dave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman) (09/15/83)
>>>>From ihnp4!brunix!rb Thu Sep 15 00:43:39 1983 >>>>Date: 14 Sep 83 (Wednesday) 23:09 EDT >>>>From: Ronen Barzel <rb@brunix.UUCP> >>>>To: dave@utcsrgv.UUCP >>>>Subject: Re: Socialism has never worked? (utcsrgv.2235) >>>>I've always felt that socialism is a good idea, but it would only work in >>>>groups small enough that everyone knows just about everyone else. Kibbutzim >>>>are fairly small, so socialism works well. Israel is a small country, and >>>>so a vaguely socialist government works well. In addition, Israelis have >>>>active nationalistic spirit, which helps keep socialism working. >>>>I doubt that socialism could work if extended to countries of 10's or 100's of >>>>millions of people. >>>> -- Ronen Barzel ...!brunix!rb >>>> Brown University >>>>(I would have posted this, but I don't think news makes it out of here. Feel >>>> free to post it, if you want.) Here it posted. I agree with Ronen that the nationalistic spirit has a lot to do with it. I'm not sure why the size should by itself make that much difference, though. Dave Sherman -- {cornell,decvax,floyd,ihnp4,linus,utzoo,uw-beaver,watmath}!utcsrgv!lsuc!dave
laura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (09/16/83)
size matters. it is difficul to get *any* system working when there are losts of elements. the cost in communication is very high. See Brook's "The Mythical Man Month" and then realise that it applies to governments as well as sotfware projects. laura creighton utzoo!utcsstat!laura
cas@cvl.UUCP (Cliff Shaffer) (09/16/83)
Well, I would agree with Ronen that size of the group's population
will affect the success of a socialist government for that group. For
that matter, the size of the group's population is probably one of the
greatest influences for the success of any government. Socialism I
believe is extremely unwieldy for large countries. This is because
the government needs to do more work and handle more data for each
individual then a government not providing as many services.
Take, for example, some form of National
Health Insurance. Everyone pays in a certain (hopefully small)
amount and those who need treatment get what they need. Clearly the
more people in the system, the greater the amount of work and
information involved. If your population is small (say 8 million
as in Sweden) then it might be possible to administer a program of this
scale. And I would be willing to admit that in this case the program
is a good idea.
I think this same program would fail when a government tried to apply
it to 200 million people - no one really knows how to properly
administer services on this scale. Just look at Social Security - a
program needing less work per person than a national health plan.
The more the government is involved in the day to day lives of its
people, the fewer people it can effectivly administer to before getting
sloppy and unfair. Perhaps as our technology and information processing
abilities improve, we will learn to effectivly govern greater
populations. However, this is not keeping pace with the population
growth. I can't see any form of government doing a good job with the
world population as it is today - I am not even convinced that there is
any good form of government for as many as 100 million people packed into
an area as small as the United States. With socialism the problems are
magnified.
Cliff Shaffer
{seismo,mcnc,we13}!rlgvax!cvl!cas