Einstein The Socialist.

Since this forum is a little empty at the moment I thought it'd be interesting to see what people thought of the little known fact that Albert Einstein was an advocate of Socialism and of what the man himself had to say on the subject.

This is an article published in the first edition of the Monthly Review magazine in 1949 in which Einstein puts his case:

Why Socialism? By Albert Einstein

Okay, three months later. I suppose no one thinks anything of the man widely regarded as having the biggest intellect of the twentieth century advocating Socialism? Or are we all shy? (inconspicuously stirs the pot )

Eienstein was a genius, that is for sure... When you think about it, Socialism is the most intelligent of all the societal and governmental systems... Every human on this earth came from Socialist beginnings... Back in the days of the Cavemen, we had to work in a system, whereby people worked for the good of the community - not for selfish purposes...

Why people moved beyond such a perfect system is beyond me... Its the only form of government that I see, that makes sense, and for an intelectual such as Eienstien - it would have simply been logic...

Here's a long.. long overdue bump.

Sample of Einsteins.. practically prophetic thinking on the subject:




[edit on 10-3-2007 by kegs]

Keg's, that Einstien was a socialist is no surprise, nor is it a surprise that his views are not widely promulgated or known. In a country Ralph Nader decries as given way to a corporate form of fascism, they're all commies now.

George Orwell was also a socialist:



Orwellian, isn't it?



[edit on 3-4-2007 by clearwater]

Einstein and some of the greatest minds of the last century were socialist/communist. It makes you ask is there a correlation between level of intelligence and socialism? and if so why?

Clearwater, I know Orwell was a Socialist. I spent some time on Jura once where he wrote most of 1984 (so called only because he finished it in 1948, he just reversed the last digits).

It's not a surprise that Einstein's political views are not well known, for very obvious reasons. Modern western proto fascism does have its part in that.


gfad


Good question. I doubt we'll get any intelligent answers.

Guys, Einstein was not an economist. He was a physicist. And he was a brilliant physicist, but he was an idiot in many other areas. The guy had trouble writing.

Your assumptions that "If a genius person supports socialism, it must be a good thing," would lead you straight into a socialist society. "Intellectuals" are always what has caused these dictatorships to form.

The fact that so many intellectuals supported socialism means nothing. We know now that it doesn't work. It has failed miserably multiple times.

Look at eugenics, the view that we had to eliminate the "weaker" portions of the human race (i.e. kill off all people who aren't white). All sorts of intellectuals supported that one, including Nobel Prize winners! But it turned out not to be true at all.

I am sure though at the time, if me, not being a genius, were to try to argue this with someone, they'd say, "Look man, geniuses are supporting this. What do you know? You're obviously wrong."

Just because someone is a genius in one area doesn't make them a genius in all areas.

And just because someone is a genius is a particular field doesn't make them right all the time.

In the 1960s, I could have argued with a socialist Phd economist why socialism will not work, but who would you believe? The kid or the Phd? For most people the Phd, even though it is pretty much commonsense why socialism doesn't work and capitalism does.

And no, in capitalism, the wealth does not become concentrated in the hands of a few. That is a myth. Capitalism lets the opposite happen. Socialism is what concentrates wealth in the hands of a few. Capitalism generates new wealth. There are more wealthy people in the world today then have ever existed, and that's thanks to capitalism.

Remember, the socialist says, "Let's divide the pie up more equally."
The capitalist says, "Let's just make the pie bigger!"

If you were an objective individual and not just working from ill or pre-conceived ideals, you would have dispelled that notion as soon as you'd taken the time to read the article. Which you obviously haven't.




Sorry to rain on your parade, but Eugenics is a right wing ideal. Hitler is the most obvious candidate, but the recent examples are closer to home:

ATS link

Story from the same link, well worth a read:

Extenal link




I seriously doubt it. I get the impression you are very young though, fair enough, the vigour of youth will do that.



For the rest of your quote..


Socialism, like Capitalism and Communism has been used as a front for dictatorships and other less easily identifiable mutilations of democracy.
There are very few nations that have attempted even partial Socialism in its true form, and there's probably none that have ever been truly Socialist.

Saying that, you still have to explain to me why today the countries closest to real Socialism like Norway and Sweden (to name the top two) constantly top the UN charts for the best places to live in the world in terms of standard of living, and why their crime, homeless, alcoholism, violence etc rates are so low compared to the rest of the western world.

You completely ignored my point (and you say I'm not objective!?). My point was that just because an intellectual or genius supports a particular viewpoint doesn't mean it is correct. The tone of this thread was that if geniuses support socialism, it must be the proper way.

And yes, the United States was the original leader in the eugenics movement, however the lead was later gained by the Germans.



Capitalism has never been used as a front by dictatorships. A dictatorship cannot exist unless the dictator retains control of the economy, which in a capitalist economy doesn't happen. The people have control over the economy in capitalism, and the government very little power.



So then what exactly is "true socialism?" Because you only have four options: the economy and means of production resides in the hands of the peopel (capitalism), the economy and means of production resides under the ownership of the government (socialism), or the economy and means of production are "owned" by the people, but the people must pay incredibly high taxes to the government and abide by strict regulations (fascism---this is Mussolini fascism which Hitler copied as well), or you have a balance of capitalism and socialism (basically a lighter version of fascism).

The European ideal is the latter, for a free-market regulated by the government enough to protect the people, but free enough to be capitalist.

