing but disability, disaster, disease, beasts put there for the relief of whoever decided to say it was anyone's need."
This story, although fictional, points out an important fact about human nature: If people can't change their situation, they won't try. Knowing the outcome beforehand, they will feel no motivation to make Herculean efforts in exchange for minuscule or nonexistent rewards. As the economist Ludwig Von Mises said:
To make a man act, discomfort and the image of a more satisfactory state are not enough. sufficient. A third condition is required: the expectation that the intended behavior has the power to eliminate or at least alleviate the felt discomfort. intentional behavior has the power to eliminate or at least alleviate the discomfort felt. In the absence of this condition, no action is feasible. Man must yield to the inevitable. He must submit to destiny.
Socialist policies severely restrict the ability of individuals to improve their conditions, so that productivity suffers and living conditions plummet. Historical examples of socialism, as well as those of Venezuela and North Korea today, show the resulting misery.
In Soviet Russia, the government tried to distribute equitably the results of sixty years of steady GDP growth by confiscating personal fortunes and dictating wages. But the purchasing power of the average citizen was drastically reduced, and whether a person could spend his or her salary depended largely on knowing the right people. Economist Mark Harrison explains, "The distribution of consumer goods and services was characterized by scarcity and privilege. Every Soviet adult could count on an income, but income did not decide access to goods and services: that depended on political and social status."
People who lived under the Soviet regime and now live in modern Russia appreciate that they have more opportunities to improve their lives than before. In 2007, interviewers asked Russians about their memories and opinions of life under the Soviet regime; many of them recalled that the USSR had "fewer possibilities." One respondent explained, "Now there are many possibilities. You can earn enough money even to buy an apartment. It is certainly very, very difficult, but possible." Another participant elaborated, "Now I can earn money and there are many ways to do it. . . In the Soviet Union, engineers and other middle- and high-ranking technical employees were not entitled to a second job. People who had time and energy and wanted to contribute more to their families could not do so."
In other words, people were willing to work very hard to improve their conditions, but they were not allowed to do so.
In Venezuela, socialism has sunk a once prosperous country. University professors juggle multiple jobs to keep food on the table. Others are trying to escape a desperate situation; more than six million have fled in recent years and in 2017 the suicide rate was nearly double the world average. Venezuelans are willing to work to improve their circumstances, but the oppression and economic destruction of the socialist regime constantly thwarts their efforts.
North Korea was conceived as a communist nation after World War II, but formally changed to a form of "self-reliant" socialism after the Korean War. The Korean Workers' Party leadership has brought widespread misery in the form of horrific rights violations such as torture, severe censorship, forced labor and arbitrary detention. Its policies have also resulted in nearly half the country suffering from inconsistent access to food and water, in stark contrast to its much more capitalist neighbor, South Korea, which has prospered in recent decades.
Advocates of socialism protest that the historical examples of socialism are not "true socialism" or "the right kind of socialism." But it is socialism - people giving the government control over the production of things - that undermines the ability and willingness of people to produce and support themselves in all of these examples.
In contrast, with the free market, people are free to own private property and run businesses without the government dictating production or distribution. People are rewarded for their hard work and ability. By innovating, excelling at work, and creating more and better products or services, they can earn more money, which they can use to pay for better housing, education, electronics, travel, or other life-enhancing goods or services produced by others. Hence, in mostly free and capitalist countries, such as the US, the UK, Ireland and Hong Kong, people have enjoyed massive economic growth, which has been matched by a significant rise in the average standard of living.
When human beings struggle, create and innovate, but their efforts do not improve their own circumstances, they become exhausted or give up. Marx, Russell, Sanders and other advocates of socialism and communism claim that their preferred systems are "for the people," but the truth is that they go against the nature and needs of human beings.
This article was originally published in Spanish in FEE.
