It's the best week of the year.
It's the Mises Institute's Mises University summer program.
I'm here with Regina, my 14-year-old daughter, who's attending all the sessions of her own volition.
So I'm taking notes designed to make the material more accessible
to someone her age, as we sit together in the lecture hall.
Today we heard a talk about one of my favorite topics: why pure socialism, with state (or collective) ownership of the means of production, must create chaos and impoverishment.
Most people, conservatives in particular, get this
wrong.
They think the main problem with socialism is incentives: why will people work hard, or do dirty jobs, if the rewards are equal?
Not the point.
Ludwig von Mises in 1920 showed that even if
socialists could transform human nature, to make everyone prefer to act for the welfare of strangers over their own welfare, and even if this new kind of person would be delighted to do dirty jobs for no extra compensation, the system still couldn't work.
Why not?
(1) If the state
permanently owns the means of production, then there's no buying and selling of those things.
(2) Without buying and selling, prices can't arise.
(3) And without prices, resources can't be directed to their most value-productive ends.
(4) It becomes impossible, therefore, to calculate profit and loss. All economic decisions become arbitrary, and some even destructive.
This is the "socialist calculation problem."
Nearly all socialists now grudgingly concede
that there must be private ownership of the means of production.
On this list, though, it's not my job to bash socialism; today I couldn't help myself.
It's my job to make you a better capitalist.
You
can do that by getting your prospects' attention, building an audience, making your content more likely to be shared, and in general maximizing your chances of earning the dough.
Looking like a wizard who's mastered the Internet doesn't hurt, either.
Easy yet
awesome way to do this:
Tom Woods
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