Current Events > Why do people not like socialism?

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MrMallard posted...

I don't see how some stupid f***s can stan a company like Amazon for f***ing their employees in the a****** and be okay with them getting millions of dollars in taxpayer dollars that doesn't go back into the economy, and be so against a level of healthcare that would benefit the thousands of people who actually keep Amazon afloat with their labor.

Becuase Amazon is a great company for the vast majority of the country that uses, loves and benefits from their services on a regular basis. To the point that people like you are essential the loud hipsters who try and stand out by hating whatever the majority likes.

And unless Amazons not spending a dime towards their expansion, products, upkeep, employees salerys(all 1mil of them) and so on.....they certanly are paying taxs to a extent and contributing to society.

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Trumps entire platform is I don't want to pay taxes. "I'm smart and you are dumb". "I played the system and built all these marvelous towers and golf courses and bought all your land on the cheap and sold you out and that's that and the American way." I believe in free speech and all of that. But everyone has an obligation in some regard. The democrats strive for equality and want to skim off the top. I don't want to gouge the rich here but when people are dying. People have an obligation regardless and everyone does. Trump is old money. It's been built over time. As people come into the country and are just born into it, fall through the cracks, there is an obligation as far as equal opportunity and everything else. It's a two party system as it stands. And there are gray areas in there too. That's the issue too. I'm not here saying I"m smart and you are dumb. I'm saying people have an obligation in some regard to read between the lines and we are all in this together really. And I do worry about what these politicians are teaching people sometimes.

kg88222 posted...

Trumps entire platform is I don't want to pay taxes.

I can think of a couple of more things than that

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It's gotten to be crazy. The far right is out there and so is the far left sometimes. it's crazy. I don't think Trump even knows what he is doing most of the time except he does which is the scary part. The left is just as bad sometimes. Way of the world when you have polarizing politics and as long as there is money in it. It's always been crazy in ways but they crossed that line a while ago. Where is that sense for little johnny who can't even go to the store to get something to eat and hears this nonsense. Ray has gone bye bye Egon..

kg88222 posted...

I don't think Trump even knows what he is doing most of the time except he does which is the scary part.

What a sentence

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Just because something sounds good in theory doesn't mean it works in practice.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vA9aAwiXRYM I might have missed some commas there, but I was talking about Trump.

There are several reasons...

1) There has never been a successful socialist movement in the United States. The Democrats, at their most left, flirted with lite European-style social democracy.

2) Money has an extremely outsized influence on American politics, and people who have a ton of money tend to want to have even more money, and guess what would happen under any vaguely socialist economy? This goes for the donor classes of both parties, by the way.

3) Any sort of leftist thought and leftist organizations were thoroughly demonized and disrupted by law enforcement and most politicians(especially, but certainly not exclusively, Republicans) during the Cold War.

4) Everyone knows, deep down, that America isn't doing well, a fact born out in the declining standard of living for most Americans, declining life expectancy(pre-COVID!!!), etc. etc. Even at their most social democratic, Democrats were reluctant to point fingers, but ever since they were taken over by the "New" Democrats(starting with Carter in '76) they have essentially taken the tack that things are mostly fine. That if we just excise this or that inefficiency, go along with the Republicans(but do things in a smart, technocratic way or whatever), things will improve. Nothing is all that bad, so stop pointing fingers at the ruling class, you uncouth plebes!

The Republicans, for their part, offer an explanation that is both simple and completely(intentionally) wrong: the reason things suck are those lazy black welfare queens, those illegal Mexican gangsters took your jobs, the Japa-errr... Chinese are robbing us blind. This works so well on its target demographic(disaffected whites) because it not only acknowledges the legitimacy of their grievance, but tells them they've done nothing wrong and aren't doing anything wrong. They don't need to change, they don't need to care about others(no, they shouldn't care about others), etc. etc. It's toxic validation, but it feels a ton better than some aristocratic democrat telling them things are fine and that they're terrible people(doing so is unhelpful, even though it's true).

The sum total of this is that groups that buy into the Republican messaging hardest become increasingly unreachable. Just about the only way you might possibily manage it is by materially improving their conditions, but that would require toppling the current Democratic Party, and then somehow winning enough power to really change things.

There's a reason why almost all economists favor markets

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Talk about opening a can of worms.

I dont even know who to believe lol.

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imo humans deserve basic rights provided by the government through taxation, including:

- healthcare
- roads
- hospitals
- police
- food
- real estate (to the minimum required)

However individuals should have the right to buy something nicer if they can afford it.


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TreyFlowers posted...

However individuals should have the right to buy something nicer if they can afford it.

Sure but what if someone being able to buy something nicer meant someone else had to buy something worse? And what if that scaled with wealth?

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TreyFlowers posted...

imo humans deserve basic rights provided by the government through taxation, including:

- healthcare
- roads
- hospitals
- police
- food
- real estate (to the minimum required)

However individuals should have the right to buy something nicer if they can afford it.

