Is socialism a system or a theory?

[Charles Brough]

I've been all over the world and traveled in 35 nations, lived in four and yet I never found a socialist nation! By that I mean one where the government rationed everything so all would get an equal amount of eveything and, therefore, where prices were not determined by supply and demand. Every nation has currency and it is always used for reflecting supply and demand. In no nation are people supplied according to need, every nation has a class structure, and in no nation are the common people soverign because they always have to have leaders who claim to represent them but who are financed by the rich.

What I am saying is that socialism is a theory, but not real economic system. It is an ideology. There are millions of socialists in the world and there are governments run by socialists, but there are no socialist nations. Socialism is a "cause" and huge tomes have been published which merely outling the history of the socialist MOVEMENT.

Are people thinking of communes when they speak of socialism? Unlike socialism, communes do have a definite history. Israel was established by Kibutzim communes which functioned very well. The people lived, worked and ate all together and there was no significant inequality of wealth. The decisions were made in common so that people were soverign. These communes worked well with the general capitalistic system which characterized the general Israeli economy.

The point is that capitalism and communism are able to work and function together in the same economy! Also, that it is not necessary for a dictatorship to set them up or impose them. All that is needed is a great deal of idealism and dedication. As that has dwindeled considerably in Israel, so have the size and importance of the communes to the state' economic system. They are being phased out just like communes were in Medieval Europe. As the manors turned into villages, the villages into towns with guilds, the abbeys and monks going into business, so has Israel changed.

One last point. Just as there is no real socialism, Marxism is also not communism. Communism is a communal economic system while Marxism a la Soviet Union and now East Asia is a secular religion.

charles

 

[russ_watters]

Its important to separate the system from the concepts. While there is no "pure" socialist system in place (and such a thing is what you would call the theory), there is also no "pure" capitalist system in place. But there are a lot of socialist and capitalist concepts in place.

 

[Charles Brough]

Yes, there is no "pure" capitalism because NOTHING is "pure", the concept is an absolute and cannot be conceived by us in our finite world. So, let's be practical. "Capitalism" exists where we have private ownership, the people do not live in communes, and prices are determined by supply and demand.

When we tax the rich to pay for social programs, we are not dispensing with any of those things which determine what is capitalism. If the government owns the largest blocks of stock in a number of the country's major corporations (nationalizing), that does not alter the three critera above either. You still have a capitalistic system.

But it tends to be one run by socialists. They like to call the results "socialism" so they can take credit for running the country and proving old Karl Marx was not such a fool after all.

He wasn't, either. Old Marx was so smart he managed to get everyone to believe successful capitalism was really Marxist socialism! Even the Chinese Marxists caught on. They've adopted capitalism while calling it socialism and describing it as the path to communism! People like to be fooled!

charles
http://humanpurpose.simplenet.com

 

[Rev Prez]

Socialism is a label, just like capitalism. Its definition is the one that's most widely and usefully used; under that definition, there are tons of countries that warrant the label.

Specifically, socialism is the label for a normative system, that is it is the collection of related events and processes that make up or lead to something that ought to be. Other examples include capitalism, Communism, democracy, racial equality, and hygiene. As far as I know, Communism is the only term that's also used to label a macroeconomic theory, albeit a silly one that's more self-serving than useful.

Rev Prez

 

[Rev Prez]

Yes, there is no "pure" capitalism because NOTHING is "pure", the concept is an absolute and cannot be conceived by us in our finite world.

There's no "pure" capitalism because the label isn't historically or presently defined in grades. Something is either capitalist or not, and there are tons of country that fit the defined criteria.

