Socialism Is Always Doomed to Fail

[Cheerful Charlie]

Thought experiment. Everyone has the ability to own their own business and decides to try to save money to open one up. Would our economic system actually allow everyone to own their own business, individual or as a co-op? I guess many people could buy clothes or shoes to retail or mow some yards but I do not see how everyone could start a company and get it big to where they get rich.

What would happen if everyone who has to work for a living by working for someone else actually did start saving all their money to start their own businesses, and I mean a business big enough to have income coming in enough to live on, not supplemental money. If people were disiciplined enough to save every penny they did not absolutely need to spend they would cut their own throats economically. They would most likely end up losing their jobs because the extra money from others wasn't circulating (everyone saving so no money coming in where they work or not as much) and their savings would have to be used to take care of themselves until they found work.

Banks--even if people saved and somehow managed not to lose their jobs with everyone around them saving every last penny the banks could not loan everyone enough money to go out and start their business.




Capitalism may work extremely well for a few and not to many for many but it seems for it to succeed it has to have most people not want to be in the higher income ranges and/or not be capitalists.

We have the phenomena of Walmart moving into an area and killing the local merchants, and local entrepreneurs. In return, that area gets minimum wage jobs.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Thought experiment. Everyone has the ability to own their own business and decides to try to save money to open one up. Would our economic system actually allow everyone to own their own business, individual or as a co-op? I guess many people could buy clothes or shoes to retail or mow some yards but I do not see how everyone could start a company and get it big to where they get rich.

What would happen if everyone who has to work for a living by working for someone else actually did start saving all their money to start their own businesses, and I mean a business big enough to have income coming in enough to live on, not supplemental money. If people were disiciplined enough to save every penny they did not absolutely need to spend they would cut their own throats economically. They would most likely end up losing their jobs because the extra money from others wasn't circulating (everyone saving so no money coming in where they work or not as much) and their savings would have to be used to take care of themselves until they found work.

Banks--even if people saved and somehow managed not to lose their jobs with everyone around them saving every last penny the banks could not loan everyone enough money to go out and start their business.




Capitalism may work extremely well for a few and not to many for many but it seems for it to succeed it has to have most people not want to be in the higher income ranges and/or not be capitalists.

This may sound odd, but different people have different preferences and different priorities. Some people prefer the higher risk/reward ratio of going into business themselves, others prefer the steady paycheck of working for someone else. Your thought experiment forces those who want to work for others to work for themselves.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Homelessness and poverty are the default nature of humans, capitalism has gotten us out of that.

Wow, what a bizarre statement. Homelessness and poverty are not the default state of nature for humans. Shelter is a basic requirement for survival and for humans the default state is take care of offspring for a long time during brain development. Ergo, the default state for a newborn is to be born with family support and a shelter. Before capitalism, people had clothes, too. I am very surprised you didn't know that.

I think the other problem with your claim is that you attribute all human progress to capitalism. What about science and technology? What about human compassion? What about anti-capitalism (and socialism)? Let's not pretend capitalism landed us on the Moon or created the Scientific Method or the United Nations. Or Homes or Clothes.

 

[coloradoatheist]

Homelessness and poverty are the default nature of humans, capitalism has gotten us out of that.

Wow, what a bizarre statement. Homelessness and poverty are not the default state of nature for humans. Shelter is a basic requirement for survival and for humans the default state is take care of offspring for a long time during brain development. Ergo, the default state for a newborn is to be born with family support and a shelter. Before capitalism, people had clothes, too. I am very surprised you didn't know that.

I think the other problem with your claim is that you attribute all human progress to capitalism. What about science and technology? What about human compassion? What about anti-capitalism (and socialism)? Let's not pretend capitalism landed us on the Moon or created the Scientific Method or the United Nations. Or Homes or Clothes.

What percentage of the geographical portion of the world could you step outside and without what we have now be able to survive on your own? nature in that area provides you the material to eat, to clothe yourself, to build materials for shelter, and has enough plants for medicine when you get sick? Just those basics.

 

[Axulus]

Thought experiment. Everyone has the ability to own their own business and decides to try to save money to open one up. Would our economic system actually allow everyone to own their own business, individual or as a co-op? I guess many people could buy clothes or shoes to retail or mow some yards but I do not see how everyone could start a company and get it big to where they get rich.

