"Well, that's the crux of the issue, isn't it? How can you organize the means of production so that they will respond to market information without going capitalist?"
Responded to this in the other comment thread we have going.
"That's an interesting opinion. It's interesting because China's last 20 years represent a colossal success. This "worst of all" system pulled out of poverty many many more people than all the Western charities put together. The Chinese are MUCH better off now than 20 years ago -- thanks to this "the worst" system."
That was just a matter of convergence: China finally taking advantage of the technology and trade it had waiting at its door, anxious to better-utilize the many types of capital China has in excess of probably anywhere else on the planet (India isn't quite as resource-rich). Soviet socialism and Leninism had a similar effect on Russia for the first few decades of the USSR. That stopped when the inefficiency of the system became too great to overcome, and China will likely slow down similarly within the next few decades after the industrial-technological-human capital space between it and the developed nations shrinks. In fact, that is exactly what we've seen in most other wealthy nations in East Asia: first Japan during the Meiji Restoration ending with the 80's asset bubble, then South Korea during the Miracle on the Han through easily before the end of this decade, and Taiwan after that, likely to continue longer assuming things remain relatively peaceful with China. Singapore and Hong Kong are the two exceptions, advantaged as they are as an international trade port and traditional entrance to the mainland Chinese market, respectively.
"I don't understand -- what is allocation (democratic or not) of public ownership?"
It's a matter of determining in what way socialized claims to ownership are distributed. Private property is essentially a legacy claim--I found it, it's mine. It's a natural means of private entities claiming resources, the kind you see dogs and cats using to mark their territory. Socialized claims to ownership are decided by a polity. Historically, the polity which brought about the opportunity for socialized claims has been a small cadre of people, former members of the public who've decided to revolt, against private (in this case, state) ownership. However, logically, enough, when they assumed power, they naturally assumed control as well, and once again a form of private ownership occurs.
However, if the polity which brings about socialism is everyone, or you have an inhumanly-magnanimous cadre of people, then everyone ought to (ought being an admittedly imperative word, here) distribute ownership claims democratically, i.e., to everyone. I'll admit that last bit leaves a big space for things to go wrong, and that's why I tend to prefer the inhumanly-magnanimous cadre of people, or even a single such person. Alternatively, people tend to respond well to Rawl's idea of the veil of ignorance and iterations thereof.
That was just a matter of convergence
Funny how that hasn't happened under Mao who, presumably, was running a "better" system. And really, is India that resource-poor compared to China? Enough to explain the difference in growth rates?
Soviet socialism and Leninism had a similar effect on Russia for the first few decades of the USSR.
Did they? I am not at all sure about that. Granted, trustworthy statistics are hard to come by, but it does seem to me that the living standards of the Chinese people rose much faster and further than those of Ru...
Note: Originally posted in Discussion, edited to take comments there into account.
Yes, politics, boo hiss. In my defense, the topic of this post cuts across usual tribal affiliations (I write it as a liberal criticizing other liberals), and has a couple strong tie-ins with main LessWrong topics:
The issue is this: recently, I've seen a meme going around to the effect that companies like Walmart that have a large number of employees on government benefits are the "real welfare queens" or somesuch, and with the implied message that all companies have a moral obligation to pay their employees enough that they don't need government benefits. (I say mention Walmart because it's the most frequently mentioned villain in this meme, but others, like McDonalds, get mentioned.)
My initial awareness of this meme came from it being all over my Facebook feed, but when I went to Google to track down examples, I found it coming out of the mouths of some fairly prominent congresscritters. For example Alan Grayson:
Or Bernie Sanders:
Now here's why this is weird: consider Grayson's claim that each Walmart employee costs the taxpayers on average $1,000. In what sense is that true? If Walmart fired those employees, it wouldn't save the taxpayers money: if anything, it would increase the strain on public services. Conversely, it's unlikely that cutting benefits would force Walmart to pay higher wages: if anything, it would make people more desperate and willing to work for low wages. (Cf. this this excellent critique of the anti-Walmart meme).
Or consider Sanders' claim that it would be better to raise the minimum wage and spend less on government benefits. He emphasizes that Walmart could take a hit in profits to pay its employees more. It's unclear to what degree that's true (see again previous link), and unclear if there's a practical way for the government to force Walmart to do that, but ignore those issues, it's worth pointing out that you could also just raise taxes on rich people generally to increase benefits for low-wage workers. The idea seems to be that morally, Walmart employees should be primarily Walmart's moral responsibility, and not so much the moral responsibility of the (the more well-off segment of) the population in general.
But the idea that employing someone gives you a general responsibility for their welfare (beyond, say, not tricking them into working for less pay or under worse conditions than you initially promised) is also very odd. It suggests that if you want to be virtuous, you should avoid hiring people, so as to keep your hands clean and avoid the moral contagion that comes with employing low wage workers. Yet such a policy doesn't actually help the people who might want jobs from you. This is not to deny that, plausibly, wealthy onwers of Walmart stock have a moral responsibility to the poor. What's implausible is that non-Walmart stock owners have significantly less responsibility to the poor.
This meme also worries me because I lean towards thinking that the minimum wage isn't a terrible policy but we'd be better off replacing it with guaranteed basic income (or an otherwise more lavish welfare state). And guaranteed basic income could be a really important policy to have as more and more jobs are replaced by automation (again see gwern if that seems crazy to you). I worry that this anti-Walmart meme could lead to an odd left-wing resistance to GBI/more lavish welfare state, since the policy would be branded as a subsidy to Walmart.