Prove It, Socialists

It's time to stop talking and start doing

I was just listening to a Planet Money podcast called Socialism 101. In it, they interview famous economist Richard Wolff about socialism. His comments were similar to those I've heard from many other socialists, from casual conversations with friends to speeches by famous socialist economists and everything in between. It's usually something about how it's such a great system and the fact that a corporate board won't make zillions makes the company so much more efficient and generally better overall. They want to form companies with social ownership and employee control of the means of production, companies which treat all their employees better AND make nice profits. Sounds great to me.

So, where are all the great socialist companies then? If it's such a great system, shouldn't they be taking over the economy? The counter I usually hear is that the capitalists control the system and the capital, so it's an uneven playing field. I'm calling bullshit. Are you telling me that with all the socialists in the world there isn't enough money to start a company? I listen to the How I Built This podcast, where I hear story after story about entrepreneurs launching companies from their basements with a few thousand dollars they scraped together from shining shoes and cleaning houses. They can do it while raising three kids but somehow no one can get this great new business model off the ground?

In all the purchases I make, I can barely think of instances where I even know of a socialist option. Where are the socialist board games companies? Restaurants? Burrito stands? Don't tell me they don't have enough capital to start a burrito stand. Some liberal enclaves have a bakery here or maybe a co-op grocery store there, but it's still small. And these exceptions show that there's no law stopping them. If these businesses were so great they would expand and we'd all live in that socialist utopia they keep telling us about, going to socialist drive-ins before we tucked into our favorite flavor of socialist ice cream. There is one exception here that I think is worth mentioning, and that's REI, the outdoor clothing company. I don't fully understand their business model but I gather that it's close enough to a socialist model that I should give them proper credit. Even so, that's the only well-known company I could think of.

But why aren't they all over the markets with minimal barriers to entry? Where are smartphone apps? I have apps on my phone written by a single developer. I've written apps. But, to my knowledge, not one I use is written by a socialist company. What about podcasts? Couldn't some socialists start a podcasting company and make a bunch of great podcasts? Not even the left-leaning podcast platforms seem to follow this model. That's very hard to square with the notion that socialist companies are inherently better performing.

I'm not saying the private-company-capitalist business model is the only way. In fact, I'm sure it's not. NPR uses a different business model - they're a non-profit with both public and private funding. NPR produces a bunch of great podcasts (both of the ones I mentioned are NPR podcasts). But the NPR model is very different than the socialist one. So there's proof that other ways will work, but where are the socialist companies? I contend that the model doesn't actually work as well as they say and the proof is in the economy all around us. I'd love to be proven wrong.

So, socialists, it's time to stop talking and start doing.