Another tired argument about "Sanders" and "Venezuela." Yawn. How intellectually lazy of him.
86
climate change
31
More straw from Mr. Brooks.
39
David Brooks sounds like he just woke up from a nightmare circa sometime in the last century.
He needs to start reading the New York Times more. I recommend he start with Krugman's stuff.
Why he wrote this one can only guess but I suspect the original title may have concluded "and that's why we must turn away fron Bernie Sanders and elect Mike Bloomberg" but was probably cut by a mischievous editor.
39
Brooks has his head in the clouds while his world has collapsed. Maybe taking his head out of the clouds for a time might improve his vision.
24
@ commenter who smugly suggests that Brooks’ transformation from a socialist to a capitalist is “growing up.”
Or maybe not. You need intelligence, scholarship and compassion to understand Karl Marx. It is not for idiots and sophomoric fools. You grow up and you understand what is wrong with society. You see poor black people sitting idly in their porches, gazing emptily to the sky of Mississippi having slaved around for pennies all their adult lives and they have nothing to show for. You see obese children in the subway. You see beggars in subway stations. You see billionaires shopping for $ 50K watches that tell the time no better than a 10$ watch. You see immigrant children in animal cages separated from their mothers who are in separate cages. You listen to Dylan singing A Hard Rain is Going to Fall. It may have been written yesterday.
You grow out of admiring Capitalism and start understanding Socialism. That is maturing, not the other way around.
NB: Print this comment. It is significantly better than most others here singing praises to your employee. Diversity demands it.
73
Brooks is bad at math
21
https://www.forbes.com/sites/duncanmadden/2019/03/28/ranked-the-10-happiest-countries-in-the-world-in-2019/#72205e4348a5
Enough said, Mr. Brooks.
19
Capitalism is not a religion, while socialism somehow is? David, what are you smoking?
48
As a Philosophy major many years ago in college I thought that Communism sounded so idealistic and egalitarian - everyone shared responsibility, wealth and combined labor. I was soon to learn that reality was quite different, as also with classic “socialism”. Koestler’s tome “Darkness and Noon” changed my life but never my attitude toward fairness and what is “right” in an ethical sense.
What the sham of a Republican Party calls “socialist” is blatantly a scare tactic to those who do not understand it - a cheap and devious political attempt to garner votes from an uneducated population via demonization and fear. This country has had “socialist” programs since its inception, and they have saved many lives, secured many careers and helped hundreds of millions in need. Anyone collecting Social Security or Medicare/Medicaid knows this well.
So “socialism”, as Republicans use the term, is purely fear-mongering at a time when there has never been a greater financial and social INequity. THEY want to preserve the status quo for their rich friends at the expense of the rest of us, damn the torpedoes. Trump is their wing man because he is devoid of values, ethics, morals and any sense of guilt at his atrocities.
I am not advocating a “socialist revolution”, just a REAL look at what’s going on here. The Republican propaganda machine is in high gear. If YOU don’t pay attention, it will roll over you and you will have an autocracy- a VERY BAD thing.
70
David, your use of the word "socialism" requires an operational definition or at least examples.
Socialist governments, such as pre-Thatcher UK, held significant stock positions in major companies and owned utilities. Are any candidates suggesting this model?
Today's Germany is socialist. Excepting V W and maybe 2 others, the federal government holds a small stock position. Those companies it does hold positions in are positions of less than 5% which entitles the federal, state and city government seats on the board. This approach lead Germany from a shambles after WW2, to the best managed corporations in the world - at least those which government holds shares. Medical care is social-private: Workers / citizens pay into a fund and receive a voucher to enroll in any number of well regulated facilities AND if the subscriber wishes, they can purchase additional insurance for private room in hospital, private nurse, etc.
Rather than your vague rhetoric in which you try to appease everybody, screw up your courage and be direct with example. . .educate instead of perpetuate.
30
You are still for corporate socialism, right?
57
Any system that allows children going hungry sticks.... How many hungry children are in this enlightened capitalistic country we live in????? while bilioners and giant corporations do not pay a dollar in taxes????
24
I was once a dummie.
The I saw through a mirror darkly.
I liked the article.
13
I think I just read Andrew Carnegie’s epithet.
7
How amazing that the major voice in American media--The New York Times--actually published this column from Mr. Brooks. But bravo, anyway. Even though Kevin Williamson says it better (and how come he's absent from the NYT Op-Ed pages?).
2
What a mess of an article. I'd give it a C- if a high school student wrote it.
25
You woukdn’t have to write an “in defense of capitalism” article—oh, I’m sorry, an “anti-socialism” article—if our current version of capitalism was working so well for everybody.
37
It's embarrassing that the NYT gives column space to this drivel. And that Mr. Brooks remains either woefully or willfully ignorant of his subject. Markets are not capitalism. Markets are tools. They are not "good" or "bad" in and of themselves -- like TV. They are the medium. Capitalism is an ideology that has fetishized so called "free" markets -- weakly regulated markets -- and exalted capital and the desires and discourses of those who have it. Socialism is also an ideology. Democracies that support the idea that all of their members should have basic rights and a stake in the common goods of the society -- i.e. socialism -- use markets, but regulate them in ways that hinder the materially weaker being predated by the materially (or physically) stronger, more ruthless or more amoral. Communism is a third ideology. In its empirical economic forms in the 20c, state communism often took the form of markets regulated entirely by the state -- i.e. planned economies -- which are the strawpeople Mr. Brooks lazily and erroneously critiques under the name of "socialism," parroting a long intellectually dishonest argument employed by the financial "winners" in our current system.
67
Mr Brooks. better late than never! Wisdom comes with age... well done! Maybe you should write for the Wall Street Journal! Actually, the NYT needs you. Good place to stay!
15
As they say, a person who is not a socialist at 20 has no heart; a person who is still a socialist at 50 has no brain.
23
Sure, Dave. Because capitalism hasn’t did hurt nobody.
Hey, how’s that global warming thing going?
16
Always a voice or reason and sanity, unusual from the Times.
15
Yet another facile characterization--of both socialism and capitalism.
19
Now do health care
4
I was a capitalist when I was a kid.
Then I grew up. David, when will you?
19
How About Dictatorships like POTUS Trump, Mr. Brooks?
4
Easily said...by a white male.
14
"I came to realize that capitalism is really good at doing the one thing socialism is really bad at: creating a learning process to help people figure stuff out."
Lev Landau
Leonid Kantorovich
Vassily Leontief
Mihail Tal
Alexander Alekhine
Anatoly Karpov
Tigran Petrossian
Lev Pontryagin
Grigori Perelman
Andrei Okuounov
Sergei Novikov
Pyotr Kapitsa
Vitaly Ginzburg
Poor guys, they never learned how to think in Socialist countries. What if they did?
7
And I was once a captilalist. then I saw how _it_worked:
Millions across the planet starving,without even potable water, corrupt dictators and governments raping their respecitve country's treasuries. Institutionalizing misogyny, rascism, and elitism.
INDIA, Mexico, Argentina, etc. Such LOVELY PARAGONS OF CAPITALIST DEMOCRACY.
You should SO be proud to be a capitalist :)
14
David Brooks: you played with new types of thoughts and ideas in college. You were never a socialist. You are the beneficiary of a patriarchal, white supremacist system of values. I'm white and a woman so I have actually benefited from the same system in many ways. You had your dalliance with thoughts you are now uncomfortable with.
12
Oh, David you are at it again with this veiled diatribe on "socialism".
Brooks qualifies this exercise by stating clumsily that he once was a socialist in college until he got out and became a journalist?
It's almost as if his dalliance with socialism was being infected with a venereal disease. Thank you penicillin.
When will Brooks ever pen an opinion piece on the real consequences of unbridled capitalism in which we are currently embroiled?
We are waiting.
12
2 words for you David: Crony capitalism
as fake as it gets.
16
What kind of reckless journalism is this? You start by referencing Sanders and then talk about the failures of socialism in the soviet and Chinese models. Then you go on to praise “ Hong Kong, the U.S., Canada, Ireland, Latvia, Denmark, Mauritius, Malta and Finland.” As your examples of capitalism that works. You are either not as smart as I thought you are or being paid by the insurance lobby because no one running for president, including Sanders is advocating the socialization of “rental car” companies! They are advocating a better society via universal health care and higher education, which by the way is available in “ Hong Kong, the U.S., Canada, Ireland, Latvia, Denmark, ..., ... and Finland.”
16
Wait did Brooks just become a Democrat?
3
Please do not, presently, compare the United States to Canada. Your society used to be viewed with envy by myself and most other Canadians. Now, with your homeless, abandonment of your war veterans, gun violence, archaic attitudes to abortion, torture of prisoners, closing your borders, clownish government and general hatred of all who are different, we just feel sorry for your situation. The «Ugly American» had disappeared in the 60’.
He’s back!
32
Spoken like someone who has never had to worry about paying the next heating bill.
22
it is ironic that Brooks chooses the Christmas season to write these peon to capitalism.
a once Christian holy of holies—Christmas—has been perverted by capitalism into a pagan orgy of pathological consumption that kills the soul and all things human.
9
Let me get this straight Mr. Brooks,
1. "The best version of socialism is defined by Michael Walzer’s phrase, “what touches all should be decided by all.”
And then literally in the next paragraph...
"That’s not what “democratic socialists” like Bernie Sanders are talking about, but I get why some of their socialist concerns are popular.""
So you acknowledge that Democratic Socialism is not the same thing as Totalitarian Socialism, yet you spend your entire column arguing against Totalitarian Socialism anyway as if they were exactly the same, despite also acknowledging the successes of the "Scandinavian Socialism" model?
2.
"But capitalism, like all human systems, is always unbalanced one way or another."
But Socialism is always bad, and deserves none of the same nuance that you give to capitalism?
You are intentionally conflating two incredibly different implementations of governing and economic systems that both fall under the socialism umbrella despite not having too much in common. It's like arguing against Socialism by bringing up the Nazi party, it had "socialist" in the name, despite governing from a far right-wing political viewpoint.
3.
One could easily reverse your same "argument" against Socialism by simply citing capitalist countries in the developing world with poor environmental and health conditions.
Intellectually dishonest column you wrote here, Mr. Brooks.
23
Great bio, Mr. Brooks.
2
straw man decapitated. Good work, David.
10
Fill the moats and heat up the oil,Brooks.
1
Just when I was more or less certain that Brooks was about to go ahead and swirl down the NYT drain, he comes out with some more or less straight talk. I, too, was once a socialist--before I realized that poverty was worse than "inequality" and that freedom and human dignity were inseparable and--for me--inviolable. I have to add that I was also led down this path by serious study of the mass murder committed by 20th century socialists--Stalin, Hitler, Mao. Count the tortures. Count the bodies. Wade into that blood-dimmed tide and you will have serious recurring nightmares about why socialist powers have leaned the way they have.
6
Thank you Mr. Brooks!
7
Brooks for President.
5
God save us from converts and reformed drunks
2
I would like an hour with David Brooks at his favorite New York restaurant (in me) to refute every single thing in this article. The Times is invited to record it if they would like.
Prelude: what he is talking about here has little to do with socialism. I doubt he read much from Marx, let alone from Lukacs, Horkheimer, Adorno and more recently from G.A. Cohen, John Roemer or Jon Elster.
8
Well, you saw how that worked, huh?
How's that capitalist thing working, David? We've descended into oligarchy territory, aided and abetted by all of you free market worshippers.
To quote myself: "If you're not a liberal when you're young, you have no heart. If you're a conservative when you're old, you have no brain."
9
What are 3 socialist success stories? Oh, can't think of one?
8
Oh please. You were never a socialist, David. Remember all those years you spend defending Bush, Cheney, et al? You now belong to the party of Trump. Wallow in your capitalism. You deserve it.
8
David - you were a Socialist until you got RICH.
9
Mr. Brooks cannot tell the difference between socialism and planned economies. Socialism is not OK but if we call it democratic capitalism it is OK. The whole piece reeks of a knee-jerk distinctively American ideology that only something called capitalism can be good. Pathetic.
11
“My socialist sympathies didn’t survive long once I became a journalist.” Gee, I wonder why that is??????
2
yawn. why spread misinformation? do you really not understand that our system works best with a blend of capitalism and socialism? besides, pure capitalists have no need of journalists.
7
Brooks insists--against all the evidence-- that the version of capitalism we have here in the United States is "democratic." Although Brooks claims it's not a religion, only blind faith can account for his refusal to see the profoundly undemocratic foundations of the "now and forever" eternal capitalism for which he (and this newspaper) are such eager ideological cheerleaders. How else to explain why the NYT chooses "Business" as the name for the section of the paper that other news organizations call "Economy"?
4
It's hard to imagine young Mr Brooks trying to be a socialist except to get dates. Then he fell in love with William F Buckley Jr.
6
Capitalism... the economic system that brought you climate change. Great. Thanks a lot.
5
So you’re voting for Elizabeth Warren then, David?
2
I think that was the best article that I have ever read in the New York Times... CAPITALISM = FREEDOM
7
Brooks once again shows how limited knowledge of the real world and simplistic the thinking is in the stifling Republican bubble. The level of partisan ignorance displayed in this column would be embarrassing to anyone not firmly clinging to the destructive right wing religion that Republicanism has become.
9
You? Seriously?
But The Nation isn't socialist! Its liberal (in the modern sense), and not anti-capitalism, but critical of capitalism!
Seriously, you know better!!
6
"capacity to produce"
1
In other words, “Don’t tax me, bro! I’m rich!”
5
Why is it either /or.
Why can't we agree that:
There are some things the pure free market does best.
There are some things regulated private companies do best.
There are some things government does best.
In the 1930's FDR'S REA brought electricity to many rural areas that private companies had refused to serve because it was not profitable for them.
In the mid 1950's the federal government enacted a program of free Salk polio vaccinations for school children.
Conservatives were horrified.
This was "Socialized medicine thru the back door"
IKE overruled these idiots and the incidence of polio decreased to near zero.
16
This is the last time I shall read David Brooks. Because of his previous habit of sermonizing I always thought he was rather "preachy". Now, it seems, he is a permanent resident of la-la land.
6
It’s kind of amusing with people like Mr Brooks who are desperately trying to explain the reality of the 21th century using 19th century concepts
7
My god, what world are you living in, it is clear to anyone with a connected brain-stem that capitalism is a radical evil in the world, destroying people's lives and the planet at an increasing rate.
9
David, can you write something that any layman can understand with ease pls? So people somewhere in the Midwest can understand what you are talking about.
I am sure Obama agrees with you now that he can afford a 15 million dollar summer home at Martha's Vinyard.
6
David Brooks was never a socialist. I’m laughing so hard I can barely see straight.
3
Franklin Delano Roosevelt saved capitalism using the policies that David Brooks dismisses as "socialism". If the country had followed Daviid Brooks' advice and had more years of Hoover's "capitalism", this country would look more like Latin American oligarchies that it is starting to resemble.
What David Brooks calls "socialism" is what the successful European democracies have -- including Sweden. What David Brooks wants is America to continue to look more like Russia every day.
This ridiculous piece of nonsense is like Bernie Sanders writing an op ed saying that David Brooks is wrong to embrace the capitalism that didn't work in Nazi Germany and Mussilini's Italy and isn't working in Russia.
5
While you natter on about production and systems, the world burns.
3
Spoken like a man who has benefited from capitalism.
3
Nothing worse than a reformed drunk.
2
I was once a right-wing religious fundamentalist fascist. Then I saw how it worked. Two cheers for secular humanism, now and forever.
11
The best column he ever wrote.
4
Where is the space for me to give a “thumbs up”
2
Until you live in a socialist country, it’s all speculation and theory.
1
Romania, c. 1980. The Answer Man is on the air. A listener writes: "comrade, what is the difference between communism and capitalism? The Answer Man: "Under capitalism you have the exploitation of man by man while under communism you have the reverse." So Comrade Brooks, what's your view of exploitation?
2
So self-delusion is perfect if you can turn a buck from it?
It's truly amazing that Brooks is still writing for the NYT. Just last Sunday the NYT had an article about Prof. Mazzucato described as a leftish economist who argues that the "state has been undervalued as an underappreciated driver of growth and innovation." Markets created by public funds include the internet, the iPhone and clean energy." There are other examples too numerous list for example: the Salk Vaccine, nuclear power, the discovery of DNA, rural electricity, the Lincoln tunnel, etc. Also, the greatest negative externality we face today is global warming, for which the market so far has failed to provide an answer, just as the market failed to provide an answer to smoking harmful products. And here is a question for those defenders of the market? Why did the German capitalists support Hitler, while it was the German Socialists (SPD) who voted in the Reichstag against giving him absolute power? The answer is simple: the right feared the Socialists more than
9
Excellent. I never thought I would see an editorial like this in this newspaper.
6
Who was it that first said - he who is a capitalist when he is young has no heart and he who is a socialist when he is old has no brain.
Why are you even bringing socialism up?
That's a Republican talking point, not a Demcratic one. Any other straw men you'd like to knock over?
8
Huxley:
“2 Legs good, 4 legs bad”.
Brooks:
“Capitalism good, socialism bad”.
2
David Brooks for president.
"... the common ownership of the means of production …"
Well, you should at the very least win a prize for the correct definition and usage of the word 'socialist'.
It has literally been months since I have read any of many op-ed pieces and their associated comments where this has occurred. Even one of your pals (to remain nameless) at NYT just the other day labeled Sanders the "Vermont Socialist", SIGH.
"Democratic Socialism" and "Libertarianism" are political schools of thought, not economic systems. Both use capitalism, but Democratic Socialists don't leave the least among us to rot.
8
Give me flawed socialism over a flawed capitalism that eliminates democracy by overpowering politicians, controls the world’s natural resources to devastating effects, foments political and economic chaos so it can dominate with impunity, propagandizes a survival of the fittest attitude that makes all the precarious self-blame, underwrites the wealthy while whining about taxes. People like Brooks will never realize that Trump is the monster they created. Now take responsibility for it.
7
The GOP strategy does not seek to make capitalism "wide and fair." It caters to the richest of the rich and sells the con that through hard work anyone can achieve that. Inequality is increasing and people are less happy as time goes on. The middle class is increasingly miserable and the poor are treading water.
Any attempts to control the exploitation are described as socialism. The con that the conservatives sell is that societies like Sweden and Denmark aren't what the Dems are aspiring to, instead pointing to China or Venezuela.
All the while pretending that the GOP has Christian ideals at its core. It is a lie. It is disgusting. And we need to reassess our goals. Capitalism is fantastic at spurring innovation, but unchecked it also spurs misery.
10
I was once a capitalist. Then I saw how it worked. I don't think even David Brooks could argue that socialism is responsible for global warming. Nuff said.
1
David, you ought to go to Denmark. Denmark and the United States are not the same. What socialists are calling for are the socialist programs existing in Denmark and the rest of Scandinavia to be implemented in the United States. The prosperity in these countries are what communists would have dreamed of. No Democrat and no democratic socialist is calling for Soviet-style or Chinese Communist Party authoritarian-state market planning. Be candid with your audience and don’t deceive them with your argument against a “modern day socialist” by using examples of communist economies from 100 years ago. No sizable group of Americans is calling for the US to go down this path; stop deceiving your audience into thinking there is.
13
Please run for President Mr. Brooks! You seem to be the only voice of reason left in our confused and divided country.
Thank you for your perspective!
1
At bottom capitalism is a competitive regime that rewards winners handsomely but punishes losers cruelly. I suspect Mr. Brooks' "conversion" has something to do with the rewards his considerable talents earned him in the marketplace. As for statistical "proof," I might point to America's sad world rankings in things like infant mortality, incarceration rates, and the like, but we don't need numbers to tell us that Mr. Brooks' love letter to capitalism is silly.
8
Few of the Democrats charged with being "socialists" are really socialists. They are realists who realize the shortcomings of capitalism, and are merely seeking balance.
12
I don’t think Bernie Sanders is proposing anything remotely like the government running a car rental company or even conducting a business. This is typical Brooks. It’s so much more compelling when you say you use to be a socialist, but now you know better. He can’t just argue the merits of the specific programs that have actually been proposed. Better to conjure the boogeyman of the government “organizing society.” It sounds so much worse.
5
Capitalism whines about a slowing global economy which they blame on our trade negotiations with China. They have no concern for global warming.
Socialists care about global warming and pollution. They welcome a slowing global economy since it means less consumption.
They know we don't need any more cheap goods from China that are sold through our capitalists.
2
Think of all the energy that would be released if these capitalists, or more specifically their children, had to start over fresh, working they way up the capitalist ladder!
Imagine if Donald Trump actually had to work to build a real estate empire, rather than squander what he received from his daddy! Imagine if the Koch boys had needed to create something from the ground up!
At least those immigrants flowing across the borders are able to show some hard working capitalist traits when they start their roofing or landscaping businesses.
3
Why the "Either, Or"???
Without socialism, the vultures in Vulture Capitalism, take over.
Check out those pharmaceutical prices.
Need a highway widened? It will now be a Toll Road!
Do we need to send troops to protect a Saudi/Kuwait, or other billionaire honcho's interests overseas ? You won't hear conservative capitalists complain about 'that' social service, just as long as it is YOUR son or daughter who faces the bullets. How about a bone spur deferment for the wealthy?
The cost of prescriptions overseas is 1/10 what the vultures over here charge you.
Three cheers for socialism, where it is needed, to protect the population from greedy, unscrupulous, vultures and re build the middle class.
8
I guess David will not be applying for Medicare when that time comes.
4
Sometimes it amazes me how obtuse and blinkered Brooks can be. He cherry picks the favorable points to support his treatise of the day, and cherry picks the bad points to castigate his bogey man of the day. Unregulated capitalism is cruel, unfair, ugly and destructive. Unfettered socialism is inefficient, bureaucratic and frustrating. But no intelligent person argues purely for one or the other (excepting 20 year olds or Brooks). The fairest and most enriching economies today are the Scandanavian economies, which temper capitalism with strong, humane socialist regulations. People who live in those countries are the happiest. In Brooks’ “utopian” free market America, people are fearful, resentful and insecure. So much so that they vote for fraudulent clowns like Trump. If Brooks had a modicum of nuance about him, he’d write about these in-between economies, that manage to find the best of both worlds, instead of writing faux horror stories about socialism.
7
Oh dear! Sad to hear that from someone whose ancestors were probably slaves and other peoples ancestors probably lost their lives fighting for your freedom. Not everyone is created equal in society and the well paid have to provide for the weak, sick, and homeless and help to get down government debt; after all you are called the UNITED States of America. Not everyone is as fortunate as you to have a free education and good health.
1
You'd never go to a sports stadium or arena built by taxpayer (socialist) money, would you Mr. Brooks.
1
David — good column! Best line: “ All of these leaders understood that the answer to the problems of capitalism is wider and fairer capitalism.“ The emphasis on FAIRER capitalism is appreciated.
Sometimes capitalism is played like a zero sum game. We are struggling with a zero sum capitalist in the White House. That’s not conducive to “fairer capitalism”. That kind of capitalism puts profits ahead of morals.
But, overall, there is a way to merge pragmatic capitalism with morals. Adam Smith, the patron saint of Western capitalism, preached that. We don’t need to divorce morals from capitalism, and if we don’t we promote “fairer capitalism”.
1
Dear David,
Capitalism should be more like golf, employing a handicap system so that players of differing abilities can compete with each other. Sure, the system can and is often jiggered around resulting in those cheating players being banned or finding their reputations trashed. Golf is after all a game of ethical behavior.
Capitalism, unfortunately, is a system of winner take all and blame the losers. Certainly skills exist or develop in capitalism, but the system for some sort of equity or redress is so inefficient that it is almost useless.
I will undoubtedly continue reading your column, but I am sorry you quaffed the Kool Ade.
1
David Brooks, do you not use public libraries? Have you ever been to a school, a post office, or noticed who pays our military? Have you ever seen our public roads?
Have you never heard of Churchill who was an advocate for universal healthcare?
Do you have any idea why you as a Republican routinely demonize anyone who even thinks of using the word "socialism" in the context of a rational compassionate person?
No. The answer is no.
And that is what has contributed to what we have now as a GOP president. It's obvious you abdicate the mess you've made of your own party, but face it. Every time you are caught up in the moment of some ludicrous, insipid rhetoric that demonizes "socialism" and refers to people like - for instance - the Tea Party as a "grass roots organization" it is just another cut of a thousand cuts that have made a MESS and a DISGRACE of what you expect someone else to clean up.
... and someone else is always us.
5
if you like government built roads, you might be a socialist. if you like a common defense, you might be a socialist. if you like free k12 education, you might be a socialist. if you like police and fire protection, you might be a socialist.
9
David - have a look at the NYT article of November 18 2018 titled 'The American dream is alive: in China'. Does this change your rationale?
I was once a capitalist and then i saw how it worked.....
1
When I gave food to the poor, they call me a saint.
When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a socialist.
11
David you must have been very gullible as a young journalist out of college to switch your views so much.
You say the world is too 'complicated' for democratic socialism? Then how come dozens of democracies have operated with it --for generations? And they're capitalist countries too.
Please write a new column on what you perceive to be valid examples of the shortcomings of social democracies in dozens of countries around the world. Give us some data and concrete real people examples.
Start with the Nordics, then France, Germany, UK, etc etc. Oh, and Japan. Oh, and Canada. They all have affordable health care guaranteed, a life and death issue, which America, land of the Free' can't achieve.
That means that many Americans who died or were disabled or financially devastated due to untreated illness would have remained healthy, working, financially secure individuals in most modern countries!
No, David? Ok, tell us about it.
4
So many logical holes. First, corporations organize their activities. There is no reason to think that societies could not be organized. Second, the price mechanism is baloney. Read Ishi Nobu's The Fruits of Civilization.
1
If you received a public high school education, you might be a socialist.
if you have ever driven on a public road, you might be a socialist.
if you are not enslaved by a foreign country because we have a common military defense, you might be a socialist.
if you served in the military, you might be a socialist.
if you're house catches on fire and the fire department puts it out, you might be a socialist.
if you call the police when a crime has been committed, you might be a socialist.
if you were immunized, you might be a socialist.
if you ever borrowed a book from a library, you might be a socialist.
if you have ever visited a museum, you might be a socialist.
if you work for the government, you might be a socialist.
6
Watch who you call “Socialist.” The Nordic countries have the highest Happiness IQ’s.
The Chinese, who are not Socialists, are much better off with longer lives, better health, and more material things than under the oligarchs of the Qing Dynasty, the Japanese Emperor, and post WW I colonial powers and corrupt Nationalists.
David should travel more and see the World as it is now. He might find it educational.
1
Personally, I think the US should remain a hybrid cross between democratic socialism and capitalism but I won't even get into that.
I will say that straight-up 'socialists' are peeps like Stalin and Castro They fostered state-run horror show societies born of revolution. I don't think you ever were actually all about anything like that.
I think you may have actually been much more of a democratic socialist. Your article's title therefore obfuscates rather than clarifies.
Have you been to Canada, Scandinavia, and New Zealand to witness firsthand the depraived horrors of social democracies? Made it back alive, did ya?
Your only reference to these stunningly successful (although not perfect) societies is something like, 'I am not sure that their success can be replicated in America, given its size and complexity'. That's it? That's all ya got on that. Really? Okee dokey ...
1
Can David Brooks share with us where he grew up, so that he saw how socialism worked? Can't have been in the US.
