A brief digression on what have been done so far ⇡

In this section we will briefly review the usual arguments against socialism, and why we think these are not satisfactory. If you don't care about what we are not saying, you can skip this part.

The school of natural law posits that individual rights are given to every human being by god or by nature. If so, no matter how advantageous it would be to implement some policy, if contradicts personal freedom, it must be rejected. However, there seem to be no laws in nature, law is chosen by man. Therefore you can't just state what you think is moral, you need to sell it, you need to explain why your idea of morals is any better than the alternatives. Referring to nature is mere handwaving. Moreover, just because something is natural, it is not a good reason to keep it. Caves are natural, yet we live in houses, which are markedly artificial. We need to dig deeper.

The calculation problem goes back to Mises, and considered canon in some circles of liberty. As it is stated, the free floating price system organizes the economy under the condition of free market, including the capital market. Without this organizing force, it is impossible for any one man or committee to decide which production pathways should be favored. On face value though, it is not too convincing that calculation is an issue in the age of computers. After some detailed analysis, it turns out that the calculation problem is incompletely stated, there are two parts of it: calculation and information availability. The former probably indeed can be solved, if not today, then eventually. The latter can't be, unless we envision some truly horrifying all-seeing Orwellian surveillance. However, it might be estimated to a satisfactory degree. Also, the central planning can be limited to production factors, where you can expect people to cooperate with a central information system. We are not saying it is possible, but it is certainly not absurd.

Incentives and efficiency, or rather the absence thereof, is the linchpin of central planning. Bloated administration, choking red tape, slow decision making, poor risk assessment, and cost insensitivity destroy productivity and waste vast amount of resources. However, efficiency is only one factor out of the many, material wellbeing is not above everything. Some inefficiency might be fine, since we already have high living standards, thus fast progress is not vital. We can sacrifice efficiency for other important issues, like safety or fairness.

The 20th century was ravished by democide, crimes of regimes totaling in over hundred million deaths worldwide. No matter how outrageous these atrocities were, it can be argued that the mass murders were committed only in the name of socialism, not a consequence of it. It is not immediately obvious whether murderers have exploited the ideology, or the ideology itself is murderous. There are arguments out there to show the connection, but it is still up to debate, and it is not convincing to just throw around claims with no firm backup.

But the most important criticism of these arguments is that they're not addressing the core issue: we don't want socialism, or at least we shouldn't, because it is not a good way of living. This is what this article is about.

On motivation and values ⇡

We agree with the critiques of capitalism: money is not the number one motivator. In fact, it is not even number two, number two is competence. The main evolutionary trait of human beings is problem solving and modeling. We live in a hostile world which consumes us in the blink of an eye if we are not vigilant. Most of the processes out there were a complete mystery to us for many millions of years, and most of the dangers seemed to be an unavoidable part of existence. But this has changed when man discovered science. Ever since, the true passage to adulthood is not through physical dominance, but the ability to participate in civilization, contribute to the concerted effort to keep the destructive forces of nature at bay. Competence is an ever growing understanding of, and a mastery over our surroundings, as well as ourselves. Being able to overcome difficulties, build solutions, create something new is second only to one thing.

Bragging about it. That's right, the number one motivator is pride. We humans are social animals, the respect of our fellow men is easily the greatest source of satisfaction. As they say, some things can't be measured in money. But all things can be measured in pride! It covers building businesses, helping people in need, writing a poem, or just generally being a nice guy. All of these are paid with respect, if done good enough. Pride is also more selective. Many things pay well despite being downright evil. But none of these will make you proud of what you are doing. Pride is the purest and most honest forms of payment, and therefore must be cleaned from the negative connotations associated with it, and put on the pedestal it belongs.

The universe is devoid of values, it is mostly just vacuum with a little bit of plasma scattered around. Values only exist in the human mind. Upon cursory examination, it is clear how values and pride is connected: your values are what you are proud of. They are essentially the same thing. Values being entirely intrinsic does not make them arbitrary though; it's an important observation to make. One can not just pick values, as value systems are shaped by experience and introspection, over long periods of time. We don't have control over them, nor we can reliably introduce someone to a particular value system. We can provide input, and see the individual develop. But apart of that, values are what they are.

Personal achievement is quintessential to pride. One can not feel pride without genuine choice, you can't be proud of being lucky or being told what to do. Some people try to find pride in their nationality or fandom of a sports team. But those are mere imitations of achievement, and often the achievements themselves are imaginary, especially in the case of nations. For a truly pride driven society, you need grassroots initiatives of ambitious people, acting on their own impulses or reason.

