Getting philosophical

One of the great examples of the futility of socialism was best described by a former radical leftist, David Horowitz, in his autobiography Radical Son. David and friend Peter Collier used to run a magazine titled Ramparts in their hippie days. The inefficient socialist organization of the mag was noted by Horowitz in Radical Son, pages 185-186 (emphases mine):

...we announced that everybody's salary would be equal at $500 a month. We had instituted socialism in one magazine. We hoped, in part, that this would lift the taint from Ramparts in the Left and establish our revolutionary credentials. At the same time, we were mindful of the flaws in the equality we had created. Most of those who received the $500 wage had no family, while others -- Collier and myself in particular -- had several children. We told ourselves that eventually we would make an allowance for "need," but we were never able to figure a way to do it. Meanwhile, Collier and I took pride in bearing our special burden, failing to acknowledge to ourselves that this was an important inequality, too.

Why were we ready to carry an extra weight, unless we felt there was something superior in our position? And there was. It was Collier and I who effectively made the decisions that were crucial to the magazine's operations. The seed of the new inequality had been sown in the revolution itself. Collier and I had engineered the change of power, and carried it through ... everyone recognized that Ramparts' success or failure depended on its editorial product, and its editors had to be the governing body of the magazine, which ipso facto made them more equal than the rest.

And within the editorial board we were more equal than others. This was because Collier and I were the only editors besides Kolodney who could write articles and generate story ideas that made the magazine work. The net effect of the formal equality we created, therefore, was not to share the power but to increase the workload on the two of us, and -- when challenged -- to force us to expose the underlying reality that established our position. You could not dictate the policies of the magazine unless you were prepared to run it. That was the inescapable fact that underpinned our rule.

Of course without a formal hierarchy, every issue that came up had to be debated. The need to justify decisions was not only time-consuming for us, but at times cruel to others. This was impressed on me when we attempted to reduce the mailroom budget and were confronted by a political revolt. The mailroom was staffed by members of Newsreel, a radical collective that had made promotional films for the Black Panthers and the Vietcong. They had no respect for our political bona fides, which they still regarded as suspect. The revolution's pecking order had again shifted to the left (as it was always bound to), and we remained unable to overcome the view that Ramparts was part of the power structure that needed to be overthrown.

Originally, we had hired just one Newsreeler to do the mailroom work, but he had taken on more and more part-time help, featherbedding for his revolutionary comrades. When a point was reached where the mailroom budget exceeded that of the editorial department, we decided things had gone far enough and that we had to cut their hours. But no appeals from us to the common good made any impression. They saw Ramparts as their gravy train rather than their cause, and refused any cuts at all. To them, we were the ruling class and they our rebellious peons.

Because every decision had to be justified collectively, we assembled the entire staff, and in an all-day session hammered at the recalcitrants' deficiencies and derelections, summoning other staff members to testify against them. The session went on for eight hours, escalating as the embattled mailroom crew resisted. Because of their obstinacy, it became necessary to expand the charges and sharpen their personal edge. What had begun as a move to institute economies that would save all our jobs turned into a prosecution. Accusations of laziness, dishonesty, and exploitation of fellow workers were hurled at the hapless defendants. In the end, they were made to feel so bad about what they had done that firing them was almost a mercy. It was a collectively supported, brutal exercise, necessary for us to prevail. Privately, this experience made me recognize the utility and compassion inherent in the principle of hierarchy we had overthrown.

Sasha Volokh posts an opinion on Marxism/socialism by Owen Courrèges:

Sure, there are people who assume the label of 'communist' who claim to be anarchistic, and these people are different from the Stalins and Castros of the world. However, it is a mistake to take such people seriously on matters of political organization, since their view of a perfect society happens to be an impossible utopia, based upon premises far outside of actual experience.

The truth is that communism cannot exist without force because it depends so heavily upon squelching individual human ambition and making it subservient to the community. The moment an individual in a communist society attempts to take property for himself, or trade with others for his own profit, there must be a collective force available to stop his activities. That necessity leads to a strong government, which eliminates any potential for an anarchistic communism. Even softer forms of communism must eventually evolve into their totalitarian brethren. Accordingly, I'd prefer to see the whole lot discredited, regardless of what luminaries might be contained within their numbers.

Then there's another example of a pitfall of socialism: socialized medicine. Myriad examples and anecdotes abound about this system, a hallmark of the Democratic Party. Are Americans truly in favor of government-controlled healthcare? They certainly weren't in 1993 when Hillary Clinton and her healthcare "task force" were roundly rejected by the public. But clearly some improvement is needed for those not insured, and to control healthcare costs. Personally I believe that getting government and insurance companies out of the business will drop costs significantly. As the Libertarian Party's Harry Browne says, “By getting government out of the healthcare industry, healthcare costs will plummet, innovation will increase, and more people will have access to the healthcare they need.” In addition, Browne notes the following about Medicare, and how its contribution to skyrocketing healthcare costs:

Medicare provides a good example [of how government doesn’t work]. It was created in 1965 to make it easier for the elderly to get health care. But by reducing the patient’s out-of-pocket costs, it increased the demand for doctors and hospitals. And it reduced the supply of those services by requiring doctors and other medical personnel to use their time and attention handling paperwork and complying with regulations. So the price of medical care rose sharply as the demand soared and the supply diminished.

As a result, the elderly now pay from their own pockets over twice as much for health care (after adjusting for inflation) than they did before Medicare began. And most older people now find it harder to get adequate medical service. Naturally, the government points to the higher costs and shortages as proof that the elderly would be lost without Medicare--and that government should be even more deeply involved.

Unfortunately, despite the sense Browne makes, his ideas are highly unlikely to be implemented. People have an ever-increasing desire to have someone do something FOR them. Take a gander at what former Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich had in store for your healthcare. Why not just do what Browne advocates and save the country much more cash? Under Kucinich's plan, where is the incentive for doctors and nurses? Drug companies? Doc Russia hits the nail on the head with this observation:

Since medicare puts a cap on prices, it inevitably follows that there will be a shortfall in supply. With the added confounding of health insurance interfering with healthcare, we as a nation, are headed toward a real crisis. As physicians are reimbursed less and less, they will go into areas which will pay them in a manner more commensurate with the training they have put themselves through. That, or they will merely take their money that they invested, and prefer to live a more modest retirement that begins earlier. Either way, there will be fewer physicians for a patient population that will require more services. This will lead to shortfalls for all but the wealthiest of individuals. Patients on medicare will have to endure longer waits, and less attention which will both contribute to a decline in their level of care. The problem snowballs when possible physicians will see the long training period (about 11 years post graduate minimum) accompanied by modest income, the long hours of work, and the interference of insurance companies and medicare, which will persuade them to take their talents into areas which have a higher investment and return ratio than going into medicine. This will further shrink the physician pool, unless one is willing to lower the standards for being a physician. Both of these possibilities will be detrimental to the delivery of quality healthcare. As it is, medicare and insurance companies consume a huge amount of resources in the delivery of healthcare.

A single-payer system invites disaster among physicians. If there are caps now on Medicare, what will happen in a single-payer system if not exactly that? Read much more about single-payer systems (mostly Canadian) here. (Will open Microsoft Word document.)

Posted by Hube at December 27, 2005 08:29 AM | TrackBack