Rev Prez

 

[Kenneth Mann]

Maybe, we should try to define just what Socialism is before we can evaluate whether it is feasible or not. I'll start off by giving a couple of of possible candidate definitions:

1) A system in which the government attempts to control all economic activity (ie., that from which production and distribution of economic goods and services is derived). It attempts thereby to get everyone to produce to his/her maximum capability, the wealth which will become the property of the state - - which then apportions that wealth back to the people according to some formula that the government devises to determine who should get what. I see many problems with this approach. Who determines and controls what should be produced, how much and by whom? Who keeps the monitors/controllers from helping themselves. How do we get the "producers" to not sit on their "duffs" waiting for everyone else to do the work (since there's no personal gain coming from work)? Who decides how much each can produce? Who decides what each can get? Most of all, how do we deal with the inevitable 'scarcities' that occur?

2) A second definition of Socialism, is one that came from someone of the regular populace in the former Soviet Union. In this definition, the ruling powers simply divide the populace into classes (usually using economic criteria, but not necessarily so), and take from one defined class and redistribute the wealth to one (or more) other class(es). I see serious problems keeping this approach viable also.

Once defined, the problem isn't in the establishment of a Socialist society. It is in keeping it going. Basic human nature will always get in the way.

KM

 

[Smurf]

Basic human nature will always get in the way.

Please elaborate on which aspect of human nature exactly are you speaking.

 

[Rev Prez]

Please elaborate on which aspect of human nature exactly are you speaking.

I believe he's referring to profit incentive.

Rev Prez

 

[Kenneth Mann]

Please elaborate on which aspect of human nature exactly are you speaking.

Rev Prez was correct in his assessment, but to use an even more general reference, I offer the word 'selfishness'. This basic trait of humans (and most other animals) is death to Socialisms (all varieties). It manifests itself in many ways:

1) One example; people take the general attitude "Why should I work harder or produce more, when I'm not going to get more for it? I'll just ride along with the flow." Most of us will do this, so the Socialist operation just limps along, barely productive.

2) Socialisms rely almost exclusively on bureaucracies, that are set up to administer and control its programs. The initial people in these bureaucracies are the 'true believers', those who have devoted themselves to the program and who will do almost anything to assure its success. Thereafter, however those that come in are the ordinary everyday people. These are simply seeking to make a living, and most important, to find a secure place for themselves (here the selfishness motive starts to enter). These are the "bureaucrats" or "apparachniks". To them, the security of the position is far more important than the mission of the organization, and they will do almost anything (as long as it isn't readily apparent) to entrench themselves. The upshot is that they will sabotage virtually any program that puts the mission above their personal welfare, and this covers just about everything. Thus when any conscientious top manager launches a program designed toward efficiency, the bureaucrats almost always resist in very subtle, but effective ways. (This is one of the main reasons why I like to say that the best days of any socialist program are almost always its first days.)

3) People will always try to "game" the system. Thus, when a socialist program offers its benefits to the selected class, almost everyone will try to get in on the 'windfall'. Most will rationalize that "It is my right", and go after the greatest benefits derivable from the program. This is what generally overburdens socialized medicine (or auto insurance, etc.). When there's money being passed out, almost everyone looks for ways to go for the max. It is our nature. When money is free, or appears to be, go for it. Unfortunately the system can't bear this kind of burden, so rationing must be exercised, and many of those truly in need are left out.

4) The main device used by 'traditional' socialists is confiscation. The problem with this approach is they are not confiscating from inanimate objects, but from thinking people. Most of those intended victims can see the act coming, and if their assets are at all mobile, will move them out of country before the confiscation takes place, leaving the country weaker overall. (Greed prevails.)

5) 'Entrepreneurs' are above all else gamblers, something a bureaucrat in a socialist society cannot be. Some gamblers win big, and others lose everything, but this is the driving motive in an expanding society. Those who guess right add a lot to the economy, and get rich doing it. Those who guess wrong are soon forgotten. (There 'should be' no guarantees in Capitalism.) This gambling expansionism is singularly absent in Socialism. Their leaders must always be followers - - and come in on a new idea always too late.