What would happen if everyone who has to work for a living by working for someone else actually did start saving all their money to start their own businesses, and I mean a business big enough to have income coming in enough to live on, not supplemental money. If people were disiciplined enough to save every penny they did not absolutely need to spend they would cut their own throats economically. They would most likely end up losing their jobs because the extra money from others wasn't circulating (everyone saving so no money coming in where they work or not as much) and their savings would have to be used to take care of themselves until they found work.

Banks--even if people saved and somehow managed not to lose their jobs with everyone around them saving every last penny the banks could not loan everyone enough money to go out and start their business.




Capitalism may work extremely well for a few and not to many for many but it seems for it to succeed it has to have most people not want to be in the higher income ranges and/or not be capitalists.

The idea of everyone owning their own business is actually not that good of an idea from a risk standpoint. What should be encouraged is more savings/investment into a wide range of assets: small pieces of many businesses, some real estate, bonds, etc.

Of course, owning a piece of a business you work at is also fine, but it shouldn't make up a huge chunk of your wealth unless that business is your passion and you are the one essentially sustaining its existence.

If everyone started saving massively more, then capital costs could drop and more money would be invested into automation. You'd also see more investment into non-perishable goods and goods more immune from obsolesce, and companies could increase inventory sizes to prepare for the future consumption. Jobs wouldn't necessarily be killed off if everyone worked to build massive inventories and worked at storage facilities for that inventory (etc.). However, the return on investment would decline. It isn't really possible for everyone to get to the point that they can live off of savings unless we get to the point where everything can be automated. However, why should that even be a goal anyway?

 

[coloradoatheist]

Homelessness and poverty are the default nature of humans, capitalism has gotten us out of that.

Wow, what a bizarre statement. Homelessness and poverty are not the default state of nature for humans. Shelter is a basic requirement for survival and for humans the default state is take care of offspring for a long time during brain development. Ergo, the default state for a newborn is to be born with family support and a shelter. Before capitalism, people had clothes, too. I am very surprised you didn't know that.

I think the other problem with your claim is that you attribute all human progress to capitalism. What about science and technology? What about human compassion? What about anti-capitalism (and socialism)? Let's not pretend capitalism landed us on the Moon or created the Scientific Method or the United Nations. Or Homes or Clothes.

Except for the science and technology to get down to the people it went through the corporations to get there. No on scientific method, but yes on the items needed to get to the moon. Why wasn't there a United Nations in the previous thousands of years prior to modern capitalism? Homes yes, before capitalism, but not very good ones. Drafty, polluted. Clothes would probably b e the best without capitalism, though it would just be the basics.

 

[Axulus]

You need to pay less attention to the news, and more attention to history.

Everything is awful right now. But nowhere CLOSE to as awful as it has been up until now.

Pick any date more than twenty years in the past, when fewer people were hungry than today; or when there was less death from war and conflict. You can't do it.

You're wrong on both counts, as there were certainly periods of time in which the population of humans was so low that, by definition, there would be fewer total hungry people and fewer total deaths from war. Your sentiment is true in a per capita sense, but it's not at all obvious to me that per capita numbers are indicative of progress when absolute numbers don't tell the same story.

From the perspective of someone who is starving, it makes no difference that there are billions of non-starving people in the world, making his status a statistical rarity. If there are tens of millions of starving people, every one of them is a tragedy, regardless of what proportion of the total they comprise.

Wind the clock back to a time when the total population of humans was far lower than it is today, and perform the same mental exercise. To be a starving person is still a harm and a tragedy, but it is not more of a tragedy because there are fewer non-starving people elsewhere in the population. In fact, if the total number of starving people in such a time is in the tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands, that's arguably better than today's situation, as there are fewer instances of conscious suffering.

Whenever I hear these per capita arguments, I cringe at the prospect of planetary exploration. Suppose we manage to reduce poverty to 1% of the population, but simultaneously we colonize the solar system and increase the number of humans to 10 trillion. Do we pat ourselves on the back because there are only 100 billion humans living in poverty...? I think we should recoil in horror at the idea. Nothing makes that number okay. Moral hazard doesn't scale like that in my book.

Yes, we should pat ourselves on the back, assuming that the lives of the other 9.9 trillion are essentially worth living. If you have a situation with a million lives, where 90% of them are filled with constant suffering and starvation, the goodness of the remaining 10% of lives is not enough to override that (it would probably be better for the species to go extinct if there was no way to improve that going forward), but it would be if 99% of the lives are worth living.

