Why Politicians Win (and Workers Lose) Under Socialism

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Why Politicians Win (and Workers Lose) Under Socialism
By Hans-Hermann Hoppe
April 28, 2017

Socialism leads to the politicization of society. Hardly anything can be worse for the production of wealth.

Socialism, at least its Marxist version, says its goal is complete equality. The Marxists observe that once you allow private property in the means of production, you allow differences. If I own resource A, then you do not own it and our relationship toward resource A becomes different and unequal. By abolishing private property in the means of production with one stroke, say the Marxists, everyone becomes co-owner of everything. This reflects everyone’s equal standing as a human being.

The reality is much different. Declaring everyone a co-owner of everything only nominally solves differences in ownership. It does not solve the real underlying problem: there remain differences in the power to control what is done with resources.

In capitalism, the person who owns a resource can also control what is done with it. In a socialized economy, this isn’t true because there is no longer any owner. Nonetheless the problem of control remains. Who is going to decide what is to be done with what? Under socialism, there is only one way: people settle their disagreements over the control of property by superimposing one will upon another. As long as there are differences, people will settle them through political means.

If people want to improve their income under socialism they have to move toward a more highly valued position in the hierarchy of caretakers. That takes political talent.

Under such a system, people will have to spend less time and effort developing their productive skills and more time and effort improving their political talents.

As people shift out of their roles as producers and users of resources, we find that their personalities change. They no longer cultivate the ability to anticipate situations of scarcity to take up productive opportunities, to be aware of technological possibilities, to anticipate changes in consumer demand, and to develop strategies of marketing. They no longer have to be able to initiate, to work, and to respond to the needs of others.

Instead, people develop the ability to assemble public support for their own position and opinion through means of persuasion, demagoguery, and intrigue, through promises, bribes, and threats. Different people rise to the top under socialism than under capitalism. The higher on the socialist hierarchy you look, the more you will find people who are too incompetent to do the job they are supposed to do. It is no hindrance in a caretaker politician’s career to be dumb, indolent, inefficient, and uncaring. He only needs superior political skills. This too contributes to the impoverishment of society.

The United States is not fully socialized, but already we see the disastrous effects of a politicized society as our own politicians continue to encroach on the rights of private property owners. All the impoverishing effects of socialism are with us in the U.S.: reduced levels of investment and saving, the misallocation of resources, the over-utilization and vandalization of factors of production, and the inferior quality of products and services. And these are only tastes of life under total socialism.

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The major flaw with equalitarian ideology is that people are not created equal by nature. The government cannot make them equal no matter how hard it tries. We are not equal in mental and physical ability. In fact we are so unequal that the 80/20 rule tends to apply. That is, only about 20% of us are "great", and most of the great are men. Sorry, but that's just the way it is. The more we push the equalitarian fallacy the further from the truth we get and the closer we get to collapse as a society.

The importance of personal political skills cannot be underestimated. Every corrupt bureaucracy in the world is stacked with people who know how to play that game, especially in the upper echelons. There are many examples of folk who are incompetent in their core duties but possess certain political manipulative skills rising very high in bureaucratic ranks, enjoying the high life at the expense of those whom they are supposed to serve. Such environments are also ripe for infiltration by secretive fraternities, the members of which are under oath to protect each other and cover up underperformance, failure, corruption and fraud. For those and other reasons, bureaucracy and big government are corrupt, unproductive, costly disasters to be avoided, yet we see most of the world is now being bogged down by both.

It is important to remember that under certain conditions, bureaucratisation also spreads through the private sector, and this is exactly what has happened in much of the world. No doubt the complexification and proliferation of public and private sector bureaucracy will continue until society is forced to cut costs by rapidly simplifying, otherwise known as collapse.

In reality, the more capable, intelligent, productive folk tend to leave totalitarian societies where possible, to pursue better opportunities elsewhere. That is, if they are not murdered by the regime or forced to contribute to strategically important development projects.