7) Finally, the "crooks" and hustlers go for Socialist programs programs like bears for honey. Come up with a program for dispensing assets, and the hustlers will find ways to get in on it. Bureaucrats work eight hours a day trying to eliminate these hustlers, but the legions of hustlers work twenty four hours a day figuring ways around them.

The upshot is, that for a Socialism environment to work, human nature must must be more aimed toward cooperation and symbiosis, rather than toward the selfish. We, however are more like tigers (self oriented) than like ants, termites or bees (group oriented). Socialism, however doesn't work in our natural environment. We are just not constituted for it. (But we still need some of its aspects, at least where money isn't the medium, if we are to be 'civilized'. For example, we need to impose some order. We can't just hit each other over the head when we feel the urge. Socialism, however is an order that we haven't learned to effectively impose - - - it just hasn't worked for us. It would if we were perfect, but then if that were the case, we wouldn't need it.

Post Script: Do you wonder why corporations, as they become larger, become less efficient? The main answer is that they become more internally Socialistic, more bureaucratic.

KM

 

[russ_watters]

Rev Prez was correct in his assessment, but to use an even more general reference, I offer the word 'selfishness'. This basic trait of humans (and most other animals) is death to Socialisms (all varieties).

I prefer the word 'competitiveness', but the idea (and the death to socialisms) is the same.

 

[Rev Prez]

Rev Prez was correct in his assessment, but to use an even more general reference, I offer the word 'selfishness'.

I feel I'm going to ask this question a lot here.

Why would you use such a word?

Profit incentive is an operational definition with a real standard of measure. It readily generalizes into the other social sciences and the terms accumulate linearly into a quantifiable variable of self-interest. "Selfishness" may be a convenient rhetorical device despite its connotation, but in that event the discussion is probably better suited for the Politics forum.

Everything else you discuss in this post alludes to something captured by run of the mill models in economics and sociology, though it is not clear how you're defining states and processes.

Rev Prez

 

[Kenneth Mann]

I feel I'm going to ask this question a lot here.

Why would you use such a word?

Rev Prez

Essentially, I was looking for a word that is broad enough in scope to include all possibilities of motivation. As example, "self interest" to me includes those cases in which a person acts to improve his/her own fortunes but does not cross over the line to "cheating" others or, in other words, trying to exploit an unfair or illegal advantage.

By "selfishness" I am trying to denote the set of conditions in which that line is not considered in the discussion. It is not meant by me to imply that the person has necessarily crossed that line, but to include that possibility. If the term is generally used to include only those who are acting unfairly, I apologize. I could not, however think of a more universal (inclusive) term. I was seeking a term to denote those who are simply acting out their basic animal instincts, consciously or otherwise, to prevail over others. It is intended to include both those who compete fairly and those who do not. Basically, I need terms to define each of the following:
Those who act cooperatively.
Those who compete, but only in a "sportsman-like" manner.
Those who compete, but cheat.
All who compete.
Not being a sociologist, I do not know the terminology to define all the cases, but I have observed human actions and traits over the years. I welcome your help in this matter.

 

[Antiphon]

Socialism is the monsterous idea that my stuff isn't my stuff, its everyone elses.

The reason you don't find it "pure" anywhere is because its fundamentally
incompatible with the nature of man.

 

[selfAdjoint]

Socialism is the monsterous idea that my stuff isn't my stuff, its everyone elses.

The reason you don't find it "pure" anywhere is because its fundamentally
incompatible with the nature of man.

That's not socialism, that's government, or if you will, society. Any society is going to take some stuff from some people, to do work that will problably benefit others more than the one taken from. Quite often they take the life! (of soldiers, particularly conscripts). You don't live all by yourself with your stuff, and it wasn't your abilities alone that gathered that stuff. You had to act through an orderly society, using, for example the free market and the legal system, to acquire it. And because of that, society - any society not just socialism - has some call on that stuff.