 

[Axulus]

Thought experiment. Everyone has the ability to own their own business and decides to try to save money to open one up. Would our economic system actually allow everyone to own their own business, individual or as a co-op? I guess many people could buy clothes or shoes to retail or mow some yards but I do not see how everyone could start a company and get it big to where they get rich.

What would happen if everyone who has to work for a living by working for someone else actually did start saving all their money to start their own businesses, and I mean a business big enough to have income coming in enough to live on, not supplemental money. If people were disiciplined enough to save every penny they did not absolutely need to spend they would cut their own throats economically. They would most likely end up losing their jobs because the extra money from others wasn't circulating (everyone saving so no money coming in where they work or not as much) and their savings would have to be used to take care of themselves until they found work.

Banks--even if people saved and somehow managed not to lose their jobs with everyone around them saving every last penny the banks could not loan everyone enough money to go out and start their business.




Capitalism may work extremely well for a few and not to many for many but it seems for it to succeed it has to have most people not want to be in the higher income ranges and/or not be capitalists.

We have the phenomena of Walmart moving into an area and killing the local merchants, and local entrepreneurs. In return, that area gets minimum wage jobs.

And yet there are lots of new merchants opening up in their place: wine bars, lounges, restaurants, coffee shops, specialty retail, etc.

By the way, you think those mom and pops were paying more in wages and benefits than Wal-Mart? Think again.

 

[coloradoatheist]

Homelessness and poverty are the default nature of humans, capitalism has gotten us out of that.

Wow, what a bizarre statement. Homelessness and poverty are not the default state of nature for humans. Shelter is a basic requirement for survival and for humans the default state is take care of offspring for a long time during brain development. Ergo, the default state for a newborn is to be born with family support and a shelter. Before capitalism, people had clothes, too. I am very surprised you didn't know that.

I think the other problem with your claim is that you attribute all human progress to capitalism. What about science and technology? What about human compassion? What about anti-capitalism (and socialism)? Let's not pretend capitalism landed us on the Moon or created the Scientific Method or the United Nations. Or Homes or Clothes.

Germany's infant morality even into the 1800s was almost 50%. Was that because the parents didn't want to take care of their children?

 

[Axulus]

Homelessness and poverty are the default nature of humans, capitalism has gotten us out of that.

Wow, what a bizarre statement. Homelessness and poverty are not the default state of nature for humans. Shelter is a basic requirement for survival and for humans the default state is take care of offspring for a long time during brain development. Ergo, the default state for a newborn is to be born with family support and a shelter. Before capitalism, people had clothes, too. I am very surprised you didn't know that.

I think the other problem with your claim is that you attribute all human progress to capitalism. What about science and technology? What about human compassion? What about anti-capitalism (and socialism)? Let's not pretend capitalism landed us on the Moon or created the Scientific Method or the United Nations. Or Homes or Clothes.

Capitalism played a key role in generating the productivity to allow us to spend time thinking about compassion, spreading the wealth (socialism), and devote more investment to science and technology, and better funding education, rather than just focus on day to day survival and tribalism, as was the situation for the vast majority of humans in our 250,000 year history on the planet.

If all it took was science and technology then the entire planet's wealth and economic growth, across all countries, would've grown in sync after the industrial revolution began, without much lag time. Yet here we are, some 200 years after the start of the industrial revolution, that started in a small area in Europe, do we now find the vast majority of the world only beginning to catch up, with some countries still containing widespread extreme poverty and little economic development over the past 200 years. Yet these countries have access to much of that technology discovered over the past 200 years. Most of it is now available online for free. There are still situations where the average economic production is 100x greater per hour of work in one country vs. another country.

I think Jonah Goldberg summed up the point pretty well:

Capitalism is unnatural. Democracy is unnatural. Human rights are unnatural. The world we live in today is unnatural, and we stumbled into it more or less by accident. The natural state of mankind is grinding poverty punctuated by horrific violence, terminating with an early death. It was like this for a very, very long time.