1
David, I know you've said on the PBS NewsHour that you don't read your comments. Too bad, because I'm starting to see a glimmer of hope that you're really not drinking that poisoned GOP Kool-Aid anymore. Extremism in any form is always bad, that's why the phrase "everything in moderation" is truly the key to a satisfying life.
BTW, true socialism has never truly been practiced in this world, it is a label used by psychopaths to act like dictators. The "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" is neither a democracy nor a republic in any sense of the term.
1
"Just this week, ProPublica, copublishing with The Times, revealed that McKinsey consultants had recommended in 2017 that Immigration and Customs Enforcement cut its spending on food for migrants and medical care for detainees."
Ah capitalism!
1
Does Mr. Brooks understand the difference between Soviet Style Communism and Western European Capitalist Socialism? It certainly does not sound like it. Mr. Brooks you may rest, you are a Socialist.
2
“Socialism” is a many splendored thing.
1
You are describing communism, not socialism. Sheesh.
Amazing that Brooks is as thoroughly confused as a lot of Americans about socialism. Substitute communism for socialism in this mess of an article and one sees Brook's confusion. And when he holds a totalitarian state like China as a model for capitalism, Brooks has really jumped the shark. One thing though, Britain will be more miserable and poorer than Brooks can imagine when Brexit happens.
1
A strong Rule of Law. Limited monopolies
And a well and correctly regulated Capitalistic system with good and humane social safety nets.
Soo who wants that???
David??? You may be an enabler.
You say capitalism is not a religion, but it does look like one of yours.
1
Can I correct you about one thing, Dave? You seem to have mistaken socialism for communism. I live in a socialist country (Japan). By that I mean there is a social safety net for all people. There are scores of countries with social services safety nets. You are talking about communism, where the government owns everything, like Cuba. Could the problem be the glasses?
2
Brooks wants to talk about socialism when we have a fascist in the White House and apostles of Putin generated propaganda in control of one of our two major political parties. The clear and present danger isn’t socialism, Mr. Brooks.
1
What garbage. Capitalism in the US has nothing to do with the capitalism practiced in Western Europe, and in fact much more closely resembles that of China or Russia. The wealthy and powerful in this country elect leaders who write laws and regulations that benefit those same companies - it is a closed loop that is very much like the corrupt capitalism practiced in fascist states. The only difference is that where Putin or Xi can essentially decree the winner, here companies have to go through the extra steps of paying for legislation whose purpose is to allow them to win.
America practices crony capitalism, and anything that seeks to level the playing field or prevent fraud and corruption is labeled as "socialist" with inevitable comparisons to the USSR.
This opinion is garbage.
6
Why is it that for David Brooks, the only choices are absolute socialism or absolute capitalism? Mr. Brooks, in his cacoon, rejects social services including healthcare for all, that most of the western world take for granted.
I say poppycock to Mr. Brooks.
2
Yes David Brooks, if you are white in America, capitalism works best for you...but many of the rest of us don’t worship money...we respect and revere family, neighbors, the earth, environment, nature...all the things European war mongers side step or ignore in their greed.
2
Equation: Capitalism X Internet = Armageddon
1
First, socialism is an act. You, David, were not a socialist.
American Capitalism is currently killing children in concentration camps, selling fracked oil to a burning planet, and has a history of genocide against its first peoples and continues to practice slavery and white power against people with non european backgrounds.
I don't understand the point of this column. It is like a grade 12 student was made to write a comparative essay. For a "former socialist" he seems to have a willful ignorance about the difference between private property, and the means of production. He does not address the state subsidies of all the "big ones" nor the public tab for private profit and waste. Or the military industrial complex.
David Brooks, please stay in your lane, on your horse and buggy.
3
Perhaps you haven't bothered noticing how capitalism "works".
1
Wow! Talk about being dishonest. First construct a straw man and then proceed to tear it down. The “socialism” of Bernie or Warren or even the average Dem is more about putting some borders on capitalism and curbing its tendency to devour all in the name of profit.
You can do better Mr. Brooks. Or are you just as cynical as your lazy Republicans legislatures who know better but keep supporting policies that do more harm than good?
2
You are not describing socialism, you are describing communism ( which they called socialism,). What socialism delivers, as it did when the party was elected in the province of Saskatchewan, was, inter alia, hospitalization and then Medicare.
This slipshod use of the word, and the erroneous description, is not worthy of Brooks’ mind.
Shelley Corrin
2
You don’t know much about socialism if you believe it’s “planned by government officials.”
1
There are as many iterations of Socialism as there are of religion. Christ preached socialism. So did Marx and Engels. So did Lenin and so did Hitler. Of all the possible political/economic structures on earth, socialism is the most promising over the long term, and corporate capitalism most closely resembles the latifundia structure of the Roman Empire before it collapsed under the onslaught of semi-democratic, semi-socialistic invading Germanic tribes.
2
One half-truth told many times is this: capitalism won, socialism lost. Like all half-truths, this is just plain wrong. Socialism gave capitalism its salvation as it introduced government planning. Capitalism means exploitation in so many markets and has so many terrible practices (monopoly, alienation) that nobody should ever praise it. Of course free markets are good, but they only exist in theory and have to be estabilished and enforced every single day, otherwise the system simply falls apart. This just can't be the model for any society.
32
If only Brooks really believed his last paragraph.
No one should forget that he is still a member of the party that thinks of Canada and Denmark as the second coming of the USSR.
And Brooks has written volumes against the US adopting any policies from places like Canada and Denmark.
Who does he think he's kidding?
26
We know well that a mix of capitalist enterprises and State interventions to create infraestrucuture and facilitate fair distritibution is the success formula. See Scandinavians. Hence your article is outdated and redundant. Many of the success you mentioned are due to that mix. Serious research job is more difficult than repeteating simplistic, outdated mantras.
16
Seems to me you are confusing a number of isms.
I don’t think strongly central planning is socialism.
Who is a capitalist, JP Morgan etc.. Few Americans are capitalis. They may live in a mostly capitalist society. You seem to like free markets. But at the end you are advocating more government involvement,
To do things you choose?
5
I think it is obvious that market system brought benefits across the globe. However, so did government interference within the market systems.
Countries like India, Bangladesh did not get millions out of poverty by pure “capitalism” - in effect it was due to national development plans and concentrated efforts to improve social safety nets and social protection of the poor coupled with planned economic growth strategies - now they are fighting to ensure that poor don’t slip back into poverty. That is - the fight is constant, never ends as we know markets are unfair.
I lived in both “systems” capitalism and socialism - and each has a set of issues of its own. In socialism you do not need to worry if you will have access to good education, good health care and safety net. In capitalism you will strive as entrepreneur, risk taker. We all know the downsides of both systems / so no need to dwell.
Maybe it is not about either or - it’s about a hybrid system that promotes human happiness, endeavour and advancement while protecting human rights, environment, dignity etc. Australia has a well balanced approach (albeit far from perfect or ideal).
But at the end, we forget that it is citizens that build and make societies and systems - we make rules, regulations, laws etc... and decide how our societies will work - not some invisible hand. So changing it is on us - citizens. Maybe we need to become better citizens to have better societies/systems.
15
I think the most poignant argument against socialism is precisely the same against capitalism: the world is much too complex. So, while I agree the wealth created by capitalism exceeds the misery produced in the worst of socialism; but we're in Churchillian territory still with simply having the best political economy so far.
The complexity should assert the need for world leaders to collaborate on their Artificial Intelligence programs as we should have internationalized nuclear energy following WWII. The competition of capitalism is relentless and perhaps requires the direction of a global AI, not a USA, China, et. al.
3
My dad was elected to public office as a socialitst in 1933. Understanable for a young man of the time livving in Bridgeport,
Ct. We had a socialist mayor for years. But an older and perhaps wiser man, he told me once that a man ceases to be a socialist when he has two shirts. Socialism fails when the leaders have two houses or more, as we have observed in so many circumstances.
5
Look, I agree that pure socialism isn't a great model, and I see little point in debating its merits with those of capitalism. The things I care about are largely the same ones that you list. People should be able to reach a point of self-sufficiency without being forgotten along the way.
Unskilled labor is no longer a sufficient means of supporting oneself, which means we need to work on increasing wages or educating people so that they can do skilled work. They also need the ability to be treated for mental and physical illnesses. Without these, you're not even meeting the first rung on Maslow's hierarchy; they are non-negotiable. I don't care if this means heavily or entirely subsidizing them or whether the state provides them directly or through private companies so long as they satisfy these needs.
Ultimately, the people who are addressing income inequality and our broken health care system are the same ones who are being railed against as socialists. Get me more capitalist candidates who address income inequality and health care with concrete solutions and I'll be happy to offer them my support.
24
Perhaps the terms need to be adjusted. Maybe the common ground - where people of good faith can meet - is under the umbrella of "Progressive". Mr. Brooks calls himself a Capitalist and derides "socialism", but goes on to expound all kinds of compassionate programmes and goals that any social democrat would be proud to advocate.
17
The party of the rich, have bought many mouth pieces that formulate thought-words which cause doubt for what is just and defend what is not. When I read-hear the word socialism uttered by a republican I know that subtly they are defending the very rich cravings for even more, and that food stamps for little children is a robbery of society by the unwilling to work. They are saying that the system is not rigged, that unions hurt the workers, that trump earned all his wealth because he is more brilliant then us , and question why can't you make it on 10 dollars and hour while feeding four. That even though 1% controls most of the wealth, that what remains should be enough for those in the middle class and lower classes. They want socialism to be preeminent word for bad, and capitalism to replace whatever is supreme in your minds. trump signifies the way capitalist Barron-Kings see us, an expendable product to their ends. And they are willing to destroy a Democracy for their wealth.
15
David is fairly accurate in the main. Except for 1 thing. The unregulated unsupervised wild-west of digital culture, which is a capitalist innovation model; and which enabled fakery on a mass scale, and set Trump upon his throne, and is entrenching this monstrosity every day. All because it was "profitable" to do so. Trump is not only End Times, he's the End-Product.
11
There are two standards by which to judge an economic structure: fairness and utility. Capitalism is in important ways unfair. The few who own/control the means of production benefit to a greater degree from its use than do those who own little more than their labor power. The owning class grows richer at a faster rate than the working class (even though members of both classes possess on average equal intelligence and work equally hard). That said, or despite its relative unfairness, capitalism has brought to humanity more benefits than harms. Think increased life-expectancy, physical comfort--findings that Brooks rightly emphasizes. In other words, the overall utility of capitalism seems unmatched. But things may be changing in that regard. Can an economic formation premised on the endless accumulation of material wealth (comforts, conveniences, things) still serve humanity's long term interests, given a planet already overheated by human industry and for that reason falling ever further into disrepair? Capitalism may not just be intrinsically unfair, but for the first time in its history, it may be doing more harm than good.
13
Like others here, I am getting increasingly frustrated by the indiscriminate use of the term "socialism," not just by Brooks, but in general.
Even Bernie Sanders himself seems to misuse the term when he describes himself as a "democratic socialist," at least as far as his platform in the 2020 election is concerned. What he is really advocating is "social democracy," which Wikipedia defines as follows:
"Social democracy is a political, social and economic philosophy that supports economic and social interventions to promote social justice within the framework of a liberal democratic polity and a capitalist-oriented economy."
Countries such as Finland and Sweden are social democracies, not democratic socialist countries. Their economies are based on free markets just like here in the US, but they realize the need for a certain amount of state intervention to ensure social justice and thus social, political, and economic stability.
Democratic socialism, on the other hand, means the following, again as per Wikipedia:
"Democratic socialism is a political philosophy that advocates political democracy alongside a socially owned economy,[1] with an emphasis on workers' self-management and democratic control of economic institutions within a market, or some form of a decentralised planned socialist economy.[2] Democratic socialists argue that capitalism is inherently incompatible with the values of freedom, equality and solidarity."
This is not what Bernie is proposing.
12
I wondered what happened to income inequality as I read your piece, Mr Brooks, then I realized that income inequality is not a feature of capitalism but a result of monopolies and mergers. I don't think too many Americans really want to go where the Soviet Union went; they just want more of the social safety net. They want capitalism with social safety net which is what Elizabeth Warren is offering.
21
Brooks's understanding of environment degradation is a wonderment. It's China's market "reforms" that are associated with the disastrous state of its environment, not its communism. Globalized capitalism has not been kind to planet earth.
The recent humanitarian gains to it poorest countries can be attributed greatly to medical and technological advances that are not ephemeral and environmental "time-bombs", often associated with capitalist expansion.
4
David, you make it all sound great. But capitalism needs to confront its effects on climate change and find another way -because there will have to be another way - then I will be in your corner. Right now, capitalism, it's best friend greed and our endless desire for STUFF, speed and expansion are killing the planet. Capitalism is the opposite of what is needed to save it. We need to do more with less, own and use less, travel less or differently, and care for the most important thing they're not making more of -- earth.
28
While I have long admired the seriousness of thought and careful consideration your writings reflect, I must confess to a bit of wavering allegiance the past couple years.
Perhaps this is due to personal circumstances that lend clear and convincing evidence that seems to support an alternative position.
Please forgive me, but I chose to believe that we are both better retreating to the position that history supports. THANK YOU MY FRIEND
1
Brooks - you ignore the tragedy of the commons, the idea that untrammeled (capitalist) competition for unowned resources (e.g., fish, timber, clean water and air) inevitably leads to overuse and destruction of those resources. There is, counter to your implications, a real role for regulation in government. In fact, government is exactly where regulations designed to prevent the tragedy of the commons should be placed.
Milton Friedman NEVER acknowledged the tragedy of the commons, which is why he became a self-parody. Do not go down the same path as your old debating opponent.
17
David, thanks for your very well expressed and thought out opinions. There are many versions of capitalism and socialism, as you know. Like you, I believe that we need a better form of capitalism, offset with programs that some may call 'socialist'. They include universal healthcare (I prefer the German model), a mix of worker-owned businesses, and a healthy population of public benefit corporations (B Corps).
Co-operation between capital, labor, and government, for in businesses that prefer the currently-dominant - I will say, antiquated - model of business would go a long way toward accelerating efficiency.
Clearly, astronomical differentials of compensation between CEOs and median employee salaries serve little useful purpose. Stock buybacks - tantamount to insider trading when done in conjunction with Corporate Officer stock sales - need to be revisited, from a regulatory point of view.
And, the sad situation of 'forced' part-time employment in the retail industry, where workers are kept below benefit-eligible levels, at low-wage, and with variable schedules, needs serious reform.
All this said I would rather see these things accomplished, not as a result of government intervention, but rather out of volition on the part of professional managers and business owners. One 'eg' of the effort to bring an ethical, more generally applicable and beneficial form of capitalism is through education and in particular through our business schools.
Warm regards,
Kelly O'Brien
6
I am a human being with certain unavoidable needs that our current stage of cutthroat capitalism is forcing me to go without. Me and many other Americans in fact. We're being forced to subsidize the richest. We are supporting socialism for the rich. They share the wealth among themselves and we get the poverty.
32
David Brooks makes some good observations in this article. This most profound, in my mind, is the recognition that capitalism vs socialism isn't a binary choice as is often wrongly portrayed by conservatives.
A capitalist system can still work for everyone if socialist-type policies are implemented in those areas where capitalism doesn't work well. How do we identify those areas? It's pretty basic -- whenever the profit motive doesn't capture all the human needs and benefits from some activity, socialist principles can be applied. For example, capitalism doesn't work well in areas like health care and environmental protection because the profit motive alone doesn't lead to the best result.
7
I have no idea what prompted this column. As you mentioned, neither Sanders nor any other Democrat candidates are proposing changing from a capitalist market driven economy to socialism or anything remotely like a planned economy dictated by the federal government. Bringing up China/Russia/Venezuela as if there's any danger of the U.S. emulating them?!
What's next, out of nowhere a column about the dangers of cricket becoming the national pastime?
16
@Rick Wald. Obviously, you didn’t read to the end of the column. Here is the information you missed: This column was prepared for a Munk Debate on the future of capitalism, held Wednesday in Toronto.
An American business man said: "There's no good business without a minimum of friendship." So where is the problem?
It would only be meaningful to note that carbon emissions are lower in capitalist countries if the countries with the highest emissions weren't just production outposts for (rich, low-producing) capitalist countries.
Similarly, I'd be really curious to hear some thoughtful critiques of the numbers you present on global poverty. I wonder if any part of those measurements account for quality of life? I doubt it. Global, post-industrial ghettoized poverty may measure better than pre-industrial, rural poverty, but that doesn't mean it's a better human experience.
In other words, to present facts and figures as if they are inherently correct and not, as critics would note, a reflection of a data system that under-represents-- and mostly doesn't even consider-- actual human experience is, to me, one of the reasons we keep ignoring the tremendous human and environmental costs of unfettered, unregulated capitalism.
7
The reason why the ‘Scandinavian’ model succeeds in Scandinavia...is because Scandinavian countries are very small and relatively homogeneous. Citizens in these countries share the same language, culture, and ideology. They understand one another.
That model will never work in the United States...a too-big country populated by too many factions with competing interests (linguistic, cultural, racial, ideological, political). The divisiveness is tearing us apart.
8
It sounds like David has a bit of 'true believer' syndrome. He learns about socialism, he believes in socialism. He learns socialism is bad, he believes in capitalism.
It makes me wonder where it is he's observed capitalism in action. The US is, and always has been, a mixed economy. Military, policing, property and life protection, education, care for the poor and disabled, and on and on have all been provided by socialist structures.
When the economy was on the verge of collapse, as under "his" last president, GWB, it was socialist solutions that saved it.
Moreover, it should be understood that most technology has been developed by socialist institutions--schools, the military, research institutes, etc. It is generally understood among academics that capitalism under-funds innovation (even in the presence of a patent scheme).
And has he missed the fact that a lot of our fellow citizens are suffering great poverty under capitalist strictures.
My point is not that capitalism is all bad, or that socialism is all good, but that we are capable of maximizing the good from both. At least we can do so when oligarchs don't try to overturn our 'socialist' protections.
9
As a young adult, the current late capitalist system that we are living under unsettles me to my core. I'm currently in college, and once I graduate, I will start my adult life in debt. It is unlikely that I ever own a home. I am not trying to be cynical, this is just the likely truth. It is hard to be hopeful about the future when the present is so bleak. I will get chastised by out of touch middle aged people for "just not working hard enough" even though I am working hard to succeed in a system that is rigged against the vast majority of my generation. I am filled with a constant sense of economic dread and anxieties about the future. Many people are miserable, and they aren't quite sure why. It is because capitalism is an inherently broken and cruel system which pits us against each other instead of encouraging us to look out for each other. Living a good life under capitalism is a privilege of the highest order - in a socialist society, it would be a right.
17
My working definition of American Socialism comes from the November 1, 1918 edition of the NY Call, the Socialist Party daily of the time -
"Art Young's Political Primer: What is Socialism? It is business operated for public benefit instead of private profit."
Sounds to me like the original corporate law in the USA which required a corporation to have a public purpose and to have a charter which had to be renewed within a set period of time. Or a Benefit or B corporation such as the largest utility in Vermont, Green Mountain Power.
American Socialism is, for better or worse, Sewer Socialism as the Socialist governance of Milwaukee and Bridgeport CT in the early part of the 20th century and Bernie Sanders in Burlington, VT in the later part of the 20th century demonstrate. It's not about a planned economy but providing good public services.
As per usual, David Brooks knows only enough about something to get it entirely wrong.
5
Excellent piece. As Brooks correctly notes, no one is against having the government provide generous benefits. What has been and will always be a disaster is having the government provide generous (and expensive) benefits while aggressively intervening in the economy. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are both calling for exactly that, through their policies of severely restricting free trade, and aggressively taxing and regulating the private sector. The Scandinavian countries, which many have been deluded into thinking Sanders/Warren want to emulate, do not do this. As the statistics that Brooks displayed showed, many of these countries have the freest markets in the world. Their model is to have the government get out of the way of the private sector, with low corporate taxes and light regulation, in order to let the private sector put money in people's pockets. Then the government steps in and takes a large chunk of that money through taxes to fund generous social welfare programs. I too wouldn't mind seeing such a system in America however like Brooks I have my doubts enough Americans would ever get on board with the high taxes required. However make no mistake, this is not the model being advocated by Sanders/Warren. They are pushing for the type of systems seen in many European/Latin American countries in the mid-20th century (eg Argentina) that led to their ruin. Witnessing all of these countries fail turned Brooks off "socialism", ie govt run economies.
4
"In 1981, 42% of the world lived in extreme poverty. Now, it’s around 10%. More than a billion people have been lifted out of poverty. You’ve noticed that places that instituted market reforms, like South Korea and Deng Xiaoping’s China, tended to get richer and prouder. Places that moved toward socialism — Britain in the 1970s, Venezuela more recently — tended to get poorer and more miserable."
This is also cherry-picking of what you want from a variety of data.
On the other hand, Scandinavian countries, or for that matter much of Western & Northern Europe functions pretty much reasonably well with very few if any suffering much.
And until 1980s, U.S. also was doing reasonably well. Then unrestrained capitalism crept into USA with more & more misery for the less fortunate.
So, moderate socialism is NECESSARY for the welfare of any countrymen.
7
@A.G.
Since age 16, now 83, I subscribe to socialist ideology. I am an Indian-American, grew up in Kerala with 34 million, which is a reasonably socialist state but with a couple of $billionaires in the midst. Kerala with a per capita PPP of 16% of the U.S, but only about 4% nominally, has HDIs not far from the US. Abject poverty, hunger & homelessness are about absent in Kerala. A minimally skilled manual laborer can support a family of 5 & educate his children, if they are good at to any level, except sending them abroad. All of them have been owing to the push of Marxist parties, since the 1940s.
Despite strong leftist beliefs, I never could identify myself with the Indian Communist parties because of their propensity to violence. But I was happy when Communists gained power in 1957 through the ballots, first in the world (Since then, Communists with left allies ruled the state alternately every five years, until now).
1
How about cancelling tax breaks for corporations and shift that money to, basic research that expands new knowledge that entrepreneurs can capitalize on, education and its fair distribution so that we have more entrepreneurs and better workers, accessible and effective healthcare so that more people are mentally and physically able to work or build businesses, subsidies to help workers move from economically failed locales to area where the jobs are or subsidize industry to move to failed areas with potential. Putting more money in the hands of millions of people through work does more for the economy that putting it solely in the hands of corporations. Subsidize industry only where there is a specific national existential need. GOP subsidize industry in order to receive campaign donations, I.e. use tax money to fund election campaigns.
2
My sense is that today the Republican-Trump party believes American capitalism is working just fine and needs no tune-up emanating in Washington, D.C. Their measurement? Campaign donations to the party are up substantially. Who would want to mess with that? After all, it delivers the best election results that money can buy.
5
This is a bit of a light weight article. The United States is in no danger of becoming a true socialist country where the means of production are owned by the government. So what is the point ? Government sponsored health care already works in The United States we know that because we already have it. Medicare, the Veterans Administration and Indian Health Services are all government run health services that are successful.
The problem with capitalism in the United States is that it’s not pure capitalism which involves private entities responsible for their true costs, like air pollution, roads, fair wages etc. Only Government can level the playing field and make sure enterprises pay a fair price for their impact on the general good. In a nutshell private enterprise and government are both good and necessary for the health and well being of our country.
4
If you don’t define your terms, your arguments mean nothing. Government and economics are intertwined, but separate. Government ranges from dictatorship to full democracy. Economics runs from laissez faire capitalism to pure communism. 1500 characters is not enough to discuss this subject.
Suffice it to say that the extremes don’t work well. A well crafted combination is one that works best for the most people.
Capitalism provides incentive to produce, but without controls ends up in monopolies, which your hero, Teddy Roosevelt understood when he broke up the robber baron monopolies. Communism takes away incentives to produce.
Governments need to maintain a balance that provides individual incentive without creating an unfair playing field.
Benevolent dictatorships can get things done quickly, but don’t exist for long. China’s rise is the best example, but freedom quickly becomes restricted. Pure democracy is stifling, because it requires universal education and common purpose, as well as too much attention to government.
The best form of government provides for the common good, that is, things capitalism does not provide equally well. Examples include roads, education, and healthcare. Capitalism provides toll roads, private schools and healthcare only a few can afford. So, taxes provide a means for government to provide a basic level of roads, education, and healthcare, among other common goods.
That’s Denmark, not Venezuela. Bernie and Elizabeth have it right.
4
Mr. brooks,
Out environment is cleaner than many countries and we use less energy because we have outsourced manufacturing.
The pollution in China is the result of American purchasing.
5
There are many socialisms, and many capitalisms. Mr Brooks is offering us a straw-man argument. Either/Or. Socialism or Capitalism. The Marxism-Stalinist model is gone, thankfully. The UK adopted the 'welfare state' after WWII. Scandinavian socialism, frequently called Democratic Socialism, which emerged from the post-war ruins, is thriving. These are free democratic societies, with a primarily free-market economies. Even Russia and China have abandoned the Marxist model. Russia, after the Chicago treatment, is now in the hands of an oligarchy of predator capitalists.
The pure socialist state no longer exists. Nor for that matter, does the pure capitalist state. France is quite socialistic, ask Macron these days.
Mr. Brooks later seems recognize that some social programs would be beneficial to capitalism as part of the "Supportive State". I'm glad to hear this.
Mr Brooks attributes the progress mankind has made over the last few centuries to capitalism. This is 'post-hoc, propter hoc' reasoning. Mr Brooks specifically cites the decline in poverty, supposedly produced by capitalism. Yet the high poverty levels here are not found in Scandinavian or welfare-style states.
I prefer to think most of our advances in human welfare are due to the adoption of the more empirical modes of reasoning, and adoption of the scientific method. Advances due to science are later adopted by businessmen.
6
You say we need more and better capitalism. But the things you then suggest to achieve this betterment -- "massive infusions of money into education," better welfare programs, workers co-ops, subsidies for health care and a carbon tax -- are not capitalism at all. They all sound a bit socialistic to me.
4
I good with all of this, but the fixes to capitalism you describe are the opposite of the tax-cutting, protectionist direction that the Trumpistas have taken the GOP.
4
@David
And what's even more outrageous? The aforementioned "fixes" were created by economists to appease conservatives. For example, cap-n-trade was the "free market" solution to sulfur pollution (cause of acid rain), and Repubs loved it at the time -- it gave them that warm tingly feeling they get when they hear "free market." Now they react as though you're pushing Stalinism (same thing for the individual mandate for health insurance -- cooked up by cons back in the 80s -- now it's Stalinism).
4
God forbid the government should offer THE SAME THINGS THAT WERE EASILY AVAILABLE IN THE 50s ,60s, AND 70s. Thanks Boomer.
7
Excellent piece, but how many intellectually serious people are actually advocating for socialism? Sen. Warren is often branded a socialist, yet your article almost precisely echoes her beliefs: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/23/elizabeth-warren-i-am-a-capitalist-but-markets-need-rules.html
Another cause for hope is that there is finally a "decoupling" in which we are getting richer without extracting proportionally more resources from the Earth.
However, try convincing a Republican that a carbon tax IS A CAPITALIST solution, or that welfare states can exist within the framework of capitalism.
So we go on and on with this make believe contest between capitalism and socialism.
The real debate is between crony capitalism and a more social democratic model of competitive capitalism.
9
Thomas Piketty
Emmanuel Saez
Gabriel Zucman
Stephen Marglin
Samuel Bowles
Herbert Gintis
Gerald Friedman
Esther Duflo
You want more?
