@revelette2,
It's profoundly ironic that, while the issues Sanders addresses are all real and important, the direct somewhat socialist solutions he proposes simply don't work very well : a fact that has been demonstrated repeatedly over the past century in places as varied as China; Russia and the former Soviet Empire; the first generation post-colonial governments in Africa; in some contemporary social-democratic governments in Europe;and in contemporary Venezuela.
I believe the reasons are to be found in human nature. We are indeed reasoning creatures and it's generally not a difficult intellectual exercise for each of us to deduce and recognize the best solution for the "common good" (if we are disposed to think about that at all), and our own long-term good as well. However that is not what directs our actual behavior. Impulse, perceived self-interest, delusions of many sorts, and natural appetites are the main things that deive our actions, and we are perfectly capable of actions that harm both the collective good and also our own good, as the lives of most of us amply demonstrate.
These facts also act to defeat even the best-conceived plans and structures designed by even well intentioned, thoughtful people with good ends in mind for the common welfare. People simply don't behave as such thinkers predict or believe they should. Indeed we often act in ways contrary to our own best self-interest. A consequence is that, while the gross average behavior of large groups in broad areas may be partly predictable, the actual behavior of humans is endlessly complex, and that acts to defeat even the best designed systems intended for their welfare.
In spite of his obviously obnoxious personality, Prof Jonathan Gruber of MIT and the others who worked on the very complex arrangements for Obamacare were undoubtedly very intelligent and capable. Despite their efforts the system they created is collapsing in a sea of unfolding contradictions between their design and the actual wants and actions of the people they imagine they were serving. Except for new Medicaid enrolees insurance costs are rising, not falling, and most of the new exchanges created under the program have gone bankrupt, leaving the taxpayers to pick up the tab.
The late Soviet Union dedicated enormous resources and talented people to the effective central planning of their socialist economy. In the early years important advances in mathematical theory and applications were made in this, then new, field. In the early stages, while they were creating new industries and new services with unemployed people and a sometimes ruthless Party apparatus to enforce their plans, it all appeared (very briefly) to work. However it soon collapsed into inefficient mediocrity under the gravity of its own contradictions with the real behavior of the people it sought to control. The popular joke in the Soviet Union in the early 1980s was, " We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us".
The hell of it is that truly complex systems (like human behavior) can't be effectively governed by closed form prescriptive systems. One can limit some outcomes (and behaviors) by preventing or punishing them, but one cannot effectively direct general behavior to a given outcome. That's why market economies work better and why crowd sourcing techniques for innovation are proving effective in some cases.
