Why Socialism Doesn't Work

This is probably still the most common argument--the natural competitiveness and greediness of human nature excepted--against the feasibility of socialism. Defenders of capitalism fail to notice that the two ideas--"people are naturally lazy," and "people are naturally competitive"--cancel each other out. Marx's clever response to the laziness argument is still the best one: "According to this, bourgeois society ought long ago to have gone to the dogs through sheer idleness; for those of its members who work acquire nothing, and those who acquire anything do not work."