The fascist version was a "free-market" strictly regulated by the government to "protect" the people, only they realized this regulation completely stifles innovation.



I have never met one person from Sweden or any Scandinavian country who said their standards of living were better than America's, and they all complain about the costs of living in those nations.

The reason such nations as them top high on the UN charts is because the UN doesn't measure standard of living by GDP per capita; instead, they use the UN Human Development Index, which would also be a good measure of a country's standard of living accept that it consistently puts European/socialist nations ahead of the U.S., which makes no sense. If that was the case, Europeans would not immigrate to America, Americans would immigrate to Europe. It is in my opinion nothing more than something put forward by the UN and the socialists working there as a way to "claim" that socialist countries in Europe are just as good as America.

A big problem with the HDI is it incorporates some things that aren't really measurable, like literacy, equality among women, health care expenditures, etc...? How exactly does one measure these sorts of things?

More importantly, how does this translate into higher standards of living as a more accurate measure than income per capita?

Regarding Norway, 24% of Norway's GDP comes from oil. Yep, that evil capitalist abomination, oil, accounts for a whopping 24% of their GDP. And when you look at the fact that Norwegians work about 75% as much as Americans, when you remove oil from their economy, you find they enjoy standards of living at roughly 75%.

The best places to live in Europe would be Ireland or Switzerland. Thanks to Ireland's lowering their corporate tax rate to 12%, their standard of living has shot up from the lowest of the low to almost surpassing those of America, because of all the business that has moved there. Switzerland, also has very low taxes and very free markets, and also has a very high standard of living, one of the highest in the world. they also are stealing lots of business and wealthy people from European nations like France, who are up in arms over this. Also China, since adopting capitalism, their standards have gone way up.

And the Scandinavian countries are not the "ideal" of socialism, they're the post-WWII European ideal of balancing capitalism and socialism, which thus far hasn't worked very well. The Soviet Union and China were more pure socialism, Italy and Germany were essentially the same thing, only the government regulated everything rather than own it all outright, and modern Western Europe is a balance between socialism and capitalism, thus resulting in much higher standards of living than in the Soviet Union or China, but much lower standards than in capitalist countries like the United States.

Which makes sense, because whenever the government infringes on any part of the economy, except for a very few small parts, it messes things up. Individuals know what's best for themselves. A government bureaucracy doesn't.

Less bureaucracy = more freedom, more bureaucracy = less freedom.

[edit on 13-7-2007 by WheelsRCool]

[edit on 13-7-2007 by WheelsRCool]

When you look at Sweden's per-capita GDP, it is way below US levels. Norway is slightly higher than the US, but not only is Norway an oil producer, they're also the world's third largest oil exporter in a country of about 4.6 million people.

Another interesting thing is the Big Mac Index, released regularly by The Economist. As of February 2007, the cost of a Big Mac in the US was $3.22, while the cost of a Big Mac in Norway was $6.63 in US dollars. When stuff costs twice as much in Norway as it does in the US, it makes Norway's 10% per-capita GDP advantage dry up real fast.

Per capita GDP is superior to the HDI because the HDI reflects the levels of specific goods or services, while per capita GDP reflects everything that people wish to purchase. If I purchase some capital to start a business, the HDI is not significantly impacted, but if I spend that same money to enroll in a school, the HDI gets a big boost. Which thing is "better" for me is as subjective as my own preferences, so a measure of well-being that arbitrarily assigns greater weight to one or the other is seriously flawed.

However, tracking either HDI or GDP over a period of time can be misleading as well. It could be that the people living in the US in year X have 10% GDP growth per year until year Y, but per-capita GDP remains unchanged (or even shrinks) if a large number of low-income immigrants enter the country between year X and year Y. Does Norway have a large immigrant population? No. Does the US? Absolutely. Just something else to consider.

But, the HDI does not seek to measure simply standard of living. It seeks to measure the broader idea of quality of life. Now it gets tricky. When we talk about number of hours of work versus number of hours of leisure time, or quality of public education, or life expectancy, or quality of public health care, or violence / murders per capita, then Western European countries, particularly Scandinavia, wins hands down. The question is what an individual places more value on, for example, more leisure time or more cash.

You also need to look at what actually makes these Scandinavian economies tick:

Iceland: is basically one big hedge fund whose economy will implode as soon as the credit crunch hits. The level of debt there that the banks currently hold is more than the government could cover if they had to try and bail them out.

Norway: completely supported by oil and peripheral industries, has a very limited number of medium sized companies, does not encourage private sector research, chases away innovation and wealth with stupid taxes and a socialist attitude to wealth. When the oil runs out, and admittedly this will take some time and then they have the Petroleum Fund to fall back on, the economy will transform back into the peasant economy it was before the 70's. The reason socialism still survives there is that they have never been through a socialist induced crisis (e.g. UK in the 70's) to make them realise that socialism actually destroys wealth rather than creates it.

Sweden: long history of free market system and wealth creation, which is being destoyed by the socialist policies and the past 30 years. However, a more liberal (UK definition) government has been elected and things are looking a bit better.

What you have written speaks volumes about America.

You've described peaceful, law abiding nations as if they are a threat to America. You've described some of the most peaceful nations that exist on the planet with the hatred filled vitriol only Americas Fox news can muster, and "facts" anyone out with their news room would view as nonsensical.

I suggest travel.

Failing that, I suggest you read a F***ng book.