Why Einstein's 'Why Socialism' was shite

Einstein's family made their money from applying science- electricity generation and the like- in a highly mercantile, market based, society. He gained early training and employment in mathematical and scientific fields because these were profitable. Families like his enjoyed affluence because of their ability to apply new scientific discoveries and technological innovations to commercially successful enterprises. True, Einstein himself became a State funded Researcher in Germany before having to flee to America where he was employed by an Institute founded by a Jewish businessman/philanthropist. But, it should be kept in mind, States which provide funding for Science invariably try to use Science to grow economically and militarily. In other words, Einstein and every other scientist and mathematician he was associated with was a product of competitive industrial capitalism even if, at a later stage, their research was supported by the State which however was yet more nakedly self-interested in gaining economic and military advantages from STEM subject scholarship. 

Yet, in 1949, Einstein published an article titled 'Why Socialism?' in which he completely failed to take note of the Scientific, mathematically provable, fact that there is no solution to the 'Socialist Calculation debate'. In other words, Socialism can't allocate resources in a manner that sustainably advances either science or the economy- the two being linked by the notion of efficiency- though it may be able to do some 'catch up growth'. Einstein should have been aware of the work of Pareto and Barone in this respect. 

Even if Einstein chose to ignore contemporary discussions and debates, it should have been obvious that it takes time and money for information to be aggregated, and analyzed by any central body. By the time a pattern of resource allocation is decided on, it is too late. Circumstances have changed. The plan may be not just sub-optimal, it may be actively mischievous. It is better if there are a lot of small entrepreneurs taking risks and exploring the 'fitness landscape'. Those who hit on a solution which increases efficiency grow at the expense of those who didn't. Einstein's own family were initially promoting D.C electricity. But the future lay with A.C. Otherwise, Einstein might have inherited vast wealth and done research in his own enterprise's research laboratory. He would have been as rich as Edison or Ford while continuing to make theoretical contributions.  

It is worth looking at what Einstein wrote in his article because many at that time- including 'Atomic spies' passing secrets to the Soviets- held the same foolish view.

Is it advisable for one who is not an expert on economic and social issues to express views on the subject of socialism?

Sure. It is obvious that Economic and Social behaviour is determined by incentives and penalties. The forces operating on individuals and collectives cash out as nothing but cash. Rewards can be monetised but so can the cost of coercion or persuasion or more arcane types of manipulation. 

Such behavior can enhance or reduce efficiency of various types by responding appropriately to new information. Can information be centrally processed? No. The 'Socialist Calculation problem' is mathematically intractable or has solutions in a time class exponential to our own. There is no alternative to the invisible hand of the market, though, no doubt, in the short run, a common purpose reinforced by the jackboot, can provide 'disincentives' which work just as well as 'the profit motive'. In other words, the fear of annihilation by invaders- or a spell in the Gulag- can have the same effect as entrepreneurs taking risks. But that is only true of the short term. Smart people figure out how to game the system to their own advantage. You have a corrupt 'nomenklatura' which pampers itself while the workers queue up for potatoes. 

Making markets more open by increasing factor mobility and raising elasticities (i.e. responsiveness) of supply and demand is the answer to the problem of 'rent extraction'. 

It should be noted, that at precisely the time when Socialism- from meaning nothing more than collective insurance- was turning into an alternative to the Market, Einstein was happily doing research while large numbers of Germans were starving to death during the 'Turnip Winter'. But the Social Revolutionaries in Moscow were no different. It turned out Socialists don't have an incentive to feed poor or less productive people. They do have an incentive to fight pointless wars to hold on to their power and privilege and legacy of 'glory'. 

I believe for a number of reasons that it is.

Einstein had become the greatest physicist since Newton because he grew up in a Capitalist Society. It was the profit motive which had created and paid for his education and training. What would have been so wrong in admitting this?

There may well have been very nice Societies which were egalitarian and empathetic and aesthetically inclined. But they didn't have much in the way of STEM expertise. The sad truth is that the thing requires a lot of resources. Either there is a virtuous circle where more STEM means more resources for STEM or there is stagnation punctuated by periodic lapses into the Dark Ages.  

Let us first consider the question from the point of view of scientific knowledge. It might appear that there are no essential methodological differences between astronomy and economics: scientists in both fields attempt to discover laws of general acceptability for a circumscribed group of phenomena in order to make the interconnection of these phenomena as clearly understandable as possible.

