Economics and Socialism - Why there aren't any "Socalist Economists."

Economics and Socialism - Why there aren't any "Socialist Economists."

I would like to hope that with this post, many will understand one of the problems with Socialism, as well as the reason why Economics is a bit less specialized and a bit more grandiose than simply plugging numbers into models and formulas all day.

At their heart, most modern Economists are Socialists. "But wait! Isn't the title of this about why there isn't any socialist economists?!" Right, we're talking about Economics, not Government. So in a manner of speaking "We are all Socialists now."

Joseph Schumpeter extrapolated on a concept that he called "Creative Destruction" with his book, "Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy." The concept simply has to do with the destruction of some markets at the hands of technological advancement. The idea is that as we shift the burden of human labor off onto technology (which is its entire purpose) the necessity for human labor will diminish. If you were to throw this on a graph, it would have time on the X axis and employment on the Y. As time progressed through industrialization and technological development, we would see employment rise during industrialization and plateau while we advanced technologically. At the far side of the graph we would see a sharp drop which would represent the economic equivalent to Ray Kurzweil's Technological Singularity. (Strangely enough, they're related!)

So what I'm really saying here is that technology will progressively push us into a state where employment is less and less necessary - and that's not necessarily bad.

The socialism aspect comes in at the distribution of wealth and how the allocation of resources will work within a society. Given that Economics is literally the study of resource allocation, at that point of technological development, we're saying that less labor required = lower cost for goods. At an extreme, that would mean that food would be at or near free, simply because the cost to produce it is so small. (Economic Note: The reason why we outsource so much labor, is because employing US workers is ridiculously expensive. Goods can be sold cheaper (and so to a larger audience) if labor costs are reduced.)

So what's the issue? How Government gets involved. Most people without an Economic background (or those with Political Science degrees) would argue that this progression of technology and economics necessitates Socialist Government structures... and that's false. Labor parties are actually counter productive to the development of technology because they're trying to remain EMPLOYED. Same issue with Labor Unions. How does the quote go? "If you want jobs for jobs sake, sell all the heavy equipment and hire men with shovels." Basically "A job for all!" is diametrically opposed to the purpose of technology itself (minimizing or eliminating the necessity for human labor.)

Ultimately, the problem with imposing Governmental socialism on a society is that it compromises the method to which we achieve this goal of technological advancement and price decreases - The market. On top of that, it requires the use of force against others. Forcefully taking money from groups to provide benefits to others etc. Even if taxation seems okay to you, it may not be to others. A universally acceptable form of Government and Economy must be acceptable to all. Some cultures are less opposed to taxation and that use of force than others.

At the end, a market free from Government obstruction (Econ 101; every government action has unintended consequences) will ultimately yield the same end result that political socialists advocate, but it will do it without a controlling government forcing egregious human rights violations on its people.