/lit/ - Literature

>>9531342
I wouldn't go so far as to say the calculation problem is a meme. It's relevant and unsolved. I can see why you'd like to sidestep that discussion if you don't care for Austrians, though.

If you haven't already, I highly recommend The Dictator's Handbook, which doesn't set out to directly refute socialist/communist theory, but does so as a corollary. Essentially, the book lays out a non-Austrian economics of power, then applies it in analyses of different societies. The ultimate conclusion is that effective (where "effective" = maintains power for an extended period of time) leaders dedicate resources primarily to maintaining the social order, secondarily to accruing more resources, and tertiarally to all else (including: the leader himself, citizen welfare, and non-essential infrastructure).

Following from this, a leader who dedicates a significant portion of available resources to anything other than power or accruing resources will be ineffective (experience some level of disloyalty among upper-middle- and middle-level supporters, who are necessary to maintain power). The closer the state gets to actual socialism/communism, the less stable it becomes, and the easier a fascist or other power-grabber can gain influence.

The reason this doesn't cripple democracies the same way it hinders societies with single leaders is because the nature of democracy makes power-grabbing much more difficult. Even so, an elected official who doesn't co-operate with industrialists and other powerful figures will, broadly speaking, lose to one that does. This is why subsidies exist — they're the bargaining chips politicians use to earn the backing of the powerful. Thus, leaders must still dedicate more resources to other powerful individuals than the citizenry at large, and socialist/communist change is unfeasible.

I'm oversimplifying, of course, a whole book can't be condensed into a 4chan post, and, again, nowhere do the authors argue directly against socialist/communist theory. Still, at the end of the read, it's hard not to see that this economics of power rules out socialism and communism as a corollary.

>t. de-spooked syndicalist