Astronomical objects have Mass and Energy and stuff like that. Econ is about Resources and incentives which determine how Resources are used. In both Astronomy and Econ, what explained observations in the past are likely to explain future observations. Thus, if Einstein had risen because of Capitalism- indeed, he had found safe harbour in the most Capitalist country on Earth- then a scientist like him should have been extolling Capitalism not the shitty regimes National Socialists and Bolsheviks had produced. 

Come to think of it, Einstein's claim to fame arises from his visualizing what it would actually mean to travel at near the speed of light (which Newton said had an upper limit). But if even light takes time to travel then, surely, there can be no 'action at a distance' or instantaneous communication and information aggregation. In other words, Einstein should have been on the side of Mises & Hayek in the Socialist Calculation Debate. 

But in reality such methodological differences do exist. The discovery of general laws in the field of economics is made difficult by the circumstance that observed economic phenomena are often affected by many factors which are very hard to evaluate separately.

Not really. Astronomers learn to distinguish noise from signal as do economists. There is an ideographic aspect to this. It is a different matter that Econometric models feature 'Granger Causality' but this is because the commodity space is different from the relevant 'characteristics based' utility configuration space.  In other words, in Econ (at least from the consumer or welfare point of view) only correlation is observable. What is causal can only be measured by a proxy. Thus, the Tarskian 'primitives' of Econ are 'intensional' and must remain so whereas Scientific terms have a well defined 'extension' though the properties of members of the relevant set may not be known. 

In addition, the experience which has accumulated since the beginning of the so-called civilized period of human history has—as is well known—been largely influenced and limited by causes which are by no means exclusively economic in nature.

If scarcity was involved- which it was- then the thing was au fond economic.  Marxism is an economic theory. 

For example, most of the major states of history owed their existence to conquest.

Conquest requires resources and is motivated by the desire to acquire more resources. If it doesn't pay for itself, the thing is relinquished.  

The conquering peoples established themselves, legally and economically,

Law is merely a service industry of an economic type. You have to pay to get legal remedies which is why most of us don't have them. 

as the privileged class of the conquered country.

But they cease to be privileged if they can't pay for soldiers and policemen and so forth.  

They seized for themselves a monopoly of the land ownership and appointed a priesthood from among their own ranks.

No they didn't. They imported priests and religions. Religion too is a service industry.  

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.

No. What guided 'social behaviour' was incentives and penalties. Since penalties are costly to impose, incentives tend to prevail provided the people of a country aint stupid or lazy. Scotland had great humanistic savants like John Major and Buchanan a century and a half before David Hume and Adam Smith. Why? The answer is that the incentive to help Scotland rise always prevailed over personal disincentives. The Scots are patriots though, no doubt, they are also a pious people. 

But historic tradition is, so to speak, of yesterday; nowhere have we really overcome what Thorstein Veblen called “the predatory phase” of human development.

Those that had overcome it had gotten eaten. Economics- and Evolutionary Biology- begins with Malthus's rejoinder to Condorcet. No predators means an exponentially growing population of inbred nitwits or 'Speigelman monsters'. 

The observable economic facts belong to that phase and even such laws as we can derive from them are not applicable to other phases.

Whereas in Astronomy we can derive laws for how galaxies will move once they enter their teenage break-dancing phase.  

Since the real purpose of socialism is precisely to overcome and advance beyond the predatory phase of human development,

by enabling us to discard our meat-suits and subsist as pure beings of light. The phase which comes after that is to subsist as only the lingering smell of a metaphysical fart.  

economic science in its present state can throw little light on the socialist society of the future.

when we have evolved into being but the poignant memory of a metaphysical fart.

Second, socialism is directed towards a social-ethical end.

No. It is directed towards fucking over the economy while virtue signalling like crazy.  

Science, however, cannot create ends

Sure it can. Its just that some ends might be better for it than others. But this could be said of anything or anybody.  

and, even less, instill them in human beings;

Sadly, that's probably something science can do. If the thing can give me an erection at my advanced age, the day is not distant when it could make me loving and kind.  

science, at most, can supply the means by which to attain certain ends.

If it can supply means, it can supply ends- e.g. supplying better means.