I bet you they have scored a few points higher than you in your IQ test :-)
1
All the great points about capitalism are made here, and some of the negatives about socialism are used to support this thesis. However, in this country, capitalism is moving to Imperialism, and canabilizing true capitalist endeavors through monopolization and socialistic programs local governments are using to lure big enterprises. Why do the largest companies pay the lowest taxes? Why do they get the biggest tax breaks to locate in low income areas? Why are labor unions being disenfranchised to accommodate foreign companies relocating in those same areas? Why have the pharma/insurance and the military industrial complexes cornered their respective markets to create unsupportable costs levied on those that can least afford them? There is one simple answer that's not touched upon here: deregulated capitalism creates an extremely unbalanced, and unsustainable model for the common good. And it's the common good that should be at the heart of any economic discussion. The Pentagon can't even provide an account of where all its taxpayer funds are utilized. Billions have been spent trying to determine where trillions go, and the largest, most technologically sophisticated, most costly socialistic program taxpayers support, goes unaccountable -- why? Because it is in bed with the largest, most technologically sophisticated, most well-endowed capitalist companies our government enriches through the same cronyism that's described here as being one of the detriments of socialism.
7
I often find Mr. Brooks to be an uninspiring writer, but that was by far the best column he's written. You would be hard-pressed to find Americans who disagree with the overarching point that Mr. Brooks makes--the factionalized, partisan times we live in do not reflect the reality that we all want the same things and believe in the same America. It is a capitalist America, but a FAIR capitalism.
4
@Patrick
I totally agree. What frustrates me most is I think many people -- including educated people -- don't understand that social democracy (e.g., Nordic-style capitalism) is NOT SOCIALISM. So they end up advocating for something they can't define. Take Bernie Sanders for instance; he's distinctly NOT a socialist, yet he seems willing to lose himself an election by calling himself one. Yikes
1
David Brooks can afford to not be a Socialist (whatever that means anyway). The rest of us unfortunately can’t. It’s not just an abstract idea but a way for everyone to live comfortably.
5
@Josh Which is precisely why he seems to be advocating a fairer version of capitalism, which involves busting monopolies and redistributing more wealth.
2
I grew up in Denmark in the 60’s and 70’s, then immigrated to California in 1979.
David, you are not mentioning the culture that exists in DK and other Scandinavian countries. People there basically trust each other and trust that you will do your job the best way possible. A sense of working for the common good is ingrained in everyone and still, capitalism thrives. Here, in the US greed takes over quickly and that is a shame. However, in both countries, you have freedom through a capitalistic system.
9
The corruption in the US is typically out of sight for the common man. It is not common in the streets or stores.
Machinations don't happen where one is directed to look. To slow the economy for instance the prices at the pumps just of a sudden go up.
"No shame in honest work." said my mother. I was versatile & shameless. (Versatility in the same industry is not versatility, is one thing I discovered.)
Well now I question why there has not been enacted a nationwide rent control?
Piketty told me I could not beat Compound Interest. What is happening is that inherited wealth, & the people who start with it can literally hate people who can't pay them the prices they want to get for all that they control, and soon, without regulations like Glass Steagall, & the others that gave labor mobility, they will own the deeds to every inch of the earth.
"Stability leads to instability."
Americans ascribe to eclectic ethical pragmatism. They know Defense is in fact first, and they know that the CDC, Medicaid, & Medicare go together.
Education is both first as ignorance is to be defended against and second as worthy of the same kind of government funding.
All governments are experimental. Corruption destroys every one of them eventually.
1
The corruption in the US is typically out of sight for the common man. It is not common in the streets or stores.
Machinations don't happen where one is directed to look. To slow the economy for instance the prices at the pumps just of a sudden go up.
"No shame in honest work." said my mother. I was versatile & shameless. (Versatility in the same industry is not versatility, is one thing I discovered.)
Well now I question why there has not been enacted a nationwide rent control?
Piketty told me I could not beat Compound Interest. What is happening is that inherited wealth, & the people who start with it can literally hate people who can't pay them the prices they want to get for all that they control, and soon, without regulations like Glass Steagall, & the others that gave labor mobility, they will own the deeds to every inch of the earth.
"Stability leads to instability."
Americans ascribe to eclectic ethical pragmatism. They know Defense is in fact first, and they know that the CDC, Medicaid, & Medicare go together.
Education is both first as ignorance is to be defended against and second as worthy of the same kind of government funding.
All governments are experimental. Corruption destroys every one of them eventually.
I think your definition of Socialism is at least 70 years out of date. Modern socialism looks just like two countries you cited as capitalist successes for a very good reason - it's possible to have a free market without killing kids because they can't afford healthcare. Thanks for the freshman essay though.
14
Freshman in High School you mean of course.
1
I don't believe labels are a necessity. There are elements of Socialism, and Capitalism, and Democratic Socialism. Humans are the common denominator and we have allowed ourselves to become controlled by greedy corporations who have been allowed to run amok. Our government currently favors corporations so much that their solution is to give LIFETIME tax breaks to the wealthy and 3 year tax breaks for the middle class while they slash food stamps and Medicaid and dismantle all programs that could make corporations accountable. This is not Capitalism. This is unbridled human greed and indifference.
5
David Brooks, but what do you think of all of the U.S. government's subsidies and bailouts for citizens from farmers to bankers to auto manufacturers? Have you, perchance, seen that kind of socialism at work?
Oh, I see: you just don't want any sort of socialist policies whereby our government, our state makes a commitment to helping the impoverished, the mentally disabled, the physically disabled, etc. to lead lives with some semblance of dignity?
Yes, I will keep that excellent lesson of yours about the rental car companies in mind, particularly the ones that attempt to rip off the consumer at every turn. I know, I know: caveat emptor.
5
Mr. Brooks fails to mention that capitalism only works with sufficient government regulation to look out for the interests of those who are at the mercy of concentrations of capital. Huge corporate concentrations of capital, like we have in modern America, require large government structures to oversee them, such that greed and profit do not trample those that work for the corporations.
5
Here are the ideas David Brooks advances to reform capitalism:
"We need worker co-ops, which build skills and represent labor at the negotiating table. We need wage subsidies and mobility subsidies, so people can afford to move to opportunity. We need tax subsidies for health care, to make it easier for people to switch jobs. We need a higher earned-income tax credit, to give the working poor financial security so they don’t get swept away amid the creative destruction. We need a carbon tax, to give everyone an incentive to reduce carbon emissions without pretending we know the best way to do it."
Read carefully and you will see that what Mr, Brooks would like to do is to infuse capitalism with a healthy dollop of socialism. The trouble is, attempts to graft a heart on to a heartless system are bound to fail.
3
Capitalism is why we have unlimited cheap foreign labor.
Socialism is complaining about the treatment of workers but then providing cheap foreign labor to capitalists.
1
Great column. The problem is education. How do we get Ed levels to match technology?
1
Of course David isn't describing modern socialism at all. He is describing modern dictatorship or totalitarianism. Those are not socialist governments normally, they are more likely to be Far Right governments.
Modern socialism is interested in taking care of those things most important to society, water, military, police, fire protection, electricity, education and infrastructure. Virtually everything else merely has to be monitored for safety and law reasons. The rest of societies wants and needs are for entrepreneurs, Capitalists. There is no attempt in modern socialism to run the entire society. Just look at Northern Europe, mostly socialist with healthy Capitalism existing side by side. You ought to do another article based on ACTUAL socialism today.
7
It's easy, a couple of hundred million brains each trying to figure out how most effectively to meet their own needs (free market capitalism), ought to be more effective than a couple of hundred brains in offices in Washington trying to do all the thinking for everyone (socialistic state planning). What real chance have they got of getting it right? The dream of socialists is to make society stand still, stop progress, require everybody to want the same things, simplify the job by reducing choice, etc. The purpose of this is to make it easier for the overworked (overwhelmed) planners. Where has this been tried most determinedly? How about Cuba; you know, 1953 Chevrolets and so on. Why don't socialists flock there, that ought to be their idea of heaven.
1
Funny, in my youth I read "The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand and thought it was the best thing since slice beard. I got older and realized what a bunch of nonsense it was. Mr. Brooks & I are headed in opposite directions.
5
But does anyone in the US want a planned economy?
But David, the market won't solve problems with education, healthcare or even transportation. (If you wonder why I listed transportation, think of Uber- rampantly free market, and it basically destroys its drivers). Unlike you, I started as a conservative, and I work in business - in the side that drives profits. I am proud of my company's success, but I know we need government too - in the way that Democratic Socialists all know.
3
Dear Mr. Brooks,
It is time to wake up and realize that the "American Experiment" has failed. the US capitalism, as you call it, was working as long as there was a communist country called Soviet Union forcing the US to behave in a rational, civilized, way.
While the Soviet Union was around, the US was pretending to be the guardian of human rights; it badly wanted to maintain international peace; it stood for other countries' sovereignty and independence. Now that the Soviet Union is gone, the mask is taken off. Just count how many countries the US has invaded since 1990. It is "America First" now. It is "We will keep their oil" now. it is bullying and "the law of the jungle" now.
There are different forms of socialism and many attempts at creating a democratic system. I look at Germany and Sweden and see successful "socialism" at work. Yes, these countries' governing systems are not perfect and have had their ups and downs. But I give them a much better chance to survive what is ahead than the US system.
Let's face the fact: there are many flaws in the US system of governance. Someone like Trump - and there will be others in future - once in the White House, can exploit these flaws to act effectively as a king. For instance, he can abuse his influence on who can become a member of Judiciary Branch to make that branch subservient to the Executive Branch; hence, putting himself above the law. And with that, there goes the whole "American Experiment"
6
David Brooks knows better than this oversimplication. Modern "Communist" China with its enormous state sector has produced more growth in a shorter period of time than any other country in history. LA's smog was far worse than Moscow's in the 1960's. David knows that the term "socialism" doesn't just refer to the centrally planned economies of the USSR or Maoist China. No serious politician on the American left (or anywhere other than a few outliers like Venezuela, Cuba or North Korea to my knowledge) advocates for adopting that system, which failed for exactly the reasons David points out. Instead, the socialist label is trotted out as a boogeyman by the right to keep us from adopting many of the helpful progressive programs adopted by other successful countries to ameliorate the worst tendencies of capitalism. Op-ed pieces like this, with their simplistic headlines, only serve to feed those fears, rather than move us toward a meaningful, honest discussion.
4
The call by Mr. Brooks for a form of capitalism that recognizes the need for government to deal with inequalities in our Society , as well as protection with regard to health and safety, is most welcome. As Mr. Brooks well knows, comparing a purely socialistic system to capitalism, as he has done in the first part of his column, is not the burning issue in this country, except perhaps for 22 year old idealists. How can capitalism deal with the issues of extreme poverty, access to affordable health care, middle class income inequality, food and environmental safety, climate change, a safe infrastructure throughout the country, an efficient and just electoral system, and a respect for truth and reason? I would also like to say, that the title Mr. Brooks chose for his column is very misleading in this regard.
There's no possibility that actual socialism would ever prevail in the US over capitalism. The reasons are too many to list here.
In point of fact, actual socialism (or communism, for that matter) has never existed anywhere in the world. Governments who refer to themselves as "socialist" or "communist" are or have been essentially authoritarian police states masking as utopias.
Most Americans - say 99.999% - don't know what socialism or communism is or what the difference is between the two, and those who refer to themselves as socialists generally desire a stronger safety net, and more accessibility to affordable higher education and health care.
3
It’s not one or the other, David.
Look at healthcare where socialized systems produce better results at lower costs
The argument against widespread socialized industry has been won long ago, and for the obvious reasons, yet we are struggling to recognize the obvious and proven exception in healthcare, to the point that we are paying double for less
4
The nerve. After going on and on about the failure of socialism for all these years in places like Scandinavia, the right has now decided to simply re-brand Scandinavia as democratic capitalism and point to its successes. I think we call that moving the goalposts.
Historically, the media in the USA never explained what worked and didn't work in socialism. As for current affairs, there is little acknowledgement that the information revolution has done much to replace the 'invisible hand' which moved thru small, decentralized markets. The corporations themselves understand it as they rush to merge and consolidated under a new oligarchy controlled by a few "servers".
Insurance companies in medicine may have had some role in controlling costs at some point, as well as improving quality of care; today it is hard to justify against the possibility of an all seeing eye which picks up the slightest anomaly by dint of having all the data to hand and calculating its significance in the blink of an eye. Old style insurance companies today actually make care worse. Their recommendations are often flat out wrong.
Is single payer socialist or capitalist? Neither. Get with the times.
4
As I see it, a family of four, with the child-rearer going back to work part-time when the children turn five and full when they turn ten, and the other working 8 hours a day, should be able to afford:
-nutritious food
-a modest living area (say, 1,000 square feet)
-basic health care
-community college for suitably intelligent and motivated kids
-two vehicles.
-retirement
These things should be affordable, assuming decent financial planning, with one parent working at McDonald's, and the second (after getting the kids to kindergarten age) working at McDonald's as well.
After that, if Mr. and Mrs. Gottrox want that 10,000 square foot home and three Ferarris, hey, party on. but not until.
To sum up: a basic but dignified lifestyle for all working people.
4
I fear that Mr. Brooks just cannot admit that European-style socialism is a decent political model.
If he were to do that, those wealthy repubs who are gaming the system as it is today will not have a job for him in the future. And, as Paul Krugman has pointed out, that is how wealthy repubs keep their pundits and "thought leaders" in line.
6
It is under market based communism that China was able to lift more than 800 million of its people out of poverty. No other society in history has ever matched China's rapid growth. On a purchasing power parity China has world's largest GDP.
To say that capitalism is the greatest means for a society is to be blind to other forms of economic governance.
4
Thank you for this piece David. It is a tonic for the vapid policy discourse that has become the standard in America. Could you please direct me towards further reading on the subject of tax subsidies for health care and their relation to employment transitions.
Thanks for that, David. I'm very much relieved to learn that unlike socialism, corruption and cronyism are not inherent to capitalism. No buying and selling of representatives by lobbyists, etc. No nepotism, either. Guess we dodge that bullet on a daily basis.
7
Having lived in Sweden for many years, I can confirm that Socialism saps a lot of the things that make America great, like the desire to create companies, good health care, the desire to improve onesself, etc.
Socialist dreams assume there is no downside. The history of the 20th century is the failure of communism and leftist politics. Go live in Russia or Sweden, and you will see. Or just keep dreaming.
3
Capitalism, huh? Enron. Purdue Pharma. Great Recession (and it wasn't Capitalism that lifted us out of that).
7
It seems that the US voter, or should I say the Democratic US voter, needs to be reminded of this, as the Democratic Primaries roll in again.
1
The commenters bash, but Brooks conceded all the points you’re making either directly or implicitly.
1
The air and water are not cleaner because of capitalism. Drugs and food are not safer because of capitalism. Workplace safety is not better because of capitalism. Consumers are not more informed and safer because of capitalism. Wilderness areas are not protected because of capitalism. Medicare, the fire department, the police department, the military and the nation's highways are not capitalism. Air travel is safer today and that is not the workings of capitalism.
If we allowed purely market forces to control any of these properties we would not be better off.
Brook's claim that low-wage workers are seeing increasing wages faster than the top earners is laughable because the disparity between the two is massive and at record levels. Trickle down has not worked.
If socialism is the hand of government influencing the marketplace then perhaps the gun industry could use a little socialism.
The best government is a hybrid with elements of both socialism and capitalism. Unbridled capitalism has no conscious and can wreck havoc along the way until damage occurs and market forces redirect it. Anticipating that havoc is what regulation is all about.
11
This is a disingenuous argument. Few, if any, advocate a pure socialist or capitalist system because the best is a mix of both. The question is - how much and where?
6
Many of the technological breakthroughs that power the market were developed by the government or funded with government money. GPS? Government. Internet? Government. Many effective drug therapies? Government. Fundamental research is a role the government can play and has played in conjunction with a dynamic, market economy, which I also believe in. By the way, The "supportive state" can also be the "regulatory state." This is not in conflict. Some good ideas in here, however, regarding the supportive state.
2
David is a little late to the party - from one of the largest studies of poverty carried out by the Economist magazine in 2013:
"Towards the end of poverty
Nearly 1 billion people have been taken out of extreme poverty in 20 years. The world should aim to do the same again"
The mechanism?
Free markets - Free trade - Unconstrained capitalism
And yes - it can do the same in the next two decades if we let it.
And btw - that 20 years of free markets did more than all government transfers to various countries in the past 100 years.
No, the "mechanism" is not caputalism it is the altruistic intentions of people with the power to do something about the results of unrestrained capitalism.
From reading David's columns for many years I've reached the conclusion that he support Medicare and Medicaid … both of which are socialistic programs … thus making me conclude that David does support "some limited" forms of socialism … as most Republicans do. The debate is which forms of socialism will help America become stronger … without hindering capitalism. Personally, as a business owner and strong believer in capitalism, I'm confident that a "gradual" transfer to Medicare for all would benefit America's economic engine … not hinder capitalism.
Do we need reigns on capitalism? Certainly! Do we need to remove a system that created the greatest economy, the greatest productivity, and the greatest innovations in the history of the world? Of course not. Scandinavian style socialism will not work here because it is based on the idea that everybody works and everybody contributes. Here, because of political give-a-ways in return for votes, we have a large percentage of the population that is unproductive, contribute nothing but debt to society, and expect to have everything given to them because they consider themselves entitled to whatever they want. Socialists seem incapable of understanding that nothing is free and without a capitalistic economy the give-a-ways can't be given away. Most socialists I know seem more like "I don't want to work like you did for what you have but you need to give me part of it anyway". Historically, no true socialist economy has ever been able to sustain itself yet we continue to have those who want to jump on that failed bandwagon.
3
Brooks has become delusional if he thinks he can sell this baloney. It appears he cannot tell the difference between actual Socialism and the kind of social programs and regulations that are necessary to manage a large, developed economy in the 21st century so that all the citizens can participate on at least a somewhat equitable basis. These days "Socialism" and "Capitalism" are nothing more than buzzwords used by political apparatchiks to scare people. No one currently running for office is suggesting anything even approaching Socialism and as far as I can tell we have never practiced anything like true Capitalism in this country. The last thing the rich and powerful in this country have ever wanted is to have to compete fairly and squarely solely on their own merits. The best we have ever been able to come up with took place in the couple of decades after WWII but that has been pretty thoroughly dismantled now by the people who would call themselves Capitalists and has been replaced by something that is fast approaching Feudalism. It's time to let the past go and come up with some new ideas that don't rely on hackneyed propaganda and scare tactics.
6
In my experience, socialism, in the mind of too many Americans, is anything that remotely looks like a governmental intervention in the economy or even in our daily lives, which is probably why our public healthcare system in Canada is called « socialized healthcare » in the USA. (This always makes me laugh: as if Canada was a socialist state!)
Conservatives always assume that less intervention by the government is the best way to achieve growth. Anybody with a basic knowledge of history knows that every time regulations are lifted, a major economic catastrophe follows. Sure, there will be a few years of spectacular growth, but this is inevitably followed by a major crisis. The best example was 2008, of course: a financial collapse that could have been worse than the Great Depression was avoided by a ruinous injection of cash by the government. The years of deregulation that started with Reagan and continued until George W. Bush culminated in that mess.
Capitalism is a like teenager: it loves to go fast and take risks, so it requires adult supervision to keep it from driving the car into a ditch...
6
David Brooks is an acolyte of Edmund Burke who was an 18th-century statesman and philosopher around the time of the French Revolution. Burke’s work suggested that national planning couldn’t work because there was not enough data available to the planters to make reasonable plans. This was in the early 1800s. Since then things have changed but not David Brooks’ thinking.
Certainly capitalism has a place in modern society. Many of the attributes of capitalism are excellent. A great amount of innovation comes from people who made a lot of money and like to use it to innovate. Look at Amazon or Tesla.
On the other hand, we have a lot more data now and central planning can help. Capitalism can’t keep global warming in check. Capitalism can’t wipe out polio. Capitalism can’t make a fair and just society
We need a combination of modern thinking and modern actions because we have modern problems. Unfortunately, David Brooks isn’t into modern thinking. Burke’s hypothesis is incredibly dated and needs to be reevaluated considering modern data science. But old-fashioned philosophers are not going to change. The younger folks will come along and show us the way.
4
Brooks is just another man who cared about equality when young, and stopped when he became rich. It should be obvious at this point that unbridled Capitalism produces large amounts of inequality, and thereby localizes power in a few hands, who exploit the rest of society for personal gain. At this point in time, we need a little Socialism added to the mix if we are going to save our middle class. can't believe at this point, when our Democracy is in real peril, Brooks is championing the system that got us there!
3
Socialism is meant to help the poor and dispossessed and to reduce social and economic inequality. I t is based on giving one`s best to benefit all of society. I`m not sure what Mr. Brooks expected - was he thinking only of himself and what he could gain from it?
4
David, that is the finest column you have ever written.
This praise comes from an 'almost-democratic-socialist.'
Thank you.
273
@Dennis L. Isenburg
It does sound great, doesn't it?
But is he sincere?
His past positions suggest that he's not.
13
@Dennis L. Isenburg ; that sets a quite low bar then. Nothing in this column adds up as observed by so many posters here.
19
Amen!
You grew up.
1
Does capitalism really need promoting? This author needs to get out more.
1
Amen
"The state nurtures prosperity when it helps people become capitalists." Exactly. Democrats want to soften the edges of capitalism by directing slivers of its excesses to programs that help people and benefit society as a whole: public education, healthcare, retirement security, paternity leave and childcare, unemployment benefits.
This is not socialism; it is democratic capitalism. Such a system invests in people by giving us the space and tools to become sulf-sufficient adults in a dynamic market economy. It also creates the opportunity for upward social mobility and affords protection to the vulnerable among us--the sick, the elderly, children--and thus ensures a more just society.
The thing is, the modern Trump-Republican party opposes all this. There capitalism is winners-take-all with limited safety nets and public investment. In the long run, capitalism is poorly served by the GOP's version as it distorts outcomes, fails to invest in human capital, and fosters contempt and distrust in the system as a whole. That's what we're seeing now from Trump on the right and AOC on the left. People don't know where to direct their anger. The answer is 40-years of trickle-down economics.
2
Mr. Brooks: A visit to San Francisco, one of the wealthiest cities on the planet, might give you reason to toss the labels and think again. Homeless line the streets everywhere, filthy feces-lined streets, working people (nurses, firemen, police, sanitation) cannot afford to live within even an hour's drive. We don't need more sophistry and endless, pointless academic debate. We do need empathy, housing, food and medical care for these people left behind in big tech's capitalist wake. From where will that help come?
5
this is sillier than most of brooks' pieces -- a straw man (his usual either-or sophomoric trope) without straw.
4
Someday soon the “capitalist workers paradise” will appear. The people will overcome the incentives inherent in the system that propel individuals to feather their own nest and grab as much political and economic power as they can. This no doubt will occur by way of voluntary non-governmental bodies spontaneously appearing. These groups will also help me find the pony hidden cleverly somewhere in the horse dung I received for Christmas.
2
I find it so tiresome that we get stuck on labels like Socialism and Capitalism. Venezuela, China and Russia = Socialism? Give me a break, Chavez, Mao and Stalin were brutal dictators there was nothing Socialist about those societies, all they did was channel wealth from one group of people to another. And how is it that capitalism has been so great? Look at what Amazon is doing to its workers. How about all the wealth accumulated to the top 1% in the US? There's a role for business and a role for the government and society. As an example, when capitalism is applied to the prison industry people suffer because their imprisonment is what drives profits. Quit getting hung up on Capitalist vs Socialist and focus on applying the best of both approaches to our society.
695
@JC You're right that none of those people were true socialists. It's also true that Trump's not a conservative; yet conservatism provided him a channel to power, and is helping him consolidate power.
21
@RB - That's not quite accurate--it was right-wing authoritarianism masquerading as conservatism that provided Trump a channel to power.
44
What is Amazon doing to its workers? How many do you know? How many retail clerks did/do you know? Tell us what’s happening at Amazon.
18
What mechanism does capitalism, or any government in its thrall, have to stop climate disaster? When the profit motive achieves total legislative capture, as it has done in the U.S. there are no barriers to it burying the world in its waste.
Will capitalists' desire for self preservation save us? No. The 0.01% in control are creating fortified retreats with provisions for lifetimes of comfortable existence to escape the eco-disaster they are causing.
David Brooks falsely equivocates Soviet style command economies (Communist states) with Democratic Socialism. As David L. Prychito pointed out in 2002 in "Markets, Planning, and Democracy: Essays After the Collapse of Communism" "...advocates of Democratic Socialism (who are committed to Socialism... but opposed to Stalinist-style command planning) advocate a decentralized Socialism, whereby the planning process itself ... would follow the workers' self-management principle."
This principle is alive and well in successful worker co-ops like Mondragon Corporation and the International Organization of Cooperatives in Industry and Services—CICOPA. A hallmark of Democratic Socialism and worker cooperatives is that when people are in control of their destinies they do not choose to destroy their livelihoods, their neighborhoods, or their environment merely for profits. That is a hallmark of the capitalist system, a system that would gladly destroy the world for a quick buck if we let it.
4
The socialist phony argument. Not one candidate proposes living in a real socialist state, even if Bernie uses the word. They're all true capitalists. They just want to make adjustments to make capitalism work better. I think everyone would agree that pure capitalism without any regulation and social programs would be an unmitigated disaster. And a side from living standards, capitalism can lead to incredible inequality and the end of the planet if it isn't kept in necessary check. Please, lets not make up phony arguments because you're so afraid of Sanders and Warren, who would do what it takes to make capitalism actually work for a larger percentage of the population, not just banks and hedge funds.
6
Has Brooks been to Denmark to see how socialism can work?
A new Times article - https://nyti.ms/36apfpI - about pig farming provides a compelling example to refute Brooks's rational for doubling down on capitalism.
In America's capital motivated system, "Many [farmers] still rely on daily feedings of antibiotics to fatten pigs and increase profits …[and] use antibiotics at a rate seven times higher than that of Danish farmers" In Denmark, reduction in anti-biotics "were achieved through tougher regulations and by removing a financial incentive that had encouraged veterinarians to liberally prescribe antibiotics when farmers requested them."
Does Brooks prefer the capital inspired and motivated "innovation" that ignores collateral costs that endangers everyone - like drug resistant pathogens and environmental destruction? Yes, innovative new death-inducingly-priced anti-biotics to fight drug resistant pathogens are created.
Without rules, capital profits motivates cutting corners that endanger everyone, all to increase profits for a few.
Who knew growing pigs more humanely was less expensive, more effective, causes less collateral costly damage? America's free-for all treats real wealth generators, employees and customers, like cattle to be exploited. Just look at the airline industry for proof where innovation comes in ever smaller seats, longer lines, fees and poorly paid workers!
Mr. Brooks, I'll take competent government over competent unrestrained greed any day.
5
It's NOT“democratic socialists”. Nobody is demanding government ownership of production.
It IS social democrats.
A nuance,like so many others, lost on conservatism...
6
So Mr. Brooks, how is our current Capitalist healthcare system "demystifying" American's "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness?"
5
Glad Capitalism worked for you.
I’ll forego socialist planning in return for decent healthcare and a living wage for all.
If we can give it to civil servants, we can probably adapt that bureaucracy for all.
My father and brother fought in wars and spent their lived struggling for decent healthcare for themselves and their families.
It’s time to solve the problem w/o referring to “socialism”.