If you took human beings, absent all of the stuff that they learned from culture and education today and put them in the wild, they would not all of a sudden start building houses and schools and have startups. They would take to the trees, and have spears, and it would take a long time to discover spears. And they would behave the way that we are wired to behave. One of the core beliefs I have about a definition of--at the heart of conservatism--is this idea that human nature has no history. And so, when I say that 'capitalism is unnatural': if it were natural, if it were the way human beings, like ants or dogs or any other creature naturally behaves in its natural environment, we would have developed capitalism a little earlier in the evolutionary history of man. We would have developed democracy a little earlier in the evolutionary history of man. In the 250,000 years, give or take, since we split off from the Neanderthals, the amount of time where we had any conception of natural rights--particularly for strangers, right? People within the tribe, that's different. But for strangers, the idea that someone we just met has any dignity or any claim on justice--that is an astoundingly new idea in human history.

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2018/04/jonah_goldberg.html

 

[Loren Pechtel]

How is that not Potemkin? It looks like it's growing only because it's being used to produce useless things.

An ilussion would be to make cardboard buildings to make it look like those are real buildings. That would be evidence of a Potemkin economy, though of course not conclusive: if the economy is actually growing and making all sorts of other things, that would be decisive counter evidence. But making a city that the planners believe will be used, and is not useless in the sense it doesn't function properly but rather, that people aren't moving there, is not a sign of Potemkin economy. Rather, it seems like clear evidence that resources have been wasted due to poor planning.

You're assuming the planners believe it will be used. It should be obvious that they're overbuilt, yet the ghost city building continues. It's all about propping up the economy.

Just because the buildings could be put to use doesn't mean they will be--thus they might as well be cardboard.

Agreed--but they are heading for one hell of an economic crash. I just hope they don't try to use war as a way out of it.

I'm not sure about that. There will likely be a recession eventually, but I don't know it will be that bad.
Still, if it does happen, I hope so as well, but I don't think they need to, as they are a totalitarian regime that can use domestic suppression instead, without risking the fall of the regime in case of losing a big war. The equation changes if a crash happens after they've become powerful enough to win, though.

They could bring things down gradually but the government shows no signs of that--rather, they are determined to maintain the illusion while they get farther and farther out in insanity.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

You're assuming the planners believe it will be used. It should be obvious that they're overbuilt, yet the ghost city building continues. It's all about propping up the economy.

You mean that they build those cities knowing that they will be ghost cities in order to make it look like the economy is growing?
It should be obvious that the ghost cities in question are a stain in China's image. If they know they won't be used, there probably another reason for them to act in that fashion, such as getting money for themselves from companies that make them (i.e., corruption), or something else.

They could bring things down gradually but the government shows no signs of that--rather, they are determined to maintain the illusion while they get farther and farther out in insanity.

I'm not sure, but if that is the case, that's good evidence they do not believe it's an illusion. Else, why would they do that? Xi surely wants to be remembered as a great leader, not someone who ran China's economy into the ground.

 

[arkirk]

For some reason the conversation in this thread keeps retreating from the facts that the title line is in fact quite true, but that is of no significance. If one understands that the sun is slowly expanding into ultimately a red giant with a diameter somewhere around the current orbit of Mars, then of course all human systems, socialistic or not are doomed. But with properly constituted socialism we move the prospect of doom far into the future. Capitalism can't even cope with global warming or bankster greed. The answer is, sure, we are all doomed and every human being dies at some point also. Capitalists in their haste to acquire wealth virtually run over millions of people with their Juggarnaut economy, creating millions perhaps soon billions of early human deaths and destruction in all sorts of ways. Pollution is overwhelming our planet's ecosystems. 90% of the human race is breathing significantly polluted air. Nuclear war or pollution not only kills large numbers of people. It also renders the environment unsafe and perhaps impossible to survive in. Yet all the capitalist wants is growth and that growth creates a polluted state we cannot sustain. That makes all capitalists patently a serious liability to mankind. Whatever their product is, if they do what they do just because it brings in money and if they do not contain significantly their pollution they become a simple negative factor to human life. Their demands for rent put people in the street. Their speculative building creates not only a bubble but a cavity in the surface of our environment that no longer is lively with borrow pits and waste ponds consisting of more than a hundred square miles just in the case of Canadian tar sands oil alone. These areas for the forseeable future will no longer be producing oxygen for us as they are tar contaminated. Their watersheds are destroyed and hopelessly polluted. Oh yeah then there is Fukushima. That was NOT SOCIALISM IN ACTION BUDDY! Then there is Bikini and Equador and Nigeria and Israel. No! Capitalism is doomed to a far earlier extinction than that of socialism. We need growth of sorts. But whatever we grow should not shut down the natural systems that provide our race and all life with the gasses a foodstuffs and air and shelter they need. It's really simple. This thread is a waste of time.

