About the Author

 

If you are an American of any walk of life and want a life devoted to your family, а circle of true friends, and an engaging hobby, wouldn't you welcome an assured steady income and safety net during your youth, then work years, and forever? Haven’t the Europeans collectively chosen exactly such an arrangement? Isn’t a less individualistic existence more satisfying than in a “capitalist” lifelong bumpy ride when you spend time and energy on job search and career among the people you do not choose or even do not like, and often do not know whether the next year will be a fat or thin one?

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Anyway, if you want to trade a chance to earn lots of money and independence for the dubious comfort of money, you are not alone. We all are socialists now. Well, almost: Elon Musk is certainly not, but he is from another solar system.

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But what if Mother Nature or God left us no choice but to labor hard in our best years in the sweat of our faces? He could say, yes, I have given you brains, but even your best efforts would not put yourself forever into material paradise and let you relax. We, the mortals, have the freedom to choose goals, set economic targets and redistribute stuff. But what if the Lord God set a very narrow gap between our ability to steer the economy and making enough goods for us, the people. Is socialism impossible by some law of nature? We cannot boil a kettle by sucking warmth from a nearby pot of water turning into ice. By the same token should we heed the message and curtail zeal for regulation no matter how dear it is to our hearts? This blog attempts to present the evidence for a yes.

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The author after graduating from Moscow University with a degree in Mathematics started his professional life and spent a dozen years as a young researcher at Gosplan – the  top Soviet State Planning establishment before emigrating to the US. There he was privy to impulses going through the nerve center of the Soviet economic engine. He is not young anymore, so he wants to share his unique experience with Americans. The public in general is not aware of striking and far-reaching parallels between the ways of thinking about and even practicing economy in the Soviet Russia and today’s America. And how has the economy determined the historic dynamic of the social justice in a socialist state? Seemingly remote and past things in subtle ways may sway the near future of this country, so some people may find it interesting to read and comment.