Posted: 8/2/2014
Trigger
Recently, for the first time in my life, I stumbled upon his essay “Why Socialism?”. Albert Einstein wrote this essay for the first issue of the socialist journal Monthly Review in May 1949.
In my teenage days I read with great admiration biographies etc. about Albert Einstein as, I believe, have done many of my contemporaries. I kind of was aware and familiar that Albert Einstein wrote non-scientific essays on topics like religion and so on, but I was totally unaware of this essay.
I don’t think it is widely known that he wrote such an essay! I suspect, it might even be hidden intentionally so as not to tarnish his reputation or make people think twice.
Ramifications
Well, if one of the humans thought to be one of the greatest and most prominent and most popular geniuses of the 20th century affirms that the future of humankind is a socialist society, then socialism received a huge, but undeserved boost.
Salient Excerpts From The Essay
The following list of quotes is in sequential order of appearance in the essay (emphasis and commentary added):
- “Is it advisable for one who is not an expert on economic and social issues to express views on the subject of socialism? I believe for a number of reasons that it is.”
[Very clever Albert!] - “They [The conquering peoples] seized for themselves a monopoly of the land ownership and appointed a priesthood from among their own ranks. The priests, in control of education, made the class division of society into a permanent institution and created a system of values by which the people were thenceforth, to a large extent unconsciously, guided in their social behavior.”
[Albert is espousing here socialist doctrines.] - “Since the real purpose of socialism is precisely to overcome and advance beyond the predatory phase of human development, economic science in its present state can throw little light on the socialist society of the future.”
[Albert, you did not read Friedrich Hayek or Ludwig von Mises? What a disappointment! You are definitely not an expert in economics! So are you qualified to talk about socialism?] - “Second, socialism is directed towards a social-ethical end. But the ends themselves are conceived by personalities with lofty ethical ideals and … are adopted and carried forward by those many human beings who, half unconsciously, determine the slow evolution of society.”
[Capitalism or free markets or laissez faire is not directed towards a social-ethical end? Common, Albert!
So the majority of humans behave or act “half-unconsciously” merely carrying out the ends conceived by “personalities” according to Albert Einstein? Wow, is this a lofty or elitist opinion of humans by Albert?] - “... let me record here a personal experience. I recently discussed with an intelligent and well-disposed man the threat of another war, which in my opinion would seriously endanger the existence of mankind, and I remarked that only a supranational organization would offer protection from that danger. ”
[Yes, in 1949 and as one of the promoters of the atomic bomb, Albert had every reasons to be afraid of another, major war possibly wiping out humankind. However, it was not the U.N., but the U.S. and NATO that prevented any such war and overall made this planet safer despite Stalin and Mao.] - “Man is, at one and the same time, a solitary being and a social being. ... But the personality that finally emerges is largely formed by the environment in which a man happens to find himself during his development, by the structure of the society in which he grows up, by the tradition of that society, and by its appraisal of particular types of behavior. The abstract concept “society” means to the individual human being the sum total of his direct and indirect relations to his contemporaries and to all the people of earlier generations. ... It is “society” which provides man with food, clothing, a home, the tools of work, language, the forms of thought, and most of the content of thought; his life is made possible through the labor and the accomplishments of the many millions past and present who are all hidden behind the small word “society.””
[For the sake of brevity, I had to abridge this long paragraph quite a bit. What Albert here refers to may apply to ants and termites, but not to human individuals who are capable of thinking for themselves etc.] - “It is evident, therefore, that the dependence of the individual upon society is a fact of nature which cannot be abolished—just as in the case of ants and bees. However, while the whole life process of ants and bees is fixed down to the smallest detail by rigid, hereditary instincts, the social pattern and interrelationships of human beings are very variable and susceptible to change. ... This explains how it happens that, in a certain sense, man can influence his life through his own conduct, and that in this process conscious thinking and wanting can play a part.”
[Albert tries to qualify, but poorly! Only in a certain sense can man influence his life or that thinking can play only a part otherwise humans are like “ants and bees”.] - “... In addition, during his lifetime, he acquires a cultural constitution which he adopts from society through communication and through many other types of influences. It is this cultural constitution which, with the passage of time, is subject to change and which determines to a very large extent the relationship between the individual and society. ... It is on this that those who are striving to improve the lot of man may ground their hopes: human beings are not condemned, ... to annihilate each other or to be at the mercy of a cruel, self-inflicted fate.”
