The Appeal of Socialism
Why is socialism so popular, especially among the young, despite its failure to deliver on its promises? The answer is although socialism has failed, capitalism has failed worse. Not because it has not satisfied material needs but it has failed to satisfy the souls of the people who labor under it.
The root problem is that ca[italism is motivated by greed, the desire to maximize pleasure, which everyone recognizes as a part of human nature, but an inferior part. People are also motivated by the desire to make a better world, to do good for others. And people turn to socialism because it promises to work for the public good and not just private wishes.
So how to combine the material success of capitalism with the spiritualyearnings of the public? The solution is simply to take the profit motive out of managing a business. That is, the roles of owning a business and managing a business should be separated. The manager of a business should have no financial interest in it. This is similar to a doctor to does not sell the medicines that they prescribe and thus prescribes for the best interest of the patient and not from a profit motive. The owners of the business would select the managers for a fixed term and the managers would then be free to run it.
The managers, freed from self interest could choose to run the company for the common good, or for the good of the employees, or however they wished. But their compnesation would not be based on the companiy's performance.
In this way capitalism can work for the common good, not directed by som central plan, but but the consciencs of the individuals within it.