But the ends themselves are conceived by personalities with lofty ethical ideals

like what? Never having sex? Not farting in crowded lifts? Wanting the Universe to be nicer and kinder to homosexual quarks?  

and—if these ends are not stillborn,

or subject to a coat hanger abortion 

but vital and vigorous

and part of a transvestite Bay City Rollers Tribute band 

—are adopted and carried forward by those many human beings who, half unconsciously, determine the slow evolution of society.

Then senior citizens would receive proper Government funded training in techniques of sodomy.  

For these reasons, we should be on our guard not to overestimate science and scientific methods when it is a question of human problems; and we should not assume that experts are the only ones who have a right to express themselves on questions affecting the organization of society.

The reason we should shit or piss upon people who 'express themselves on questions affecting the organization of society' is that they are shitty shitty shitheads.  

Innumerable voices have been asserting for some time now that human society is passing through a crisis,

No kidding. It was called the Second World fucking War.  

that its stability has been gravely shattered. It is characteristic of such a situation that individuals feel indifferent or even hostile toward the group, small or large, to which they belong.

Nope. During a War, you discover you care way more about guys of your own nationality than you do about the guys of the nationality which is trying to kill you.  

In order to illustrate my meaning, 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,

It would have further undermined the superiority that Europeans then enjoyed.  

and I remarked that only a supra-national organization would offer protection from that danger.

Coz the League of Nations worked so well- right? 

Thereupon my visitor, very calmly and coolly, said to me: “Why are you so deeply opposed to the disappearance of the human race?”

Is it coz you need human blood to moisten the matzoh balls you consume during your Satanic ritual of Passover? Seriously, dude. Why would a Jew- who, by definition, is not human- care about the survival of us Aryans? It's got to be the matzoh thing- right? What I mean is, maybe there's cooking tip here it would be bigoted of us to ignore.  

I am sure that as little as a century ago no one would have so lightly made a statement of this kind. It is the statement of a man who has striven in vain to attain an equilibrium within himself and has more or less lost hope of succeeding. It is the expression of a painful solitude and isolation from which so many people are suffering in these days.

Nobody was suffering anything of the sort. What people wanted was higher material standards of living.  Not more fucking rationing.  

What is the cause? Is there a way out?

I guess when folks met Einstein, they'd try to come across as super-smart or wise or something of that sort. Something similar happened to me the one time I met Steven Hawking and he asked where the disabled toilet was. After frowning for a moment I said 'surely the better question would be 'when is the toilet'?' Anyway, it turned out the guy wasn't Steven Hawking. The fucker ran over my foot with his electric wheel chair.  

It is easy to raise such questions, but difficult to answer them with any degree of assurance.

Only if they aren't worth answering. The toilet is whenever it wants to be a toilet.  

I must try, however, as best I can, although I am very conscious of the fact that our feelings and strivings are often contradictory and obscure and that they cannot be expressed in easy and simple formulas.

Fuck off! That's a simple formula for you. Anything that can be expressed can be expressed more tersely using four letter words.

Man is, at one and the same time, a solitary being and a social being.

No. He has individualistic traits as well as sociable traits.  

As a solitary being, he attempts to protect his own existence and that of those who are closest to him, to satisfy his personal desires, and to develop his innate abilities.

This is also true of a social being. 

As a social being, he seeks to gain the recognition and affection of his fellow human beings,

by protecting their existence and interests 

to share in their pleasures, to comfort them in their sorrows, and to improve their conditions of life.

or by pretending to give a fuck about them. 

Only the existence of these varied, frequently conflicting, strivings accounts for the special character of a man, and their specific combination determines the extent to which an individual can achieve an inner equilibrium and can contribute to the well-being of society.

Fuck off! Inner equilibrium is achieved when you have no temptation to exit your current circumstances and enter another. We may prose on about the 'well-being of society' and how we care very very deeply about all those senior citizens the Government is cruelly denying training in techniques of sodomy, but this is the sort of 'cheap talk' hypocrisy which keeps the Human Comedy ticking over.  

It is quite possible that the relative strength of these two drives is, in the main, fixed by inheritance. 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.

One can keep saying that but only till everybody realizes that smart people have run away. You are stuck with a bunch of inbred nitwits. Our environment only shapes us if we are too stupid or lazy to run the fuck away from it. 