4
Roads. Schools. Libraries. The Fire Department. The Police Department. The Armed Forces. Air Traffic Controllers. The National Parks. The National Institutes of Health. And Government Itself.
THESE ARE ALL SOCIALIZED INSTITUTIONS.
And of course there are more.
Does all this make us (cough) Socialists? Does it matter?
Stop labeling and start thinking.
11
How can you have a "wide and fair" form of capitalism with the fractional reserve system that has one set of rules about money for bank owners and another for the rest of us? Can you fix that??
3
Your argument only works in selected examples. That is why Many companies went bankrupted, let shareholders and providers holding the bag. Many companies only profited by lies, advertisement, and faulty image ! It doesn’t provide any benefit to anyone except a few. Look at Trump, a capitalist who lies, cheat and profited by bankruptcy. He also tried to gain profit to himself by taking advantage of tax payers .... meanwhile, Sweden, Swiss e.g. are doing well by providing medical, good retirement benefit, and many social program to many
3
Interesting how Nordic countries are not considered 'socialist' in this article, but rather 'supportive capitalist'...it's like taking ownership of what are widely considered socialist countries, rebranding them capitalist and then using these countries as examples of how great capitalism is...flawed logic
6
Mr. Brooks sets up a buagaboo and demolishes it with gusto, but it's irrelevant to the 2020 election. None of the candidates is talking about "planned economies" or "common ownership of the means of production". They're talking about getting multi-billion-dollar global behemoths to pay taxes. Trying to curb the rapacious instincts of unregulated capitalism is not the same as state planning and state-driven execution of the entire economy.
How can such a long-standing, illustrious columnist of such a great newspaper be so hopelessly deluded?
1
All of capitalism's success is for naught. In merely two hundred years capitalism has destroyed the environment and is about to unleash horror on the human species the likes we have never before experienced. Yea....capitalism worked for a very, very , short time....and then set the house on fire.
1
"Citizens soon realize the whole system is a fraud."
Versus what we have now which is working so well?
3
"The freeest economies in the world are places like Hong Kong, the U.S., Canada, Ireland, Latvia, Denmark, Mauritius, Malta and Finland."???
Hmm, well, Hong Kong isn't too free these days. Canada--socialized medicine. Ireland and Denmark too. That's a huge chunk of the economy. In Denmark, you have truth in advertising laws. You can't call something "the best" unless you can prove it.
I'm not enamored of socialism. I'm just being critical of your column. Sometimes you come off as incredibly naive and uninformed.
4
Crony/laissez faire Capitalism is turning the world - America/China/Russia in particular - into virtual slave colonies.
"Today, the real argument is not between capitalism and socialism. We ran that social experiment for 100 years and capitalism won."
Well that'll be your little secret than. I don't know what Brooks is smoking but he's clearly out of touch with both history and reality. Ask the majority of American - lower-middle class and poor - how capitalism is working out for them. Go back in time and ask the natives and slaves how capitalism is working out for them. Go back in time to the robber barons and ask the miners and all the other blue collar men, women, and children being worked to death or in debtors prison how capitalism is working out for them.
In quality of life of indexes and overall happiness scales America isn't even in the top 30 nations - hasn't been since the 1950s. Guess what kind of governments hold all the top 10 spots and most of the other 20 below that...right, social democracies!
You do realize you can still get rich in a social democracy, right? You just have to pay your fair share like everyone else. Thanks but you can keep American capitalism and all its social ills. I'll take social democracy any day of the week.
4
David Brooks was “once a socialist” in the exact same way that he is now a “capitalist.” He has been, and continues to be, deeply indoctrinated.
Of course, he has never seen how socialism work (because it’s never existed), so here he’s just regurgitating the indoctrination he eagerly swallowed as a younger man.
And here he cheers for “capitalism” in the exact same way as he cheers for “our freedom of the press”—where his “freedom” is owned and controlled by multinational private corporations running this nation’s presses.
But none of this matters now. What matters now is that the propagandists must work full tilt to counter the growing anti-corporate sentiments in the public sphere and the popular anti-corporate voice of Bernie Sanders. And that’s precisely what we see in this Brook’s column.
2
"Two cheers for capitalism, now and forever." David, whatever your analysis is, aren't you embarrassed to talk like that? And look at the socialist countries of Europe. Do you think those people would want to live like we do in the US? Do you know the meaning of "sychpfant"?
2
Mr. Brooks:
You were Not a Socialist - you were a Stalinist - someone who believes in running the state and all industries through 5- and 10-year plans.
Not even Karl Marx wrote about such planning - his utterly impossible dream called for the state to have “faded away” within those short timelines. You don’t know what you were or are.
What this nation needs and has is an economy not based on a single “-ism”; to get a good job on a dam or waterway, the Army Corps of Engineers dies the job from start to finish, under, in pre-Trump days, supervision by the EPA. Socialism.
Want to design an electric car, let folks with money invest in Tesla!
Capitalism. Under, in pre-Trump days, control of the IRS and the anti-trust watchdogs.
Your inaccurate definition (who wants to admit being part of a system that resulted in mass-starvation? Remember, by the way, we are speaking of the economic part of the system. Canada is more Socialist than the US in terms of health care, but is just as democratic a republic. Russia is hyper-Capitalist these days and under control of a dictator).
The best way to improve our economy would be to prohibit stock ownership except by inventors and employees - leaving financing to bonds. What does someone who inherits shares of GM, that passed through 30 “owners” know or care about cars - the stock owner cares about profit.
Inventors and employees know whether to vote themselves raises, or hire more workers for personal benefit. They know. Stockholders don’t.
Brooks rebrands social democracy as capitalism. Worker coops, wage subsidies, I guess if the rebranding helps. FDR was a socialist or a capitalist? The arsenal of democracy was socialist or capitalist? The TVA was socialist or capitalist? Social Security is ... hmmm .... have to work on the branding there. Vulture capitalism promoted by Brooks and his ilk since Reagan didn't work. There were problems by the end of the New Deal in the 60s and 70s but what came next, Reagan and Clinton ... ism ... didn't work.
Mr Brooks. FDR was a socialist or a capitalist? Take as much time as you like but no waffling.
2
Capitalism, socialism, democracy, autocracy, communism are dysfunctional.
For human cultural systems of relationship interface — nation state & global — we can't use history as a reliable guide.
I'll explain, but first expose a crippling philosophic error of David Brooks.
Earlier this year Mr. Brooks wrote about his decision to write a book in 2015: "American culture seemed to be in decent shape and my focus was how individuals can deepen their inner lives."
Mr. Brooks, if your culture's relationships with the sky & ocean are deadly, your culture is not in decent shape.
1970: "The oceans are in danger of dying." Jacques Cousteau
2019: They're dying.
Mr. Brooks cannot get fundamental.
The cultural network is built on geo, eco & bio networks — all of which are being gutted.
History is an inaccurate guide for human cultural interface systems because we've generated unprecedented relationships / environs.
The dominant phenomenon of our era is exponentially accelerating complexity.
ie
Add more than 6 billion people since 1900, & simultaneously, give billions access to exponentially more powerful technology — technology born of an emergent phenomenon, exponentially accruing knowledge.
ie
“There were 5 exabytes of information created by the entire world between the dawn of civilization and 2003; now that same amount is created every two days.” Eric Schmidt, Google
A hard micro-plastic rain's gonna fall — & has, repeatedly.
Brooks' archaic platitudes are beyond silly.
2
Below is my go to quote for the topic of socialism. Until someone, somewhere apologizes for the sins of socialism, I am not willing to give them any quarter.
Language has many words, there was no need to create the term "Democratic Socialism" It would be like "Democratic Nazism." Socialism is beyond redemption, make a new phrase like "Democratic Safety Net." Let the very concept of Socialism die in the dustbin of history.
“No cause, ever, in the history of all mankind, has produced more cold-blooded tyrants, more slaughtered innocents, and more orphans than socialism with power. It surpassed, exponentially, all other systems of production in turning out the dead. The bodies are all around us. And here is the problem: No one talks about them. No one honors them. No one does penance for them. No one has committed suicide for having been an apologist for those who did this to them. No one pays for them. No one is hunted down to account for them. It is exactly what Solzhenitsyn foresaw in The Gulag Archipelago: ‘No, no one would have to answer. No one would be looked into.’”
Until that happens, there is no "after socialism." Kids who in the 1960s had portraits of Mao and Che on their college walls —the moral equivalent of having hung portraits of Hitler, Goebbels, or Horst Wessel in one's dorm—now teach our children about the moral superiority of their political generation.
Alan Kors
Please read your coreligionist who spent decades at the Institute for advanced studies at Princeton, Michael Walzer.
His thought is so much more sophisticated and informed by decades of history, than yours. He understands that an ethics of communal provision is not some simple state socialism. It is part of a hybrid economy. You are engaging in the worst of either/or commentary. You’re better than this.
2
All this talk of being better, learning more, and constantly improving is wonderful.....except that its all linked to money.There's a reason so many people are seeking guidance form self-help books: how to be happier, how to live with less, how to have a healthy work-life balance, and many more that have reached the tops of the NYT best seller list. While living/backpacking through Thailand many years ago I'll never forget a conversation with a group of international travelers: we were sharing the common stereotypes of each other nationalities. When it came time to the US everyone agreed that Americans talk about money all the time. I'm an avid people watcher and eavesdropper and have since noticed this is very true. Yes, everyone likes money but Americans center their lives around it. Why? Partially because if they don't they can end up homeless and jobless and partially because if they don't they can't afford the American dream which is centered around constantly achieving more and more money to buy things and achieve a certain status. Capitalism breeds "status anxiety" discussed in the book by Alain deBotton. Brooks states that Capitalism isn't a religion, yet Americans worship the dollar so it may as well be.
Being both an economic and a secular belief system, capitalism is religious. Like religion, it should be handed down at birth and practiced one’s entire life. As with religious beliefs, it can’t be discarded when it doesn’t benefit you.
1
Brooks cites Lincoln as a hero for spreading capitalism, and lauds him for creating land-grant colleges "so that more people would have the training to compete as capitalists." Land-grant colleges were established by and received support from the federal government in the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890.
The government spending tax dollars for someone else to go to college? Sounds like socialism to me.
4
Hate to break it to you, Dave, but the United States of America became a socialist polity in 1775, when the Continental Congress authorized the purchase of two vessels to create the Continental Navy. When folks in a democracy decide to authorize levies or taxes on themselves it has nothing to do with economic theories, it's called socialism. Our debate has never been about socialism versus capitalism, it has been about who controls the capital that socialism generates.
1
The consumer is either robbed by capitalism, or adequate competition in the free market lead to fair prices and opportunities. What wealthy people's lawyers are great at is finding ways to rig the capitalist system to limit competition and circumvent consumer protections. Including buying congressmen.
David you know to what I am speaking. So we get Halliburton getting a no-bid contract for a hundred billion in the Iraq war. We get generic drugs with only one manufacturer and prices that quintuple. The list goes on and on and on and on. And the government and the voters (with general interest) do not have the same concentrated incentive as those with special interest. So the special interests greatly cheat us all in our current capitalist system. Yes socialism does not work. But any time a capitalist system does not have robust competiton, it is every bit as much an abject failure.
3
I do not think it is true that capitalism is the only way we can learn about people's patterns and usage, and that governmental systems have no way to learn or track these things. People gravitate towards efficiency, practicality, and excellence, and balance all of those things. We use time as a resource - how often do we see a campus built with sidewalks, and yet people cut through the grass because it is a most direct route. A new path is created; we learn the pattern of what people want and choose to use. Time was the motivator.
I live near a subway line and a bus line. I choose which to take into Midtown based on time of day, where I'm going, what I'm carrying, what the weather is, and I'm just one of many whose usage is easily tracked by the MTA.
In school systems like NYC's, we see greater applications towards the more successful schools, even when they are farther away. It is not money driving that pattern, but it is a better product.
The value of this column is it delves deeper on an important topic - what is capitalism vs what is socialism. Better language is needed to improve the system for the better.
Sadly a few commenters seem to have missed this point.
One quibble for Mr Brooks, he (like many) says the system is all about making profits - being profit driven. It is really not. It is about attracting financial capital, something that arrives and leaves a lot faster than say human capital. Tesla and Amazon are clearly not now profit driven, yet they readily attract financial capital.
I bring this up with the hope that Mr Brooks will think and someday opine on the speed of capital. Something about the current hyper speed of capital movements seems unhealthy for the whole system. I suspect years from now just as the tax system differentiates between long term and short term capital gains, something similar will be in place to appropriate "incent" down the sort of arb rapid trading that seems to underpin some of the market swings.
This a great argument against a position that no one holds. No one relevant anyway. Even Bernie Sanders doesn’t want government to own the means of production. He wants the spoils of capitalist successes to be more fairly divided up. You’ll be amazed to know that he has robust support in this belief.
The only people screaming about socialism are on Fox News’ prime time slots. Everyone else just wants a fairer tax system — Republicans included!
3
I am a free market capital. America is no longer a free market capitalist society but one dominated by special interest groups and oligarch large companies that abuse their market power to stifle competition. America's capitalist health care system cost double anywhere else, does not cover all, and is no better quality than that of countries with universal health care.
The concentration of wealth amongst the top few percent is the highest it has ever been. A low minimum wage without benefits can not support a family.
There is an important role for government to play to ensure that wealth is shared fairly and a person who works can support their family. That is no longer the case, America's middle class is on life support.
Funny thing however, Trump supporters tend to be older Americans who do not consider social security and Medicare to be socialist programs.
4
Capitalism may not be a religion, but people act as if it were. There are far more people saying "I am a Capitalist," than there are actual Capitalists. Many confuse Capitalism with free enterprise, which is Capitalism's often unwilling food. The true Capitalist is not concerned with producing value, but with ownership of wealth. He/she does not earn wealth, but accumulates it, does not add value, but tolerates it as a source of wealth. Most of all, he/she does not value labor, seeing it a s a commodity to be acquired at the lowest possible cost.
The main difference between Capitalism and Socialism is that most Capitalists likely did not start out as idealists.
1
"I came to realize that capitalism is really good at doing the one thing socialism is really bad at: creating a learning process to help people figure stuff out."
Sorry. You lost me at this line. Capitalism is good at maximizing profits for holders of capital. There is no "design" thinking involved in capitalism. Capitalism is not a system of exchange but an absence of regulation. Once you have any regulation of any kind, you are already in the realm of socialism, where social bodies "try to figure stuff out."
7
This is a nice column to spark discussion of big political economy questions, which is worth doing with our society now facing important crossroads, which will come into focus e.g. with a Trump-Warren election. However, I don't agree with the dichotomy Brooks overtly makes between capitalism and socialism (which his column implicitly disavows). Essentially Brooks is saying capitalism is great as long as we soften it with socialism -- a series of subsidies for education, nutrition, consumption, etc. But since all modern economies are a mix of public and private sectors, it's not enlightening to say private markets are great and the complete elimination of such markets doesn't work. It is no more enlightening to say vibrant government programs and a strong public sector are essential, so private markets should be completely eliminated. Labels like democratic socialist and democratic capitalist aren't all that helpful. What is more concrete is a discussion of how much of the economy should be public and how much private. How big should the social safety net be? What's the right balance? I suppose saying one is democratic capitalist is a shorthand way of indicating preference in private vs. public, but it is still pretty vacuous until ones gets down to specific policies. Is guaranteed health care a right? If so, should it be met with a single payer system of insurance, or a public/private mix, or carefully regulated private insurance, or ...? The devil is in the details!
4
David Brooks is one of the private contractors tasked with directing conversation about what Capitalism is as a more establishment non-Trump conservative. He portrays Capitalists as those with more highly developed skills. He is dog-whistle white supremacy talk.
Socialism from Venezuela provided the poor in NYC with free heating oil until the US put sanctions on Venezuela.
Fundamental to Socialism since Karl Marx has been workers taking over control of the means of production after organizing as unions. There is no Capitalism that does this. Getting a loan from a bank to start a business isn't democracy. Democracy is one person one vote. In Capitalism those who invest the most money control the most shares in a company and vote as many times as the number of shares they own. That's an actual Dictatorship. This is not my opinion. It's actually how Capitalism functions.
4
A refreshing liberal - truly liberal - economic view. Free enterprise is the economic analog of democracy. The left is getting seduced by socialism like the right is getting seduced by populism. What is going on in America?
1
"I Was Once a Socialist. Then I Saw How It Worked."
Oh, baloney you were a socialist - on your David Brooks/Milton Friedman youtube clip you're obviously the Wall Street Journal-employed, right liberal "center" to the estimable young James Galbraith's left liberal (but not socialist either) debate with Friedman.
Having an environmental regulatory agency to keep industry from poisoning its workers (the most you humbly raise your voice for in that clip) - vs. poor widows and orphans trying to sue for damages - is not socialism.
5
our capitalist system depends on growth—as does cancer
5
It's always a false dichotomy to oppose "capitalism" vs "socialism" even the automotive world realized that a hybrid of both is th best option. You will get fnaatics o take wilddly unrealistic position in favor of thier ideological preference, and thetemptation is to mis-characteize both positions. It probably tracks with the different brain wiiring of 'liberals" (which have pedominnt mpthy cicuits and like the seensibility that preferences 'the Common Good") and "conservative" (who prference their own selves over others) our cowboy culture is harshly aggressive with our inescapeable commercial hustling. NO wonder "socialism" is a hard sell to a culture that idealizes the Marlboro Man. and yet we love us some fire departments, miliitary, EMTs roads and bridges, mail services and many other "socialist" projects. We are and must be a hybrid of the two ideologies.
1
Beware of any argument the begins, I was once like you but now I know better.
8
Wow! David Brooks advocating for the welfare state and big government? Did I read this column wrong?
1
I do not expect General Motors to defend me in case of national Emergency. I do not expect nor want the federal government to run General Motors. We do need regulations like seat belt standards and airbag rules because there are some things no car company would do if left to it's own devices. Sensible regulation makes up for some of the flaws in capitalism without ruining it. We need balance. right now we have too much lean towards unbridled capitalism.
4
Regulated capitalism, especially of the Sanders/Warren variety is no longer capitalism. Unbridled capitalism is redundant.
What socialism hasn't figured out is how to motivate the workers. Capitalism has figured it out, occasionally its lopsidedness needs to be corrected. Capitalism hasn't figured out "how much is enough". The more the better isn't the best answer. As a nation, we need to figure that one out. Put another way, see W. A. Spitzer from Faywood, NM.
2
Brooks' article is based confusing Democratic Socialism with Communism. Most of the countries in Western Europe, to one degree or another, have societies based on principles of Democratic Socialism. None of them are talking about the state taking over the means of production or having the government micro manage their economies. There are certain public goods that need to be available universally such as education and medical care. Everyone, including most Democratic Socialists agree that other goods and services are best provided by the private sector. Democratic Socialists want the best of both worlds. I'm sure Brooks knows that. Intentionally or not, he has joined right leaning demagogues in trying to confuse and scare the public about what Democratic Socialism stands for.
7
Social programs for the greater common good provide affordable tuition; medical and housing. Capitalist America doesn't do any of that well.
6
The ridiculousness in this discussion, is that pretty much every major power outside of the U.S. has a socialist democratic market economy (using the G7 as an example, the U.K., France, Italy, Germany, Canada, Japan).
And all are doing incredibly well.
We've figured out how to provide universal healthcare to our citizens, we allow for women to take 12 - 18 months off for maternity leave, we have strong public education systems, the costs of education (though high) don't financially ruin you like they do in the U.S., we mandate 3 weeks of paid vacation time in Canada (5 in most parts of Europe) for all workers.
And the reality of our 'higher tax' systems that pay for all of this stuff? A very comparable GDP per capita number to the U.S., a healthier population, less inequality.
Try it, Americans would never regret it.
10
“Socialism produces economic and political inequality as the rulers turn into gangsters. A system that begins in high idealism ends in corruption, dishonesty, oppression and distrust.”
Unlike American capitalism, of course. No corruption, dishonesty, oppression and distrust here.
8
Ayn Rand—the purest capitalist ever to exist and ideological seducer of Allen Greenspan—who derided all forms of government aid died penniless living in NYC subsidised housing, supported by Social Security and receiving health care through Medicare.
6
Venezuela isn't failing because it's socialist, it's failing because their government is corrupt. Haiti isn't failing because it's poor, it's failing because their government is corrupt. The US... hmmm, just what do we have in common? Corruption in our executive branch must not go unchecked by Congress. The scare tactic of "socialism" is now being weaponized. When Democrats re-take the reins of our fiscally broke country, the problems will be blamed on "socialist" programs and regulation, just you watch!
1
Mr. Brooks was an actual socialist like I was Sonny Bono’s ex-wife Cher. I may have had the right hair to look the part at the time, but it doesn’t make me Sonny’s duet partner on I Got You, Babe.
What else have you got, Mr. Brooks?
I read Free to Choose back in the day, also. If Milton Friedman was so right on about things like ‘move to where the jobs are,’ why didn’t coal miners move out of former coal country and seek employment elsewhere?
It’s always a little more complicated in real life and seldom is it as black and white.
4
Coal miners, like those living in San Francisco age Brooklyn, have come to believe that they are entitled to live wherever they wish. Friedman was still right.
1
Nature is inherently unequal - big fish swallow the little fish, dog will eat dog, and a pecking order will always prevail.
To imagine that humans are exempt from this and can somehow make everyone "equal" through sheer willpower and ideologies like socialism is futile - it is like fighting the laws of gravity.
What Communism taught us is that you cannot make a poor person rich - you can only make more rich people poor.
3
We really need a better word for what many people are advocating for. Socialism isn’t it. Socialism is the control of all businesses, the means of production by the state. I think few are arguing for true socialism. At least I hope they aren’t. People are advocating for more checks on capitalism and for more of a government safety net. Democratic socialism is a silly moniker too. One describes how the government is run and one describes how the economy is run.
1
The issue isn't socialism. The issue is how to rein in capitalism. In the last 70 years, it is arguably the case that times when prosperity was greatest, were also times of highest taxes, and when even Republicans believed that the most egregious evils of unfettered capitalism needed to be controlled. Brooks is setting up a straw man, looking forward to an election when Trump will not be a nominee.
1
You are falling for the trap that many of our less than one per centers set, namely to hyperbolize socialism. I am a strong supporter of free markets but business people will game the system and engage in unfair competition which eventually defeats the “self-regulation” of pure capitalism. We are seeing that putting more money in the hands of the capitalists with a large tax cut is not working and has not worked in the past, whereas modest increases in taxes has worked and this is not socialism. Warren and Sanders are not advocating for socialism. I agree that extreme socialism is eventually not successful for the reasons you have mentioned, but oversight and regulation by the government and increased tax revenues from the very wealthy, which is reasonable since they consume more of the public goods than most people, is reasonable and far from socialism.
2
Capitalism ,in its most nasty form,exists in USA. Unbridled greed and passion for more and more wealth ,even if squeezes everyone in its path, seems to be the norm. Getting oil at any cost from pristine wildlife areas and ocean just to show the world we are energy independent, is appalling. Homelessness in wealthy states like California and Washington is beyond imagination. These are only few of the examples of Capitalism gone amuck. Then there is skyhigh costs for healthcare, and college education and stagnant wages. Money in the hands of few is anarchy. Socialism is a bad word for Americans because it conjures up images of Cuba etc,but it need not be if we chart its course based on our principles.
3
This is one of the best opinion pieces on the subject of capitalism v. socialism I have ever read! Great job Mr. Brooks on summarizing the challenges with capitalism and the weaknesses of socialism. This should be required reading in every college economics course. The best line:
"All of these leaders understood that the answer to the problems of capitalism is wider and fairer capitalism."
2
The problem with the capitalism we have is that the top sucks all the profit, leaving the middle so strapped that it can't give the bottom a living wage. Greed may be good, but only as a condiment, not as a main course! And how can we fix that when the people in power are allied with the top against the rest of us?
5
Capitalism is critical to creation of the wealth we will need to fulfill the shopping list from Brookings and AEI. Social ownership of the means of production is lame at the very least, agreed. But in our societies, less so in Canada, the valid criticism of that aspect of socialism is applied also to tar all other aspects of socialism including education, health care, social services and welfare. That malarkey should be actively discouraged. But it is not. Critics of these latter bits are often the rich who would bear the burden, but include also those who have bought their sleight of hand. Those who are happy with what Freedom has fallen in their lap but could not care less about those who are less fortunate have not earned their freedom but have merely taken liberties. That is why it is a duty to pay taxes, and particularly in our countries, it is also an honour.
3
Like most of today’s conservatives, Brooks conflates capitalist market competition with laissez-faire. They are not the same thing. In Adam Smith’s classic theory, the “invisible hand” of the market operates to optimize economic outcomes *under the conditions of perfect competition,* which include the following:
1. A sufficiently large number of both buyers and sellers that no single actor can influence the market price.
2. A uniform product or commodity, indistinguishable from one seller to another.
3. No barriers to free entry and exit of market participants.
4. Transparent information on market conditions, freely available to all.
The incentive for any individual provider is to eliminate competition by defeating all of these conditions, to their own benefit rather than that of the economy as a whole. This is why laissez-faire policies (deregulation, “getting government off the back" of business), do not lead to optimal outcomes. Every sector of today’s economy is an oligopoly, dominated by a small number of providers rather than Smith’s vision of an open competitive market. Free market capitalism requires regulatory intervention to maintain the competitiveness of the market.
5
The lie of "Socialism" was pitched to my parents and their unwitting fellow Citizens in Cuba in the 1950's. My parents said that they watched in horror as the soldiers and officers from the "Socialist Government" had so much sweeping power that they became monsters. each time, taking more freedom from the citizens. Each time, confiscating more of their property. And guess what? The business owners left! They returned to Spain or they fled to the U.S.
My father owned cigar factories in Santa Clara, Cuba. At first, the "Socialists" came to visit him in his office and said to him "we will be coming by once a week to collect the government's portion of the cigars that you make." Every week, they'd come and they would take his PREMIUM cigars, the cigars he made the most money off of. They'd leave him with the mid grade and low grade. Then they made him pay heavy taxes on what he did have left to sell. Then, they showed up and started to take the premium and the mid grade cigars (for the government to sell and profit off of as they had consolidated all of the privately owned cigar factories into one state owned). They took so much that he and my mother could not even afford to live. Of course, they also went through this "You'll all have to turn your guns in. You don't need guns anymore. Why do you need guns? we're here now. You don't need to fear the government anymore." After that, all the business owners FLED Cuba. Socialism looks good only on PAPER.
3
Did David Brooks just try to argue that capitalism IMPROVES the environment? Just checking.
There are a ton of other ways to respond to this article thoughtfully, but this one point (par. 11) seems laughable on its face. I'm pretty sure that coal companies and etc. aren't the ones, for example, who put the regulations in place to improve air quality in the US and reduce carbon emissions. And they're STILL lobbying (very effectively) against reforms that would head off the worst effects of climate change. Planned environmental policy, anyone? Does that entail at least a partially planned energy policy? Who is going to do that, Enron?
Also: citation needed for "The greatest environmental degradations are committed by planned systems like the old Soviet Union and communist China"? Google "pea soup fog" and "London." I know we think it's quaint now and we name outerwear brands after it, but...
Come on!