 

[Canard DuJour]

Abstract
Legal systems often rule that people own objects in their territory. We propose that an early-developing ability to make territory-based inferences of ownership helps children address informational demands presented by ownership. Across 6 experiments (N = 504), we show that these inferences develop between ages 3 and 5 and stem from two aspects of the psychology of ownership. First, we find that a basic ability to infer that people own objects in their territory is already present at age 3 (Experiment 1). Children even make these inferences when the territory owner unintentionally acquired the objects and was unaware of them (Experiments 2 and 3). Second, we find that between ages 3 and 5, children come to consider past events in these judgments. They move from solely considering the current location of an object in territory-based inferences, to also considering and possibly inferring where it originated (Experiments 4 to 6). Together, these findings suggest that territory-based inferences of ownership are unlikely to be constructions of the law. Instead, they may reflect basic intuitions about ownership that operate from early in development.

There is a natural instinct towards property ownership. This is probably why all hitherto experiments of collectivization or social ownership fail or do poorly. (Soviet Union; Venezuela; Maoist China.) Let's be mindful of our own human natural instincts to avoid calamity in the future.

On the contrary, that's perfectly compatible with social ownership, which was the norm for most of human history.

If anything, it's incompatible with ownership by remote investors etc, and would explain the backlash against globalization.

 

[bilby]

For some reason the conversation in this thread keeps retreating from the facts that the title line is in fact quite true, but that is of no significance. If one understands that the sun is slowly expanding into ultimately a red giant with a diameter somewhere around the current orbit of Mars, then of course all human systems, socialistic or not are doomed. But with properly constituted socialism we move the prospect of doom far into the future. Capitalism can't even cope with global warming or bankster greed. The answer is, sure, we are all doomed and every human being dies at some point also. Capitalists in their haste to acquire wealth virtually run over millions of people with their Juggarnaut economy, creating millions perhaps soon billions of early human deaths and destruction in all sorts of ways. Pollution is overwhelming our planet's ecosystems. 90% of the human race is breathing significantly polluted air. Nuclear war or pollution not only kills large numbers of people. It also renders the environment unsafe and perhaps impossible to survive in. Yet all the capitalist wants is growth and that growth creates a polluted state we cannot sustain. That makes all capitalists patently a serious liability to mankind. Whatever their product is, if they do what they do just because it brings in money and if they do not contain significantly their pollution they become a simple negative factor to human life. Their demands for rent put people in the street. Their speculative building creates not only a bubble but a cavity in the surface of our environment that no longer is lively with borrow pits and waste ponds consisting of more than a hundred square miles just in the case of Canadian tar sands oil alone. These areas for the forseeable future will no longer be producing oxygen for us as they are tar contaminated. Their watersheds are destroyed and hopelessly polluted. Oh yeah then there is Fukushima. That was NOT SOCIALISM IN ACTION BUDDY! Then there is Bikini and Equador and Nigeria and Israel. No! Capitalism is doomed to a far earlier extinction than that of socialism. We need growth of sorts. But whatever we grow should not shut down the natural systems that provide our race and all life with the gasses a foodstuffs and air and shelter they need. It's really simple. This thread is a waste of time.

Fukushima? The place where radiation killed zero people, despite a massive earthquake and tsunami? If that's not socialism in action, then maybe we don't want socialism in action. would you prefer Chernobyl, where the Soviet Union's approach to radiological safety killed around a hundred people, including 40 first responders?

The only economic system that has yet killed anyone due to mishandling of the world's safest electricity generating technology is Soviet Communism. Getting something so inherently safe to fail badly enough to kill people is quite an achievement, and so far, capitalism hasn't managed to do it. Yay socialism!

 

[Juma]

Boring. Boring, and sad. Sad, that all discussions on this board almost always fails.
What can be done? Some intellectual honesty maybe? Recognizing more often what the others are saying?

Socialism isnt necessarily better on enviromental problems. As sovjet is a good example of. Capitalism is definitely not a solution to ecological problems (therr has been a lot of spectacular disasters from oil, mining, chemical plants etc in capitalist countries)

So the solution to that specific question lies elsewhere.

It is allabout knowlegde. Scientific knowlegde. And how it is spread to all of us.

 

[untermensche]

If one can't tell the difference between a socialist nation in action and one in name only then problems will continually arise.

