On the inevitability of socialist failure
Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2019 1:15 pmA common objection raised against proponents of communism/socialism is one that points towards the failure, historically, of the various left-wing movements and countries in establishing lasting socialist societies. It is usually something along the lines of "it has failed everywhere and every time it has been tried." The implicit conclusion here, of course, being that it will thus always fail. So the argument has a form akin to "X has not happened, therefore X cannot happen".
It is an easy rebuke. Too easy, in fact. People who raise this objection tend to, in my experience, neglect to provide any further reasoning for it. I daresay, of course something can still happen just because it has not yet transpired. So this strikes me as somewhat fallacious reasoning, although I'm unsure if there's an exact term for it. In any case, it is not particularly sound, especially when it is sometimes presented to be a kind of law. I could, for example, just as easily point to the many failed instances of establishing democracy, "popular rule" and so on. But, you may argue, we have seen instances of its success. You may say so, but that is because we all have the benefit of hindsight (hindsight bias, if you will). If I were living in the past and unaware of the later predominance of liberal democratic systems of government in the Western World, the argument would appear just as convincing.
What then would be a more convincing argument? One that puts forth the causal mechanism(s) behind failure. Even more so, one that locates, within historical events, key factors and turning points (i.e. "this is where it went wrong"). Because then it would actually be possible to have a discussion about the supposed inevitability of socialist failure. It would be possible to discuss whether such "turning points" are caused by certain laws of human behavior, deeply ingrained parts of human nature or if they were the product of the specific historical circumstances and therefore can’t be generalized to all humanity past, present and future.
tl;dr: People claim socialism (and communism, by extension) will inevitably fail. They often point to the failure of past socialist states as confirmation. But I have serious doubts about why this should necessarily be the case. My questions are as follows:
As a side note, I did not wish to simply post this in the LWDT, because I feel the general and wide scope of that thread is not conducive to more in-depth discussion on certain subjects. That is why I felt this topic merited its own thread.
What say ye, NSG?
It is an easy rebuke. Too easy, in fact. People who raise this objection tend to, in my experience, neglect to provide any further reasoning for it. I daresay, of course something can still happen just because it has not yet transpired. So this strikes me as somewhat fallacious reasoning, although I'm unsure if there's an exact term for it. In any case, it is not particularly sound, especially when it is sometimes presented to be a kind of law. I could, for example, just as easily point to the many failed instances of establishing democracy, "popular rule" and so on. But, you may argue, we have seen instances of its success. You may say so, but that is because we all have the benefit of hindsight (hindsight bias, if you will). If I were living in the past and unaware of the later predominance of liberal democratic systems of government in the Western World, the argument would appear just as convincing.
What then would be a more convincing argument? One that puts forth the causal mechanism(s) behind failure. Even more so, one that locates, within historical events, key factors and turning points (i.e. "this is where it went wrong"). Because then it would actually be possible to have a discussion about the supposed inevitability of socialist failure. It would be possible to discuss whether such "turning points" are caused by certain laws of human behavior, deeply ingrained parts of human nature or if they were the product of the specific historical circumstances and therefore can’t be generalized to all humanity past, present and future.
tl;dr: People claim socialism (and communism, by extension) will inevitably fail. They often point to the failure of past socialist states as confirmation. But I have serious doubts about why this should necessarily be the case. My questions are as follows:
- Is the failure of socialism inevitable as anti-socialists like to claim?
- What, then, would be the casual explanations for its inevitable failure?
- Can you identify the precise points in time (the "turning points") where things go sour?
As a side note, I did not wish to simply post this in the LWDT, because I feel the general and wide scope of that thread is not conducive to more in-depth discussion on certain subjects. That is why I felt this topic merited its own thread.
What say ye, NSG?