And one more side note: Britain 1945-1976 is your best argument against "planned economies" (which is really a straw-man here. Who is arguing for a fully socialist state? Whom is Brooks arguing against? Seems designed to whip up fear about "democratic socialists" despite the apparent caveat in par. 3). Please stop conflating "planned economies" with totalitarian horror shows. Many opportunists have taken advantage of socialism's ideals to hijack governments and commit mass atrocities. The ideals themselves are not the problem--on that front, at the very least.
2
What I found most interesting in this opinion piece was the failure of the author to define socialism and capitalism. Without a clear definition the reader can assume what he wants about each system.
3
Thank you for a thoughtful column. You have garnered the expected criticism re: your so-called bias, but IMHO this column is quite measured and equitable.
1
So does that mean that corporations are really "people"?
Corporations are a form of socialism, David.
2
In the beginning he argues — “You’ve noticed that places that instituted market reforms, like South Korea and Deng Xiaoping’s China, tended to get richer and prouder”, essentially highlight how China benefited by embracing capitalism.
But in the very next paragraph, he mentions “The greatest environmental degradations are committed by planned systems like the old Soviet Union and communist China....”.
Isn’t this a disingenuous argument by conveniently highlighting and attributing China’s economic success on capitalism and environmental damage on socialism?
1
Where is the Republican party on any of the solutions that Brooks recommends, especially if Trump wins a second term? Whatever fears Brooks has about the socialistic components of Bernie & Elizabeth Warren, they will be modified in the sausage grinder of the legislative process.
By refusing to side with Dems, Brooks is prolonging the problems that he says exists and cares about. This "cure is worse than the condition" argument is a bunch of malarkey.
1
I was expecting Brooks to have come to Canada to see a real SOCIALIST [OMG!] country!? If he had paid us a visit he would have seen how street people line up at the Good Shepard or the Salvation Army for lunch [although some prefer to beg on the street], talked to people in hospital emergency waiting room waiting for "free" doctors [even people who never paid a penny into OHIP don't have to pay for either doctors OR medications!], talked to a low income old person who gets their income brought up to subsistence level by the government and many more wicked Socialist ideas. Thank goodness I was born in Canada! Thank goodness I wasn't born in the U.S.[and I have lived there and admire you guys in many ways - it must be particularly nice to have been born in "the best country in the world"- born self confidence].
Do come and visit David Brooks although the way I read you you are saying "lets have some Socialist programs but still call ourselves Capitalists".
I had my head mashed at Columbia in '68. I later got arrested and went to jail ,other awful stuff happened. That was before I was 18 and could vote. I learned, that the folks hiding behind me on Amsterdam or Broadway, understood or cared nothing of issues -(classes were out)- & didn't have the courage of their convictions, as almost none risked even a hangnail-. I remember the young TPF cop hitting me with a club- barely yelling-say to me-"get outta here, go awnnn"-you don't belong here , anyway.
It didn't make me love or respect cops, but I understood their difficult job and how-to them, (and my sore head), the kids from Columbia looked like privileged louts and cowardly punks.
But i never reconsidered my left of center politics-though I now wish, had I been able to vote-I had worked to ensure LBJ had another term.As much of a period piece and anitique as he was-he was better than all the GOP & later Dem presidents.
SOme Guys start out as fiery and, if on the left, and & they change-it is almost always hard to the right where they wonder how they could have been so stupid.(yes: I remember Ramparts publishers)
It is not their politics are better-they are merely seeing themselves in a mirror of age which shows them how naive and shallow they once were- no better then the worst of their enemies. Though-Brooks has not supported GOP Presidents unanimously, since the second Bush adminstration.
-We all mellow-and I think only us 60+ year olds should be allowed to vote.
1
Donald Trump is an Alpha Capitalist and the predicted outcome of capitalism's effect on our democratic republic.
Why is he writing this column? Up front he says that the “socialism” he deplores isn’t what “candidates like Bernie Sanders” are proposing. Guess he was running short of ideas before the holidays.
1
Mr. Brooks' socialism was purely sartorial.
He clearly prefered lattes, along with the bobos he once ridiculed on his way to making his first million dollars, to taking the route of another journalist by the name of Dorothy Day who eschewed wealth to doing good for others as did another rebel from the first century.
1
Mr. Brooks wants to make Capitalism better by making it more socialist. He wants everyone to be a capitalist. That is like all chiefs and no indians. The real balance is between the capitalist owners of industry and the workers. The real balance is where unions have a say in working conditions and where the workers expertise with the work makes them smarter than their boss about the workings of the boss's industry. In some ways we are close to the Markist Leninist ideal. Workers have been convinced that their retirement accounts should be invested. Many are invested in the stock market and we are close to the workers owning industry which was the Marxist objective. The only problem in not making it to perfection is that not everyone has a retirement account and society has had to create Social Security as a safety net for those people who do not work enough or are not smart in their IRA investments. Mr. Brooks' objective of making everyone a Capitalist is not feasible. We all can not be Capitalists. Some of us want to be workers who own and have a vote in controlling the overarching greed of some capitalists, the bad capitalists who believe they are the origin of their success. The solution was devised by Henry Ford who wanted all his workers to be able to afford a Ford. That takes a Capitalist with some socialist leanings which sounded like what Mr. brooks was actually describing.
1
Reality isn't so binary as David Brooks seems to believe. The failures of pure socialism don't inherently mean that unfettered capitalism in the answer. We should be smart enough, creative enough, and empathetic enough to find the balance between the two.
An opinion piece elevating capitalism over planned economies gets over 2,000 passionate responses, while a piece in the same paper that describes the crimes being committed by a planned economy, namely China, crimes which have been endemic to every planned economy for the last hundred years gets less than 200. Mr Brooks is right that socialism is a religion. Or perhaps an opiate for the educated middle class.
4
@Andrew
"...crimes which have been endemic to every planned economy for the last hundred years..."
much further back than a hundred years...precisely four hundred years to be exact when the first 19 Africans to reach the English colonies arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619.
2
@Andrew : If yo think China is a socialist country, then I have a bridge to sell you. Or you watch too much Fox News. It's like calling North Korea a democratic country because it's name is "Democratic People's Republic of Korea."
Don't conflate Totalitarianism with Socialism. Totalitarianism happens ACROSS the political ideological spectrum, just the extreme left-wing. Adolf Hitler is the right-wing version of this, Statlin the left-wing.
China welfare system only benefits the urban working population. They've only had a semblance of true universal health coverage beginning with reforms in 2006. Barefoot doctors of the pre-Great Leap forward do not count as universal health coverage.
You really need to read REAL sources and not parrot unsubstantiated positions.
I see greed as the basis for capitalism – and in that limited sense, it just serves the purpose of natural selection among humans, who over generations might have evolved a tendency to work together instead of compete for survival.
And in a larger sense, it is that greed, whilst providing all those comforts and advances, have brought us to a point where one species is just a step away (?) from wiping out everything that we know of – probably not exactly what nature wanted ? or maybe it is ?!
The "capitalism has lifted millions out of poverty" talking point is misleading because it relies on the World Bank's definition of poverty being absurdly contorted. The Global South has remained greatly impoverished through the era of colonialism to the present due to free trade shenanigans suppressing local industries in former colonies. Going by any sensible definition of poverty, it's clear that capitalism is keeping billions in poverty limiting Global South states to raw materials exports.
Brooks is also making a false dichotomy by holding up former authoritarian communist states as the only type of socialism. Modern day socialists, with the exception of Marxist-Leninists, generally disavow the USSR and the PRC and their angle of attack towards capitalism is that it's wholly dependent on unjustified state hierarchies to maintain it. The profit motive creates environmental disasters like the Keystone Pipeline only with the support of state violence.
1
One big assumption: capitalism also provides the mechanism with which we can learn.
Why provide an theoretical view of capitalism when you won't for socialism? Both systems fail us, the question is which failure is less harmful. Here, I'm with Brooks.
4
Brooks could not be more correct. Find one society that's lasted for more than 50 years with 1) freedom and 2) no capitalism.
2
@Fernando Rojo
find one society in which capitalism exists.
Curiously, when a capitalist economy fails (e.g. the Great Depression), the received wisdom holds that it can be fixed; but when a socialist economy fails, it is proof that socialism "doesn't work."
In reality, socialistic policies are the only available adhesives to help keep capitalism from flying apart under the centrifugal force of its own inherent contradictions, and capitalistic features can help keep a socialist economy from stagnating.
Just as well, as there is no such thing as "pure" capitalism or "pure" socialism. Never has been, and -- at least for the foreseeable future -- never will be.
4
I always like your column and largely agree with your points about the problems with centralized planning. However, arguments against socialism are not arguments for capitalism, at least as it is practiced today.
Capitalism is not just market-based economics. We've had markets for at least 10,000 years without the capitalism we have today. The GDP increases in the poor countries you mention are not the result of capitalism, they are the result of improved trade. The role of foreign investment is murkier... there have been many cases where foreign investment has been exploitative and left countries poorer (Central America, for example), and also cases where GDP has grown due to smart internal investing.
Capitalism today is not really about free markets anymore, and in fact many actors in our capitalist system are busy making them less, not more free. It makes more sense to talk about capitalism as the collection of rules surrounding how capital is managed, and what you can do with it. What capitalism's detractors get right is that our current system creates a wealthy investor class that does no other work and has simply enormous power. This directly contradicts Adam Smith's original vision of everyone ending up an investor at the end of their lives, once they gain market experience.
Socialism didn't arise from nothing. It was intellectual movement to address the biggest problem of the 18th and 19th centuries - class based conflict everywhere. We're back to square one.
5
I believe the economic status quo should evolve into a more balanced combination of both economic systems: capitalism and socialism.
I see good and bad points in both these systems. Seems all economic critiquing is too black and white, too either/or.
Essentially, I tend to agree with Noam Chomsky, when he dubbed our economic system as: "Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor."
12
We need both: socialism and capitalism. We need rules and regulation, too. In other words, we need a better cupboard of economic systems, pulls and pushes. Too much of any one thing (cake, steak, or broccoli) will make us sick. Balanced diets, okay? We need balanced diets.
And, BTW: Hamilton didn't give "everyone" access to capital. Some people are still fighting for a slice of the pie that capitalism (aka socialism-for-some) denied their ancestors and still denies today.
1
How do you envision Warren and Sanders? As true Socialists? No. The programs they support sound very much like the "infusions" you quote as coming from the Brookings Institute. Democratic Capitalism? Is that all that different from Democratic Socialism? You brand Warren and Sanders typically as far left, radical even, one of Trump's favorites. Don't encourage that, please. The Sunday adventure you went on with a 90% Latino population, two hours of celebration," look how far we have come" scenario, where opportunity abounds, but is crushed under Socialism - no choice by citizenry - is your goal. I can agree with your point here, that a fairer form of Capitalism can benefit many more. But what makes that happen? Corporate America? They have the power but lack the will and motivation. Small business owners in small towns? They compete and lose with big box stores, bought politicians, and a deathly aversion to taxes or any faith in government. How do we get to that better version of "capitalism" that you seek? I think you must agree it is not with the GOP mantra coming from Washington. The butchers, seamstresses, the McDonald and Wallmart workers who do not work for a living wage do not have that chance for upward mobility under our current system of capitalism. How do we get to your version? What do we do differently in the future ? It's more than glow sticks and balloons produced in large part by China. The Capitalism we need. Warren might agree with you.
We already have a market mechanism to reduce "carbon" (I assume he means carbon dioxide) emissions - it's called the price mechanism. This has, as Mr Brooks points out, reduced per capita emissions to their lowest level in 67 years. Taxes just distort the price mechanism (just like the Federal Reserve does with its monetary policy).
George Pappas
Sydney
1
Rubbish. The so-called price mechanism does not account for externalities. In fact it encourages externalization. That is why we are facing a climate crisis. Of all people, someone from Sydney ought to appreciate the danger externalization of costs entails.
I’ve never seen anyone else so praised for defending the neoliberal status quo. How quickly he deflates such an important question: why do we have to live in a world with such drastic inequality? We need to elevate actual intellectuals like economist Teresa Ghilarducci (of the New School), instead of encouraging journalists like Brooks to opine about the complexities of the world. In general, let’s hear from people who aren’t straight white cis-men speak about social insurance, the contemporary realities of a capitalist society, and paths forward.
2
Brooks says "It doesn’t matter how big your computers are, the socialist can never gather all relevant data."
In a well constructed argument with which I generally agree, the above statement is an assertion that I think has been less true every year with the advancement of computational technology and Artificial Intelligence. Don't throw up your hands on the value of society-level planning quite yet. China is very much a planned, authoritarian capitalism. We shall see in time how it works out in providing growth and middle-class affluence. Remember, the Soviet Union lived and died before the advent of modern computers.
A picture speaks a thousand words.
Using a photo of the facade of the New York Stock Exchange is an apt metaphor for the facade capitalism as it exists today around the globe.
Stocks are no longer trade in any meaning full way in the building in the photograph as high speed digital trading done by the fastest computer available today running the most sophisticated algorithms humans are capable of creating giving the lie to the notion the capitalism is a real thing in our 21st century.
1
While Brooks makes many good observations, his overall argument seems to suggest that innovation and invention only occurred under capitalism and only tend to be driven by a desire for profit.
There are many fine inventions,including the wheel ( which according to legend, set everything else rolling) which didn't take place under capitalism.
He tends, as always, to minimize the problems it has brought. Of course there is no perfect system. But is a paradox that a system that he argues has so much innovation and problem-solving enterprise, doesn't seem able to solve its own inherent problems. Perhaps a whiff of socialism is part of the solution.
2
“Teddy Roosevelt knew that sometimes you have to limit giant corporations so millions of less established capitalists can compete.”
So, Big Tech, Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big HealthCare, Big Guns, Big Auto — need to be limited now, Teddy Roosevelt would say, for sure.
Ironically, these Big Ones have high-jacked the very same government that we had entrusted to limit them, with lobbyists and campaign donations. They get boondoggle tax breaks, special contracts, subsidies, off-shore tax-evasion loopholes, and unbeatable advantages in the court of law, by their size alone—no one can afford to sue them for their abuses and cheating.
Not only is government unable to limit them, the government itself is being used by the Big Ones as a weapon against the Little Ones, i.e., individual persons.
“Corporations are People, too, mon frere,” Romney said, disparagingly to a Little One, in 2012.
Corporations, once merely large, have become Gargantuan Monsters, while the size of the Individual Person has remained the same.
Capitalism isn’t working when the Big Corporations control the government.
3
There's a lot to chew on here, but one thing stands out: When Brooks references his (our) families' "immigrant experience" he leaves out that it was the labor movement which was primarily responsible for broadening the social support systems and opportunities for immigrant families', second, and third generations. The labor unions were not capitalist. However, our constitutional democracy allowed for them to influence and modify our capitalist economic system so that in the end, for a while at least, we had the best of both worlds.
3
And yet, a version of socialism seems to be fine for the American military, and American ag. Why does the state subsidize cattle and sheep operations well out of proportion to their economic contributions to the country and world? How do a population's ethical concerns for animals and the land break through this state supported Western myth? Here's a disconnect to discuss: "Give me my farm welfare check, and stay out off my business." Ever heard a rancher say, "First I'd like to thank the American taxpayers for helping make all the hard, creative work we do possible."
3
I find it ironic that Mr Brooks would hold up Finland,, Denmark and Canada as models of free capitalist economies. Clearly all of these states have single payer state run health care, free or highly subsidized tertiary education, and extensive social safety nets. Aren’t these the most salient markers used in the current US debate to identify a “socialist state”.
True, the socialist debate Mr Brooks engaged in during the 1980ies focused on state planned economies like China and Venezuela. However, the world has clearly moved on, although it would appear Mr Brooks has not.
9
@Grant - he has me puzzled too!
1
The only reason capitalism has lessened our emissions in the US is that the "capitalists" here shipped all the manufacturing to china. And now look at their air!
At least Mr Brooks had the decency to delineate the difference between actual socialism and the "democratic socialism" espoused by Bernie Sanders, something most commentators don't do out of disingenuousness or ignorance of the difference. An Argentine friend describes it as "social capitialism". That should be something we are exploring here in the US and i think we will start to do just that with this new generation of voters.
6
Mr. Brooks, writing large, is largely correct.
We think of the powers and manipulators of capitalism as money lenders. But that unfairly lumps entrepreneurialism with capitalism.
Capitalism has become perverted by the Milton Friedman command that the only goal of a business is the return to investors. This has made capitalism a narrow exercise in buying and selling companies, not in starting and growing them.
The focus of our capitalism, should be entrepreneurialism. This is the source of ideas for new products, new processes, new services, new organizational models. But so long as capitalists narrowly look only to buy and sell companies, entrepreneurs won't have access to the capital they need to develop and grow their ideas.
Instead of celebrating entrepreneurs and sustaining them by buying directly from them and by lending them money to grow, we celebrate those who develop their companies and then sell out to conglomerates. NPR even has a program ("How I Built This") devoted almost enitrely to showcasing people who sold out to conglomerates rather than continuing to develop and grow their companies.
While some capitalism, e.g. Chinese and Russian, can survive under socialism, entrepreneurialsm dies under socialism. And it is dying under our current capitalism. If Mr. Brooks's prescriptions are correct, he may have found our best path to reviving and protecting entrepreneurialism. The ideas and sweat of entrepreneurs built our economy. We need more of each.
2
It's not accurate to suggest that the United States is a capitalist country. For example, just looking at the personal income tax rates for countries that David sites as capitalist, they are not noticeably different that the ones he feels are socialist. He should recognize that we are in a global competitive economy and all first-world countries practice a hybrid of capitalism and socialism.
"Capitalist"
Denmark - 56%
Finland - 52%
Ireland - 48%
the U.S. - 37%
Malta - 35%
Canada - 33%
Latvia - 31%
Hong Kong - 15%
Mauritius - 15%
"Socialist":
Russia - 13%
China - 45%
2
In the business universities in Scandinavia, they have a brief but astute explanation of the difference between life here and in the US.
Scandinavians work to live.
Americans live to work.
6
@Harry - It is the same in Greece - I lived there for 8 months - they all take the month of August off and most go to the seaside. When I was there the stores etc also closed from 12 to 2PM for siesta.
@Harry
"Americans live to work"
a definition of slavery
This column presents a false choice between socialism and capitalism. True socialism (extensive national economic ownership and planning) has failed in Communist countries. However, unrestrained free market fundamentalist capitalism has inevitably resulted in extreme concentration of wealth in the hands of a small elite who can then buy control of government. The rise of this ideology in the US has greatly increased inequality and greatly decreased protection from excesses by elites in the last forty years.
The real choice is to find a balance that combines the dynamism of capitalism with limitation of its excesses by government, which is the only force strong enough to do so. This has been achieved in the Scandinavian countries by social democray so that the great majority are better off there, while the rich are much richer in the US.
Labeling US Democratic proposals as socialism is highly misleading, particularly when abmbiguity of the term to the public is considered. Surely right wing intellectuals like Mr. Brooks know this and are complicit in spreading this impression. Most Democrats are merely proposing a shift in the balance toward social democracy that works for the great majority, rather than a small elite.
Mr. Brooks would do well to consider whether the same lack of self-doubt that made him an ardent socialist also contributed to his role as a popularizer of the ideology that turned goverrnment over to elites and disatrously increased inequality.
7
Brooks has a tired, warped view of socialism as a binary opposite of capitalism. NOTHING could be further from the truth. Social policies and programs, e.g., Social Security, unemployment insurance, Medicaid, etc., exist to help both those in need, and to unite the country around social values and principles, to promote equality, and to counter discrimination. We have witnessed the cold, brutal "rewards" of capitalism, especially our own brand of lobbyists-writing-laws-for-their-bosses, as our government has been corrupted, and the ROI-driven wealth "industry" takes as much as possible, yet gives our society nothing close to what it should. Infinite growth on a finite planet is not logical. Tempering the harsh extremes of unfettered capitalism by blending in social programs to help those who need help, is the right thing to do, for our country. It's not communism, and it's certainly not fascism, although we see the latter gaining a foothold in the WH, where greed and avarice seem to be running the show. A "yuge" course correction is necessary, and describing the still-running economic gains from the last administration as products of the current "trade war" mess is both fallacious and disingenuous.
7
Wow! Insightful writing if there ever was. Copies should sent to Ms. Warren & Mr. Saunders. The other candidates should absorb and wonder why they're not beating the same drum, instead of relentlessly, tiresomely and futilely beating on the incumbent.
1
I think Mr. Brooks is confusing Communism with Socialism. There is a difference between them.
Communism is the destruction of capitalism for the benefit of the country's people.
Socialism is the regulating of capitalism for the benefit of the country's people.
11
I don't really get it, Mr Brooks. Is there anyone in this country who wants socialism with government running everything? Never heard of that option anywhere debated.
So why wasted time on debating something that will not be implemented?
Why not have the capitalism do its thing, but well regulated. An leave to the government education, health care and environment protection, where market forces will never work.
2
I once supported Reagan, then I got in a car accident and tried and failed to get the money out of my insurance company. Over fifty years, it has been proven to me that capitalism has to be tempered. Trump and the criminal Republican party prove me right every day.
10
The problem with capitalism is that you have to have capital to be a capitalist.
5
All these startups come in with little capital. They seduce investors (capitalists, if you will) to throw cash (capital) at them. Has Uber made a profit yet?
Capital means squat to these folks. You’re only worth what you can borrow. Ask Trump.
I think we need common agreement on what form of government keeps societies and our plant healthy. Pure capitalism, without checks and balances can produce greed, lack of compassion, short sightedness. Pure socialism can stifle healthy competition, incentive, and creativity.
Finding that balance will be essential to survive the complexity of life as we know it.
5
What are 2 things have we learned from history?
1.Free market capitalism produces the most goods and services....but it has to be regulated to some degree.
2. There has to be a significant amount of income redistribution by government....it's the price of social peace.
Or am I missing something here?
3
David, you need to visit democratic, capitalist countries where policy works for justice, because most of the people in their parliaments understand what social justice is. And stick around there for a while, not just a day trip. Go stay in Denmark, first, then move on to some of the other social justice countries. Nobody's talking in the US about "ownership of the means of production." They're talking about social justice. You might call that democratic socialism. But it's not, "Socialism."
5
A great and succinct education for those who didn’t grow up seeing firsthand how true socialism failed. Thank you, David.
2
“The state cannot predict people’s desires, which sometimes change on a whim. Capitalism creates a relentless learning system.” Capitalism also is good at creating artificial demand for harmful products no one would have “demanded” if millions hadn’t been spent on marketing/persuasion schemes. Read Infinite Capitalism: And the Great Nipple Plot.
2
odd that Brooks would refer to Milton Friedman, the man most responsible for bringing a military coup and dictatorship to Chile—the consequences of which are still playing out to this day.
Oh, before I forget, Chile's military dictatorship brought into being by Milton Friedman whom David Brooks now sees as his mentor was responsible for the first terrorist attack against the United States.
Orlando Letelier was assassinated September 21, 1976, in car bombing, in Washington, D.C.
Orlando Letelier, a leading opponent of Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet was living in exile in the United States was killed along with Ronni Karpen Moffitt, who was in the car along with her husband Michael, who worked for Letelier.
The assassination was carried out by agents of the Chilean secret police (the DINA and greenlighted by none other than Henry Kissenger), and was one among many carried out as part of Operation Condor.
Declassified U.S. intelligence documents confirm that Pinochet directly ordered the killing.
1
“Central planning” is communism.
A good example of socialism is a worker-owned business, maximizing value for workers rather than investors.
Surprisingly muddled thinking from a guy who usually seems pretty smart.
Socialism is a great idea but usually leads to massive corruption and cronyism when actually implemented. It is also absolutely toxic in the American political system. Sanders and Warren ignore this at their own peril and will be absolutely obliterated by trump if either becomes the nominee.
2
Would DT and the rest of the GOP please read and absorb Mr. Brooks' last point, if not the entire piece? No one is trying to argue we should change into a socialist country. Of course, if Trump admitted that the dems just want to make our capitalistic nation more FAIR and healthier for all, he'd lose, so he's going to keep screaming "SOCIALISTS!" through the end of 2020. Sadly, many of the ignorant will believe him.
1
Great column but why, David, did you go so far in the other direction? The right is marked by nothing but unchecked greed and bad faith at this point.
1
Mr. Brooks, First I am still a socialist of a kind that probably is more like the left in NZ, Demark and Chile or of Ed Miliband. I am still a Nehruvian Fabian, having been born in India in 1961. I admire your thoughts and writings. However, I think this figure is incorrect: In 1981, 42 percent of the world lived in extreme poverty. Now, it’s around 10 percent. More than a billion people have been lifted out of poverty. It is not below 10 percent; and the billion figure is mainly due to China which had state capitalism. Vietnam and China have done much better than India. Capitalism in India has caused enormous inequality to the point where India is now actually being held together by the near Nazi-like sentiments of the Hindu right-wing. We can hope the right-wing explodes before it kills hundred of thousands non-Hindus, secularists and lower caste people. I think the conservative party has done much more damage in recent years than 1970s Labour did in the UK. Cohesiveness of Britain is really held by the NHS and some of its pension system--all brought about by Labour. The tax structure in the US has essentially meant there is little mobility. Millions are still without health insurance. Capitalism without socialist impulses causes more misery than Socialism by itself has done.
2
Wow, great essay, David! I agree with you wholeheartedly.
2
Is it perhaps a great essay BECAUSE you agree with him wholeheartedly? Just checking :-)
1
Brooks says, "Citizens soon realize the whole system is a fraud. Socialism produces economic and political inequality as the rulers turn into gangsters. A system that begins in high idealism ends in corruption, dishonesty, oppression and distrust." Sound familiar?
It certainly can't happen not in the US, with the lock-step republicans and their dear mob leader with their lies and fraud on the people.
The US has a shorter life-expectancy, higher infant mortality, suicide and gun deaths, higher rates of poverty than our democratic socialist friends, but that's just fine with Brooks and the GOP. Unregulated capitalism rewards corporate leaders with millions and billions while under-paid employees scramble to meet the rent and feed their families. That's the way to go, right?
Some might say stifling the poor and middle class is killing the golden goose. If a major chunk of the population can't afford the basics, let alone the stuff corporations want us to buy, what then?
If the financial markets are unregulated, those gangsters at the top will drive the world economy into the sewer. But that's okay, right? Sure, it is.
4
I was once a believer in unfettered capitalism. Then I developed eyes, ears, and a functioning brain capable of critical thinking. Too bad so many haven't done that in this country.
3
Are you kidding me? Look at the EUs gross (and per capita) production versus carbon emissions and then the US. Calling the US some lightbearer of efficiency is grossly ill informed.
5
@Adam Grant
you must first acknowledge that more than 80 percent of France's electricity is produced by nuclear reactors.
Okay, it's getting pretty tiresome to keep on explaining the differences between socialism, communism, Stalinism and so forth.
Socialism just means that everyone, including big companies and the 0.1%, is responsible for the society as a whole.
Capitalism, on the other hand, leaves everyone to grab as much power and money as possible, and ef everyone else.
Making the choice between the two depends on whether you in the 0.1% or the rest.
1
Nice straw man argument. You really showed those Soviet era communists the errors of their ways! How great that Capitalism has lifted us out of poverty (well, at least some of us)
In the real world, unrestrained Capitalism will soon impoverish is all on a massive scale by destroying our environment with the search for more profits and more goods. But let’s leave that out of the argument.
This is a really useless column.