And as for "the nature of man", humans evolved from creatures that ran in bands, and there has never been a time in human history when men were isolated. Always they were in tribes, city states, hydraulic empires, feudal systems or just scores of different kinds of societies, all of them defined by the duties and taxes they levied on their members.

 

[Antiphon]

What you describe is necessary taxation. I'm fine with that.

I mean that general property rights are entirely non-existent under pure socialism.

Edit: For example, if I am able to make bricks and you are able to grow corn,
we could trade as free men. But what if I can only make 2 bricks/day while
you can make 20 baskets of corn? Under socialism, my need for your corn
defines it's value- not what it's worth to YOU. Maybe you need to build a
house using 100 bricks/day. I can trade you one brick/day for 10 baskets of
your corn because I NEED them, not because I've EARNED them. That is not
a natural way for humans to cooperate. It enslaves the able in order to
serve the unable or unwilling. That's why I call it monsterous and unnatural.

 

[selfAdjoint]

I mean that general property rights are entirely non-existent under pure socialism.

Your references for this statement please?

 

[hitssquad]

SA,

so·cial·ism

2 a : a system or condition of society or group living in which there is no private property <trace the remains of pure socialism that marked the first phase of the Christian community — W.E.H.Lecky>

(Merriam Webster Unabridged Dictionary 3.0)

 

[selfAdjoint]

SA,

so·cial·ism

2 a : a system or condition of society or group living in which there is no private property <trace the remains of pure socialism that marked the first phase of the Christian community — W.E.H.Lecky>

(Merriam Webster Unabridged Dictionary 3.0)

I see that is definition 2. Why should Antiphon be allowed to quote it as if it were definition 1? And by the way, you don't find that among the several definitions given in other sources. Google on socialism definitions and see.

 

[hitssquad]

Socialism vs pure socialism

I see that is definition 2. Why should Antiphon be allowed to quote it as if it were definition 1?

He qualified it with the word pure. Since the M-W Unabridged also used that qualification in its example sentence, it too seems to be implying that socialism unqualified does not normally imply an entire lack of private property and that that qualification is necessary in order for the zero private property condition to obtain. I would imagine that most people, even the prototypical Socialist whose goal is a socialism with plenty of private property, would take the phrase pure socialism to mean zero private property. Likewise, I would imagine that most people, even the prototypical Capitalist whose goal is a capitalism with plenty of public property, would take the phrase pure capitalism to mean zero public property.

And by the way, you don't find that among the several definitions given in other sources.

OK.

 

[Antiphon]

In addition to the moral objections there are also extremely negative practical
consequences to the group (economy) when you disallow the accumulation of
capital which is private property also.

For the physics-inclined amoung us, capital is the economic equivalent of potential
energy. If you have none, it is difficult to translate this into your economic system
as "kinetic" energy or production/trade.

BTW, the "means of production" has always been the human mind, not the factory,
hammer, or scyth. These are the only tools with which the hand guided by the mind
makes everything. Just try to seize the means of production at Microsoft and it will
become clear.

 

[selfAdjoint]

In addition to the moral objections there are also extremely negative practical
consequences to the group (economy) when you disallow the accumulation of
capital which is private property also.

Capital can be accumulated that is not the private property of individuals, but still functions as capital. As the soviet union so gruesomely demonstrated.

For the physics-inclined amoung us, capital is the economic equivalent of potential
energy. If you have none, it is difficult to translate this into your economic system
as "kinetic" energy or production/trade.

This physics-minded observer is extremely leery of strained metaphors like this. Stick to economics.

BTW, the "means of production" has always been the human mind, not the factory,
hammer, or scyth. These are the only tools with which the hand guided by the mind
makes everything. Just try to seize the means of production at Microsoft and it will
become clear.

On the other hand just try to manufacture chips like Intel with the mind alone. If the mind were the only means of production, since minds are inescapably tied up inside individuals, primitive communism would alsready exist. But people who want to make something have to get that capital you mentioned to buy equipment, or else sell their labor power to someone who already has it.

