The Socialist Paradox

[MaxB]

The Socialist Paradox
This does not mean, due to past failures of socialist experiments, that social visionaries will stop trying to create the collectivist utopia. A glance at the world scene today will dispel any such notion. But all these social experiments are doomed to failure because a collective cannot act; only individuals act. They may work with one another in a collective effort, but that output is only the sum total of individual action. Walter Lippmann understood this condition well when he wrote of the Nazi experiment in the 1930s:

The success of this experiment would seem to depend upon the fulfillment of a paradox. All Germans must sink into docile but eager resignation, accepting the decision of the Fuhrer as the fellah accepts the will of Allah; and then out of this conforming mass must arise brilliant, adventurous, and supremely intelligent leaders.12

Within the socialist framework, only the collective (read that, "People") has importance and yet, as Lippmann so aptly pointed out, the kind of leadership needed within a society must come from that same mass that has been told that individual initiative is evil. One cannot be a leader without exerting individual initiative; likewise, as Israel Kirzner has noted, a growing, dynamic economy is impossible if the entrepreneur does not have freedom to act (in the Soviet Union and a scattering of other socialist nations, to engage in entrepreneurship for profit is to commit a capital offense punishable by death.)13 This might account for the reason numerous western visitors to communist lands have remarked that the countries seem economically and socially frozen in time, a condition that certainly applied to East Germany when I saw it last year.14 People in the GDR have tremendous pressures upon them to conform, and the penalties for nonconformity make it extremely unattractive for people to risk imprisonment and even death just to improve one's financial state (one can also place political dissidents and artists who refuse to succumb to "Socialist Realism" in their work in this category of risk takers). Thus, to reduce the risk, would-be entrepreneurs must often engage in bribery and stealing in socialist nations; as one recent exile from the Soviet Union writes, the socialist system is greased by corruption.15

[Pete]

The "Socialist Paradox" is only seen when you look at socialism from a rightest point of view. It is where the self fish quest for profit comes to play that Socialism is seemed to be at falt. But the driving force behind leftist thought is the equality of the People. With out this there is no socialism. The only reason to do a job is for the selfless betterment of the community and because you genuinley enjoy doing it.

Aswell, the GDR was a Stalinist nation, and not at all like the socialist ideal. In Che Geuvara's "Man and Socialism in Cuba" article the true meaning of the collective is realized.

"The difficult thing for someone not living the experience of the revolution to understand is this close dialectical unity between the individual and the mass, in which the mass, as an aggregate of individuals, is interconnected with its leaders."

It is true that a leader is a necassary evil, especially in a world where capitalists are at large. But the leader is truly the servant of the people. If the leader does not suit the will then there is "a decline in collective enthusiasm [that] is reflected by a resulting quantitative decrease of the contribution of each individual." How is it that a man like Castro can maintain power for longer then even Pierre Elliot Trudeau, then, if the people are displeased with his existence? He is a spokesperson of the people. When they met "two musical melodies whose vibrations provoke still newer notes" are found in the same room. The People and their chosen leader.

But how can a capitalist speak of a "Socialist Paradox" when the very basis of their system is shaped by injustice and hypocracy. The plutocrats only hold power because they cruelly oppress the rest of the world. "You are either with us or against us" said George W. Bush. No wonder a top Canadian offical thinks that he is a moron.

In the words of Zach de la Rocha "The land of Chains, wut? The land of the free, who ever told you that is your enemy." It is true that America, the foremost Capitalist nation is only prosperous because of its creul oppressive imperialism across the world. Look at Indonesia. The brutalist dictatorship so we can get all our shirts from sweat shops. The RIght is Hypocritical

Socialism has not failed. It is not a paradox. The leader comes out of necessity in fending off the Capitalist agression. If there were no Capitalists, the community would act independantly free of leadership. The basis of Capitalism is the true paradox. Your freedom is realized through the oppression of others, not common love between the people and the leader.