6
You know better...'unfettered and unregulated capitalism' will destroy what's left of this planet and any reasonable person would say regulating businesses is necessary. Do you care about your water? What about the air you breathe? Do you really believe this type of regulation is what's holding back the animal spirits? Also, your "free" and open U.S. economy happens to have to single largest social program on earth... you've heard of "Social" Security? Try taking that away from US citizens. That is what dems should be running on... that is, saving the one safety net program that provides retirees with some relief and that the GOP (if in power across all branches of gov't) will eventually take away.
1
It seems the upshot is that Mr. Brooks has made some horrible choices over the course of his life. Makes one wonder why he feels compelled to be a pundit. What an odd time to be advocating for capitalism - the system that has brought us the most expensive and inaccessible healthcare system in the civilized world, and the system that will likely result in the eventual inability of our planet to support life.
Perhaps this would be a good moment for him to dedicate some of his precious column space to helping to unseat the most corrupt political party that American has ever reckoned with. Surely, that's the highest priority at this time.
1
Authoritarian capitalism coming to the United States if the Republican party wins in 2020.
If capitalism is so great, why haven't we tried it?
2
This article is misleading. Inadvertently or by choice. Learning is a complex, dynamic, multidimensional, phase effected, nonlinear process; amongst other critical dimensions;many of which are “bounded” ( age, gender, physical and mental health, state of wellbeing, opportunities, SEC, etc.).The availability and accessibility to a range of relevant inner and external resources is critical as one moves from: relevant “DATA,” to appropriate analysis from which INFORMATION, useable or not, is derived;onto the complex processes of created UNDERSTANDING and meanings, which may or may not be implemented, innovatively, or not, and, at times, to WISDOM;however defined. And ALL of this goes on within a framework of realities’s interacting dimensions of uncertainties. Unpredictabilities. Randomness. Outliers. Lack of total control, notwithstanding one’s efforts; timely or not. And as one “learns,” incrementally, at one’s pace, within one’s safe or conflicted life’s conditions, the known, the not yet known because of lags/lacks/gaps in necessary relevant information and technologies,as well as possible “unknowables,” contribute to processes and outcomes.
To assert, with certitude, that “capitalism,” a diverse multidimensional, dynamic, nonlinear structured eco-politico-social system, ranging in models, types, levels and qualities,ENABLES/fosters learning, and that SOCIALISM does not-may even block IT- creates misleading binary banality.What “ism” enabled learning to climb down from...
In Capitalism, capital is primary; in Socialism, society is primary.
3
"Today, the real argument is not between capitalism and socialism. ....capitalism won. ... Our job is to make it the ... fairest version of capitalism it can possibly be."
It is not about capitalism versus socialism. And, it should not be about what improvement capitalism needs. "Capitalism" and "socialism" are two labels which polarize and occlude the problem. Capitalism versus Socialism, or Republicans v. Democrats antagonizes, and detracts from the real issue. The real issue is that our two leading ideologies are... dead. Both take advantage of the class of people who produce consumable goods. Capitalism restricts their wages. Socialism, taxes their wages. Capitalism patches its stealing with charitable contributions or "tickling down.". Socialism, with "politically correct" redistribution. These both ideological scenarios thrive on stealing. And, the working class ends up working 70-80 hour a week.
I agree with the solutions proposed in the articles. I worry about their implementation. We need to change the system (Austria?) and have easy way to stop any corrupted legislatives initiatives before their implementations.
The only way to correct the current state of income inequality and the lack of decent education and healthcare for the vast majority of Americans (please raise your hand if you actually like your health insurance and do not have a job in government or as an overpaid executive)is to inject some Socialism, as has been successfully initiated in European countries and others around the world. There is no reason why we cannot have universal healthcare, like Canadians and UK and EU citizens. We desperately need to equalize income and living standards otherwise our capitalism will become a few oligarchs and a whole lot of misery for everyone else. We are already on that path. I'd love some socialized health care. People will adapt. It will be like Social Security...there was a whole lot of handwringing back then about the evils of socialism...and now it is a fact of our lives. Same with Medicare and Medicaid, and the VA system, which work quite well. We cannot continue as we are, with the majority of people condemned to poor quality of life. Aside from being morally wrong, it is bad for the economy.
Mom and Dad on Social Security and Medicare. Grandma in Medicaid supported nursing home, Grandpa in Medicare supported hospice. Brother, hurt on the job, gets Workers Comp and Disability. Sister on Unemployment feeding kids through SNAP. Family stands tall against socialism
700
@Harry; Social Security, Medicare, Unemployment, SNAP and Disability are all social services that are Socialist. Same with our public schools, roads, military and much more. However, though Workers Compensation is Federally mandated, it is managed by individual States and large corporate insurance companies—of which I've personally witnessed unethical behavior; thus Workers Comp isn't really Socialist. Socialism and Capitalism and not mutually exclusive, and neither is regulation and appropriate taxation.
52
@Harry that isn’t socialism. That’s a government safety net or welfare state funded by capitalism. Government programs rely on capitalism to find them. True socialism controls the means of production (businesses). Not sure what your point is. My point is that you really don’t understand what socialism is.
49
@Bk2 Terrifying that Harry represents so many Americans who don't really get the economics underneath all of this let's-kill-capitalism and-be-socialists movement. And when you consider that Harry is likely not a child or a teenager and might comprehend more about this issue than college students or ANTIFA people, I am quite scared!!
19
I lived in the UK 10 yrs. When I was there, I had to have an emergency operation that would have cost me 100K in the US but the NHS took care of the costs. I also recall when living there, that my friends children had free college educations. Of course, there is private insurance companies, private & elite schools that people can pay for out of pocket. But the UK government made these socialist programs available to all citizens, which was paid for through taxation. When these needs are met, opportunities are widely available. Capitalism is great, when the fair share of taxes are paid just like everyone else. No special loopholes, no shell companies to hide their assets. Socialist programs have been around for a very long time, and they do work but it needs the cooperation of everyone, not just the proletariat. I like the fact that my tax dollars would go to better education, better healthcare, better roads, and bridges and especially climate emergency preparations. But I loathe when a high percentage of taxed dollars go to an already bloated military budget. I agree with someone who posted "capitalism is like fire -- both good when kept under control!
2
dear david,
it is a pity that your analysis was so shallow when you were a callow youth. you are not to be faulted for that as the syndrome is quite common among the youth.
i wonder if you were a beneficiary of the largesse of government benefits in the 40's were education was wonderfully financially supported by you know who. now that investment was what changed america into an economic powerhouse from a fairly impoverished work force(remember the 30's). that generation were able to build upon success through the mid 70's. the wisdom of the government during those years saw to development of the infrastructure improvements that allowed future generations to benefit as they did. but without the directing invisible hand of government we would be back in the doldrums of the 30's. that was socialism that made it all possible for you.
1
David's claims that capitalism has reduced pollution were true in the 60s and 70s when we still produced most of our own goods here in the US, in factories subject to our strict regulations through the EPA and other state organizations. But, the genius of capitalism discovered global "opportunities" and subsequently off shored production of most goods to countries that had next to no environmental protections. So the clean air and water we have here proves nothing. All we have accomplished is to move the pollution, and the jobs that came with it, into other countries. The fact is, we should admit that we own that share of pollutants generate in China, India, Viet Nam, etc that are produced while making products they export to us. If you tally that up, I am willing to bet that, given the outrageous high pollutant levels these countries allow, we in the USA are actually polluting our planet, and ourselves, at much higher levels than back in the 1980s.
5
The problem, as usual in America lately, is seeing everything in diametrically opposed, either/or, on/off, whether the problems themselves or the solutions. Navigating a complex world largely occurs in shades of gray.
One of the most familiar examples is parenting. Brutal, chaotic, intractable and overly-harsh discipline not only doesn't work, but frequently damages the children, damage they carry with them for a lifetime.
On the other hand, no discipline, no boundaries, parents-as-best-friends, no consequences for even behavior that is dangerous to the children such as putting one's fingers in the electrical socket, doesn't yield happy, successful adults either.
A blending of social systems, taking the best from socialism and the best from capitalism and doing our best as fallible humans is obviously the most effective. Both socialism and capitalism taken to extremes quickly runs into very serious problems.
Seeing the world in purely socialism vs capitalism terms, as if these are the only choices, as if these two concepts are not, in and of themselves, very complex socio-political positions that not everyone agrees upon, is part-n-parcel to the problem. These are not easily definable even theoretically, much less how they actually function in the real world.
The world is nuanced, complicated and while we love sound bites and facebook profiles, success in the real world requires an acceptance that things are usually not so cut-n-dry or straightforward.
.
1
Capitalism and democracy are a winning combination. The law keeps them in balance.
@Anne
the former is diametrically opposed to the latter.
@Anne or ideally it should.
Why does Brooks only recommend a raft-load of what are effectively government subsidies for business owners that top off worker's poverty wages at our not-wealthy taxpayers' expense? As opposed to a living minimum wage of $15 or $20 dollars/hour, stopping the shipping of our manufacturing jobs overseas to be done by no rights workers, and stopping the 1% calculated invasion flooding our labor markets with millions of desperate immigrant slave workers. Why doesn't Brooks recommend these genuinely just corrective actions which would enable US workers to be actually truly free to follow market opportunities? Brooks' vague virtue signaling of good intentions dooms most in our nation to being either low-wage slaves of rich business owners or desperate starving serfs submitting and pledging loyalty to government elites for just barely enough redistributed crumbs to keep them alive. In other words he offers the 99% the worst of both worlds - a central planning "state capitalism" run by the 'princelings' and princesses of our political class.
1
Strangely simplistic for David Brooks "analysis". Especially so that we all just lived through the Great Recession of 2008, and the Great Depression of 1930s is still in our memory. As an old man, who lived through enough of ups and downs of different kinds, I can vouch for the view that it is not the level of well-being that matters but the stability of it. Socialism is unacceptable when it deteriorates into Communism with an absolute power which corrupts absolutely and results in all kind of unrestricted by law violence (Stalinism, Hitlerism, etc.)
@valentine Socialism is not insulated from global economic shocks. To the contrary, countries under that model arguably suffer more / worse / longer, b/c their industries are less competitive to begin with, then lack the flexibility to make the (yes, difficult) changes required to return to higher ground.
David, your Munk Debate points were well made. However there were points that I would have challenged and there were failures to recognize some of the diverse forms of capitalism that have evolved in the history of economic development.
Clearly, free-market capitalism and the modern welfare state have partnered to create a better quality of life and higher life expectancy that have permitted it to flourish. But. as your piece seems to recognize, free-market capitalism without government intervention and experimentation has proved unable to provide services like healthcare and education, which are closely coupled to income distribution. As hard as we try, our democratically elected ruling elites cannot seem to accept the wisdom of sharing the incomes of investors, and market success with the workers. So you report that the current distribution of income and wealth is improving, but I think NOT and there are glaring socio/economic inequities that are costly to our society.
The imperfections in income distribution need to be resolved and we won't be able to make real progress unless it is recognized.
I liked your description of the church service and was moved by “Look how far we’ve come! Look how far we’ve come!” and your response. You have good social instincts that our society must have for our species to survive the huge changes anticipated as necessity becomes the "mother of invention" and we all must experience changing our source of energy away from fossil fuels.
@james jordan
David, I didn't want to get into it because of time and the brevity required to comment but the idea of a carbon tax is regressive and would increase the income inequity problem that we have. The same goes for toll roads which is gaining in popularity. You might want to review the literature on "natural monopolies" and the logic of collective investment in natural monopolies make sense.
My wife and I look forward to your comments on the News Hour. We are older and outside the demographic but we both realize how far we have come, and I am grateful that I can continue to work as a public servant.
@james jordan
capitalism is by definition 'regressive' and requires income inequity to function.
David Brooks attracts easily two thousand comments, still his article seems based on a false, unimportant opposition between socialism and capitalism. Socialism practically never existed besides the catastrophic experiences in Soviet Russia and in China. Evolution of human life can not be explained based on this erroneous opposition. Technique or technology progressed slowly with time, accelerating lately. Big and small nations exist. The opposition capitalism vs. socialism was very present in our minds because of the cold war, which was not really due to conflict between socialism or capitalism: it was a consequence of the monstrous attack by Nazy Germany against Russia in 1941, which resulted in a hugely strong Red Army and comrade Stalin opposing the power of American imperialism (in the jargon of the time), nothing to do with opposition between capitalism and socialism. Until II world war, Russia, while being under communist rule, remained an isolated inward-turned and rather backward State, no question opposing the US. There was already criticism by the West against communist Russia, based more the dictatorial methods rather than on differences in economic organisation. Only the huge gain by Russia in military power, courtesy of the German attack, created the strong opposition, while the Russian economy remained backward. The opposition could be maybe rather between savage or moderate capitalism? But then rules and methods are being improved every day.
@T.Molnard
"David Brooks attracts easily two thousand comments, still his article seems based on a false, unimportant opposition between socialism and capitalism."
David Brooks attracted two thousand comments BECAUSE his article is based on a false, unimportant opposition between socialism and capitalism.
it is the playing out of the NYTs adoption of the internet media business model of "capturing eye balls" to support online ad revenue.
a business model I am proud to support to ensure the NYTs ability to do journalism returns to its once vaunted reputation as the nation's paper of record.
Rhetorical pieces aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. The benefits of capitalism and socialism are predicated on assumptions that have to be fulfilled - name-dropping countries do nothing to consider whether those assumptions have been met.
Capitalism works when the playing field is level, that there are no anti-competition behaviour, no economies of scale that favours large, entrenched corporations, and perfectly rational economic behaviour.
Socialism works when there are no inefficiencies, no corruption, no abuse of the system, and perfectly altruistic citizens.
Economies are often hybrids and time would be better spent understanding how we can play to the benefits of either systems.
2
David Brooks says, “I came to realize that capitalism is really good at doing the one thing socialism is really bad at: creating a learning process to help people figure stuff out. If you want to run a rental car company, capitalism has a whole bevy of market and price signals and ...”
Look at what capitalism has done for cars in Cheyenne Wyoming, where there’s an average of 27 parking spaces for every registered car, while they can only manage to shelter a tenth of their homeless population.
Capitalism may be great for cars, but not people or the planet.
3
Good essay, but it misses a crucial point: sustainability. The days of growth unencumbered by any consideration of sustainability are over. On the contrary, sustainability must become a central pillar of how economies grow in the future (and not just a carbon tax, which was the only nod to sustainability in the article). Without sustainable growth, unbridled capitalism will close - permanently - far more doors for us than it opens (for example, it will lead to the loss of vast areas of land through sea level rise, and to mass extinctions). I'm bemused by the fact that so many conservatives want to ignore this problem which, if taken seriously, would lead to massive new economic opportunities (witness solar and wind's increasing dominance in the energy industry; it's tough to compete with free fuel.)
2
But no one is talking about a Federally planned economy, David.
We're just talking about sharing the wealth. When John Jacob Astor was the wealthiest person in America's 'gilded age,' he was worth about $350M in today's dollars. The current crop of industry titans are worth between 10 and 50 times that!
I live in the only city on the planet that has not one, but two trillion-dollar market cap companies (Amazon and Microsoft). And yet we have some of the worst potholes around, and the homelessness crisis is as bad as anywhere.
It's the definition of unreasonable to be the richest city in the richest country and still suffer these problems. Lawyers would say it's a prima facie case that we're doing it wrong.
3
It think it’s important to remind ourselves that it’s not an either or situation. You can have a mixed economy that includes parts of both socialism and capitalism.
4
The problem is way too many times the outcome is already decided when you enter a game where the competition already owns Park Place.
There's almost no business, no idea, no service, a newcomer can enter into at this point where some billionaire can't come along, steal their idea, and squash them. We're just too far into the game at this point for there to be a level playing field.
In short, I think we need both.
1
All the negative comments notwithstanding, I applaud Mr. Brooks for making a stand.
Capitalism-Socialism is not a binary choice; it is a spectrum. The last decade has seen Capitalism move too far away from what Mr. Brooks credits with lifting so many boats worldwide throughout history. All it needs is a nudge, forced by governmental regulations if necessary, to right the ship, not drown it and start afresh.
2
It work the same way for theological or religious (or religion inspired) form of governance and political movements. In both the cases, ultimately autocracy and dictators rise.
It would not be wrong to say that communism (and many aspects of socialism) is not much different than religion or a form of political religion and both act as the same opium for masses.
3
(writing under my husband's subscription) I find it incredible that you do not seem to see the difference between socialism and communism, nor the difference between capitalism and a free enterprise system. Capitalism with nothing to regulate it, no checks and balances, is destroying our economy and our planet. When profit is the only goal everything else is thrown under the bus. Socialism, as described by Sanders is really social democracy. To say it doesn't work when clearly your view of it is not only radical but simplistic indicates a lack of understanding as to how a healthy democratic free enterprise system is supposed to function.
7
I find it quite amusing, examples of socialism in practice, usually includes despotic regimes and dictatorships: Venezuela, China the former Soviet Union; and never Germany, France, Sweden, Canada! Fair is fair, if those are your examples of Socialism, then your examples for Capitalist countries should include Haiti, Pakistan, Chile under Pinochet, Argentina during the rule of Juan Perón. Argentina is a good example to compare with U.S.: By second decade of 20th Century, Argentina was the world's 10th wealthiest state per capita. In the 1930s, however, the Argentine economy deteriorated notably. The single most important factor in this decline was political instability since 1930, when a military junta took power, ending seven decades of civilian constitutional government. While the United States, under FDR, established the most socialist agenda that helped propel us to become a first world power, both economically and culturally. Unabashed capitalism never works. It is the rule of law and democracy that makes capitalism work for everyone, not the other way around.
1
I went to my old high school dictionary circa 1946-1950 for the definition of socialism; the theory of the ownership and operation of the means of production and distribution of society rather than private individuals, with all members of society sharing in the work and products. I have not heard one Democrat running for office advocate call for the government taking over any company and firing its board of directors and installing a government agent to run it. I have heard them bemoan the inequality capitalism has fostered today. We can have the healthcare, education and other social inequalities by simply having ALL pay a fair share.
1
Along with all the other critiques that others have said Mr. Brooks is the fact that your premise is that capitalism is responsive to people’s desires. What is very clear is that capitalism creates peoples desires to serve its own interests.
1
Oh, for God's sake. American Democratic Socialists moved away from public ownership of the means of production long before David Brooks or I were even born. What Democratic Socialists helped pave the way for were things like the 8 hour day, Social Security, Medicare and a host of other reforms that were snatched by the Democrats and enacted into law. Bernie Sanders is what I would term a "Sewer Socialist". Sewer Socialism was a term used to describe several reform Socialist mayors who ran very successful and pragmatic local administrations during the last century. Almost all those disparaging "socialism" have no idea about its history in America and most show no interest in finding the truth. Go Bernie.
3
Yes, capitalism helped lift more than a billion people out of poverty, but, in large part not the kind of large scale capitalism that we typically think about. Every year immigrants living in rich countries send $600 billion dollars back home to their families living in millions of villages across the developing world. This is several times the amount of all development assistance, but far better targeted and without the overhead of the aid agencies. The reason immigrants can send so much money home is that they are experts at micro capitalism - they start restaurants, drive Lyft cars, own and run small hotels and thousands of other kinds of businesses as they save money is small groups and send money home and help some of the world's poorest have enough resources to work themselves out of poverty.
2
Thank you for a great essay. I also was a socialist in college, especially since I was raised by European expats. Then I traveled to a few ‘socialist’ countries and my eyes were opened.
I now believe that it is better for a country to have rich and poor - with the opportunity for social mobility - rather than having everybody poor.
You are absolutely right: socialism does not work, except for those who impose it on everyone else.
2
How about a 3rd alternative - where everybody is rich or at least have a good, securestandard of living? Do you believe that people are only motivated by money?
Mind you, my family escaped from 2 different Communist countries but Socialism is not Communism. We have had the fortune of visiting countries in Scandinavia and some in my family would move there if they could.
So you're saying there should be a balance between the free market and government support? revolutionary. I thought your arguments were very well laid out and I hope neo-libertarians and socialist supporters alike take these criticisms to heart. Let's meet in the middle people.
Strange that Austria and in particular Vienna was not mentioned seeing as how Vienna has an incredibly strong government support system (socialism?) and is a long-time front runner for most livable city.
the "stuff" that has generated billions in wealth over the past four decades for a few can be found floating in islands of plastic in the oceans and washing up on beaches across the globe.
4
For 99% of people private initiative consists solely to manage their career within some Company.
Sorry but capitalism and environmentalism are fundamentally opposed.
1
Sounds a bit like Democratic Socialism. Brooks must be supporting Bernie.
No major figure is talking about a planned economy. Typically Brooks just erects a straw man to knock down. Democratic Socialism is the right path to address his concerns.
1
I hope someone sends this to AOC or Bernie Sanders! This article gives evidence as to socialism is wrong, will take us back and skyrocket the poverty rate.
This column is practically pointless. No one is saying that the United States should adopt a government that in anyway resembles the socialist governments of South America or China or Russia. When the word socialism comes up, it is in reference to the socialist democracies is of Western Europe, which are hybrids of socialism and capitalism and are very, very successful. The people in those countries are healthier than we are, they live longer than we do, they take a lot more vacations, they retire earlier, and they are happier. They spend a LOT less money on healthcare. We could learn much from them, and we would be way better off if we borrowed some of their social programs.
4
When you were a "socialist," did you favor:
Social Security
Medicare
Minimum wage?
How about now?
You've decided that all good things are "capitalism," and all bad things are "socialism." That's an abuse of language in the service of the rich and powerful. I expect better from you, Mr. Brooks. But I'm disappointed.
2
I grew up in a free market, the Jim Crow South. The Capitalists owned the means of production and controlled wages, land ownership and distribution of tax revenues. They owned law enforcement, carrying out extrajudiciary executions and profiting from prisoner slave labor. They denied voting rights to a fourth of our county’s residents. I observed all this and was ashamed when I realized that most white people perpetuated this system. Born white, I was privileged to escape to a state university which cost my parents a few hundred dollars per semester. There I studied the history of modern civilization and its notable artists and scientists, and developed a love for all humanity. I realized Christianity is not a force for good when believers aren’t censured for being racist, and allow blind faith to cripple critical thinking. Socialist ideas evolve naturally and would flourish if not for dedicated disinformation tactics by its wealthy enemies. Capitalism exists in a vacuum excluding love and justice.
4
I've " been around a little while," in fact a little longer than David, and noticed some things that seem to have escaped his attention. Here are just a couple:
I've noticed a remarkable increase in the number of self-storage facilities in my immediate community to house the unneeded stuff of people's desires obviously gone awry. David I'm sure would regard this as one more instance of the market responding to the needs of the consuming public. One might more reasonably think of it as evidence of people induced, by a vast advertising industry, to buy things that, in short order, make no contribution to the quality of their lives but rather to the needless degradat ion of the planet.
I've also noticed an accumulation of comments by titans of our economic system that seem to call into question the blithe association of capitalism and freedom.. "You can't be any smarter than your dumbest competitor;" "You have to keep dancing till the music stops"; "Do you know how much pressure there is on CEO's to produce short-term returns?" Statements such as these have been made by some of the most recognizable names in the business world in recent memory. So let me get me get this straight - even the most powerful people in our economic system feel unable to do what they believe is the right thing because their least enlightened competitors may gain a short-term advantage? This is freedom?
2
@vcbowie
"stuff" will be the weapon that kills mankind.
Brooks dresses up his socialist strawman to look like a communist.
Socialism: a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned OR regulated by the community as a whole. Brooks seems to miss the "or" part of this.
2
This column puts up a false either-or dichotomy between capitalism and socialism. I'm actually surprised by this simplistic analysis. The real question is not capitalism vs socialism, it is the extent to which government should play a role in a capitalist society. Rules and regulations about food, etc. seem to be very helpful. Brooks ignores health care, which is heavily regulated or controlled by government in most highly developed capitalist countries. Health care approaches in these countries also seem to do a better job overall. Here are some questions: Should we have more of a welfare state like the Scandanavian countries? A much higher minimum wage and better labor regulations? Strong regulations to prevent climate change? Government subsidies for renewable energy research and implementation? These and other questions like these are the really hard questions that are totally ignored in Brook's commentary. I hope that Brooks can follow up this unhelpful column with some substantive columns on what government's role is in fixing our serious problems, and how government can help deal with major inequality and serious challenges that so many individuals face in this "capitalist" society. It isn't working well for everyone!
3
It’s back-breaking work, all that cherry-picking.
7
1. Capitalism is trade → which transfers wealth from weak countries to powerful countries
2. Capitalism is competition which spurs enterprises to capture markets by destroying competitors there by creating a monopoly and artificially higher prices.
3. Capitalism is grasping, greedy, mercenary, money-grubbing, acquisitive, opportunistic and the antithesis of altruistic—Capitalism necessitates war; shooting and trade.
8
I see the rage of the working class and that rage has been channeled against immigrants, and 'cultural elites.' It more correctly should be focused on the free market profiteers who wreck the economy one day and scream for their bonuses the next. Not one has paid a price for their malfeasance and they are still on top economically. That is the tainted capitalism we are currently stuck with.
2
You sounds like the lad who had a crush on a classmate. Once rebuffed he swears off relationships only to fall for another, different one.
All economic systems have good and bad elements. More to the truth all systems embody elements of others, our beloved Medicare a case in point.
The biggest failure of Communism was the efforts to manage everything from the Central Planning Committee, a body rife with old, out of touch members, usually old white guys. In England as Scotland and Wales decried the failure of the Westminster based government to address their legitimate needs, one answer was to devolve decision making to local authorities. Perhaps the US can benefit from allowing States to determine what works best for their citizens in many matters, education for example rather than legislating one size fits all laws and regulations. Many decades ago the State of NJ paid my tuition to attend an in-State college and earn a degree. Then my employer covered the cost of getting my MBA.
The best system is one that addresses the legitimate needs of all citizens, call it capitalism, socialism, communism or more likely, a combination of the best of each of them determined by those close to where it matters.
1
"Why do we have to live with such poverty and inequality? Why can’t we put people over profits?"
WE? YOU do not really have to live with this breathtaking poverty and inequality. So you're not solving for the right problem. Let those who do, and those in solidarity with them solve for the problem as it actually is.
What are you solving for, Mr. Brooks?
2
Mr. Brooks: Capitalism is an economic system primarily based on private property rights exercised by private enterprises (e.g., Ford, GM, Toyota, BMW, Caterpillar, IBM, Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Sony, etc.). Both democratic and authoritarian governments allow private enterprises to exercise private property rights within their economic systems. Specifically, what do you mean by the terms, “democratic capitalism” and “authoritarian capitalism” in regard to such international private enterprises that operate in multiple countries, including the U.S., U.K., Germany, France, Japan, South Korea, China, Russia, Ukraine, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia? The point of your opinion column is not clear.
Mr. Brooks writes:"If you’ve been around a little while, you’ve noticed that capitalism has brought about the greatest reduction of poverty in human history. In 1981, 42 percent of the world lived in extreme poverty. Now, it’s around 10 percent. More than a billion people have been lifted out of poverty."
In the USA 11.5% (Census.gov) of the population are living under the poverty line. This not a percentage to be proud of in a country considered to be the bastion of capitalism.
Capitalism has definitely made the rich top 10% of the population much richer , not so much the 90% rest , (See https://apps.urban.org/features/wealth-inequality-charts/index.html).
Also why do you attribute to capitalism the reduction of extreme poverty in the world from 42% in 1981 to 10% today. Most world governments are socialist or communist not capitalist!
