Arguments put forth by opponents of socialism

[benhur]

Comrades,

Some people, even well-meaning ones who're sympathetic to socialism, come up with arguments against it for the following reasons:

#1 If, for instance, workers control the means of production, how will they manage it all at once? Do they have the expertise and skill? The capitalist may know a lot more, which is why he's able to run a successful business in the first place. So if workers are to manage that, wouldn't that be a mess, since they lack the experience and the skill in this area?

#2 Why go through the trouble (of #1), when a simpler solution would suffice, namely increasing wages and reducing labor hours, increasing taxes for the rich etc. etc.?

What do comrades think? Is this what social democracy all about, a mixture of capitalism and socialism? Please provide some ideas on this.

[Demogorgon]

#1 If, for instance, workers control the means of production, how will they manage it all at once? Do they have the expertise and skill? The capitalist may know a lot more, which is why he's able to run a successful business in the first place. So if workers are to manage that, wouldn't that be a mess, since they lack the experience and the skill in this area?"Big Capitalists generally don't organise the workplace themselves, they hire people to do so. Their role is directing investment. It seems ridiculous to say that lack of capitalists will lead to lack of management expertise when capitalists and managers aren't even the same thing by and large.


#2 Why go through the trouble (of #1), when a simpler solution would suffice, namely increasing wages and reducing labor hours, increasing taxes for the rich etc. etc.?

As long as the capitalists are in charge, how likely are they to go for that as a rule?

[ZeroNowhere]

#1 If, for instance, workers control the means of production, how will they manage it all at once? Do they have the expertise and skill? The capitalist may know a lot more, which is why he's able to run a successful business in the first place. So if workers are to manage that, wouldn't that be a mess, since they lack the experience and the skill in this area?
This is based on a common misconception, that is, that capitalists are managers.
"Our friend, up to this time so purse-proud, suddenly assumed the modest demeanour of his own workman and exclaims: “Have I myself not worked? Have I not performed the labour of superintendence and of overlooking the spinner? And does this labour, too, create value?” His overlooker and his manager try to hide their smiles."
Also, no, I don't see the problem with workers organizing things themselves. As Marx details in Capital, the capitalists eventually, after bringing workers together for organized labour, had to create managers as well in order to keep the workers as efficient as possible. These managers can stay, except elected democratically and subject to recall.


#2 Why go through the trouble (of #1), when a simpler solution would suffice, namely increasing wages and reducing labor hours, increasing taxes for the rich etc. etc.?
Firstly, Keynesianism... It didn't go too well.
Secondly, capital strike.
Thirdly, tax loopholes.
Fourthly, we wouldn't be able to bring about a welfare state anyways without the chance of revolution.
Fifthly, the original premise was flawed.
Of course, there's also the fact that there's still exploitation, alienation, artificial scarcity, famine, etc.

[mikelepore]

The stockholders are able to put together a board of directors for an industry that requires technical knowledge, say, aerospace, even though the stockholders don't have to know anything at all about the industry; the stockholders only need to know the phone number of a stock broker. Then it's wouldn't be possible for the workers to do any worse than that at putting together a management team, and we can expect the workers to do much better, since the workers are, for example, that actual staff of the aerospace plant, and daily operate all aspects of the plant. The stockholder-elected dictators in the industry can only give us a form of top-down political appointees as the management chain, but bottom-up worker representation at all levels would bring technical intelligence.