That's not REAL socialism!
Whether or not "true capitalism" or "true socialism" have ever existed is completely irrelevant. Not everyone needs to become a capitalist or a socialist for us to see why socialist market intervention violates the consent of individuals and results in the opposite of its intended effect, or why uninhibited consensual exchange only happens when the consenting parties involved all expect to benefit (making it inherently win-win ).
Similarly, not everyone in the world needs to become a rapist or abstain from rape to prove that rape is a morally wrong, imprudent way of starting a family.
It is the collectivist, socialist, interventionist aspect of mixed economies which cause and exacerbate the severity of complete market failures. When individuals abstain from exchange, it's because they don't expect to benefit. Using the state to force an exchange to happen absent consent (which usually happens by price fixing) does not change the fact that parties withholding consent don't experience the exchange as a benefit but rather as a loss.
Mixed economies are rigged against those who threaten the competition averse by being productive and innovative. In a complex economy, market allocation of resources at all stages of production is the only way in which consumer demand can be balanced with supply such that the economic calculation problem is avoided. Every next intervention designed to protect someone from the outcome of market competition creates two more problems which, from the perspective of the interventionist, necessitates more intervention, the continued implementation of which distorts prices and divorces consumer demand from supply (which leads to resource misallocation and supply shortages).
That's why mixed economies lead to outright socialism and communism, both of which lead to mass starvation. The market doesn't deserve to be blamed for that.
It's not the market's fault that socialist market interventionism sucks so much ass.
I'm Jared Howe! I'm a Voluntaryist hip hop artist and professional technical editor/writer with a passion for Austrian economics and universal ethics. You can catch my podcast every Friday on the the Seeds of Liberty Podcast Network.
I've had this dank may may on bookmark since Anarchyball shared it. Instant classic.
I can hear the socialist already, "capitalism is oppression" and "one mans gain must be another mans loss". Neither of those statements are true, if I voluntarily want to exchange currency for beer with another individual then we would both be benefiting from the voluntary transaction otherwise one or both of the parties involved would not consent to said transaction. Value is subjective, if one individual values beer more than currency and vice versa for the other individual then they both profited, and if the transaction was consensual then nobody was being oppressed. Another awesome article Jared.
One of the enduring absurdities of socialism and communism is that, in some strange fashion, wages are slavery. Somehow, trading your labor and time to someone in exchange for some good, like money, or a service that benefits you is slavery. It's abject oppression. They like to cite that if capitalists owned all the natural resources, they would employee people for next to nothing.
Never mind the fact that a) you still have to work even if you assume no ownership of any real property in order to survive and b) working for pennies provides a benefit to the worker: not starving to death.
Jared, you have a very exquisite way to communicate your message.
I agree. Jared, your writing is rarely ever wordy. It's concise and to the point with real world examples and good analogies.
Thanks guys. I appreciate the warm feedback.
Ass sucking socialist intervention
You two are adorable together!
"Venezuela is not true socialism" -- Says every socialist
But when you ask when what it is, they can never precisely define it, they will always tell you that it misses 1 more step
Simply Great Information and Presentation