1 - Are you saying that France made poor economic plans because they were invaded by the Germans? It might be because they were being bombed and attacked during the deadliest and largest war in modern history. Devastating war tends to have devastating economic effects.
And trade is a good indicator of an economy. It turns out fair trade is massively beneficial to everyone. The study of the allocation of resources is what economics is all about. And I don’t think you’d say that poor countries had lower GDP because they didn’t have textbook economists trading 20s in the back rooms.
2 - The starvation you mention also correlates with India’s driest years on record for over a century in agricultural areas. These famines were later tamed by the import of western technology like railroads. And Britain still grew 3/4 of its own food, although decreasing, for much of this period.
I’m not calling the British innocent. They imposed taxes and tariffs that helped themselves, as they did with colonial America, and damaged the Raj economy as a result. They did not, however, “pillage” India, as some have oversimplified.
3 - What sort of human outcomes? The USSR had terrible housing, lower life expectancy than western countries, and had significantly worse technology, infrastructure, working conditions, and availability of goods and services. The USSR's economy growing at all doesn't equate to magic wonderland.
These are the human outcomes of states that detach people from their own interest (communism, socialism, fascism). It makes everyone equal at the cost of making everyone poor.
Libertarians argue that generally, free enterprise, and it's efficiency by extention, leads to better human outcomes. And the data seems to back it.
Remember that growth is relative. GDP per capita in the mid 30s was still three times higher in countries like the states, UK, and Switzerland compared to the Soviet Union. This trend continued into the next decades. Pretty much all of Europe had a stronger economy. And there weren’t mass famines and rampant scarcity issues to the same extent in the west. Yes the Soviet economy did grow, but the libertarian argument is about efficiency.
And sure, price in isolation isn’t a super useful indicator. But many factors influence price (competition from profit seeking, availability of resources, etc). As for the latter part, companies do run market research, including non hostile espionage, to find what consumers want most. I personally don’t see where that would be irrational. It directly fills needs.
I’m going to take the Libertarian perspective here again. If you remove profit motive in any sense, how can a group allocate resources effectively or incentivize work? Price/profit margin signal more than just greed. The market self corrects based on prices.
Yeah, I get that. That’s actually what I was saying in my first post. A libertarian would see any form of communism as the path to tyranny, much like the meme does toward capitalism.
I’m just asking what form of collectivization best argues against that point? You mentioned left libertarianism.
Libertarians tend to say things like democracy, a well informed populace, and a strong constitution would reduce government growth and therefore abuse (cronyism). How can that same problem of abuse be avoided in a real collective society?
When I say redistribution, I mean someone taking from one person and distributing what they took to others. In practical terms that means taxes and government programs. That centralizes power to the government to make decisions how redistribution happens and who benefits. Or so is the Libertarian argument.
The workers owning production is a bit more complex. I think most libertarians would point to the like of Soviet Communism where state power organized labor. Again, centralization. But private co-ops and such exist so I don’t think they can mark it across the the board.
But the same applies the other way. Libertarians argue that centralizing power (redistribution, workers owning production, etc) in any manner inevitably leads to oppression.
