Limited Democratic Socialism
I've previously written about libertarianism. About how their first principles seem quite reasonable on paper, but not always in practice. The seems to be true of socialism. They start from very different first principles which sound nonetheless quite reasonable, but the conclusions that are drawn from them are not always correct.
I'm basing this on Planet Money and their interview with professor Richard Wolff. He explains his Marxist-socialist position this way:
The word "socialism" has as its core the word "social". There is a social dimension to everyone's private decisions. As a private person I decide privately not to purchase health care, and I become sick. But if I'm sick and I go on the subway or I go on the train, or I go to school with my child, I make other people sick. We are woven together. We cannot pretend that the private decision that individuals make don't have a whole raft of social consequences. Once we admit that it does, there must be social accountability and responsibility woven into how we manage this.
Alan Davidson (the interviewer) agrees that individual choices can have external costs, but not that there must be a socialized system of accountability for these costs. In libertarian capitalism there are mechanisms to capture and recover these costs. My individual decision to drive drunk imposes costs and injury on people who did not agree to bear them, but courts can order recovery of those costs. The state can force you to buy me a new car to replace the one that you totaled. You can pay me a monthly stipend to supplement my lost income from injury. You can't bring my dead child back to life, but a sufficiently large damage settlement is as just a settlement as it is possible to broker under the circumstances.
Wolff agrees that this is correct in many cases. If my mechanic's shoddy work destroys my car's engine, I should be able to seek remedy and compensation for the costs my mechanic's error has inflicted on me. But this is not always the case. Wolff asks, "How do you capture the impact of my not going to a doctor and becoming ill in one way or anther and infecting how many people (we don't know) with how many consequences on those people (we don't know)?" In some cases no mechanism exists to hold individuals responsible for the consequences of the choices they made. We cannot capture the externalized costs that an individual's private choices inflict on the social network in which we all live.
I accept this rationale. Perhaps this makes me a socialist.
One thing that I like about this rationale is that it preemptively answers the question that usually follows: "If the nanny state can take care of A, B, and C why shouldn't they also take care of X, Y, and Z?" A socialist government (of this stripe) should only get involved in private decisions which externalize sufficiently large social costs that are otherwise impractical to mitigate, capture, or account for. You need a department of fire safety more than a department of underwear safety because the social costs to a neighborhood where an individual chooses to maintain an unsafe building are greater than the social costs in a neighborhood where an individual chooses to wear unsafe underwear. Modern socialists took a lesson from the failure of the eastern bloc and the modern prosperity of China and Vietnam and understand that individual ownership and responsibility lead to prosperity.
Another thing I like is that it dovetails with the socialism that most people are otherwise happy with. Our socialist fire departments exist so that neighbors, apartment buildings, and neighborhoods can mitigate the costs that cannot be recovered from every unattended kitchen grease fire teenager playing with matches. Our socialist military exists to mitigate costs that cannot be recovered from suing an invading army. If I can find the person who wronged me and recover the cost of the harm they caused, a socialist solution is not necessary.
Another thing I like is that this rationale is that it doesn't require that the proletariat to control the means of production, though it should still happen in some cases. In natural monopolies like water and sewer services where choices are limited and failure is catastrophic, those services should be managed publicly and democratically, but those are exceptions to the rule.
Another thing I like is that it's still less socialist than the US constitution, whose enumerated powers include establishing post offices and roads, coining money, and setting standards of weights and measures. Why? What irretrievable, unaccountable social costs are externalized in the absence of a government bureaucrat delivering my mail or telling me how long a meter is? By what rationale - even socialist rationale - is Article 1 Section 8 justified? (That's actually a fairly big question which I hope to write a whole separate post about.)
Of course, as with libertarianism, if you accept Professor Wolff's camel's nose into your tent you don't have to accept the rest of his camel. You can accept his first principles (or anyone else's first principles) without following every possible interpretation to every justifiable conclusion. And I'm not trying to say that a strict socialist policy would be any better or is any more necessary than a strict Libertarian or Democratic or Republican policy. These days all nations exercise a mixture of policies which are variously libertarian/capitalist, and democratic/socialist as dictated by their population and needs.
