First of all, much of it is common sense. Capitalism rewards productivity, socialism disincentivises it. One big, central gov’t making the decisions will be inherently inefficient to outright foolish - bureaucrats don’t know the intricacies of making automobiles, raising cattle, growing coffee, mining the earth, etc. A market economy handles this much better.
The transient successes of socialism have mostly been akin to making a factory to make parts to make more factories - “all this glorious production” - but it very poorly translates into making good quality consumer goods and lots of them. Witness the real-world history. How have things been going in Venezuela and Greece over the past few years? Check out the recent experience of Spain, and the much longer present history of Cuba. Is North Korea really the best Korea? No, not by a longshot.
I think it’s a truism that it often takes a couple generations for people to get fed up with stupid stuff, even if it seems good in theory at the outset. Look at what happened in the world as a whole after World War II (huge rise in socialism), and specifically in some of the largest countries - China, Russia, East Germany. We get to the late 1980s and things rapidly change. '89 - down comes the Berlin Wall. '90 - China throws in the towel, embraces capitalism to a large extent, reopens the stock exchange, etc. '91 - the Soviet Union collapses.
In all these cases, the knowledge had accumulated that the way they were doing things simply was not nearly as good as in capitalist countries. To a large degree, it was the elite, the high gov’t bureaucrats, etc., who traveled outside those countries, and they were faced with the fact that even with their lofty status at home, their standard of living was frequently lower than a factory-worker in western countries.
It’s a different world now - modern media, movies, internet, cell phones, etc. - it is nearly impossible to hide the failures of socialism from the people.
Even in the frequently-mentioned “best” examples of socialism, i.e. Nordic countries like Denmark and Sweden, there is plenty of evidence of the inferiority of socialism or that we mistake their economies for being socialistic. Bernie Sanders’ misguided, uninformed admiration notwithstanding (
), here’s the Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, speaking at Harvard in 2015: “…some people in the U.S. associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism. Therefore, I would like to make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.” In the ‘2019 Index of Economic Freedom,’ Denmark ranks 14th out of 186 countries, barely behind the U.S. at #12.
Sweden became quite wealthy into and through the 1960s. In the 1970s tax rates were raised a lot, and large social programs were instituted. The growth rate plummeted to the second-lowest of western European nations. It took a while for the people to get fed up with this - it wasn’t until 1991 that a center-right coalition gov’t was elected, and the country moved toward free markets again. As a result, Sweden’s growth rate became the 2nd highest in western Europe - this was true from 1991 through at least 2014.
These countries are still relatively “high tax and high service,” compared to the U.S. They have a much more homogenous population and a strong work ethic that has sustained them, there. People who leave these countries still become more affluent in the U.S., in general, than those who stay. Both Danish Americans and Swedish Americans have over 50% more GDP per capita than Danes and Swedes. Even with the vast oil wealth on a per-capita basis for Norway, Norwegian Americans are wealthier than those at home.
A long post, I know. Let us consider human nature, alone, then. You and I and others are servers at a restaurant. Capitalism lets us keep our own tips. If tips are pooled, and then divided evenly - which would adhere more to socialist philosophy - then problems start. I’m lazy and a poor server, my contributions to the tip pool are not much. You get $100, I get $20. At the end of the day, we get the same. Is this not going to disincentivize you?
In reality, it tends to disincentiize everybody in that situation. “Why should I work harder when we’re all getting the same pay?”
In capitalist businesses, truly lazy employees tend to get fired or reprimanded, and their advancement is usually less. Under socialism, they get “according to their need,” despite them not producing what they should, per their ability. Marx was right about Fichte’s explanation of change being rooted in “thesis–antithesis–synthesis” but he really missed the boat as far as human motivation and what makes for a good, workable society.
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