A review/critique of David Schweickart's "After Capitalism"

I spent this weekend reading David Schweickart’s After Capitalism, and thought I would write a review. Or, more accurately, a critique. First things first: this is the best book by a radical leftist I’ve ever read. By far. The author is calm, logical, intelligent, respectful of differing points of view, and very well-versed in economics. This isn’t your typical dumbass Rachel Maddow/Michael Moore type liberal—this is a serious, challenging work that is far more difficult to absorb and refute. That being said, I’m going to try to refute it anyway.

I should state upfront that I am not an expert in economics by any means. However, Economic Democracy (the name Schweickart has chosen for his socialist system) has what looks like some fairly obvious problems, even to the layman. Before reading my critique, you should check out a shorter description of his system.

Economic problems

1) Schweickart proposes that investment decisions be made by public banks, whose employees will be rewarded based on how profitable their investments are. The glaring question here is: how much are you going to pay them? Experts at investing make a crap-load of money in our current economy, and for good reason: predicting trends and allocating resources is an extremely difficult job. Their pay would presumably be far less under Schweickart’s public banking scheme, which would undermine their incentive to perform well and also create a shortage of investors. With the promise of huge rewards gone, Schweickart’s bankers would be far more conservative and reluctant to invest in heavily risky or expensive innovations. He has eliminated the ultra-rich, but at a cost: his society is now less wealthy and less dynamic.

2) Schweickart wants investment funds distributed to regions on an equal basis. This seems pretty silly because there are often more good investment opportunities in one region than another. Schweickart thinks this will make community life better and stop people from having to move so much, but in reality it will only cause entrepreneurs to have to constantly move to regions with the most available capital.

3) Schweickart believes worker-owned firms should democratically elect management as well as decide on payment structures. He predicts most of them will give larger shares to workers with more skills or responsibilities and stresses that they may lose talented members if they do not. Suppose the most talented CEOs demand salaries as high (or almost as high) as they do now? What’s to stop the horrible inequality Schweickart hates so much?

4) Schweickart says he is not against entrepreneurs and considers them a distinct economic category from capitalists. Sorry, but I don't see how he can a) concede the income of entrepreneurs is legitimate and b) demand an economy of worker-managed firms. The two contradict each other. If it's legitimate for an entrepreneur to open up a business and hire people, then that is precisely the "undemocratic" structure he opposes. Perhaps Schweickart’s answer is that entrepreneurs would have to operate within the confines of the democratic firm. But how can this work if workers are supposed to be electing their own bosses?

Political problems

No need for separate bullet points, here. Politically, the problem with Economic Democracy is pretty simple: it would be a totalitarian dictatorship. Even Schweickart seems to concede that the closest historical example we have to it would probably be Yugoslavia under the dictator Tito.

Firms would be considered the collective property of “society,” which means “property of the state” in practice. Schweickart says that as long as the Bill of Rights is intact, we’ll have nothing to worry about. BWA HAHAHAHA *snort* A HAHAHAHA! That’s a good one! It’s done such a great job of protecting us so far. /sarcasm

Furthermore, he believes a revolutionary leftist party coming to power in the US would be Economic Democracy’s best chance of coming into being. Has he not noticed that countries run by these parties tend to become dictatorships? Is he not a little ambivalent about how centralized and powerful this kind of government would be? Of course not; otherwise he wouldn’t be a socialist in the first place.

Conclusion

This is the best book you’re likely to ever get out of a socialist, and for that I’ll give the author credit. Unfortunately, socialism still can't work because it always involves violating the laws of the market. Cap the pay of investors (ie, "get rid of the capitalist class") and you get less and worse investment, ditto for managers. Raise wages and you make firms more reluctant to hire. And so on. Still doesn't work but at least the author tried to come up with a coherent system-- which is more than about 99.9% of socialists will do.

I really wish someone over at Mises.org would review this. I'd be interested in their thoughts.

Book Review: ‘Mass Casualties’

Anyone thinking about going into the military would do well to read Specialist Michael Anthony’s memoir, Mass Casualties: A Young Medic’s True Story of Death, Deception, and Dishonor in Iraq. While the title might suggest that this is the work of some renegade peacenik, another soldier-turned-antiwar-activist, Anthony in fact seems proud of his military service, and he never criticizes the US mission in Iraq. Not that any of that matters. Mass Casualties isn’t about the politics of war. It’s simply what it claims to be, a memoir, one soldier’s remembrance of his time in Iraq.

A natural storyteller, Anthony populates his book with memorable characters, some loveable, some not so loveable. There’s Denti, a fellow operating room medic. “Denti’s always been a storyteller, and I quickly learned to never believe anything he says, including the fact that he was a pimp, a drug dealer, gang member, and a weightlifting power-lifter—he says he only joined the Army because he wanted to get away from the hectic lifestyle.” There’s also Gagney, the staff sergeant in charge of the operating room who’s not exactly the world’s most gracious loser. “Then a month ago Gagney, Reto, Denti, and I were playing Risk, a game of global domination. I had an alliance with Reto, and we attacked Gagney’s armies. Gagney flipped out, knocked the game board over, called us all ‘fucking idiot cheaters,’ and stormed off.”

One can’t read Mass Casualties without at some point being reminded of M*A*S*H. People are often joking around. People are often—okay, usually—okay, almost always—having sex—lots and lots of sex. But, more to the point, nobody wants to be there. This isn’t summer camp. This is the Army. This is war. And everyone knows that at any given moment his life could come to a sudden, tragic end.

The more we read, the more we realize that the practical jokes and adulterous escapades are really just a desperate attempt to create some sense of normalcy. But, of course, normalcy can’t be created in the hellishness of war. No matter how hard Anthony and his cohorts try to escape the horrors of their present reality, there they find themselves, operating on a soldier who’s just had his face blown off, running into a bunker as mortar rockets rain down from the sky. “When I close my eyes,” Anthony writes, “I dream of death and war. When I open my eyes I see death and war. I blink and as my eyes close I see images of death, and as they flutter open I see death—there is no escaping it.”

Many who went to Iraq undoubtedly had it worse than Anthony. Indeed, his experience appears to have been a relatively good one. (Let me stress the word relatively.) And this is precisely why those wanting to join the military should read Mass Casualties. Because, as Anthony so masterfully illustrates, war thrusts all of its participants, even those who don’t end up getting shot full of holes, into a situation that the human psyche is simply not equipped to handle.

Contrary to what most eighteen-year-olds think, war isn’t like a game of Halo. It’s certainly nothing like the latest Army recruitment video. And to make matters worse, the military is largely run by a bunch of self-absorbed, even sadistic, people who don’t seem to give a damn about those serving under them. At one point, Anthony describes how a colonel postpones treating a severely wounded soldier so he can finish attending an awards ceremony. Another time, the unit’s officers refuse to send a suicidal soldier away to receive the care he needs, fearing that doing so might make them look bad.

Yes, the military might “make you a man,” that is, if you come back alive. But, as Mass Casualties demonstrates, as the record number of soldiers returning home with drug and alcohol addictions, with brain damage, with PTSD and other mental disorders, further demonstrates, it’s also likely to destroy you.