 

[Antiphon]

Capital can be accumulated that is not the private property of individuals, but still functions as capital. As the soviet union so gruesomely demonstrated.

It was horribly mismanaged- which is exactly what you'd expect to happen
when capital is handed to someone who didn't have to (or couldn't ) create it.

This physics-minded observer is extremely leery of strained metaphors like this. Stick to economics.

Fair enough. Capital is the financial ability to do work.

On the other hand just try to manufacture chips like Intel with the mind alone. If the mind were the only means of production, since minds are inescapably tied up inside individuals, primitive communism would alsready exist.

Again, we're confusing the tool with the blacksmith. Nothing happens
without the mind, even in an automated factory. Every step was conceived
of and impelmented in the mind first before it became a process in
a real factory.

But people who want to make something have to get that capital you mentioned to buy equipment, or else sell their labor power to someone who already has it.

Yes. That's called "trade".

 

[selfAdjoint]

It was horribly mismanaged- which is exactly what you'd expect to happen
when capital is handed to someone who didn't have to (or couldn't ) create it.

That doesn't follow, it's just a bald assertion on your part.

Again, we're confusing the tool with the blacksmith. Nothing happens
without the mind, even in an automated factory. Every step was conceived
of and impelmented in the mind first before it became a process in
a real factory.

But all the plans in the world won't make physical products without some dependence on workers, if only to program the system. Mind is great and important, but muscle is indispensable too. Leaving the blacksmith out of the smithy is a recipe for no horseshoes.

 

[Antiphon]

That doesn't follow, it's just a bald assertion on your part.

I'm at a loss to respond, SA. This is self evident to anyone who's ever been
to a communist country. Surely you're just pulling my leg now, right?

But all the plans in the world won't make physical products without some dependence on workers, if only to program the system. Mind is great and important, but muscle is indispensable too. Leaving the blacksmith out of the smithy is a recipe for no horseshoes.

Sure, some- but not the critical dependece. Because the mind that
invents surely has its own hands with which to work if need be.

Uncreative people don't make new and important things. They can play an
important role by being the hands of those who create with their minds.
But this just underscores the preminence of mind over muscle in the
creative process.

 

[selfAdjoint]

That doesn't follow, it's just a bald assertion on your part.

I'm at a loss to respond, SA. This is self evident to anyone who's ever been
to a communist country. Surely you're just pulling my leg now, right?

No, the so-called Communist countries were all pathological in one way or another, and the use of them as horrible examples of what state capitalism could be is tendentious. A state capitalist economy with a free market and competition between government venture capitalist agencies has not been shown to be unworkable. Modern China has an approximation - the government has by no means given up control of capital while encouraging a free market at lower levels. We'll have to see how it works out.

BTW I am contemptuous of your intellectual elitism. Not of you, just of the belief.

 

[Antiphon]

No, the so-called Communist countries were all pathological in one way or another, and the use of them as horrible examples of what state capitalism could be is tendentious. A state capitalist economy with a free market and competition between government venture capitalist agencies has not been shown to be unworkable. Modern China has an approximation - the government has by no means given up control of capital while encouraging a free market at lower levels. We'll have to see how it works out.

China is a good example of my point. The less the government controls
their capital, the less of a basket case they are economically. It cannot
be that capital is allocated simultaneously to the state and to individuals.

BTW I am contemptuous of your intellectual elitism. Not of you, just of the belief.

I'm sorry if it comes off that way. It's more a passion that comes from
having seen firsthand the insidious ways that the lives of some of my
family members were damaged in former Soviet satellites.

It follows from what we've discussed that under socialism people themselves
are valuable capital for the state to control and so the state has an
obligation to allocate them as it sees fit- "for the greater good".