Look at Einstein. He starts off as a German citizen but then becomes Swiss to avoid conscription but he becomes German again to get a well paid Professorship. Then, when Hitler comes to power, he becomes American. This is a guy who was good at choosing his environment. 

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.

No it doesn't. It just means the folk who inhabit the place where you live.  

The individual is able to think, feel, strive, and work by himself; but he depends so much upon society—in his physical, intellectual, and emotional existence—that it is impossible to think of him, or to understand him, outside the framework of society.

Unless, like Einstein, he keeps emigrating. If his theory is right he is a citizen of the World. If it is wrong he is a stupid German cunt though, obviously, the Germans of the period would have preferred to refer to him as a Jew.  

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.”

Mummy and Daddy may indeed provide baby with stuff like that. But plenty of babies have starved as did millions in Einstein's Europe- more particularly the Soviet bits.  

It is evident, therefore, that the dependence of the individual upon society is a fact of nature

but Einstein's own natal German society decided it was dependent on one individual- the Fuhrer.  

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. Memory, the capacity to make new combinations, the gift of oral communication have made possible developments among human being which are not dictated by biological necessities. Such developments manifest themselves in traditions, institutions, and organizations; in literature; in scientific and engineering accomplishments; in works of art. 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.

Einstein had noticed that people got paid for talking bollocks of that sort. Also, maybe he'd have to leave America the way he had to leave Germany. One might as well say something the Soviets want to hear just to be on the safe side.

Man acquires at birth, through heredity, a biological constitution which we must consider fixed and unalterable, including the natural urges which are characteristic of the human species. 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.

No. Running away- whether you can and in which direction you can- determines what stupid shibboleths you need to mention when writing vacuous, vainglorious, articles.  

Modern anthropology has taught us,

that anthropologists have shit for brains.  

through comparative investigation of so-called primitive cultures, that the social behavior of human beings may differ greatly, depending upon prevailing cultural patterns and the types of organization which predominate in 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, because of their biological constitution, to annihilate each other or to be at the mercy of a cruel, self-inflicted fate.

nor are they condemned to talking worthless bollocks unless it pays them to do so.  

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.

Fuck that! Let's do genetic modification so some of us can breathe underwater while others can fly like birds. That would be super-cool. 

As mentioned before, the biological nature of man is, for all practical purposes, not subject to change. Furthermore, technological and demographic developments of the last few centuries have created conditions which are here to stay. In relatively densely settled populations with the goods which are indispensable to their continued existence, an extreme division of labor and a highly-centralized productive apparatus are absolutely necessary.

No.  A highly decentralized market economy is necessary even in North Korea. Without the black market, the regime would have collapsed. 

The time—which, looking back, seems so idyllic—is gone forever when individuals or relatively small groups could be completely self-sufficient. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that mankind constitutes even now a planetary community of production and consumption.

It wasn't an exaggeration. It was merely a worthless observation. 

I have now reached the point where I may indicate briefly what to me constitutes the essence of the crisis of our time.

America could have turned anti-Semitic just as Stalin did with the 'Doctor's plot'. Also the A-rabs could have united and wiped out the Jews in Palestine.   

It concerns the relationship of the individual to society. The individual has become more conscious than ever of his dependence upon society. But he does not experience this dependence as a positive asset, as an organic tie, as a protective force, but rather as a threat to his natural rights, or even to his economic existence.

I guess Einstein was worried that the Republicans might be anti-Semitic. If they came to power, the Jews might once again be in peril.  

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.

The opposite is the case. Rising affluence means a greater concern with 'positional goods' including one's reputation and rank in Society.  

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.

The opposite is the case. If life is nasty brutish and short, retire to a cave so you can gnaw undisturbed on a chunk of meat.  

The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil.

Capitalism had spontaneous order or 'mysterious economy' (as the Bible puts it) or an 'invisible hand'- i.e. the price vector on open markets- to coordinate its actions. Socialism had crazy Dictators starving their people so as to 'over-fulfil' grandiose 5 year plans.  

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—not by force,

the Bolsheviks used plenty of force when they collectivized the land 

but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules.

Hitler and Stalin had 'legally established rules'. 

In this respect, it is important to realize that the means of production—that is to say, the entire productive capacity that is needed for producing consumer goods as well as additional capital goods—may legally be, and for the most part are, the private property of individuals.

