There’s no doubt that Albert Einstein was bright. His model of the universe still underlies much of what we know about gravity and Space-Time. His work has been repeatedly verified by experiments, and his legacy continues through the LHC and the JWST. Take that Relativity matter: In the Large Hadron Collider muons that approach the speed of light “live” longer because time slows for them; and from images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope we see further proof that the masses of foreground galaxies bend the light from more distant ones into Einstein Rings, ala the Arthur Eddington observation just over a century ago. Add to Relativity his Nobel Prize for explaining those little bricks of matter we call “atoms” and his peripheral sendoff of quantum theory, and you have to say, “Yes, when it comes to understanding the physical, Albert was, and still is, “The Man.”
But I’m not so sure that when it comes to understanding the social, Albert really had much sense. In matters of economic and political theory, Albert, who left a country in the grasp of the Nazi Party, which went by the byname of National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), wrote an article in 1949 pushing socialism. Go figure. He wrote that article in the comfort of American capitalism with all its attendant freedoms and protections. Had he remained in Europe during World War II, he almost certainly would have perished in a concentration camp. That manifestation of socialism led to the deaths not only of six million Jews, but also to the deaths of some 50 million people worldwide.
So, relatively speaking, to my mind, Albert wasn’t very smart in matters social. Of course, in the context of Relativity, my relative opinion of Albert’s genius is, well, merely relative. And one reason for the relativity of thought and opinion lies in the human failure to arrive at absolutes regarding human interactions.
We do, however, generally accept some absolutes. To me, axiomatic thinking, which Einstein found to be essential to his work, applies, at least it does in mathematics. If it didn’t, we could throw out all that geometry that worked so well for Euclid and Riemann and eventually for Einstein. Face it, if we didn’t have certain universally accepted assumptions, we could never agree on anything and never arrive at mathematical—and maybe even experimental—proofs. When Eddington demonstrated the Einstein prediction that light could bend around a gravity well like the Sun—that 1919 observation of the apparent shift of a star during a solar eclipse—he showed that certain truths are True and independent of our hypothesizing. The universe does indeed follow some very hardwired principles. Gravity seems to work the same everywhere. The axioms on which Einstein discovered Relativity do seem to be absolutes.
With regard to his work, Einstein noted in 1919 that there are two kinds of “theories,” those “constructed,” or synthesized, and those discovered through analysis, what he called the “principle-theories” that are analytic. As he writes, “The theory of relativity belongs to the latter class” [the analytic or principle theories]. He thus accepts axiomatic thinking. * Essentially, Albert says that the theory of relativity was there to be discovered, and Newton, for all his genius, just missed discovering it, even though he, too, used an analytical method—that still works, by the way, and that you can prove by tripping on a stairway.
Now, Albert wasn’t one to actually run the experiments that proved his work. He was given to “thought experiments,” also known as Gedankenexperiment make his discoveries. And he was good at it. But when he tried to apply his methodology to matters social and political, he wasn’t so astute. Take his take on socialism, for example.
In May, 1949, he published in the Monthly Review (New York) an article in answer to the question “Why Socialism?” ** In that article, Albert notes the inequalities of life that capitalism seems inevitably to produce, inequalities that separate workers from employers. You know it as the common complaint about the salaries of CEOs: Elon Musk, $23.5 billion, Tim Cook, $770.5 million, Jensen Huang, $561 million, Reed Hastings, $453.5 million, Leonard Schleifer, $452.9 million…and many others with salaries far greater than that of their underlings. Yes, there’s an obvious difference in compensation. We know that, Albert. And we generally agree—if we aren’t a CEO—the difference is rather astounding. Who can spend 452.9 million bucks?
But Albert insists that such disparity requires a socialist solution. Speak about “constructive, synthetic theories”! Holy cow, Albert—and I don’t mean fashioning the wealth into an idol to be worshipped in the absence of a Jewish leader visiting a mountaintop—didn’t you, in 1949, the year you wrote that article, just come through four years of socialism-run-wild? Were you not paying attention to Europe after you fled Germany? Didn’t you see an actual experiment run by socialists in Germany? I guess not. Nazi Germany wasn’t a Gedankenexperiment. It used real people. People who suffered and died. Millions of them.
