Youtuber “Libertarian Socialist Rants” (hereafter abbreviated as ‘LSR’) has a video entitled “Top Ten Capitalist Arguments” in which he responds to ten reasons given for the capitalist economic system. LSR’s video is professional. He expresses his ideas clearly. A science writer could only hope to grasp and summarize research as well as LSR has. I learned new things when I watched this video: for example, most workers today do not feel engaged with their work.
Before I give my commentary, I think it’s important for us to understand a few things about this issue.
LSR and I both agree that socialism is the way forward.
LSR is a libertarian socialist, which means he thinks people should work based purely on voluntary choice, not because they need to earn money.
I lean towards democratic socialism, which means I think the factories should be owned by the workers themselves and that the workers should receive a cut of the factory’s profit based on how much they have worked. In other words, the farmer’s co-op is the model business type for our economy; Everything from credit unions (which are financial cooperatives) to New Era Windows and beyond (see Capitalism: A Love Story for several examples) stands as tangible proof that democratic socialism works.
If our economy was as I think it should be, there would still be a profit motive: you’d get paid more to work more hours, and there would still be all kinds of incentives for innovation, just as there is the present economy. Though my position is considered a form of socialism (factories would be owned socially, not privately), democratic socialism recognizes that (1) incentives should exist within the economy, (2) prices should be fixed by supply and demand (not the government).
There are questions that come to mind when I watched the video, and here they are:
“More innovation occurs when people believe their activity has intrinsic value rather than merely being a means to make money…”
Completely correct. In fact, I have been extremely surprised to find that Linux, a free, community-created computer operating system, works even better than made-for-profit operating systems like Windows. Wikipedia, whose entries are written for free and which is free to access, is often more reliable and up-to-date than made-for-profit encyclopedias are. This nicely dovetails the cognitive science that shows incentives can often hinder creativity rather than stimulating it.
That being said, there are far more things that we need to keep society working besides computer operating systems, Wikipedia, and various other things that people show a willingness to do for free. Society needs toilets cleaned, trucks driven, it needs people to construct a house or repair a roof in the hot sun, and so many other things that people probably don’t see any intrinisic value in. This is why it is necessary for us to have an economic system that offers incentives: if people aren’t motivated to do it on their own, we have provide them with a motivation, an incentive.
How does LSR think we should motivate people to do highly unpleasant work without money as incentive?
LSR makes the point that the free market doesn’t always increase economic development, and notes that the founding fathers advocated and implemented protectionist policies during the early years of America’s economic development. I agree.
LSR argues that capitalism is wasteful and that one-third of the food we produce is lost or wasted. While this is indeed true, it is important to ask whether libertarian socialism would do a better job of saving food. One-third of food is lost or wasted under capitalism; I see no reason to suppose that less food would be lost under libertarian socialism. There are reasons to think less food might go to waste: For example, if food was freely given to everyone who wanted it, I imagine more food would be consumed before it passed the expiration date. That said, I can also imagine that libertarian socialism would result in less food being produced, simply because the lack of economic incentive to farm would probably result in it happening less often. Rewards may stifle creativity a bit, but rewards do not necessarily stifle labor.More to the point, I suspect most people do not farm because it is something they like doing. They do it for the incentive of money, so if we remove the incentive it will happen less often.
Would libertarian socialism result in everyone having more than enough food to eat, and if so, how do we know?
Though many people in the past predicted the work week would eventually shorten to around 15 or 20 hours per week, I see no reason to think this is actually possible in the present day, nor does LSR cite any.
Is it possible to prove, empirically, that our country could keep the same standard of living if the average person worked 15 hours per week?
LSR says that ethical consumerism is a poor way to curb bad business practices. However, avoiding all bad business practices might only be possible if eliminated business altogether, and if we did that I worry we wouldn’t have a way of getting people to do all things we need to keep our society running (refer back to my first question). We can live with bad business practices if the alternative is the collapse of society.
LSR critiques government regulation as a solution to the problem of unethical businesses. I don’t think we are quite at the point where billionaires have a death grip over our political systems: there are numerous examples of wealthy people being put in prison, fined, etc. for breaking the law. On the other hand, wealth does have quite a bit of influence over politics, even though it doesn’t have complete control. I think publicly-funded elections would lift a great deal of this influence, libertarian socialism isn’t the only viable solution.
Libertarian socialists actively participate in capitalism by earning money and buying things, which some people take as hypocrisy since lib. socialists are supposed to reject those practices. Well, I have sympathy for LSR here: Just because you participate in an economic system doesn’t mean you have to agree with said economic system. It’s not like you could choose another economic system to participate in, you’re stuck with whatever your surrounding environment has in place.
LSR finishes his video by responding to argument “Capitalism is the only alternative!” which he rightly says it isn’t.
Of course, capitalism means different things to different people. If we use the textbook definition of capitalism, “a system where the means of production are privately owned” then I fully agree that capitalism isn’t the only way, or even the best way (I think democratic socialism is better). On the other hand, some system in which there are rewards for hard work, prices set by supply and demand, which are often taken as integral parts of capitalism (even though democratic socialism also contains these elements) probably are necessary for society to work as well as it does now.