I'm basing this on Planet Money and their interview with professor Richard Wolff. He explains his Marxist-socialist position this way:
The word "socialism" has as its core the word "social". There is a social dimension to everyone's private decisions. As a private person I decide privately not to purchase health care, and I become sick. But if I'm sick and I go on the subway or I go on the train, or I go to school with my child, I make other people sick. We are woven together. We cannot pretend that the private decision that individuals make don't have a whole raft of social consequences. Once we admit that it does, there must be social accountability and responsibility woven into how we manage this.
Alan Davidson (the interviewer) agrees that individual choices can have external costs, but not that there must be a socialized system of accountability for these costs. In libertarian capitalism there are mechanisms to capture and recover these costs. My individual decision to drive drunk imposes costs and injury on people who did not agree to bear them, but courts can order recovery of those costs. The state can force you to buy me a new car to replace the one that you totaled. You can pay me a monthly stipend to supplement my lost income from injury. You can't bring my dead child back to life, but a sufficiently large damage settlement is as just a settlement as it is possible to broker under the circumstances.
Wolff agrees that this is correct in many cases. If my mechanic's shoddy work destroys my car's engine, I should be able to seek remedy and compensation for the costs my mechanic's error has inflicted on me. But this is not always the case. Wolff asks, "How do you capture the impact of my not going to a doctor and becoming ill in one way or anther and infecting how many people (we don't know) with how many consequences on those people (we don't know)?" In some cases no mechanism exists to hold individuals responsible for the consequences of the choices they made. We cannot capture the externalized costs that an individual's private choices inflict on the social network in which we all live.
I accept this rationale. Perhaps this makes me a socialist.
One thing that I like about this rationale is that it preemptively answers the question that usually follows: "If the nanny state can take care of A, B, and C why shouldn't they also take care of X, Y, and Z?" A socialist government (of this stripe) should only get involved in private decisions which externalize sufficiently large social costs that are otherwise impractical to mitigate, capture, or account for. You need a department of fire safety more than a department of underwear safety because the social costs to a neighborhood where an individual chooses to maintain an unsafe building are greater than the social costs in a neighborhood where an individual chooses to wear unsafe underwear. Modern socialists took a lesson from the failure of the eastern bloc and the modern prosperity of China and Vietnam and understand that individual ownership and responsibility lead to prosperity.
Another thing I like is that it dovetails with the socialism that most people are otherwise happy with. Our socialist fire departments exist so that neighbors, apartment buildings, and neighborhoods can mitigate the costs that cannot be recovered from every unattended kitchen grease fire teenager playing with matches. Our socialist military exists to mitigate costs that cannot be recovered from suing an invading army. If I can find the person who wronged me and recover the cost of the harm they caused, a socialist solution is not necessary.
Another thing I like is that this rationale is that it doesn't require that the proletariat to control the means of production, though it should still happen in some cases. In natural monopolies like water and sewer services where choices are limited and failure is catastrophic, those services should be managed publicly and democratically, but those are exceptions to the rule.
Another thing I like is that it's still less socialist than the US constitution, whose enumerated powers include establishing post offices and roads, coining money, and setting standards of weights and measures. Why? What irretrievable, unaccountable social costs are externalized in the absence of a government bureaucrat delivering my mail or telling me how long a meter is? By what rationale - even socialist rationale - is Article 1 Section 8 justified? (That's actually a fairly big question which I hope to write a whole separate post about.)
Of course, as with libertarianism, if you accept Professor Wolff's camel's nose into your tent you don't have to accept the rest of his camel. You can accept his first principles (or anyone else's first principles) without following every possible interpretation to every justifiable conclusion. And I'm not trying to say that a strict socialist policy would be any better or is any more necessary than a strict Libertarian or Democratic or Republican policy. These days all nations exercise a mixture of policies which are variously libertarian/capitalist, and democratic/socialist as dictated by their population and needs.