How can you have a basic human right to something that has a cost of production to someone else?

I mean you can make the arguement for government providing those things without saying everyone is inherently entitled to them as a birthright

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Solid Snake07 posted...

How can you have a basic human right to something that has a cost of production to someone else?

I mean you can make the arguement for government providing those things without saying everyone is inherently entitled to them as a birthright

They probably shouldn't have declared everyone deserves Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

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ButteryMales posted...

They probably shouldn't have declared everyone deserves Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Those are all free

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Solid Snake07 posted...

Those are all free

Well then people wouldn't have made a big stink about paying to keep people from dying of covid.

ButteryMales posted...

Well then people wouldn't have made a big stink about paying to keep people from dying of covid.

???

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The issue with republicans and particularly Trump is he wants to sit on the throne and coo and pick and choose who gets what. He's incompetent. He's a fascist. Blah, blah. It's not what this country needs. .There needs to be legislature passed to get people the things they need and even the playing field a bit. That's not going to happen with the house and senate in gridlock and Trump in office. I don't mind conservatives as far as slowing things down and regulating things sometimes but it really depends on the time and reason for it . Democrats want to expand things and do the same things anyways but for totally different reasons. New legislature is necessary and the rhetoric from both sides is bad sometimes. With Trump in office though that's not happening and it's really that simple. There needs to be a sitting Democratic president to be able to push those things through congress.

kg88222 posted...

The issue with republicans and particularly Trump is he wants to sit on the throne and coo and pick and choose who gets what. He's incompetent. He's a fascist. There needs to be legislature passed to get people the things they need and even the playing field a bit. That's not going to happen with the house and senate in gridlock and Trump in office. I don't mind conservatives as far as slowing things down and regulating things sometimes but it really depends on the time and reason for it . Democrats want to expand things and do the same things anyways. New legislature is necessary and the rhetoric from both sides is bad sometimes. With Trump in office though that's not happening and it's really that simple. There needs to be a sitting Democratic president to be able to push those things through congress.

Politics aside, why would you think the government would be more efficient than markets at readily providing people the things they need and want?

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Solid Snake07 posted...

???

Sigh...

ButteryMales posted...

Sigh...

I'm just asking you to clarify what you mean. Your post was incredibly vague

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People are trash and corruptible and cannot be trusted
Doesn't matter if it's 10 dollars or 10k and in my part of the world especially, once it's given to the government, it'll just be used to fatten a fat rat
I do agree that some things should be publicly owned and funded though. Education and mandatory unavoidable health expenses, for example
And by that I mean hereditary diseases and things that cannot be avoided by making better life choices. Lung cancer patients that smoked for 10 years can go fuck themselves
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Solid Snake07 posted...

I'm just asking you to clarify what you mean. Your post was incredibly vague

It's obvious to everyone else.

Solid Snake07 posted...

Politics aside, why would you think the government would be more efficient than markets at readily providing people the things they need and want?

How about an appropriate pandemic response?

ButteryMales posted...

It's obvious to everyone else.

Lol, okay well it's not obvious to me and this is an exchange between you and I that no one else has commented on.

So do you want to clarify what you mean or should we just end the meaningless discourse here?

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It depends on who is in office honestly. If people are voting in the right people and government is working as intended and like it should, it should do it's job. This country has a government. That's the goal ultimately is to utilize it. This is America. The government is supposed to be the government and govern in times like that. Charlie Baker for example he's a republican and I don't mind him too much. He's pretty liberal but can be a stickler on things.

ButteryMales posted...

How about an appropriate pandemic response?

...that has nothing to do with what I asked. Are you drunk?

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Solid Snake07 posted...

Lol, okay well it's not obvious to me and this is an exchange between you and I that no one else has commented on.

So do you want to clarify what you mean or should we just end the meaningless discourse here?

Yeah, let's end it here. You always seem to want the last word so I doubt it.

This is specifically for the Life, Liberty, Pursuit discussion. Go ahead and answer my question.

Solid Snake07 posted...

...that has nothing to do with what I asked. Are you drunk?

People don't want or need appropriate pandemic responses now?

I honestly think Biden will do a pretty good job. I voted for him. Charlie Baker is a republican and two sides of the fence and depends on what you need or want, but I think both are fairly respectable politicians. The presidency is a circus regardless and I wish they'd do away with some of that. Although some of it is just funny. Some of it not so much.

ButteryMales posted...

Yeah, let's end it here. You always seem to want the last word so I doubt it.

This is specifically for the Life, Liberty, Pursuit discussion. Go ahead and answer my question.

if you asked something coherent I probably would have. Have a good night brotha

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Something else to mention, hopefully it was mentioned already but I don't feel like reading the entire topic.

Socialism is defined as public ownership of the means of production. Welfare capitalism is not socialism. Regulated capitalism is not socialism. High taxes are not socialism.