Pride and socialism ⇡

The relationship between socialism and pride is best described as polar opposites. It is true for both socialism's daily practice, which is bureaucracy, and its underlying mindset, which is collectivism.

The organizational principle of any attempted socialism is a hierarchy of committees. Ideas and recommendations trickle up, decisions are made somewhere high on this structure, and decrees trickle back down. Individuals are disconnected from the decision making. In theory it is still possible to utilize pride as a motivator, granted by the acceptance of someone's idea, maybe with a badge or acknowledgment. However, it happens exceedingly rarely for various reasons. Risk aversion being one of them. In an individualist society, people can experiment on their own. But in committee socialism, decisions are made for whole communities, regions or the entire country. Nobody wants to experiment with large regions, except a few very powerful psychopaths, and with a good reason, because these experiments usually turn out devastating. In such a setting, most people will restrain themselves from participating in idea generation. The few that can't hold their creative horses will probably climb the committee hierarchy, and end up inside the very core of bureaucracy, becoming corrupt, bitter and disheartened. To get your voice heard in such a system, you need to be good not at ideas, but manipulation and deception.

Anybody who lived in bureaucracy can tell how annoying and spirit breaking it is. The stupidity and indifference of bureaucrats is something one can never truly describe, you have to experience it yourself. The thought that you will live your entire life with these guys in charge. That you will never get anywhere, you can never work on your dreams, never become what you envision your true self. The feeling when you give up on your ideas in order to avoid being rejected. This is defeat. Crushing, debilitating defeat, the kind that results from prolonged abuse. The kind that becomes habitual, accepted and internalized.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, many were surprised how quickly it went from seemingly functioning to nonexistent, in not more than a decade. One explanation for this phenomenon is that nobody liked it, nobody wanted to live in it, not even decision makers, not even the higher ups. Everyone waited for a sign. I don't know what this sign was, but whenever the idea appeared that the system might end, people just threw their hands in the air, there was zero resistance.

The ideology of socialism is not any brighter either. The core idea of socialism in all its forms is to eliminate risk and responsibility. Initially the social safety net was designed to take care of the fallen, those facing starvation or freezing. Today, the same net is used, in most western countries, to save people from undesired labor, lack of luxury items like mobile phones or cars, and similar "calamities".

Compulsory schooling is introduced to make sure everyone gets the same education. At this point, proponents of the system don't even claim they want to help those that can't afford schooling to their children. The goal of the system is to eliminate differences altogether. Vouchers or any combination of private and public schools are frowned upon.

Behemoth healthcare systems are installed, outbidding or often outlawing private solutions, because it is unacceptable that someone doesn't get proper medical care in need. Again, the pattern is clear, helping the poorest when in trouble is a sentiment of the past. Today, the very idea that money can buy better services is unacceptable to many. But even in less extreme countries, the services of the public healthcare system are numerous and all encompassing. It is very hard to argue that a standard blood test costing a handful of dollars should be paid by state regulated or mandated insurance. Yet it is what socialists want, and it is what we have.

Most of the time these government services don't even deliver on their promise: instead, the promise itself is the service. It does not heal or educate, only gives a false sense of safety. Retirement funds are bankrupt all over the world, and will eventually turn into an ugly class war between old and young. Yet the promise of safe retirement is still a major motivating factor and talking point for the youth of today.

Such safety is supposed to be liberating. It has the opposite effect. The only thing that makes a human being tick is making meaningful decisions. Once a man is deprived of all important decisions, once nothing really matters anymore, no actions will feel worthy of doing.

In the famous experiment, a rat was given heroin, and it quickly overdosed itself. But when the rat had a life, family, space to explore, food to find, dangers to run from, it didn't overdose, but remained a recreational drug user. A well known fact is that animals in captivity often engage in self destructive behavior if their cage is too small and they can't engage in their natural activities. A zoo animal has a much better life than its wild counterpart, isn't it? It does not have to care about food or predators, it receives quality healthcare too. So what is the problem? And why don't we see ourselves as benefactors to cows? Surely, it is better to be a cow than a deer, hunted and torture-killed by packs of wolves. Yet, we usually consider caging and breeding a form of exploit, unnatural and undesired for the exploited.