Finally look up the ten happiest countries in the world. Most of them have socialist regimes. In the end the metric for a successful system should be one that measures how happy and financially comfortable are the people of a country during their lifetime, not how much money do/did they have after their death!
1
Yea, sorry. The excesses of capitalism do not make me eager to become identified as a capitalist.
1
Certainly Capitalism is a great system and has led directly to many if not most of the improvements in our standard of living.. But there are some things the free market is not fit for. First among them is healthcare. The quasi-socialist countries such as Norway, Denmark, Sweden and all the other industrialized countries have come to recognize this fact and have instituted somewhat socialistic health care systems. By doing so, they have cut their per-capita health care costs to half of ours while also beating us at life expectancy, maternal mortality and infant mortality.
3
"...my car is safe and minimizes pollution..."
a "safe car" is an oxymoron
a car that minimizes pollution is a car that is never built.
1
Today new employment figures came out showing more jobs and capitalists are ecstatic, not because workers have jobs but because they see their profits soaring. But the real question is what kind of jobs are they? Do they have benefits? Will the fat cats share any of these huge profits or just work them as wage slaves? Supposedly our economy is doing well, but workers still suffer and worry about their security, And wage increases barely cover inflation and are decreasing and unions
declining with full time workers still requiring Food Stamp and even these are being cut. It is all unfettered capitalism at work for the few. But few want a socialist society in the Soviet mode. One thing is for sure Capitalists will not share what they have and until they do we require viable government programs, Call it socialism if you like, but private business will never work for the benefit of employees.
3
Brooks is now calling socialism a "secular religion"! Next he'll be calling it "the opium of the people". He just writes his own rules.
Since when are basic, humanistic values a "religion"? A political and economic system that is based on our evolved altruistic inclinations and values that come from them is not a religion. There are no deities, no spiritual worlds, no answers to ontological questions.
2
Two cheers for capitalism: damaging the environment and reducing empathy to humans. I would not have considered these great achievements. Capitalism is not driven by the need to satisfy learning. Rather, it is driven by dark impulses of greed.
Both systems havdd Ed positive and negative aspects to them. Merging the best of both worlds is preferred on any one extreme system.
2
It's not very helpful to make the old socialism vs. capitalism argument. Most societies are combinations of both.
4
Capitalism and Socialism are simply two words that describe parts of a much bigger word: Society.
Today, I will take my capitalistic automobile and drive it on a socialistic public road. Thankfully, there are rules of Socialism to insure my car is safe and minimizes pollution....while the rules of Capitalism keep my fuel prices at a reasonable rate.
If Capitalism and Socialism work together, Society usually benefits.
But it doesn't hurt to have a bit of luck as well.
1
@Nial McCabe
"...my car is safe and minimizes pollution..."
a safe care is an oxymoron
the only car that minimizes pollution is one that is never built.
@all fear is rational
If I change my example to "bicycle" and "bike lane", will you relent?
Or perhaps "shoes" and "sidewalk" ;)
@Nial McCabe
safe and minimal apologies to you for using your valid points as a foil to make the case for recognizing we are in an a climate crisis.
"Live Like We’re in a Climate Emergency. Because We Are."
I don’t want to look back and wonder what more I could have done to save our planet.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/05/opinion/jane-fonda-climate-change.html
The great virtue of Brooks' column is that he recognizes the gaping difference between socialism on the Soviet-inspired model (very much including Venezuela, to which Republicans point reflexively whenever they hear someone advocate Medicare for All, or criticize excessive profits and wealth concentration) and socialism on the Scandinavian model, which offers a realistic fusion of market capitalism with supportive socialism. It is this latter that Democratic progressives (or the majority of them) support.
In response to the great planetary threat of climate change, it's clear that both a carbon tax (calculated to include risks accurately, not based on unreasonable optimism) -- to stimulate markets and entrepreneurial solutions to the problem -- and government action -- to monitor the problem, to fund research, and set broad goals and guidelines -- are needed to give us any chance of attaining a sustainable solution. A planned-economy approach to the problem will fail just as surely as a laissez-faire approach.
2
A bit of sophistry, Mr. Brooks. Right at the start you mention democratic socialism is different that the socialism you offer up for darts. You mention how the Scandinavian models work. There is no serious candidate extolling or wanting soviet or chins style...or Venezuela etc. yet you make it a straw man, encouraging conservatives to continue acting as if Warren or Sanders were advocating that rather than stronger regulations, controls Amd socialized services within our capitalist system.
3
I think Mr. Brooks is confusing socialism and statism. There are many definitions of socialism but I think the best is that society has control (not ownership) of the means of production. In a democracy, that means a government of the people exercises some degree of control over the capitalist enterprises. That is what we have here in the United States and in many other countries. That is not what China has. The Chinese government is not democratically elected. The Chinese has statism. We can argue about the degree to which society controls the means of production and we do. But no one should doubt that the US is a democratic socialist country right now.
2
Nothing can beat that wonderful example from Animal Farm about the motto over the entry gate, "All Animals Are Equal, but some are more equal than others." Explains a lot especially our current political situation (What with food stamp eligibility and free school lunches vanishing in the next few months, speaking of socialistic type programs.)
2
Ok, well. I fail to believe that Brooks was ever a Socialist, but whatever.
Blaming wealth inequality on wage competition with foreign countries is ridiculous. Way uneven tax policies that outlandishly benefit the rich is what has caused the vast gap in incomes and wealth in this country. We can and should change that. That is not socialism, it is correcting a tax system that has been bought by the wealthy.
8
Remember, America has embraced much of socialist ideals for a long time. Our disaster relief efforts after hurricanes and floods, fire fighters, roads and bridges. Any gov't service is essentially based on socialist ideals of providing equal services to everyone. Yes, we all know that Socialism failed with the fall of USSR. But socialism failed not because of those ideals, but because of corruption.
I agree that making our capitalism work better is the way to go. Go back to the original idea of capitalism that those who work hard get rewarded. This is no longer the case for many people as seen in our ever growing wealth inequality, capitalism of today needs to evolve.
The root cause of the wealth inequality is the fixed pattern of rich get richer while the poor stay poor. Why is it fixed? Because most wealthy parents pass on the wealth to their children. Our current system rewards even those who are less productive as long as their parents are wealthy. This isn't capitalism as originally intended.
Loving your child is indeed a wonderful feeling. However, if that love is reserved only for your child without regard to others, then it'll shape itself into an act of selfishness.
At the end of your life, return your wealth to the wider society for the benefit of those who are less fortunate in the form of donation to those who need it the most.
3
This piece by Brooks is long on cant and short on serious analysis. What Brooks ignores is that the question of capitalism versus socialism only arises as a result of a growing lack of confidence in the viability of the former. Oh, and David Brooks was never a socialist. That requires a scientific, objective, and diligent outlook. I find that completely missing from his diatribe.
Socialism is not, as Brooks implies, some set of fantastical panaceas rooted in one nation-state or another. The Soviet Union was not socialist. The brief, 74-year "experiment" was nearly strangled at its inception by all of the major capitalist powers who intervened both militarily and with punishing sanctions. That led to the isolation of the revolutionary opposition organized by Trotsky and strengthened the nationalists led by Stalin. Stalin's murderous rampages eradicated 80%-85% of the Red Army officer corps on the eve of WWII. The bureaucracy's self-serving manipulation of the Comintern frustrated the extension and defense of working class revolution globally.
Like all anti-communists and pro-capitalist apologists, Brooks ignores this history. Socialism cannot be achieved on the limited foundations of single-nation states. As the working class is a global class it can only be achieved... on the basis of a global transformation.
The current xenophobia promoted by the US political elite is an effort designed to undermine the realization that our direct interests embrace the entire human race.
5
Socialism in America is not going to be like socialism in countries with an autocratic past. Moreover, socialism implies some public ownership of the means of production, but public ownership does not necessarily mean government command and control. America with its democratic and Christian heritage will be a loving, democratic socialism, a socialism where the people, not government, not the oligarchs, control the production of our commonwealth. An America where workers will sit at the tables of our nation's boardrooms. An America that will have a truly representative government. An America where workers, minorities, women, gays, lesbians, and all others who have suffered at the hands of a cruel, hard, winner-take-all economy are treated as equals deserving of respect and a fair shake. We deserve no less.
4
@Keitr Is this a joke? Or are you not aware of the fact that socialism has always, always, always, in every country, been promised to be "different" from the socialism that came before it, which - of course - always failed spectacularly.
This is a very fair take and appreciate the attempt to ignore current identity politics. I would add that our capitalist system depends on growth. Both democrats and republicans, capitalists and socialists, should support paid family leave and better, more affordable healthcare. Both are currently barriers to young people who want to start families or have larger families that would also support growth.
2
"My socialist sympathies didn’t survive long once I became a journalist. I quickly noticed that the government officials I was covering were not capable of planning the society they hoped to create."
Posted sans any indication of irony on the government invented, and nurtured for 2 decades, thing called THE INTERNET.
Then does Brooks mean to imply that Medicare and Social Security don't work?
Brooks also needs to get his head around the idea of who, and what, plans and maintains, public roads, bridges, and highways. FedEx and UPS trucks use those. Both of those delivery companies, amongst others, also use publicly owned and maintained airports.
Perhaps it's that Brooks doesn't like public housing, something that serves the poor, and sees that as a failure--while omitting the fact that Reagan massively cut public housing funding. And it hasn't been restored.
Would be good to know when was the last time Brooks had to go out and purchase private medical insurance.
4
There is a terrific article in the latest issue of Scientific American (“The Inescapable Casino”) that lays out how people become winners and losers in even the most fair system. Basically the issue is that there is a tiny bit of friction in every market transaction. That friction ends up benefitting one participant. Over time, those who are benefited end up accumulating all the money.
My reading is that those who benefit early (born into a family with resources, have good health, good schooling, etc) are positioned to naturally accumulate more. The author (Bruce Boghosian) posits that the ONLY way to keep wealth from accumulating with the very few is by transfer (taxes). I would also read that the more we do to level the playing field (which requires socialism) for children from 0-18 years results in a more just and dynamic society (with capital markets).
Socialism without capitalism is one form of death, but capitalism without socialism is just another form.
5
As is common among comparisons of Socialism and Capitalism, the column focuses on differences that don't make a difference. All modern economies are mixed.
Quantitatively: Gov't expenditure as % of GDP: China 24%, France 56%, Germany 45%, Russia 36%, UK 49%, USA 41.6%.
Qualitatively:
1) governments at all levels participate in economic planning in coordination with private businesses and institutions;
2) governments set the rules that create the markets that operate legally in their nations.
1
Much of this should be common knowledge, to the extent we actually grasp it: what drives innovation; why living standards have advanced; why capitalism engenders surpluses and socialism, scarcities. Capitalism doesn't guarantee flourishing, but its absence assures its opposite. When young people hear socialists speak, the aspirations attract them. They live in a capitalist society but have never heard it defended.
Young social liberals are default Democrats: "You want me to vote for a party of retrogrades, racists, religious bigots?" They're Democrats because the Right is, today, ridiculous and dangerous; and because it seems obvious to them that if you care about others, you should want everyone to have access to certain basics, among which they include healthcare, education, housing.
"Socialists" arrive at terrible policies with the best of intentions. Their motives are pure; their wisdom, limited. As Hayek wrote, "Those who clamor for 'conscious direction' ... should remember this: The problem is precisely how to extend the span of the utilization of resources beyond the span of the control of any one mind ... As Alfred Whitehead has said, 'Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them ...' Through [the price system] not only a division of labor but also a coordinated utilization of resources based on an equally divided knowledge has become possible."
https://munkdebates.com/debates/capitalism
1
While the devil is in the details, this column by Mr. Brooks is likely more right than wrong. But I do think that our current state is Capitalism using Socialism as their own personal safety net, at the expense of those who actually need a safety net. And if it takes a "Democratic Socialist" to bring that ship called America back towards a society that works for more ("all" would be a stretch) then I'm on board for that.
5
As an independent voter, I wonder. Why so much denial in the comments that nobody in the Democratic party is for outright socialism?
Bernie and AOC are two prominent examples. They claim to be democratic socialists. To state the obvious: democratic socialism calls for the elimination of capitalism. Instead, the means of production are to be owned by worker co-ops while the state owns a few industries like energy and health care.
2
Socialism works in a smaller Scandinavian countries not in a country as big and as diverse as the United States. Regulated Capitalism is what will work for everyone in the long run. How about we start by providing the quality K-12 education for everyone regardless of what zip-code they reside. The inequality in education is unfair and unjust in this country.
2
@Guz Regulated capitalism is what we have in Scandinavia. It has nothing to do with the size of the country. It has everything to do with the will of the country.
@Harry , size does matter ( no pun intended) and the more diverse the country, the difficult it is to make it one size fit all. I admire your government for doing all the right thing.
Education alone will not work. A hungry child may not be able to study on an empty stomach if he/she is lucky to get home safely after dodging bullets on the neighborhood’s streets. A comprehensive solution is needed.
"Two cheers for capitalism, now and forever," the subtitle of "I Was Once a Socialist, Then I Saw How It Worked," does not consider one important question: Do economic systems actually endure "forever," or are they also a part of history that involves change? Just as societies that once produced wealth through slavery collapsed or evolved and Feudalism evolved into early capitalism in Florence during the 15th century, isn't it at least worth considering that experiments with "Socialism" only began approximately 100 years ago and that there may be other more advanced societies in the future that move beyond some of the contradictions that hinder the different forms of capitalism that we now have in different countries?
3
I was a student with Brooks at the University of Chicago when he was a socialist. I witnessed his transition to capitalist close up. David, capitalism has produced fabulous material wealth—but if you haven't noticed, it's also destroying our environment, generating vast wealth inequities and growing financial insecurity among the masses, destroying communities, and driving a new era of populist political turmoil.
Maybe it's time to make the transition back to where you started, back when you were writing for the Maroon.
7
ABH thinks this is a pretty profound article, good writing and well organized. Ironically, Brooks shares a great deal in common with Rush Limbaugh, who said the worst plunderers in a socialist regime are other socialists! Recall a time when socialism was THE system of ideas for newly independent African nations and Julius Nyerere for one,founding father of Tanganyika and then renamed Tanzania when it merged with Zanzibar, always said proudly that whereas African socialism could tolerate the presence of millionaires living there, socialism could never produce a millionaire:unfair to others. Amazing when those newly formed nations abandoned socialism for market economies, citizens had an incentive to improve, work harder.Empirically, socialism has seldom worked, and as the historian, "denomme" Wisdom wrote, communism only lasted as long as it did in Soviet Russia because of the heavy handed rule of Stalin. Sekou Toure of Guinea thought socialism was the answer,and result was that Guinea, which could have been among the most prosperous in w. Africa, became 1 of the poorest.Juliana and I were assigned there and while we loved the country, poverty was inescapable.But back to Mr. Brooks, he has an open mind and is among the most talented of op ed writers for Times newspaper.
David, you argued manfully as a young student despite being trotted out as a prop to massage the ego of a vain, aging academic. What kind of adult videotapes a sham debate with students who have barely 1% the credentials, status, and influence he has? Everything about his posture and tone in response to you underlines that he was there to preach, not teach (much less engage), and he took advantage of your good nature. I’m starting to fear that you’ve spent the past forty years trying to convince yourself that the embarrassment you felt then wasn’t because you were nervous and tongue tied, but because Friedman was “right” on some lofty intellectual plane. He wasn’t.
To your credit, you’ve acknowledged many of the failures and atrocities that capitalism has been all too ready to indulge. It’s presently advancing us closer and closer to the precipice of a wholesale environmental disaster so terrifying that most of the people you thought were on your “side” politically prefer to deny it entirely, so inadequate are their resources to grapple with it.
You’re a Biblical devotee and know the wisdom of the traditions of the Old and New Testament. Why do you suppose God’s worldly messengers and his only begotten son never got around to mentioning, “Oh yeah, and remember thy children of Israel — a free market economy is the most efficient allocator of my worldly blessings”?
We need both, it's not either or. In certain conditions we need more of one than the other and that balance will go back and forth over time. People need to stop identifying themselves as strict conservatives or liberals and understand the roles both play.
8
I think attaching labels to policies are not helpful. One tends to associate successful policies with one's favorite label and, at the same time, attribute the unsuccessful ones to the opposite label. For example, increase funding for public education has always been viewed as good policy. But that often necessitates increase in taxes. David Brook likes to attribute past increase for public education to "supportive Capitalism". However, he would probably not endorse policy proposals by current set of Democratic presidential candidates to make public college free and labels these proposals "Socialism". It is interesting that Brook did not list FDR as one of his American hero. Is this because FDR was a Democrat? But policies of FDR created probably the most successful social safety net people enjoy today. If FDR was a Republican president, would Brook list those policies as "supportive Capitalism"? To associate Socialism with planned economy is perhaps a misclassification. However, increase support for private industry and, at the same time, ensure the fruit of innovation be shared equitably often requires government regulations, social safety system and yes, appropriate taxation. How to separate these necessary policies into "Socialism" and "Capitalism" is not helpful and can easily be used by demagogues to stop public debate on policies that are creative and beneficial to society. Unfortunately, the reality of our current system is that the wealthy also controls the media.
2
your overwhelming praise for pure capitalism is simplistic. capitalism in the u.s. has allowed a wider gap in income discrepancies than ever. regulations are being cut back allowing air and water qualities to go backward not forward. we will see more health problems as a result. the regulations were loose and there were not enough regulators prior to the crash or 2007-2008. though regulation came back to better help prevent that from happening again, this administration is going backwards with regulation. the chances of the great recession recurring again, though for different reasons, has a greater chance now than 10 years ago. people and industries are greedy and think of short term profits as opposed to long term effects. bu your definitions, credit unions are essentially socialist institutions because the members are the owners and they really do work better then banks. mortality rates and infant survival rates are better in a lot of countries than they are are here. social security and medicare are great and are socialist concepts. aiding them to keep working is the right way to help the populous rather than trying to have profit only companies providing social help to the populous. capitalism in the u.s. has run amuck. you should have remained a socialist and fine tuned the various concepts that it can provide.
Let good ideas move forward; capitalism is good at that. What DB is positing is responsibility, but he misses it badly. When capitalism crosses the line of avoiding responsibility, we are fools to call that winning, when it really means social structures are loosing. There are many current examples, climate change is blatantly obvious. Irresponsible capitalism allows a few to profit as external costs are monetized to the masses rather than the industries responsible. Our current healthcare permits people to be bankrupted based on genetic and environmental probabilities, while better systems exist.
1
Please, Mr. Brooks--the real world is too complicated to be understood and managed efficiently for mere bureaucrats? That the motive of money is the only way to achieve understanding of such complexity?
Have you ever heard of Science, of NASA, or CERN? These nominally socialist enterprises demonstrate exactly the ability for PERSONS motivated by something more than mere profit--It is the motivation to see farther unveil the mysteries of an otherwise chaotic and dangerous world.
If there is any failing of utilitarian functions of society, organized in a social-benefitting manner, it is because capitalists' loath to give up easy profits for the betterment of all? (See, for example modern pharmaceutical pricing, bottled water giants, or the Enron's of the world for that matter)
Things which are needed by all, when recognized, become human rights: clean water, sanitary sewers, roads, and mail are hallmarks of our "Socialist" past. Now, we are discovering that the Internet and Medicine are common goods. The battle lines are drawn: can we enjoy these common goods in the same way, or will our lives be beholden to the parsimonious billionaire conglomerates?
2
"CAPITALISM is indefensible ethically, environmentally, and macroeconomically.
"Capitalism will always produce more goods and services than people can afford. Which leads to massive waste and pollution.
"Capitalist businesses can never pay their workers anywhere close to the equivalent value of their total production. It has a host of horrific defects and mechanics.It can't be sustained without massive government support, and public and private debt. We saw and suffered through them during the Great Depression and Great Recession."
https://www.businessinsider.com/alexandria-ocasio-cortezs-tweet-workers-paid-far-less-than-the-value-they-create-2019-3
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
SOCIALISM:
~ Extends democracy to include the economy.
~ Democratizes the workplace.
~ Decentralizes political power back to communities and away from "the state."
~ Insists that the people, not the state, not political proxies, own the means of production, together, as coequals.
~ Works to end class society entirely.
And the Commons does not include one's home or the things in that home. The Commons includes the economy, public schools, libraries, parks, museums, etc.
1
"Socialist planned economies... interfere with price and other market signals in a million ways. "
And the capitalist economies like the US don't?
What are tariffs, oil subsidies, tax breaks, incentives, bailouts, public infrastructure, etc except interfering with "price and market signals"?
The truth is, people are wedded to what they are used to, and in the US, whatever is the status quo, we call capitalism, even when socialist ideas make things better--like social security, ACA act, Medicaid, free libraries, free schooling and roads, emergency funding, etc. People appreciate these things, but refused to see them as socialism.
4
Having noted that this column derived from a recent debate Brooks took part in on a future for capitalism, I watched the debate. Interestingly, in both debate and this column, Brooks sets up a false (unasked for) choice between capitalism and socialism. Nowhere in the debate was socialism put forth as capitalism's opposite. The question there was whether capitalism -- lauded by both sides as bringing the world to a much better place economically and socially -- needed to change to prepare for the drastic shifts reshaping our world, environmentally and otherwise. How much more interesting it would have been for Brooks to address that point in this column, but also how much tougher that might have been for him since it would require less overgeneralizing and oversimplifying (two weaknesses I find in much of his writing). In the actual debate, Brooks made this statement in pointing out the danger of investing too much power in "the state" (his definition of socialism): "Don't rely on good intentions of incredibly powerful people; create a mechanism around them." So much irony there since the incredibly powerful people in our country today reside in our corporate structure, in our unfettered capitalism surely to a greater degree than government. I'd be fascinated to hear what he'd say to that, but we'll never know since I hear he never reads reactions to his columns.
3
China's version of Communism with Chinese Characteristics in which private enterprise is fine but has the People of China as a partner. In 70 years they have raised the standard of living of hundreds of million Chinese. They have a growing well educated middle class that is about 2.5 times the size of our population. Compared to us they have a small military budget and large one for education, health care and infrastructure projects that have made their cities, transportation and communication systems among the best in the world.
Capitalism committed to the general welfare as well as profit, which is insured by the participation of a government for the people, seems to work rather well. It may be a hybrid socialism but it works for more people than unbridled capitalism.
1
If you want to call massive infusion of money into our educational system, welfare programs to subsidize poor people's consumption and ability to produce, wage subsidies, earned-income credit, and tax subsidies for health care, capitalism, go ahead. But please don't denigrate socialism. All of these programs could also be called socialism. The idea that socialism is evil is one of the things that keeps us from having more and better programs of this nature in the first place.
In truth the U.S. is a mixed system, which is a good thing. In a strictly capitalist system schools would all be private, police protection would only be available for hire, and roads would all be toll roads. The discussion shouldn't be about which is good and which is bad, capitalism vs socialism, but which parts of the economy do better as a market system, and which parts do better with public funding.
2
"We need a higher earned-income tax credit, to give the working poor financial security so they don’t get swept away amid the creative destruction."
An equally valid argument holds that a business that cannot afford to pay its employees an adequate living wage and still turn a profit is not a viable business and has no legitimate place in the economy. Under our largely regressive system of taxation, an earned income tax credit merely transfers earnings, indirectly, from better-paid workers to business owners who can then leverage their capital to create even more exploitative, low wage, dead-end employment situations, cementing in place a permanent underclass.
The alternative? A guaranteed national income, living wage laws, and universal health care, all paid through the taxation of the wildly profitable businesses that ground our economy. A businesses that cannot pay should go away.
Much to digest. However, the socialism vs. capitalism debate misses the point. Most of the "planned" countries are authoritarian states. Lenin and Trotsky didn't start the Russian Revolution to begin a Marxist utopia, their goal was power. Robes Pierre cared little for the new American Republican ideal, he simply wanted to devastate the French monarchy and elite. It's about governance that cares for her people. Capitalism has proven itself to be the best vehicle for prosperity, but unchecked greed has unleashed predatory social behavior leaving little opportunity for far too many. The Scandinavian countries you mention seem to understand that markets provide the best chance for individual citizens to thrive, but government has to provide services such as education, health care, and infrastructure as the foundation that allows for economic success. As long as the US her state governments use unfettered markets as an excuse for inaction in serving the citizenry, it doesn't matter if we are capitalist or socialist. Our decline will become precipitous.
1
"In the modern era, "pure" socialism has been seen only rarely and usually briefly in a few Communist regimes. Far more common are systems of social democracy, now often referred to as democratic socialism, in which extensive state regulation, with limited state ownership, has been employed by democratically elected governments (as in Sweden and Denmark) in the belief that it produces a fair distribution of income without impairing economic growth." Merriam-Webster. Get with it Brooks. In the modern era you definition of socialism isn't the conversation. The conversation is about revamping the tax structure so that America is funded well enough to "promote the general welfare." The VA and Social Security are fine examples of socialism at work. We need more of those for our parks, infrastructures, feeding our kids and so on. That's what the rest of us mean by socialism. You've officially shown yourself to not be of "the modern era." Except for the irony that the list of remedies you suggest are mostly socialist in nature. Gosh, I hope you intended that irony.
"The freest economies in the world are places like Hong Kong, the U.S., Canada, Ireland, Latvia, Denmark, Mauritius, Malta and Finland."
We continue to have a definition problem on the question of
"socialism." The countries Mr. Brooks cites indeed number among the freest economies in the world. But they are not and have never been socialist states (outside of the UUSR republic of Latvia). They are all of them social democracies, wherein the mix of capitalism with robust social services help to reduce or eliminate inequality while reinforcing entrepreneurship with pro-growth government investments in human and physical infrastructure. American K-12 and higher education and technical training fall further and further behind our leading competitors in Europe and the Far East. Our roads and bridges and rail are a growing embarrassment hindering productivity growth. For no reason other than they like the public schools belong in the public sector that private individuals with ample means can work around and ignore. The wealthy educate their children privately while the rest of us make do based on the good fortune (or lack) of owning real estate in a community with good schools. It's no way to assure a competitive economy or any kind of agreeable social order. American capitalism forgets that it's built on a justice and banking system that remains more or less subject to the rule of law, without which, it and the rest of us will be in deeper and deeper trouble.
2
This piece feels so irresponsible (and not a little condescending). We live in a system that has in fact socialized any and all coproprate faliings to protect the richest capitalists at the top, but with none of the protections for the everyday folks at the bottom.
We also allow for public funding of new ideas, health and medical innovations, and technology, and then we allow people disguised as corporations to run away with the the reserach and development and make personal billions, usually going on to never pay taxes back or serve the common good again.
We have socialized profits for the top and privatized the pain at the bottom (which is where most of us hang out, folks). There is a cruelty to it that we must not accept as some natural order of things. The rampant and growing inequality we see in our country should be a wake up call that we do need 'interference', with whatever fancy name we want to give it, to save ourselves, our neighbors, and our country.
1
This piece pulls the oldest trick in the book: your two choices are unfettered Capitalism (which produces abundant goods but also inequality) or a Planned Socialist Economy, which is stagnant and makes everybody poor. One would never know from reading this that there are socialist alternatives to both options:alternatives such as market socialism, worker-owned enterprises, etc. These can maintain the advantages of a market economy while also ensuring that it works more fairly and democratically. The stark polarity Brooks has on display here is a relic of the Cold War.
