I’ve wanted to write a critique of Einstein’s socialist economics myself for a long time, but never found the time. And now, ‘my labor is done for me by others’, not via socialism, but freedom.
Here’s the best excerpt (by George F. Smith):
In 1949 he authored an essay, Why Socialism?, that detailed his opposition to capitalism and promoted not just socialism but global socialism. It is rife with naive fallacies and gross misunderstandings: “Production is carried on for profit, not for use. There is no provision that all those able and willing to work will always be in a position to find employment; an ‘army of unemployed’ almost always exists.” “Unlimited competition leads to a huge waste of labor, and to that crippling of the social consciousness of individuals . . .”
To his credit Einstein closed his essay realizing the danger inherent in his proposal:
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?