It is no different for humans. If you don't have a good reason to put up some effort, you won't. You will probably enjoy it first, but the feeling of emptiness will creep up on you. You can visualize free society as a slope: the more effort you summon up, the higher you climb. Every step requires dedication, and every step rewards you with a little better life. Socialism, on the other hand, is a pit. You get around effortlessly down there, but then, if you want more, you face a steep wall you need to climb, with no reward if you fall back halfway. In such arrangement, people will all clump up near the bottom of the wall, with no reason to take any less, but no real opportunity to get ahead. Choice is eliminated.

Without choice, there is no pride, without pride, there is no life. Drugs, alcoholism, adventure seeking, destructive behavior become pandemic. People turn into zombies, mindless automatons that don't do anything without direct order or authorization. Control and help become necessities, and more and more will be needed, in a vicious cycle, to keep society operational. Eventually, the culture of individual effort and interpersonal cooperation fades away. At this point, society is heading toward collapse.

Additional sophistication ⇡

The above argument stands on its own, but we feel the need to address some potential counterarguments in advance. Please feel free to skip this part if you think socialism is sufficiently demolished already. We offer some optimistic outlook in the section after.

There is life outside of struggling for survival, getting healthcare or acquiring the goods most people around us have. Once these are provided, for example in the form of universal income or other means, people will choose other goals to pursue, more noble, more interesting goals, so does the argument go.

You can't ask someone to write a poem if he can't write a proper sentence. The learning process always stars with the basics, the simple things, and more complex things can be layered on top. If you imagine a society with individuals capable of undertaking serious ventures, surely they are able to take care of their more basic needs, especially as those get easier with progress. Those that can't choose school for their children, can't decide on a diet or a healthcare plan for themselves, won't suddenly be the architects of a better future when their basic needs are taken care of. Organizing a company, inventing a new machine or creating art needs considerably more effort and dedication.

Others will say: the picture we gave so far is not socialism, but some kind of state capitalism or simple dictatorship. True socialism is a voluntary cooperation of people, in which nobody is coerced to do anything, or participate in any scheme. It simply taps into our natural tendency to look after each other, and achieve goals as a united group, not as competing individuals.

First of all, it is clearly the marketing version. Every time socialists got any close to power, they immediately went for the coercive route. No socialists attempted to increase freedom at any point in history, not serious ones anyway. Unless, of course, by freedom you mean "empowering" the poor, which consisted of the confiscation and redistribution of wealth, hardly a move toward real freedom.

But the true counterargument is that it does not work like that. The argument we've put forward is a psychological one, stemming from human nature. It does not matter if people voluntarily engage in group decision-making or forced to do it. What matters is the opportunity, or lack thereof, to make decisions and benefit from them. Similarly, it does not matter if people voluntarily don't eat vitamins or denied by decree. Either way, they're dead.

Obviously, we do don't literally mean it does not matter if it is voluntary or not, it surely does matter. The precise statement would be, given human nature, it is unimaginable that collectivism can be maintained for any considerable period of time without coercion. It only takes so much time for collectivism to fail miserably in comparison with genuine individual entrepreneurship in the broad sense. Proponents of collectivism will always have to resort to oppression to eliminate competition.

The way forward ⇡

So where do we go from here? I mean, we are living in socialism. Or, more precisely, partial socialism, more at some places, less at others, but not radically different. So how do we move toward a future that is markedly not socialism.

We must put pride back at its deserved place, the highest pedestal of all. Let bragging be the new norm, but brag not about our car, house or other possessions, nor power or status. We should brag about our achievements, the things we have created, the knowledge we have acquired, the teams we have built, the ideas we invented. Measure our lives by the value we contributed to the glorious march of Mankind, a magnificent journey into a future brighter than the Sun, brighter than anything in the universe.

Creators are our heroes. True heroes don't fight dragons, true heroes ride dragons, and fight lack and need and ignorance. They create light, comfort, knowledge, new abilities and new horizons. Creators are artists, entrepreneurs, inventors, scientists, philosophers, driven by passion, not stopped by hardships or obstacles.

Be a creator. However small, it is still infinitely more valuable than any politician or ruler can ever hope to be. Find your way to creation, there's plenty to choose from. It is never too late. If you have one year left, would you want it to be the year you started to be a factor, or you want it to be just another year of no consequence? Your own wellbeing depends on it, but also the wellbeing of all the people coming after you. Whatever you create will spawn an exponentially increasing wave of flourishing. Help forging the future, or at least don't stand in the way!