ENTER GLOBALISM. Albert says, “The time—which, looking back, seems idyllic—is gone forever when individuals or small groups could be completely self-sufficient. It is only a slight exaggeration got say that mankind constitutes even now a planetary community of production and consumption.” Then, noting those disparities between workers and employers, he writes, “I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils [salary disparity?], namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanies 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.” ** Hey, you just read it; his words, not mine. The guy who fled a socialist government proclaims the necessity of establishing a socialist system. Relatively speaking, I’d say that isn’t smart. It’s akin to saying, “No, it hasn’t worked, but if we rerun the experiment, it’s bound to work.”
So then Albert says, “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 in every man, woman, and child.” And in the matter of education, he writes that in addition to “promoting the 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.”
Here comes, as Shakespeare might say, the rub: “A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual. 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? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?”
His answer? Well, he doesn’t offer one. And that’s the problem, the unsolved problem. Given human nature and the tendency of some toward evil and corruption, any all-encompassing bureaucracy both inhibits individualism and operates inefficiently.
Want an example? Take the wildfires in California, specifically, for that example, the 2018 Camp Fire that took dozens of lives and destroyed 18,000 acres and 13,000-plus homes. It was an “explosive fire” because the federal agency allowed fallen and previously burned trees and bush to accumulate. Federal lands operated by the Forestry Service are more likely to burn more wildly with more devastating effects to communities than privately operated forests. Now there’s an argument—tongue in cheek—for centralized planning!
Are you reading this, Bernie Sanders and all who seek to turn America into a socialist nation? Is your democratic socialism just another form of condemn-ocratic imprisonment of the individual in the name of equity? I got it; you’ll respond with “that’s because all previous attempts at socialism had bad and incompetent actors in charge. This time it will be different.”
To which I would add a statement by another Nobel laureate, Richard Feynman. He once said that “It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t Agee with experiment, it’s wrong.” Apply that to the “theory” of socialism. The experiment has been run in the Soviet Union, in Cuba, in Venezuela, and elsewhere, all with the same results: Wealth accumulated by the few, the select few, and impoverishment of the many who are subjected to an ever increasing set of restrictions by an overbearing bureaucracy.
Relativity speaking, Albert was a genius; relatively speaking, Albert wasn’t a genius. Experiment verified the Truth in Relativity. Experiment verified the falsity of the socialist promise.
*Published in the London Times, November 28, 1919, in answer to the question “What Is the Theory of Relativity.” Found in the collection of his writings entitled Ideas and Opinions, Albert Einstein, Crown Publishers, Inc. New York, 1982 and 1954. Pp. 227 ff.
**Published in Monthly Review. May, 1949, under the title “Why Socialism?” Also found in the above anthology of his writings, pp. 151 ff.
But I’m not so sure that when it comes to understanding the social, Albert really had much sense. In matters of economic and political theory, Albert, who left a country in the grasp of the Nazi Party, which went by the byname of National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), wrote an article in 1949 pushing socialism. Go figure. He wrote that article in the comfort of American capitalism with all its attendant freedoms and protections. Had he remained in Europe during World War II, he almost certainly would have perished in a concentration camp. That manifestation of socialism led to the deaths not only of six million Jews, but also to the deaths of some 50 million people worldwide.
So, relatively speaking, to my mind, Albert wasn’t very smart in matters social. Of course, in the context of Relativity, my relative opinion of Albert’s genius is, well, merely relative. And one reason for the relativity of thought and opinion lies in the human failure to arrive at absolutes regarding human interactions.
We do, however, generally accept some absolutes. To me, axiomatic thinking, which Einstein found to be essential to his work, applies, at least it does in mathematics. If it didn’t, we could throw out all that geometry that worked so well for Euclid and Riemann and eventually for Einstein. Face it, if we didn’t have certain universally accepted assumptions, we could never agree on anything and never arrive at mathematical—and maybe even experimental—proofs. When Eddington demonstrated the Einstein prediction that light could bend around a gravity well like the Sun—that 1919 observation of the apparent shift of a star during a solar eclipse—he showed that certain truths are True and independent of our hypothesizing. The universe does indeed follow some very hardwired principles. Gravity seems to work the same everywhere. The axioms on which Einstein discovered Relativity do seem to be absolutes.
With regard to his work, Einstein noted in 1919 that there are two kinds of “theories,” those “constructed,” or synthesized, and those discovered through analysis, what he called the “principle-theories” that are analytic. As he writes, “The theory of relativity belongs to the latter class” [the analytic or principle theories]. He thus accepts axiomatic thinking. * Essentially, Albert says that the theory of relativity was there to be discovered, and Newton, for all his genius, just missed discovering it, even though he, too, used an analytical method—that still works, by the way, and that you can prove by tripping on a stairway.
