: I've seen a lot of posts holding that some kind of universal "change of heart" will be required for Socialism's success. Well, if you read some of the posts, there are also some who point to the idea that socialism might be just what will bring that change about.
: One of the major advantages of capitalism is that the price system efficiently handles information concerning what goods should be produced and what services should be provided. A planned economy would buckle under the sheer weight of decisions faced by it's leaders. When the price of butter goes up, farmers step up their production to meet demand. If the farmhands object, they will strike and force the farmer to pay better wages (note that the right to strike is essential to capitalism).
The price system also poses its own problems. Capitalism in its very nature seeks to produce as much as possible for as little a price as possible, to improve profits. However, as capitalists quickly find out, automatization is better and cheaper than human labor for this purpose - therefore we get a boom in unemployment. Then all the goods the enormous production system creates cannot be sold (the people can't afford it), and prices run amok - just as what could be seen in the Wall Street crash, the crash of 1987 and the Far East rout of today. When automatization push people out of the primary and secondary employment classes (farming, production, industry and so on), they are forced into the tertiary (service) in order for the capitalist system to continue. Then that sector is automated too through computers, and we have the situation of today, people being forced from there into the quartary sector, that of information management. But when automatization is improved there too - the same thing will happen again. I'm not saying that we should stop automatization, for it represents the technological development, but under socialism the price crashes and routs would be over.
It is correct that centralised planned economy will put so great a strain on the people doing the planning that it would not only be unrealistic but also produce an enormous waste. However, there is the alternative of self-management economy which was for example practiced under Titoism. In this system, the State owned and controlled the production, but the actual 'planning' of the economy was to be handled locally in each of the companies. Each of the people involved in the production would then be paid an equal percentage of the income. This system also has the advantage that if the workers work harder and better, they will be the ones that benefit from it, not some Bill Gates III - there we have that so often discussed 'incentive'. (This system is an idea of a socialism wher money has not been abolished yet)
: Capitalism is superior not only because it better reflects human nature, but because it better reflects the inherent difficulties in managing a global economic system.
I hope to have pointed out how socialism can accomplish both these things as well.
None.