 

[selfAdjoint]

It cannot
be that capital is allocated simultaneously to the state and to individuals

Sure it can; that's what's going on in China right now. Some of the venture capital comes from private sources and some of it comes from the government. What's so counter-intuitive about that? Partly it's a difference of scale - building a plant versus transforming a city, but it's happening, and as of right now, it's not failing.

Many people who have experienced the horrible, pathological dysfunction of the soviet system and its imitators have drawn the conclusion that only some extreme form of capitalism is compatible with either economic success or human freedom. But that is like looking at a European with bubonic plague and concluding that all Europeans are diseased.

I am not myself too fond of the Franco-German pattern of socialism, which turns out to be perks for them (including workers) who got in on the ground floor and "it's just too bad" about everybody else. So they import guest workers to do the jobs that are beneath the "stakeholders" and then repine because the impoverished children of the guest workers won't stop being alien. Marx would have a few snarky comments on that.

 

[Antiphon]

Sure it can; that's what's going on in China right now. Some of the venture capital comes from private sources and some of it comes from the government. What's so counter-intuitive about that?

I meant that anyone given piece of capital cannot simultaneously be
controlled by two different entities like an individual and the state. It's
really one or the other. What you are referring to is the situation where
some capital is under the control of its creator and the rest is
under the control of the state's operatives.

Partly it's a difference of scale - building a plant versus transforming a city, but it's happening, and as of right now, it's not failing.

We haven't agreed on a definition of success. In my estimation they are
suceeding to the extent that their private capital management is a tax base
for their government operations- not because the government-controlled
portion of their capital is returning additional profits.

Many people who have experienced the horrible, pathological dysfunction of the soviet system and its imitators have drawn the conclusion that only some extreme form of capitalism is compatible with either economic success or human freedom.

I didn't make that claim. I only claimed that by virtue of having personal
experience with socialism, I understand it for what it really is- the total
denial of individual freedom to dispose of labor and mind-product as the
creating individual sees fit.

I am not myself too fond of the Franco-German pattern of socialism, which turns out to be perks for them (including workers) who got in on the ground floor and "it's just too bad" about everybody else. So they import guest workers to do the jobs that are beneath the "stakeholders" and then repine because the impoverished children of the guest workers won't stop being alien. Marx would have a few snarky comments on that.

Thanks. I wasn't aware of this other specific social dimesion of
socialism's failure. I'll add it to the collection.

If you like, we could create a little socialist thought experiment.
We live on an island, you, me and 98 other people.

I like to collect coconut shells. Others like to burn coconuts shells for
heat. You are the current "People's Chairman".

Do I get to keep my cocnuts or does everyone get to burn them?

 

[selfAdjoint]

In my estimation they are
suceeding to the extent that their private capital management is a tax base
for their government operations- not because the government-controlled
portion of their capital is returning additional profits

Is this estimation based on any actual evidence of particular things going on in China?

 

[Antiphon]

Is this estimation based on any actual evidence of particular things going on in China?

Because I respect you SelfAdjoint, I will flatly admit that the answer is no.
This conclusion is based on other aspects of my own argument, not on emperical
data.

If you have any data bearing on the actual efficiency of Chinese centralized
capital investment then I'm open to hearing about it.

 

[Charles Brough]

My point was that socialism is only an unworkable theory and that there is no functioning socialistic state in the world and never has been.

The posts have included horrendous explanations of how "socialism" works but not one example of an existing socialist economy in the world. People like to think of Sweden, perhaps, as being "socialist," but in Sweden, most corporations are not owned by the government, prices are still determined by supply and demand, there are classes, and decisions are not forced but voted.

Are people thinking of the former Soviet Union and Marxist China? They set up ideologically forced communism---not socialism. When you turn a state into a giant commune, you have communism, not socialism. Even China is now capitalistic (or shall we say Mercantilisitic?)