Or the property of the State.  

For the sake of simplicity, in the discussion that follows I shall call “workers” all those who do not share in the ownership of the means of production—although this does not quite correspond to the customary use of the term. The owner of the means of production is in a position to purchase the labor power of the worker. By using 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 and by the capitalists’ requirements for labor power in relation to the number of workers competing for jobs. It is important to understand that even in theory the payment of the worker is not determined by the value of his product.

No. In theory, if everybody is a price-taker- the wage is the marginal product. In practice, assuming constant returns, it is the average value added by Labor as a factor of production.  

Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands,

No it doesn't. It tends to get diffused. Your pension fund or insurance company holds capital on your behalf. The management of capital may become concentrated in some industries- generally because this increases efficiency.  

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.

If there are economies of scope and scale- sure. But, you would also have 'dis-integration' where small firms supply specialist inputs to the entire industry. These contribute to 'external economies' in a 'Marshallian industrial district'. Einstein simply wasn't very observant.  

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.

The US had plenty of Trust busting legislation. Germany had a different approach. Sadly, when 'oligarchy' got eclipsed by 'democracy', Jews were the first casualty. 

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.

If you sufficiently protect the underprivileged, you get invaded and enslaved. It is better to privilege those who can protect you in this respect and make sure they have an incentive to do so.  

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.

So that's why Heidegger and Schmitt and so forth turned into Nazis! They spent a lot of time listening to the radio. No doubt, Einstein thought German radio stations could broadcast what they liked during the Nazi era. 

The situation prevailing in an economy based on the private ownership of capital

in other words, people get to keep what they bought or made or inherited though, no doubt, they might have to pay a lot in taxes so as to protect those assets from depredation. 

is thus characterized by two main principles: first, means of production (capital) are privately owned

instead of being confiscated 

and the owners dispose of them as they see fit;

they can sell their assets and exit jurisdictions which are turning to shit 

second, the labor contract is free.

instead of slavery or having a bunch of Gulags for guys who might want to run away

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,

not in Bismarck's Germany or many other countries. Sadly, countries where there was no big 'political struggle' for Trade Unions to be permitted to act in restraint of trade were also places where Jews might be slaughtered on one excuse or another. 

have succeeded in securing a somewhat improved form of the “free labor contract” for certain categories of workers.

some of whom became entrepreneurs or scientists or scientific entrepreneurs 

But taken as a whole, the present day economy does not differ much from “pure” capitalism.

Thanks to 'National' Socialists, like Hitler, or 'International' Socialists, like Stalin, it had had to differ considerably from its pure and irenic form.  

Production is carried on for profit, not for use.

But a profit is only made when people pay to use the stuff which has been produced. The problem with Socialism is it makes a lot of useless stuff. 

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.

Einstein was writing this at a time of 'over-full' employment. He simply wasn't a very observant man.  

The worker is constantly in fear of losing his job.

Not if there is 'over-full' employment. 

Since unemployed and poorly paid workers do not provide a profitable market,

Yes they do- if there are a lot of them. There are economies of scope and scale there to be tapped. The Great Depression was a time when tastes were reconfigured such that a higher material plateau became increasingly feasible. Lower capacity utilization drives technological innovation so that the marginal efficiency of capital rises endogenously.  

the production of consumers’ goods is restricted, and great hardship is the consequence.

Americans in 'Hoovervilles' were in paradise compared to peasants under Stalin's collectivization.  

Technological progress frequently results in more unemployment rather than in an easing of the burden of work for all.

No it doesn't. This is ignorant shit. Einstein was a fucking Luddite. Technological progress is what defeats Malthusian involution and the 'iron law of wages'. What is important is that the proletariat (the word means 'those who serve the State by making babies') gets richer and decides to spend money on their kids rather than using them to earn money by sending them down coal mines or up chimneys. This causes demographic transition.  

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.

No it doesn't. The reason the Great Depression was so bad was because crazy Socialists and Racists and nutters of various descriptions were running around like headless chickens.  

Unlimited competition leads to a huge waste of labor,

the reverse is the case. If you have no competition you waste labor because of 'featherbedding' or bureaucratic shite.  

and to that crippling of the social consciousness of individuals which I mentioned before.

