Colorful Thoughts of a Physician!

Albert Einstein happened to have his hands on some other areas other than Physics! He wrote an essay, Why Socialism?, mentioning the harms and consequences of capitalism in contrast to socialism.

Justifying why he dares to articulate this matter and speak his mind, he demonstrates an example about agreement of astronomy and economics in essential methodological approaches: scientists in both fields attempt to discover laws of general acceptability for a group of phenomena in order to make the interconnection of these phenomena as clearly understandable as possible.

He argues how economic aftermath of capitalist society is the real source of the evil: what the worker earns is not the function of 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. He looks farther and concludes that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population, since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed and influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the voters from the legislature. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information, and as a result, individual citizen can not come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.

He further argues that in such a society production is carried on for profit, not for use. An "army of unemployed" almost always exists, and the worker is constantly in fear of losing his job. Technological progress frequently results in more unemployment rather than in an easing of the burden of work for all.

He then suggests a way to eliminate these crucial evils: 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 natural 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.