Einstein: "Why Socialism?"

It may not be obvious from the name of the publication, but Monthly Review is a Marxist magazine, therefore their view and what they publish is far from neutral. Regarding what Einstein had to say, it can be easily detracted by multiple arguments that are usually a cause of long and heated discussions on HN for those who do not understand economics and do not support free markets. Einstein was certainly a brilliant physicist, but genius does not always translate well in other disciplines.

Is there a word for market based socialism? You know capitalism with hair cut upside (taxation) and a hard floor protected low side (poverty).

For example - in a developed world most people don't want anyone (lest themselves) to starve, be unable to afford an education for their children, be unemployed or be unable to access life saving healthcare.

However we must also encourage innovation and hard work (don't cap upside - just hair cut it for public utility use - aka taxation) - so people should be allowed to earn more - but they are not allowed to fall below the poverty line - ever. This is good for a mass market based economy that requires a large middle class with a decent amount of disposable income (1 rich person = 1 pair of jeans, whereas for an equivalent amount of wealth 1000 middle class people = 1000 jeans from the rich person).

If the pie is growing just like the market fundamentalists say - well then there's no problem with this. Just keep growing - you'll have more in the end - and pay for your disproportionate benefit from the use of public/common goods - aka suck it up and share children.

Indeed - with the automation I see coming within the next 2 decades - a lot of these free market fundamentalists will be, quite frankly, out of a job.

I look forward to mass unemployment.

What if the needs of society and the needs of the individual are in opposition? Who works the coal mines in socialism's utopia?

Systems which are similar to this include both the Nordic model and social market economies:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_market_economy

"Why Socialism?"

Mao's Chinese Communism

Hitler's National Socialist German Workers Party

Stalin's Soviet Bolshevism

Saddam Hussein's Arab Baath Socialist Party (Iraq edition)

Bashir Assad's Arab Baath Socialist Party (Syria edition)

Slobodan Milosovic's Serbian Socialist Party

Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge

Benito Mussolini: Member of Parliament for the Italian Socialist Party at age 24.

The Ayatollah Khomenei's Islamic Socialism (as he called it)