Which didn't fucking exist. Einstein met some dude who said 'why are you so concerned that Humanity will die out?' and jumped to the conclusion that lots of dudes all over the place were intent on turning the globe into a radioactive pile of dust. But that dude was probably just trying to sound smart like me that time Steven Hawkings asked me where the toilet was.  

This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism.

Stalin wasn't just crippling individuals, he was killing them.  

Our whole educational system suffers from this evil.

So Einstein and his pals were all cripples. Their education had occurred under capitalism, not Socialism.  

An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career.

Einstein spent most of his time playing the Stock Market rather than doing physics- right? 

I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy,

in which case there would be no money for Professors of Physics. Instead of enabling guys who are good at math to stay on in skool learning yet more math, we must concentrate resources on teaching cretins like me how to count higher than 69. 

accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.

What goals was the system which educated Einstein oriented towards? Those of Private Enterprise,  Civil Society, and National Defense. Had the school Einstein attended been interested in egalitarian outcomes, it would have given him two weeks of instruction and then set him to imparting what he had learnt to cretins for the next ten years. 

In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself

 you will get a 'tragedy of the commons'.  The means of production will degrade because it is in nobody interest to see to their maintenance. 

and are utilized in a planned fashion.

The problem with plans is that if there is no incentive to implement them, they remain mere plans.  

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.

Where would the planners get the resources to 'adjust production'? Capitalism is about people voluntarily investing the resources they own. Because they hope for a profit, they are careful about these investments and they take proper care of them. Even if planners can requisition resources and commit them to an investment project, what is the incentive for the thing to be done properly? There can be non-market 'mechanisms' which are incentive compatible in this respect. But the problem of information aggregation under uncertainty remains. Information- like light- does not propagate at infinite speed. 

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.

America wasn't glorifying Truman the way the Soviets were glorifying Stalin. America did reward people like Einstein who had made significant advances or innovations. But this was not done by the State. It was done by people- some rich, like the philanthropist who funded the Institute of Advanced Studies- some poor, like the ordinary people who read about Einstein's discoveries in cheap newspapers- and these were people who had not been coerced in any way and who did not think 'power' or 'success' were things good in themselves. Einstein was admired because he seemed a good- if somewhat simple-minded- man who had great faith in the Rationality of the Creator. 'God does not play dice' was a famous saying of his. Ordinary people hate 'Dr. Strangelove' type savants more particularly if they have a lot or power and resources to pursue their fiendish researches.  

Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet socialism.

Planning and 'Command' Economics- e.g. Wartime controls on industry in UK & US- are a short term solution to a particular problem. Middle to long term, the thing backfires. Socialism turns into a nightmare for the working population and a godsend to the Commissars. 

A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual.

Socialism is a type of slavery which can be escaped by emigration. Communism is the final stage of Socialism because it prevents emigration.  

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?

This is possible by letting the bureaucracy turn to shit. If everybody who works for the Government has to have a second or a third job in the 'black economy' so as to get something better than turnips to eat then, though you have Socialism, still people will emigrate so as to send hard currency back to their parents and siblings. These remittances enable the country to run a Balance of Trade deficit and to stumble on from crisis to crisis.  

How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?

If you have a market system and the rule of law then those who can earn enough money can get legal remedies for rights' violations. A free Press can create a disincentive for egregious rights' violations by Public Agencies. Trade Unions can exercise a countervailing power by going on strike and thus crippling the public sector while organized crime can kill or blackmail politicians or police officers.  

Clarity about the aims and problems of socialism is of greatest significance in our age of transition.

The aim was either to talk virtue signaling bollocks while securing a rent or else to find a way of venting antaganomic spleen.  

Since, under present circumstances, free and unhindered discussion of these problems has come under a powerful taboo,

McCarthyism was on the rise. The US was starting to take a dim view of 'Atomic spies' who kept passing secrets to Stalin or the traitors in the State Department who helped Mao take power in China.  

I consider the foundation of this magazine to be an important public service.

Yet it was an act of private charity. A guy inherited some money and agreed to subsidize the rag. He killed himself a couple of years later and so the subsidy was reduced by his executors. Capitalism militates for a market for Socialist shite, Nazi shite, but not, sadly, my own Socioproctological ravings- probably because, though shite, the ideas they contain would work no great mischief on the public weal.