Socialism in it's best form exists in Europe today. Not Utopia but better than many things that exist.

It is mired down by the demands of capitalism to distribute things insanely and unjustly however.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Thought experiment. Everyone has the ability to own their own business and decides to try to save money to open one up. Would our economic system actually allow everyone to own their own business, individual or as a co-op? I guess many people could buy clothes or shoes to retail or mow some yards but I do not see how everyone could start a company and get it big to where they get rich.

What would happen if everyone who has to work for a living by working for someone else actually did start saving all their money to start their own businesses, and I mean a business big enough to have income coming in enough to live on, not supplemental money. If people were disiciplined enough to save every penny they did not absolutely need to spend they would cut their own throats economically. They would most likely end up losing their jobs because the extra money from others wasn't circulating (everyone saving so no money coming in where they work or not as much) and their savings would have to be used to take care of themselves until they found work.

Banks--even if people saved and somehow managed not to lose their jobs with everyone around them saving every last penny the banks could not loan everyone enough money to go out and start their business.




Capitalism may work extremely well for a few and not to many for many but it seems for it to succeed it has to have most people not want to be in the higher income ranges and/or not be capitalists.

The idea of everyone owning their own business is actually not that good of an idea from a risk standpoint. What should be encouraged is more savings/investment into a wide range of assets: small pieces of many businesses, some real estate, bonds, etc.

Of course, owning a piece of a business you work at is also fine, but it shouldn't make up a huge chunk of your wealth unless that business is your passion and you are the one essentially sustaining its existence.

If everyone started saving massively more, then capital costs could drop and more money would be invested into automation. You'd also see more investment into non-perishable goods and goods more immune from obsolesce, and companies could increase inventory sizes to prepare for the future consumption. Jobs wouldn't necessarily be killed off if everyone worked to build massive inventories and worked at storage facilities for that inventory (etc.). However, the return on investment would decline. It isn't really possible for everyone to get to the point that they can live off of savings unless we get to the point where everything can be automated. However, why should that even be a goal anyway?

Yea, being an owner is very overrated. It's long hours, stress, thousands of decisions to make each week. During bad times, owners have to be able to live off their savings. There no such thing as vacation.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Abstract
Legal systems often rule that people own objects in their territory. We propose that an early-developing ability to make territory-based inferences of ownership helps children address informational demands presented by ownership. Across 6 experiments (N = 504), we show that these inferences develop between ages 3 and 5 and stem from two aspects of the psychology of ownership. First, we find that a basic ability to infer that people own objects in their territory is already present at age 3 (Experiment 1). Children even make these inferences when the territory owner unintentionally acquired the objects and was unaware of them (Experiments 2 and 3). Second, we find that between ages 3 and 5, children come to consider past events in these judgments. They move from solely considering the current location of an object in territory-based inferences, to also considering and possibly inferring where it originated (Experiments 4 to 6). Together, these findings suggest that territory-based inferences of ownership are unlikely to be constructions of the law. Instead, they may reflect basic intuitions about ownership that operate from early in development.

There is a natural instinct towards property ownership. This is probably why all hitherto experiments of collectivization or social ownership fail or do poorly. (Soviet Union; Venezuela; Maoist China.) Let's be mindful of our own human natural instincts to avoid calamity in the future.

On the contrary, that's perfectly compatible with social ownership, which was the norm for most of human history.

If anything, it's incompatible with ownership by remote investors etc, and would explain the backlash against globalization.

I'm pretty sure Trausti is always joking because none of his ops actually make sense, but the funny thing is that there are other people who end up agreeing with him.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You're assuming the planners believe it will be used. It should be obvious that they're overbuilt, yet the ghost city building continues. It's all about propping up the economy.

You mean that they build those cities knowing that they will be ghost cities in order to make it look like the economy is growing?
It should be obvious that the ghost cities in question are a stain in China's image. If they know they won't be used, there probably another reason for them to act in that fashion, such as getting money for themselves from companies that make them (i.e., corruption), or something else.

They could bring things down gradually but the government shows no signs of that--rather, they are determined to maintain the illusion while they get farther and farther out in insanity.

I'm not sure, but if that is the case, that's good evidence they do not believe it's an illusion. Else, why would they do that? Xi surely wants to be remembered as a great leader, not someone who ran China's economy into the ground.

China is worried about major social unrest if the house of cards comes down. Hence they keep on doing it--it's an exercise in kicking the can.