# Cost of socialism vs. non-socialism **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 20, 2017, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cost-of-socialism-vs-non-socialism/787088 "2017-05-20T16:59:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2017, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cost-of-socialism-vs-non-socialism/787088/62 "2017-05-30T22:00:41Z")
I don’t see people being able to amass wealth as being much of an immediate problem compared to making sure no one is poor or otherwise lacks access to essential resources. Apparently the countries trying out basic universal income think so too, if that is indeed a trend. Obvious issues with it are the huge amount of public spending required, which has to be a substantial percentage of your GDP, but industrialized countries presumably have the money; it’s yet another social choice. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2017, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cost-of-socialism-vs-non-socialism/787088/63 "2017-05-30T23:23:45Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I think they’re doing a hell of a lot more for society with that money than governments would. SpaceX reinvented the rocket business, after 40 years of NASA spinning its wheels in LEO with white elephant rocket programs. Celera beat the Human Genome Project by three years with a fraction of the funding. Well, you always start good, but then you forget what you said about not believing that the free market is perfect either. [https://www.dnalc.org/view/15367-Using-data-from-the-public-project-Craig-Venter.html](https://www.dnalc.org/view/15367-Using-data-from-the-public-project-Craig-Venter.html) > [@](#): > > **We absolutely used the mapping data that the entire human genetics community accumulated over a long period of time** , for ordering, knowing which pieces would go on which chromosomes and even what order we put these million base pair long sequences in. So in that sense we absolutely relied on the public project,\*\* in fact to be fair, you know, I helped start the public genome project. Had there not been a genome project, there never would have been a Celera and there never would have been a Celera sequence.\*\* ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2017, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cost-of-socialism-vs-non-socialism/787088/64 "2017-05-31T01:46:38Z")
You are putting words in my mouth, which is especially annoying since I just finished saying that neither markets or government are perfect. And yes, Celera benefited from prior research done with government funding. I never said otherwise. The point is that they started from an even playing field, with both the public and private groups having the same data, and then they proceeded to outperform the public science. I am not arguing against the capabilities of government funded scientists, and in fact in some cases I don’t think there is a market based alternative because of the huge money and government involvement required to build things like the Superconducting Supercollider. On the other hand, government science is wasteful, subject to close-minded ideas and political pressure, and giant projects can be shut down on the whim of legislators - projects like the Superconducting Supercollider for example. But that doesn’t mean big government science can replace research done by private firms, because optimizing discovery means having diversity of ideas and many different pathways being explored simultaneously. There is no substitute for the inventive power of millions of brains, each of which has different experiences, local knowledge, and skills. And for those brains to be able to act on those ideas, they need access to capital. If big government science were capable of innovating as well as the free market, the Soviets and Chinese wouldn’t have had to steal so much of their tech. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2017, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cost-of-socialism-vs-non-socialism/787088/65 "2017-05-31T02:44:19Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > You are putting words in my mouth, which is especially annoying since I just finished saying that neither markets or government are perfect. And yes, Celera benefited from prior research done with government funding. I never said otherwise. The point is that they started from an even playing field, with both the public and private groups having the same data, and then they proceeded to outperform the public science. I actually did take a look before jumping into the discussion, so you should had learned a long time ago about how annoyed I do get when I see incomplete ideas from others. It was not really a level playing field once one knows the history. What I found before getting into the discussion here is that if the government had not been there, Celera would not had been able to do much (And you should notice who was the one that I quoted in my last post). There are others that do not see that point of yours here. The performance they got was again thanks for them looking at what the groups with government funding did. And that 3 year leapfrog was actually made by **both** the private and the public effort. > **[Home](https://www.yourgenome.org/)** > > Discover more about DNA, genes and genomes > [@](#): > > Craig Venter aimed to sequence and assemble the entire human genome by 2001, and only make the information available to paying customers. He also planned to file for preliminary patents on over 6,000 genes? and full patents? on a few hundred genes before releasing their sequence. Craig Venter felt that giving the DNA sequence away for free was not appropriate and that by patenting these genes he was ensuring that some control remained over who could gain access to the information. > > This move completely opposed the philosophy of the Human Genome Project’s Bermuda Agreement. The agreement, which was laid down in 1996, was made to ensure that all information from the project could be made freely available to all within 24 hours. > > Coincidentally however, the Wellcome Trust was considering an application from the Sanger Centre to accelerate genome sequencing when the news of Celera Genomics broke. Within days of the launch of Craig Venter’s company, the Trust announced that it was increasing its funding to the Sanger Centre to accelerate the progress of their contribution to the human genome sequence, raising its target from one-sixth to one-third of the entire human genome. The race was on! > > ``` > “The conflict between public and private reached a head in 2000 when they came under pressure from the White House to settle their differences. > > ``` > > The conflict between public and private reached a head in 2000 when the leaders of the Human Genome Project came under pressure from the White House to settle their differences with Craig Venter. But, with a presidential election in the offing, the political momentum in favour of some kind of happy ending became irresistible. > > The result was the joint announcement on 26 June 2000 that both sides had completed their own working draft of the human genome sequence. US President Bill Clinton and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair both gave their seal of approval by appearing at press conferences on each side of the Atlantic. Then, finally, it was declared that the race was over, that both sides had won, and the hostilities were resolved resulting in a much more productive working collaboration between the two organizations. Soon after, Clinton and Blair issued a joint statement endorsing the public release of genomic data. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I am not arguing against the capabilities of government funded scientists, and in fact in some cases I don’t think there is a market based alternative because of the huge money and government involvement required to build things like the Superconducting Supercollider. On the other hand, government science is wasteful, subject to close-minded ideas and political pressure, and giant projects can be shut down on the whim of legislators - projects like the Superconducting Supercollider for example. > > But that doesn’t mean big government science can replace research done by private firms, because optimizing discovery means having diversity of ideas and many different pathways being explored simultaneously. There is no substitute for the inventive power of millions of brains, each of which has different experiences, local knowledge, and skills. And for those brains to be able to act on those ideas, they need access to capital. > > If big government science were capable of innovating as well as the free market, the Soviets and Chinese wouldn’t have had to steal so much of their tech. The basic complain I have is precisely to your style of debating here. one has to notice that once again you fall in the last sentences for an absolute preference for private efforts. I would rather look at the point you also made before you try to dismiss it in the end. That in reality this is very complex. And assuming that the free market as the ones capable of innovating is really a very incomplete idea, IMHO a lot of that innovation is possible when there is a strong government to rein on efforts that would actually become less beneficial to society if they had been left with no control whatsoever (IIRC the original plan for Celera was to patent most of the gene sequences they found, the problem was that indeed Celera was willfully ignoring that a lot of what they were using was based on previous discoveries, so pressure was put to prevent that outcome by funding the government effort more, for society a lot of new medicines or treatments based on the discoveries would had been stopped if that patent trolling would had been allowed to stand). I do think that the free market does have indeed a lot to offer, but we do have to push against the idea that we should drown the government in the bathtub as many conservatives are trying to push for nowadays. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2017, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cost-of-socialism-vs-non-socialism/787088/66 "2017-05-31T02:54:19Z")
So I have to agree with posters that early pointed out that the most successful countries do not have just socialism or non-socialism; there are many levels of solutions and mixes of those ideas that many are finding that it does the job for making a sustainable and more just society. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2017, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cost-of-socialism-vs-non-socialism/787088/67 "2017-05-31T03:41:37Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I’m guessing roughly the same thing that happens when socialist governments run out of other people’s money and can no longer maintain their promises - people get hurt. Given that the USA is the world’s largest debtor nation in absolute dollars and we spend far more per capita on health care than every other industrialized nation, I think you might be guessing incorrectly. And we aren’t talking about wealth redistribution here. We are talking about people paying their fair share into a national system that everyone ultimately benefits from. Like the national highways, parks and military. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > No one is arguing for a perfect system. Capitalism certainly has winners and loses, and it has to be that way. The trick in modern society is to figure out a way to provide enough of a social safety net to maintain a civil society and to help up those who fall the hardest, while not totally destroying the engine that provides the wealth and taxes in the first place. Basic health care shouldn’t be part of those social safety nets? Or at least part of our national infrastructure? > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Yep. There are bad businesses in the world. Wow. Shall we start listing the failings of governments that have promised the people largess in exchange for power and a reduction in personal liberty? We can start with Venezuela. > > When a business is corrupt, people lose money. When government is corrupt, people lose liberty, privacy, and maybe even their lives. Or the Presidency of George W Bush. When you weaken government with deregulation for its own sake, you enable corrupt businesses to flourish and amass wealth and power until they inevitably collapse under their own avarice. And as the 2008 financial crisis demonstrated, those failing business can take the rest of the economy with them. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > We desperately need individual innovators with capital to try out-of-the-box solutions. If you leave all big projects and solutions to governments, you’ll never have the kind of dynamic economy and technological growth that we get from millions of innovators exploring the idea space. And the only way you can get those innovators is to allow them to keep their money so they can invest it in their ideas and profit from them when they hit pay-dirt. So why is it “all or nothing”? No one is advocating massive wealth redistribution or “socialism”. We spend more money on defense than the next nine countries combined and 8 of them are allies or major trading partners. You mean to say we can’t spend some portion of that on health care instead? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2017, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cost-of-socialism-vs-non-socialism/787088/68 "2017-05-31T03:47:37Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > So I have to agree with posters that early pointed out that the most successful countries do not have just socialism or non-socialism; there are many levels of solutions and mixes of those ideas that many are finding that it does the job for making a sustainable and more just society. None of them (I.e the successful nations) have ‘socialism’…they all have at most mixed economies that use a capitalist engine for most of the heavy lifting and then they have SOCIALIST PROGRAMS. It’s a key distinction. Socialism, as it’s defined has never worked, afaik. Socialist programs such as universal healthcare, social security or other collective retirement programs, welfare and other social safety nets, etc often do soften the hard edges of capitalism. But socialism has a specific meaning and I’ve yet to see an example of an actual nation state that has been able to implement it across the board and be successful. Generally even trying to implement any of the economics hold back a nation from success, in fact, and generally are eventually relegated to very vertical industries that are publically owned and government controlled…utilities, postal services and the like. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2017, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cost-of-socialism-vs-non-socialism/787088/69 "2017-05-31T04:24:00Z")
> [@XT](#): > > None of them (I.e the successful nations) have ‘socialism’…they all have at most mixed economies that use a capitalist engine for most of the heavy lifting and then they have SOCIALIST PROGRAMS. It’s a key distinction. Socialism, as it’s defined has never worked, afaik. Socialist programs such as universal healthcare, social security or other collective retirement programs, welfare and other social safety nets, etc often do soften the hard edges of capitalism. But socialism has a specific meaning and I’ve yet to see an example of an actual nation state that has been able to implement it across the board and be successful. Generally even trying to implement any of the economics hold back a nation from success, in fact, and generally are eventually relegated to very vertical industries that are publically owned and government controlled…utilities, postal services and the like. Personally I don’t go for the definition you are using, but that is not the point here because I did not say that they were socialist nations, nor I think they are, and I also do think that that there has not been any nation where socialism has worked. I do know that they have called many of the programs that they use as socialist solutions, and that was my point indeed. I agree more with the social democrats than with democratic socialists. (They are not the same thing BTW) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cost-of-socialism-vs-non-socialism/787088.md?page=3)