Is socialism ethical?

The question sounds more philosophical than economic, yet in macroeconomics, the aim is to make decisions morally and beneficially.

Many people accept that socialism is more just than capitalism, because of obvious reasons. One of them is the ability to remove poverty in a nation by distributing all the wealth in the nation equally. I am here to say that this would not be moral or beneficial.

Why is socialism not ethical?

The way I see it, the conversion from socialism to capitalism requires many of the wealthy people to “give up” their wealth. No matter how hard they have worked, all their profits are now redistributed to the majority of people. This doesn’t seem fair, does it? The richest people in a free market economy are those who provide the largest value to the nation. For example, Bezos, set up amazon, employed 1.3 million people around the world and established the preferred shop for hundreds of millions worldwide. The people who find value in using amazon, use it. Through this, Bezos has accumulated all his wealth, while benefitting society. Hence, it would seem unfair to take his wealth to redistribute it to society considering his company benefits its consumers and its workers. On the other hand, the winners of socialism would be the most unproductive members of society.

Furthermore, socialism means that every single person would receive the same goods/services. For example, food. This would be impractical, as different people eat different quantities of food. So, some would be eating too little (essentially starving them) and others would have a large surplus. Making socialist rationing unethical.  

Lastly, people are made to be selfish. “Every individual... neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it... he intends only his own security.” (Smith, 1776) This is Adam Smith’s quote, the father of economics, from his book, The Wealth of Nations. This piece of behavioural economics clearly shows that the socialist ideal of people doing equal work for the nation simply doesn’t work. People work for their “own security” and thus do not want to work for the benefit of society but for themselves. This is why, all major socialist states were/are dictatorships: U.S.S.R, autocratic; Nazi Germany; authoritarian; China; Authoritarian. All of which were/are stabilised by an intense secret service: U.S.S.R, K.G.B; Nazi Germany, Gestapo; China, The Ministry of State Security. People were/are forced to continue their socialist ideals. And I believe that dictatorships and secret police are unethical.

And thus, I believe that socialism is unethical and should not be considered as an alternative to capitalism. However, this is not to say that capitalism is completely ethical.