2
Just a shout-out to the NYT for being willing to publish this great article. The article deserves plaudits and commentary, but I want to focus on something else here. I frankly think the NYT is too left-leaning too often, so pieces like this are refreshing to see published. To be clear, I think the NYT does great work, but its biases can get in the way. Maybe I'm wrong in my assessment, but to me, there is growing contingency that wants a media outlet to be balanced in its approach. As it stands right now, I have to do things like watch Fox and MSNBC and then mash it all together to arrive at a middle ground that I hope is more reflective of reality. BBC sometimes strikes this balance - NYT, I wish you would try to do the same. I am a republican, in case that is not obvious. Thanks again for the article.
I don't fully agree with Mr Brooks. However, He makes some good points. I wish the homeless issues of our country were front page news. We have over half a million homeless in the U.S. Fifty thousand of those homeless are veterans. I don't think there should be any homeless in our country; zero! Fix the homeless problem.
Very thoughtful article, Mr. Brooks! (no relation!). Life is not black or white. There are many shades of grey (more than 50!). As a society, we are becoming too polarized into us/them all/nothing mentalities. Life doesn't work in dichotomies. If we can learn to quick finger-pointing and arguing over who is right/wrong and look at how life is complicated and nuanced, perhaps we can collectively work together to more effectively address the problems of this nation and our world.
1
One of your better articles. I agree with almost everything you say. However, I do think that other than Bernie Sanders, none of the current Democratic candidates are advocating for Socialism. In spite of how the right will attempt to label. We don't need to get rid of Capitalism. We need to make it work better for everyone.
Mr. Brooks: "Capitalism isn't a religion."
Clifford Geertz: “A religion is a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing those conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.”
I'm with the late 20th century's most influential cultural anthropologist on this one, and "capitalism," at least as practiced in America,fulfills the definition.
Why? Because our capitalism supplies the ultimate moral bearings determining how humans are viewed and treated with no recognition (beyond hollow lip service) of a supervening authority beyond it's ruling Invisible Hand deity. The Invisible Hand decides who shall live (and how they shall live) and who shall die (and how they shall die), and who will be born or not be born in the first place, for that matter, with no *recognized* authority above that Invisible Hand.
How else, for that matter, can the American people have chose Trump - with no qualifications other than his apparent capitalist bona fides - as its president, to safeguard and promote and embody our national principles?
That capitalism is our religion is proved by the rejection, nearly universal, in this society of competing religions such as Judaism and Christianity, which consider our capitalism anathema (in Judaism, for example, commerce and business are forbidden outside the yoke of 613 Commandments).
2
Btw, I don't have time to quote it here, but I would refer readers to the NYT review, a few years ago, of Richard Thaler's book "Misbehaving" which recounts his involvement in the development of "Behavioral Economics." That review likewise calls University of Chicago "neoclassical" economics -- while of course not invoking the Geertz definition to support the claim, implicitly on similar reasoning. Rather than describing patterns of economic exchange, the "capitalism" in both cases amounts to a fairly comprehensive belief system about fundamental human purpose & values (including morality and ethics), and a "general order of existence."
I would add that the beliefs involved, beyond grounding a distinctive ethical system, appeal to faith in a transcendent force actively promoting material (and probably spiritual as well, to the extent comprehensive materialism isn't embraced) outcomes -- a FAITH actually violating scientific and empirical evidence.
Among the features of this belief/moral system are novel definitions of virtue contradicting traditional morality, according to which it is virtuous to squeeze out as much value, wealth, or productivity from others without regard to their welfare, that doing so is a pubic service. (McKinsey, and similar outfits in consulting and IB, like the U. Chicago economists will tell you this).
The capitalism generally practiced here does not exist beneath or alongside other religious doctrines, beliefs, systems. It *is* the religion.
1
@anon
Oops: "That review likewise calls University of Chicago "neoclassical" economics... a ***religion***.
1
Scandinavian countries are in many ways great models for the US. They are indeed "supportive" welfare states.
But they do not have "very free markets", as Brooks wants us to believe. They just have sophisticated means (like with most of their things) to protect themselves from the free market. Look how long it took China to enter their marketplace. Look how IKEA peddles pseudo-scandanavian Chinese wares to those mainly outside of Sweden.
Brooks wants to give the free market credit for the great successes of democratic socialism of Scandinavia and northern Europe. He creates a socialist strawman by giving to it the definition of communism.
3
@carl bumba We have very free markets in Scandinavia, you've been misinformed.
@Harry
The high cost of consumer goods there does not reflect fair market prices even in Europe. Something has been keeping those cheap imports out for quite a while.
David Brooks may not realize it, but he has provided the perfect column to support the only Democratic Capitalist running for president: Elizabeth Warren. She understands this stuff, she has a plan for it, and she will help to usher in demand-side capitalism versus more of the same disastrous supply-side capitalism (a.k.a. trickle-down economics). Sure, during the process, we all must suffer through all the billionaire tears that will be spilled because of fairly taxing them, but, in the end, it will be worth a few billionaire temper tantrums.
3
I so very seldom agree with Brooks, but in this case, the evidence is clear. The AOC/Sanders supporters who point to the socialist Scandinavia as role model, refuse to understand that these are advanced capitalist societies with advanced social welfare systems. AOC/Sanders would do better to describe themselves as Social Democrats because that is Scandinavian economies are.
To paraphrase, "Capitalism is the worse economic system except for all the others'
2
@Sipa111
capitalism is the antithesis of democracy and its death knell
When my father's family immigrated from Ireland in the 1850s, they became famers and railroad workers. The grandsons went on to attend Ivy League schools and become physicians, lawyers and engineers.
When my mother and her family immigrated from Italy in the 1920s, they only had themselves to depend on. They worked together to survive the Depression, and three siblings, including my mother, served on active military duty overseas in WWII.
A co-worker was born in the US after his parents escaped from Viet Nam in the 1970s. The family now owns motels and has sent their children to professional schools.
This type of opportunity, and the chance to become full citizens in a republic, is available no where else on earth.
The immigrants of today will make up the citizenry of our country in the future thanks to capitalism.
So what if the "one percent" is obscenely wealthy, it's the availability of opportunity that has made the US the "last best hope."
Can anyone name a SUCCESSFUL completely socialist economy?
I mostly agree that if you want to run a rental car company, "capitalism has a whole bevy of market and price signals and feedback loops that tell you what kind of cars people want to rent, where to put your locations, how many cars to order." I also feel that the free market works well for running a shoe company. I wrote that I "mostly agree" because capitalism requires a competitive market and most car rental companies are owned by one of three companies. That is an oligopoly rather than a free market. Facebook, Apple and Amazon increasingly look and act like monopolies. Capitalism, even varieties like crony and monopoly capital are good at some things. As you wrote the state cnnot predict people's desires..." But the state can often predict people's needs. The "people" need education and they need medical care. The market cannot provide those for all. In those areas, and in others, we must put people over profits. Democracy is possible with a genuine mixed economy, but it is impossible in an economy run by monopoly. It is impossible in a society where money can buy elections. In a variety of ways "democratic monopoly capitalism" is an oxymoron. It is time for you, Mr. Brooks, to revisit your critique of democratic socialism.
1
One idea I like to float on sites like Motley Fool is this: since we are lectured that investing is when you buy into a company and not a stock, and investing with a timeline of less than five years is gambling, why not make a tax system that does that? Have a sliding asset appreciation (rather than depreciation) schedule, where one would pay 50% tax on gains made within one year, 40% within two, and down to maybe 5% after five. One is rewarded for patience, and anyone making a windfall quickly pays the higher tax. That would give the lie to all the Wall Street members who lecture us that capitalism is the best system in the long run. Since I never hear this type of idea, or why real estate managers like Trump pay no taxes, I know articles like this are missing the point.
1
So if a Presidential candidate decides to run on improving the health care in the United States he/she is branded a Socialist?
Improvement being defined as a)coverage for all citizens, and b) affordability...what is the issue? Medicare has been around for 64 years. The annual cost to the retiree (out of pocket) is around $5,000 which consists of Medicare (government sponsored) and a Supplement (private insurance). The employee who worked for 45 years paid a portion of his wages each week to support the program and an equal amount was paid by his employer.
America was not enslaved by Medicare, as Ronald Reagan predicted would be the case in 1965. On the contrary, the burden of health care coverage for seniors enabled private insurers to control costs better for its younger clients.
Medicare costs are lower. The Medical Services industry gouges private insurers at higher rates to make up the difference ...and Medicare is blamed by critics for this situation!
I think Mr. Brooks' is overreaching in his arguments and experience. The ACA was a great step forward and should be built upon. It mandated coverage requirements and this was considered 'taking over' the health care system in the US.
The argument put forward is nonsense.
To my left: government is truly terrible at allocating capital and should only be used as an insurer of last resort where due to size/information disadvantage, the private market is structurally unsuited to address.
To my right: Health care may fall into this category. Climate care certainly falls into this category. Next, not all regulation is unwarranted or unnecessary. Third, tax rates are too low right now (both individual and Corporate).
Back to my left: higher taxes on elites are already required just to close the budget gap (which is unsustainably high, given that we're in the longest running expansion in recent times). Adding additional entitlements will certainly be heavily borne by the middle/lower classes in a regressive manner.
1
Mr Brooks:
Myself, I am not confident in people's ability to accurately assess , or provide for, the needs of anyone outside a small number of close associates. I think people are good at taking care of their own. I would like for the government to collect vastly more tax and then redistribute it in a strings free way. Food stamps, who came up with such a weird idea? When you want your kid, or husband, to fetch some groceries, what do you give them? Money. When an upper middle class person wants to help their newly college educated kid with housing costs, do they organize a bunch of like minded people to build an apartment complex where they can control the rent? No, they give their kid money. How do raise a person from poverty? Try to make a guess about what job they should aim for and train them? Attach some time released birth control to their arm? How about giving them money?
The terms social democracy or democratic socialism are conspicuously missing in the article. It seems to me that there is no doubt nowadays that private enterprises are needed everywhere and that equally some type pf government is needed everywhere. The discussion, if any, is how freely should the private sector act, and to which extent should the public sector be an active participant. If we set up in front individual rights we have democracy first and we we bring in an harmonious society we have socialism. Contemporary successful countries show some type of this social democracy or democratic socialism operating. Pure capitalism and communism belong to the past.
3
For such a dynamic thinker as David Brooks, it is disappointing to read such a simplistic, black and white argument. In essence his position is because socialism is flawed, capitalism is great. As examples, he describes how great capitalism is at figuring out how to do things well. One need only look at a few examples of our capitalist system, health care and the food industry, to see how wrong he is. In both cases, capitalism seems great at making a small group of people, tremendous amounts of money. But in healthcare it has offered profoundly inefficient bureaucracy and ineffective health services to most people and no health care to millions of others. Our costs are greater and outcomes worse than many "socialist" systems. Our food industry uses its great capitalist creativity to be world leaders in over processed, unhealthy, low-quality foods full of sweeteners and empty carbs. Not surprising that the US leads the world in obesity. Mr Brooks is wrong, capitalism does a crummy job at creating quality things for average people.
2
Funny how guys like Brooks spend endless hours defining "what socialism is" but give scant definition to what "capitalism" is.
Is it Google and Apple buying up 100's of millions of dollars of patents from potentially market-disrupting technologies expressly to stifle possible competition to their existing products?
Why don't they spend more time defining it? Because they believe that capitalism as a God-Given natural force, like gravity or birds in flight. And why on earth would you question the heavens?
2
@Garrick ...Lets see if we can define Capitalism. Capitalism in a gross sense is the operation of the law of supply and demand. You can let supply and demand have free reign, or you can tinker with it to produce outcomes that you may favor. For example one might subsidize oil depletion or one might add an environmental tax on gas consumption. That's my try on a definition, lets see what others might add.
Evolution is the biggest non-planned system on planet earth and has been remarkably successful. Why? Because it is a system that constantly tries out new possibilities (mutation) in numerous small systems (species) and eliminates losers (natural selection). In many ways, capitalism is similar with respect to markets. However, in the success of evolution, we can see one major problem with capitalism. Capitalism, if left unchecked, moves toward economic domination by a few corporations that can then control competition and selection. In contrast, in evolution, no species can gain control over the selection process. What Brooks does not answer is how, under capitalism, are markets kept competitive for all business, hence how does one prevent any single company from getting control of competition, as we see happening all of the time.
1
Interesting and honest piece. However, if I had to pick an ideology to fight for, it would nonetheless be one that directly acknowledges that people should have equal opportunities to do well. The problem with our capitalist system is that it does not even offer this kind of opportunity anymore despite pretending to do so. The market and our system have been confiscated by the elite few-- who perpetuate inequality and elitism to their own benefit almost exclusively. The doors of capitalism may be shiny and gilded but nonetheless open to only a few. You may be distracted by the shine.
So-- we cannot curb the ills of capitalism with more capitalism but we must counter it with a clear ideology that tames its greed and its tendency to benefit only the few. You seem to be describing a scenario where we use quasi-socialist ideas to further capitalism, but I think that would only lead to more inequality and unrest because capitalism flaws would still persist ultimately. We need rather to deal with the root of the problem, changing the capitalistic logic that defines our everyday life and replacing it with something much more humane.
There is merit in steadfast conviction. There is merit in evolving previous views and ideologies due to their imperfection. Who is to say which is an absolute truth? Interestingly, economic models have evolved throughout human history. Slavery used to be an economic model. So was feudalism. Then there was communism and classical liberalism. The world since then evolved once more and now there are variant degrees of socialism and capitalism.
But we remain transfixed on these over-encompassing ideologies and economic models of both socialism and capitalism. The other condemns its results and values as broken. And the natural tendency therefore is for its proponents to fix it.
Is it naive to start from scratch in the U.S., apply the imagination this country is proud to evoke whenever we see candidates on a debate stage? Because today we simply re-brand with names like: democratic socialism; democratic capitalism. How about a synthesis of the best aspects of each, producing a new economic model that addresses individual prosperity through free market principles and a supportive welfare state? Here the proponents of capitalism and socialism will find a necessity to cooperate. The question is whether history has shown people willing to cooperate, what would that look like, the Scandinavian model seems to have some clues? I'd like to find out more, and research. I do not prescribe to capitalism as absolute truth, but appreciate the thought inducing and provoking read.
What the author here is describing is a mixed economy, part socialist and part capitalist. Not all socialists are for top-down planned economies and not all are totally anti-market. This is nowhere near the truth. Socialism is diverse tradition and many socialists accept and even embrace a role for the market, not to mention robust democracy. Mr. Brooks says he used to be a socialist but it turns out he still partly is; the problem is not with socialism generally but with the caricature of it that otherwise educated people still hold in their heads (such as Mr. Brooks).
1
Is "Socialism" paying higher taxes so all can have health care and get a good education? I don't think so.
The system we have now is not working for many - I think we ought to take a look at the "socialism" of Denmark, Norway, the rest of Europe. Conditions for al citizens are better there than here.
2
Enough of this silliness where we pretend that the U.S. economy isn't a series of choices. There is no such thing as a "free-market" and there never has been. Political decisions have been made to create the market as we know it. Furthermore, capitalism, if left to its own devices necessarily results in monopolies, and monopolies kill any notion of a free-market. This is why the U.S. has anti-monopoly legislation, which was again a political decision. To say that capitalism "works things out" when it has resulted in massive income inequality and markets that are dominated by a handful of large corporations, is absurd.
3
@Andres Hannah ... "capitalism, if left to its own devices necessarily results in monopolies".....I regard capitalism as the operation of the law of supply and demand. The goal of monopolies is to manipulate the law of supply and demand to operate in a way favoring the monopoly. Or in a sense, when you have monopolies, what you have can no longer be called capitalism.
@W.A. Spitzer That's a tautological argument. So anytime the workings of capitalism fail, it's no longer capitalism. Funny how that never applies to critiques of socialism.
Your heroes--Hamilton, Lincoln, and Roosevelt--would no longer fit into the current GOP. That is why you and moderate
Democrats need to build a party to replace the party of Trump, corruption, and studied ignorance.
Democrats and Republicans can meet on common ground, but not without a civilized revolution in American politics, against the Know-nothings and uber nationalists and emotion-driven Puritans that now run the administration.
That is your challenge; it is a moral challenge essentially, not a political one.
I'm disappointed that the normally precise David Brooks does not acknowledge the great range of nominally 'socialist' policies: from social democracy (which he praises in Denmark) to communism-with-capitalist-characteristics (which he praises in China). "Let's be serious" - the admonition du jour: unregulated capitalism and central-planning both produce ugly results. The serious debate should be about the scope and effectiveness of the regulatory ring-fence within which capitalism operates. And about the scope and effectiveness of the social safety-net. That's the social-democratic debate we need.
1
The US might be more supportive of its citizens if it were not for the vast security subsidy paid to protect allies. This burdensome imbalance has nothing to do with capitalism (as codified in the mid-19th Century) vs socialism (as codified ca. 20 years earlier).
Brooks is correct. However, the main thing about capitalism is it is about liberty. Yes, capitalism is freedom. At the basic level it is pure and free exchange between free people. If you don't like Amazon, or you don't like Walmart, don't use them. You have that choice. When the government completely takes over healthcare, there will be no choice. That is tyranny.
No socialist country has true freedom, including "Democratic Socialist" countries. I don't want the government managing my medical care and they should get their hands out of my pockets with social security. And no, police and military is not socialism.
1
I kept waiting to see how Mr. Brooks would fit the Great Depression, FDR and the New Deal into his argument. Guess he sidesteps those moments in American history because they undermine too many of his points about capitalism.
2
Capitalism is great if you access to capital.
Paying out a dividend of $1000/mo to each citizen of the wealthiest nation in the world would be the fastest and most effective way to improve the current system.
1
Who is talking about socialist economies? Bernie isn't. Neither is Warren. I don't cotton to socialism.
What Democrats are talking about is services: Health Care. Social Security. Education. Roads. Job training.
Democrats are talking about is keeping capitalism from becoming a soul destroying monster: keeping it competitive through oversight by a government that should be working for everyone and not just a few obscenely rich people and corporations.
Democrats are talking about preserving and regulating extraction of minerals; about preserving what's left of the wilderness and outdoors. They're talking about the future of the planet.
No Democrat worth his salt is against capitalism and free enterprise. Not one! But he or she knows that unfettered capitalism is a recipe for disaster.
1
Tax subsidies to pay for health care? Why are we okay with government paying for (because that's what a tax subsidy is) private company profit motive but not with government actually paying for care? Ridiculous.
I doubt Mr. Brooks has read "Rise of the Robots". More automation, smarter algorithms and intelligent robots will increasingly take more and more jobs away. Without a guaranteed living wage, our youth is doomed.
1
To me, it's simple: There is no INCENTIVE to create that which I cannot control or keep. The only thing worse than Trump is Socialism.
1
Sounds great, Mr. Brooks - now will you please patiently explain to everyone to your right your thoughts on the benefit of a Scandinavian model so they can stop freaking out about socialism, and see it for what it is - an added benefit to our capitalistic structure?
Because right now we have an administration that will be ending basic food assistance for 700,000 desperate people, to be followed later with 3 million more.
How does this reconcile with your love letter to the big C? Because it sounds like utter and complete failure of basic governance and economic systems to me.
Yes, we need more and better Capitalism, but the version we need is laced with a heavy dose of Socialism. Otherwise, we are headed for the worst sort of society, with the hungry masses surrounded gated wealthy communities. That is nowhere I want to live.
Watch the greatest comedy, if not the best film ever. It's about suicide and reaction. The film contrasts capitalists; a self-centered, shameless, greedy old man with devious plans to rule a town; to a young entrepreneur constrained by an overwhelming inability to act. He can't even open his girlfriend's gate; until he is inspired to react with a boot. His reaction to losing money is to commit suicide from a bridge, and as he is about to do it, someone else jumps from the bridge. True to his constraints the young entrepreneur jumps in order to save the other guy that jumped. We are not free if we are prohibited from reacting. Moreover we are doomed if we react in selfish ways.
This whole line of argument is disingenuous and intellectually dishonest.
No Democratic Party candidate, including Sanders and Warren who are leftmost, are suggesting actual socialism or the dismantling of capitalism. What all candidates are suggesting is a return to a sensible social safety net, along with support for workers, that mitigates the increasing inequality between the super-rich and everyone else in our society - just as we had during our most prosperous post-war decades, and as every other modern country in the world has now.
Crying wolf about “socialism” every time someone suggests that in the richest country in human history, maybe 60 million people shouldn’t be denied access to health care is beyond ridiculous.
4
The question is whether your government is corrupted by socialism thugs or capitalist thugs. We have a tax system that is too complicated to benefit special interests -- not equal protection -- and even the IRS doesn't understand. We are imperialist, with troops stationed in many foreign countries, and kill foreigners on a daily basis, who never attacked us, without there being an actual war declared. We run non-stop political campaigns that operate on money, and allow the rich to invest as donors by as much as they want.
Capitalism is great. But government can then allow it to pollute and create a global climate crisis and it cannot even respond with taxes on an obvious negative externality. It can bail out failures rather than allow markets to replace the bad actors with better acting ones. It can let a car company go out of business one day, have a different name the next day, and then rename itself back to the now dead company's name, all while pretending it's brand new while being the exact same company that failed.
Is the world better because we have more people? Longer living people? For most of nature we see the issues with "too much is not so good," yet it's the motto of capitalism.
Mr. Brooks, the definition of socialism in the early part of your essay you are espousing is not what most of us are talking about. Those who claim to be democratic socialists are talking about the very things you are talking about at the end of the essay. In other words, you really haven't moved all that far from being a socialist yourself.
1
I was once a capitalist, then I saw how it worked.
4
Yes, and I was once a married man with children but then I saw how that worked and left my wife for a much younger research assistant.
4
Thank God we have a system that can get us just the rental car we need when we need it, all while life itself on our planet is pushed closer and closer to the brink. Right?
The fact is that capitalism *as we know it today* is wholly incapable of addressing the most existential threat the human race has ever faced. That reason alone should prevent this kind of wide-eyed admiration about its exceptionalism. We can do better and I’m tired of hearing from small-minded conservatives that this is the best we’ve got.
1
@Michael Z ..."The fact is that capitalism *as we know it today* is wholly incapable of addressing the most existential threat the human race has ever faced."...I disagree. For example what about climate change. What is the real long term cost of burning fossil fuels? If you added the real long term cost of burning fossil fuels on as tax, capitalism would very quickly reduce the consumption of fossil fuels.The problem isn't capitalism itself, but rather that we have manipulated capitalism to favor short term profits over long term gains by ignoring the costs we will have to pay down the road.
Holy smokes you capitalists are dense. C`mon Mr. Brooks, we don`t want socialistic control of rental car companies or even telephone companies, we also don`t want social control of the means of production. What we want is a place for labor at the board of directors of these companies, so that the labor concerns of the people who make these companies great are taken into account,
Private capital is great, but for the big things, that truly benefit the entire society, public capital is the most efficient way to go.
Never before has so much capital been allowed to accrue into the private sector, and that is the result of capitalism run amok. So many of the ills of this world are tied up in the efforts of oligarchs and strong men trampling on societies in order to gain such riches, and that is the bane that capitalism has to deal with. I mean look at Russia! A failing society, a minuscule economy, and free-range capitalism!
You cannot extol the benefits of capitalism without dealing with the attrocities that come from unregulated capitalism.
It would be better to argue for a blend of private and social capital to build the service industries and infrastructures that every modern society needs. i
1
Elizabeth Warren is also a capitalist. She says go ahead and make as much money as you want, just don't do it by causing harm to others.
3
Mr. Brooks, I have long appreciated your moderate tone and personal insights.
Your views are yours. I did not care whether they were liberal, conservative, or socialist. They were yours and you gave them credibility.
I watched your PBS panel with Milton Friedman. There was nothing socialist about your thinking back then.
You drew up a straw horse and so your credibility and authorithy with me has fallen.
There was no need to play that card.
The opposite of social is anti-social or sociopathic. Unfortunately, many Americans cannot get beyond an ideology characterized by self aggrandizement. That is ruining our country. Barn raising is not some leftist ideology. It is common sense
Do not make the conversation we need in this country more difficult.
4
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at all the commenters sounding the alarm about capitalism’s effect in the environment. Socialist countries (and Scandinavia doesn’t count - those countries are in most cases more capitalistic than the US is) have a track record that is far, far worse.
Some good points in this article but please don't reinforce the false choice between capitalism and the "S-word". We all love capitalism but it's quite ok to question what's not working.
Thousands of recipients of Medicare and Social Security love to scream about how they hate "socialism".
I will never get back from Medicaid and SS as much as I paid into the programs. That is why they are called taxes. The people who take our more than they pay getting a socialist benefit. I have no problem with how these benefits work, but please understand what they are, social taxes and socialism.
Happy to live in "democratic socialist" Norway. According to Mr. Brooks we should be miserable and backward. The opposite is true.
No one in the U.S. is advocating for centralized, command economies ala the Soviet Union. Even the most progressive, "far left" politicians in the U.S. are right of the most right-wing politicians in Norway. Runaway corporations, monopolies and oligarchs are products of unchecked, unfettered capitalism. Not that difficult to understand.
3
Let's be clear about a few things - how do you define socialist or socialism? Very few, if any, societies in existence are either purely socialist or, for that matter, purely capitalist. Let's also be clear that the so called socialist countries (USSR, etc.) were socialist only in name - they were (are) authoritarian, police states, or dictatorships. The language of socialism (i.e. equality, for the common good, etc.) provided cover for abuses and excesses with those at the top living like kings and the masses suffering.
Many of the world's most successful and egalitarian societies are social democracies - Canada, UK, Germany, France, Denmark, Finland, et. al. come to mind . . .
It doesn't have to be a choice between all capitalism or all socialism. Unregulated capitalism as practiced in the US is unnecesarily harsh. When it comes to needs we all share--like roads socialism works well. When the subject is ideas of how to make things more equal it is called socialism. When it comes to the rich getting a tax break it is framed as the just the rightious thing to do.
1
The uncritical worship of capitalism is a maor cause of the corruption that is destroying our country, and while both of our major parties had a hand in it, the GOP has become such a festering cesspool that it has ceased to function as an instrument of government and is now little more than a cult of personality and power. And David Brooks still carries water for them and no doubt considers himself principled.
1
I congratulate you. When I was reading the first half of your article I said to myself oh, here we go again, another upper income apologist for keeping things the same.
Then I read the second half and I was VERY surprised because I could be very comfortable making those very points myself. Mark Shields must be rubbing off on you. (Note: Mark Shields is my hero).
Simply, what you are stating is what we all have been saying. There is a big difference between
democratic capitalism and authoritarian capitalism. How do we know democratic capitalism works? Look to Denmark, Norway, Sweden. They don't have a bevy of sick, hungry children or camps of the homeless. There are plenty of examples to learn what we can successfully adopt for our own system.
Welcome to our side of the ledger.
1
Mr. Brooks continues the right-wing's crude (and grossly inaccurate) depiction of socialism. As usual, 'close, but no cigar' applies to his column today.
Capitalism and socialism are humanity's two 'economic' mechanisms. Each has comparable horrors and benefits. Neither should be viewed as better than the other, nor one as bad and the other good. They are tools only.
1
"Worker co-ops?" Which build skills and represent labor at the negotiating table?
C'mon David, you can say it. UNION!
“Socialist planned economies — the common ownership of the means of production — interfere with price and other market signals in a million ways. They suppress or eliminate profit motives that drive people to learn and improve.” There is the reason socialist economies always fail and idealism is never the answer.
2