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King_Hutton posted...

Americans hear the word socialism and assume that means a third world country without food because of a century of propaganda

I think you mean a century of proof.

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No, its definitely propaganda. The proof points to most of these communist countries resulting in immediate and lasting material improvements for the poor and working class.

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Damn_Underscore posted...

Something else to mention, hopefully it was mentioned already but I don't feel like reading the entire topic.

Socialism is defined as public ownership of the means of production. Welfare capitalism is not socialism. Regulated capitalism is not socialism. High taxes are not socialism.

Its been mentioned a few times, but tends to get ignored.

Cant hurt to reiterate tho
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Boy, TC, to be asking that, I bet you're in college, or at least graduated from it recently, am I wrong?

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IShall_Run_Amok posted...

The proof points to most of these communist countries resulting in immediate and lasting material improvements for the poor and working class.

lol

Solid Snake07 posted...

Lol, okay well it's not obvious to me and this is an exchange between you and I that no one else has commented on.

So do you want to clarify what you mean or should we just end the meaningless discourse here?

it's super obvious. you acting like he's being vague comes off as gaslighting for no reason

Even if socialism was done "correctly" it would just mean everybody is equally impoverished. Being lower middle class would be the best case scenario.

Of course, in reality, any time socialism goes underway, there emerges a political upper class elite that remains exorbitantly wealthy while the masses are forced to abide by the rules.

Socialism will always sound really great on paper though. I mean, that's definitely what it has going for it. But it won't happen here. If it were attempted in America, by what would have to be a completely gung ho and left leaning Democratic president and two houses of congress, it would just swivel around to Chinese style capitalism within a couple of years at most. Not to mention, the left in this country doesn't have the support, and probably never will, to actually upend a couple of key amendments that they would need to get rid of to actually implement a socialist government in theoretical perpetuity.

And honestly, before that were to happen anyway, there would come into play either states seceding or full blown civil war. American history has too much rooted in the state model. Which we see being played out before us right now with every state doing (radically) different things with coronavirus.

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masticatingman posted...

Even if socialism was done "correctly" it would just mean everybody is equally impoverished. Being lower middle class would be the best case scenario.

There's no reason America can't do what most other western countries do, which seems to be what most "radical left" people in America want from my perspective as an outsider.

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America is, theoretically, a strong enough nation that its floor is quite high compared to the rest of the world and socialism would indeed work.

We actually toss around 30 to 40% of the food we make every year so it's not like we can't technically afford to feed everyone.

That or America is actually a relatively weak nation and having to provide some quality of life floor would economically destroy the nation.

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People have brought up the negative propaganda, which is true, but also some of the biggest advocates for socialism/communism are completely trash at trying to convince anyone because they're content with just being "right".

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Damn_Underscore posted...

Something else to mention, hopefully it was mentioned already but I don't feel like reading the entire topic.

Socialism is defined as public ownership of the means of production. Welfare capitalism is not socialism. Regulated capitalism is not socialism. High taxes are not socialism.

Yeah this needs to be repeated constantly. The fact that people were acting like France of all places is a socialist hellhole because they have a strong labor movement shows exactly how difficult it is to actually have an honest conversation.

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I see lots of people being accused of being socialists but not many people who actively state they are socialists. At this point just feels like a way to try and dismiss people without responding to their arguments.

Me: I want health care for all
Them: lmao whatever socialism doesnt work anywhere
Me: Canada has pretty good health care
Them: lmao thats not real socialism I have pulled your argument apart lol

Funkydog posted...

There's no reason America can't do what most other western countries do

When you start talking about a cradle-to-grave welfare system instead of just social safety nets like we have in the US, you're talking about spending that is way too high to be paid for through progressive taxation. A lot of Americans do not see the point in a welfare system that is funded by taxing average people more, you are basically bribing people with their own money.

In other words, for many people the higher disposable income we have in the US is more appealing than having the government spend it for you instead.

Anteaterking posted...

People have brought up the negative propaganda, which is true, but also some of the biggest advocates for socialism/communism are completely trash at trying to convince anyone because they're content with just being "right".

it's more that we encounter a lot more bad faith arguments than we do legitimate ones, and legitimate questions based on lack of information are often difficult to differentiate from bad faith arguments.

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Guy who thinks the Holodomor didn't happen (but if it did the farmers were clearly at fault!) is here to talk to us about bad faith arguments

hey @g980 I responded in post 146. just wanted to make sure you saw it

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CloneTheHero posted...

because its literally never worked anywhere in any capacity. its an idealogy the uneducated youngsters like to peddle because they want free shit because theyre unwilling to work for it yet they'll attack billionaires for their "greed".

i mean, bezos and many other ceo's employ millions of people, bezos in particular has propped up the middle class through amazons business and seller model, not to mention the man started from scratch in some grimy basement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_literacy_campaign