Reply #134: Einstein wanted socialism [View All]

[economic_liberal]

Albert Einstein wrote an essay in May 1949 titled, "Why Socialism?" I just learned about this essay yesterday from a post about it on AlterNet:

http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2011/03/12/in-the-shadows-of-wisconsin-here-is-a-saturday-afternoon-thinking-project-why-socialism-by-albert-einstein/

A copy of the entire essay can be found at:

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/Einstein.htm

Here are some extracts from it that I find very relevant today, especially when he mentioned how in a capitalist system, the capitalists take full control of the government and media so democracy can't work:

"I may indicate briefly what to me constitutes the essence of the crisis of our time. It concerns the relationship of the individual to society...his position in society is such that the egotistical drives of his make-up are constantly being accentuated, while his social drives, which are by nature weaker, progressively deteriorate. All human beings, whatever their position in society, are suffering from this process of deterioration...The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil.
...
the payment of the worker is not determined by the value of his product. Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of the smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.
...
Technological progress frequently results in more unemployment rather than in an easing of the burden of work for all.
...
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy.

In the end though, he shows that he doesn't have complete confidence in a centrally planned socialist economy because he cautions that centralized power can be corrupted:

The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralization of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?

Einstein definitely didn't like US-style capitalism or selfishness. He saw socialism as a good alternative yet couldn't really come up with an answer as to how to prevent a socialist government from being corrupted. The way I see it, this shows that there are real problems with both systems and there isn't an easy solution.