[Albert who “those”, the above mentioned “personalities”? Are not most human beings as individuals trying to avoid this? An individual does not adopt a “cultural constitution” from society, but from other individuals.] - “If we ask ourselves how the structure of society and the cultural attitude of man should be changed in order to make human life as satisfying as possible, we should constantly be conscious of the fact that there are certain conditions which we are unable to modify.”
[A typical socialist or central planner question, Albert!] - “I have now reached the point where I may indicate briefly what to me constitutes the essence of the crisis of our time. It concerns the relationship of the individual to society. The individual has become more conscious than ever of his dependence upon society. ... Moreover, his position in society is such that the egotistical drives of his make-up are constantly being accentuated, while his social drives, which are by nature weaker, progressively deteriorate. All human beings, whatever their position in society, are suffering from this process of deterioration. Unknowingly prisoners of their own egotism, they feel insecure, lonely, and deprived of the naive, simple, and unsophisticated enjoyment of life. Man can find meaning in life, short and perilous as it is, only through devoting himself to society.”
[Incredible, Albert, what an ideology he came up with!] - “The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor ... consumer goods as well as additional capital goods—may legally be, and for the most part are, the private property of individuals.”
- “... I shall call “workers” all those who do not share in the ownership of the means of production ... the worker produces new goods which become the property of the capitalist. The essential point about this process is the relation between what the worker produces and what he is paid, both measured in terms of real value. Insofar as the labor contract is “free,” what the worker receives is determined not by the real value of the goods he produces, but by his minimum needs ... It is important to understand that even in theory the payment of the worker is not determined by the value of his product.”
[Albert must have intensely studied Karl Marx’s Capital. Albert Einstein obviously proves that he has not the slightest clue about free market economics like most socialists. The humans are neatly divided into static classes. For an intelligent genius like Albert Einstein that is a sorry outcome!] - “Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.”
[A summary of the wisdom of Einstein? Monopoly capitalism? The genius never realized that free market economics is very dynamic and all it takes is domestic and foreign competition to keep large corporations in check or to allow information to be spread, something citizens of a democracy can surely accomplish.] - “The situation prevailing in an economy based on the private ownership of capital is thus characterized by two main principles: first, means of production (capital) are privately owned and the owners dispose of them as they see fit; second, the labor contract is free. Of course, there is no such thing as a pure capitalist society in this sense. In particular, it should be noted that the workers, through long and bitter political struggles, have succeeded in securing a somewhat improved form of the “free labor contract” for certain categories of workers. But taken as a whole, the present day economy does not differ much from “pure” capitalism.”
[Albert Einstein must have been sleeping tightly through Progressivism and the New Deal. It is actually shocking that he appeared to know so little about labor rights development in the U.S. during the first half of the 20th century.] - “Production is carried on for profit, not for use. There is no provision that all those able and willing to work will always be in a position to find employment; an “army of unemployed” almost always exists. The worker is constantly in fear of losing his job. Since unemployed and poorly paid workers do not provide a profitable market, the production of consumers’ goods is restricted, and great hardship is the consequence. Technological progress frequently results in more unemployment rather than in an easing of the burden of work for all. The profit motive, in conjunction with competition among capitalists, is responsible for an instability in the accumulation and utilization of capital which leads to increasingly severe depressions. Unlimited competition leads to a huge waste of labor, and to that crippling of the social consciousness of individuals which I mentioned before.”
[How did Albert come up with this stuff? What is wrong with hire, fire, and rehire? What is wrong if a worker quits his job to take e.g. a better paid job? The Great Depression was more a result of government failure than market failure. I guess, as an university professor Albert Einstein lived in an ivory tower.] - “This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career.”
[Speaks for itself! No comment!] - “I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society.”
[Was Albert already demented? Has he never paid attention to what Lenin and Stalin were doing?
Like all socialists or authoritarians, Albert analyzed and declared to understood the problem and knew there was only one way to solve the perceived problem!] - “Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet socialism. A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual. The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralization of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?”
[Albert asks some very pertinent questions here, but lacks some deep thinking here or otherwise he would have concluded that socialism is but a conceit.] - “Clarity about the aims and problems of socialism is of greatest significance in our age of transition. Since, under present circumstances, free and unhindered discussion of these problems has come under a powerful taboo, I consider the foundation of this magazine to be an important public service.”
[This is the entire, last paragraph of Einstein’s essay.]
Conclusion
I am totally blown away and deeply disappointed that such a famous and prominent genius was such a terrible, naive, vulgar socialist! It is actually embarrassing!
Albert Einstein did not understand at all the great achievements of civilization, individual liberty, and free markets!
Don’t trust scientists or even genius scientists!
No comments:
Post a Comment