Now, Albert wasn’t one to actually run the experiments that proved his work. He was given to “thought experiments,” also known as Gedankenexperiment make his discoveries. And he was good at it. But when he tried to apply his methodology to matters social and political, he wasn’t so astute. Take his take on socialism, for example.
In May, 1949, he published in the Monthly Review (New York) an article in answer to the question “Why Socialism?” ** In that article, Albert notes the inequalities of life that capitalism seems inevitably to produce, inequalities that separate workers from employers. You know it as the common complaint about the salaries of CEOs: Elon Musk, $23.5 billion, Tim Cook, $770.5 million, Jensen Huang, $561 million, Reed Hastings, $453.5 million, Leonard Schleifer, $452.9 million…and many others with salaries far greater than that of their underlings. Yes, there’s an obvious difference in compensation. We know that, Albert. And we generally agree—if we aren’t a CEO—the difference is rather astounding. Who can spend 452.9 million bucks?
But Albert insists that such disparity requires a socialist solution. Speak about “constructive, synthetic theories”! Holy cow, Albert—and I don’t mean fashioning the wealth into an idol to be worshipped in the absence of a Jewish leader visiting a mountaintop—didn’t you, in 1949, the year you wrote that article, just come through four years of socialism-run-wild? Were you not paying attention to Europe after you fled Germany? Didn’t you see an actual experiment run by socialists in Germany? I guess not. Nazi Germany wasn’t a Gedankenexperiment. It used real people. People who suffered and died. Millions of them.
ENTER GLOBALISM. Albert says, “The time—which, looking back, seems idyllic—is gone forever when individuals or small groups could be completely self-sufficient. It is only a slight exaggeration got say that mankind constitutes even now a planetary community of production and consumption.” Then, noting those disparities between workers and employers, he writes, “I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils [salary disparity?], namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanies 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.” ** Hey, you just read it; his words, not mine. The guy who fled a socialist government proclaims the necessity of establishing a socialist system. Relatively speaking, I’d say that isn’t smart. It’s akin to saying, “No, it hasn’t worked, but if we rerun the experiment, it’s bound to work.”
So then Albert says, “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 in every man, woman, and child.” And in the matter of education, he writes that in addition to “promoting the 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.”
Here comes, as Shakespeare might say, the rub: “A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual. 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? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?”
His answer? Well, he doesn’t offer one. And that’s the problem, the unsolved problem. Given human nature and the tendency of some toward evil and corruption, any all-encompassing bureaucracy both inhibits individualism and operates inefficiently.
Want an example? Take the wildfires in California, specifically, for that example, the 2018 Camp Fire that took dozens of lives and destroyed 18,000 acres and 13,000-plus homes. It was an “explosive fire” because the federal agency allowed fallen and previously burned trees and bush to accumulate. Federal lands operated by the Forestry Service are more likely to burn more wildly with more devastating effects to communities than privately operated forests. Now there’s an argument—tongue in cheek—for centralized planning!
Are you reading this, Bernie Sanders and all who seek to turn America into a socialist nation? Is your democratic socialism just another form of condemn-ocratic imprisonment of the individual in the name of equity? I got it; you’ll respond with “that’s because all previous attempts at socialism had bad and incompetent actors in charge. This time it will be different.”
To which I would add a statement by another Nobel laureate, Richard Feynman. He once said that “It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t Agee with experiment, it’s wrong.” Apply that to the “theory” of socialism. The experiment has been run in the Soviet Union, in Cuba, in Venezuela, and elsewhere, all with the same results: Wealth accumulated by the few, the select few, and impoverishment of the many who are subjected to an ever increasing set of restrictions by an overbearing bureaucracy.
Relativity speaking, Albert was a genius; relatively speaking, Albert wasn’t a genius. Experiment verified the Truth in Relativity. Experiment verified the falsity of the socialist promise.
*Published in the London Times, November 28, 1919, in answer to the question “What Is the Theory of Relativity.” Found in the collection of his writings entitled Ideas and Opinions, Albert Einstein, Crown Publishers, Inc. New York, 1982 and 1954. Pp. 227 ff.
**Published in Monthly Review. May, 1949, under the title “Why Socialism?” Also found in the above anthology of his writings, pp. 151 ff.
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