Communes have and still do exist---even in the U.S. There are religious communities which are communes. Israel was founded by communes. When idealism is high, people love to become totally involved with each other and share eveything. It is a spontaneous process. When idealism begins to break down, then capitalism becomes a much more efficient system. Then, as society and idealism continue to decline, capitalism becomes corrupt, people become selfish and greedy, and the system degenerates---as it is doing now.

Capitalism is a fine system when people are idealistic and honest. It is a means by which people can take care of their own interests in ways which also benefit everyone else. That is the ideological basis of capitalism, but societies change and it is time to begin looking to the future and seeing what is happening--to be forewarned.

charles
http://humanpurpose.simplenet.com

 

[selfAdjoint]

Your problem, or rather our problem with you, is that you never carefully define what YOU mean by socialism. Evidently the Democratic Socialisms of Europe, so called by the Europeans themselves, don't meet your criteria, so you can say there has never been a successful socialist state. How about some usable criteria?

 

[WhiteWolf]

That is exactly true, you are able to acquire more material possessions by getting an education and getting a high paying job. You pay for that education 10 times over with your taxes. It is the people living on welfare that takes and doesn't give MUCH back. You earned what you have, no one has the right to take it from you. And this is coming from a Marxism idealist.

 

[EnumaElish]

Capitalism is a fine system when people are idealistic and honest.

I thought many proponents of capitalism (at least under this thread) were of the opinion that no system other than capitalism "works" because human nature gets in the way of idealism and honesty. Is it only me, or are there others who are confused?

It is a means by which people can take care of their own interests in ways which also benefit everyone else.

Normally, capitalism is justified as a system that benefits everyone else because people care about their own interest and utterly disregard others' interests. Hence Adam Smith's popular metaphor "the invisible hand." Supposedly, one does not have to think about which ways would benefit others and which wouldn't, and being idealistic and honest, choose the former. Supposedly, if self interests are doggedly followed by everyone, then the market mechanism will see to it that everyone will benefit from individuals' self-centered behavior.

P.S. For example, the most commonly used concept of equilibrium in Game Theory, Nash equilibrium, is based on the axiom that each seller looks for an angle to further his or her self interest (e.g. net profit), by cheating if necessary. In the simplest form of this market game, a price fixing agreement by a cartel (look under Encyclopedia) is inherently unstable. Buyers benefit from ensuing competitive prices. Explicitly, this whole notion has nothing to do with idealism or honesty; and it has everything to do with material interest and deceit.

 

[flotsam]

Socialism can never be built in a single place. No system is an island. This applies to capitalism too. A single socialist state could never abolish curency in a sea of capitalism, such a state needs to economically interact with the outside world whether it likes it or not. A single capitalist state would find its goods worthless in a socialist world where goods are moved according to need and not to the highest bidder. Any move towards socialism would be one that embraced most of the planet and all of it eventually. It would be part of world movement due to the failings of global capitalism. True socialism as I see it would have a productive capacity far greater than capitalism. Capitalism wastefully duplicates production all the time and the market inherently moves goods that in reality don't need moved. A simple example; the UK imports millions of tonnes of milk and exports millions of tonnes of milk every year. Global socialism would end this senceless waste of resources and only import when there is a shortfall in local production. Thousands of identical products meet each other at ports around the world every day. Logistically this is stupid and unessecary and a waste of energy. A planned world economy could increase productive capacity dramatically by producing for need by local means as much as possible.
Whether socialism will come about, you might say is a unrealistic dream. Howerver as I am posting this in a science forum surely one will realize that nothing in this world endures and that applies to capitalism too. Capitalism like socialism is a system and systems come and go. Capitalism has not been around forever and will not endure forever. It will have to go someday, but as its a class based system serving the interests of a tiny powerful minority, it will not give in easily. But I wager it would not be the choice of capiatalism to give up. It would simply die out and be replaced by a superior system, after-all, we as humans are still bound by evolution.
World socialism would as Marx says be a dictatorship, a dictatorship of the proletariat. And I can't argue against that.