Many people do give some of their money or belongings to those less fortunate already. It's called charity. Socialists want to create a world where charity isn't necessary.
I think of it where charity is not optional. Seriously though there would be charities but for more niched things. Not to make sure vets (who get more healthcare than most of the country) get healthcare or children get healthcare. I swear the charity commercials from when I was a kid about children in africa are now about children in the us.
vets (who get more healthcare than most of the country)
You may be overestimating the quality of VA hospitals.
ETA: Just to clarify, I’m not trying to negate their point. I’m just mentioning that veteran healthcare isn’t actually all that great. There’s a good reason so many vets end up crazy and homeless in the US.
There were times in my life that I would not go to the hospital unless I was literally dying for fear of the costs. A ton of people in the US are like that, and imagine how many ignore weird pains or symptoms that then progress into serious conditions that could've been treated if they'd have gotten checked out earlier.
This is one of the major contributing factors to the reduced cost for socialized healthcare: it is a lot less expensive to catch things early than to treat them later.
Just to clarify I do agree with the point you were making. I was just commenting on the fact that veteran healthcare in the US isn’t actually that great, and not as easily accessible as some think it is.
oh I get it but honestly I have seen it in action and for a veteran living in a major area it seems light years above typical. Most things I hear come down to long term care facilities, which are bad for ones the poor end up in if not worse, and people living in the stix. Which again the poor there just are getting nothing. I was in no way trying to say what they get is great just that it is additional to what the non veteran gets. I see a lot of veteran and first responder thing (another profession with generally better benefits than average) and talking about wounds but I tell you its better to be shot as a first responder or veteran than as a teacher although even they tend to at least have benefits. Its real bad if you make your money in the gig economy.
Veterans generally rate their VA provided healthcare higher than civilians rate their civilian healthcare in the US. The whole myth that the VA is significantly worse than the regular system is just that; a myth. Outcomes and patient satisfaction trend higher in VA hospitals.
My take from what I’ve been told is it’s great as long as you can stay healthy enough to make it through the bureaucratic crap. With VA hospitals, you get to take all the fun and games of a regular hospital admin and throw in a bunch of government red tape.
Ah, the classic "I'm a narcissist so I can only see that other people want things only for themselves" view. Most who are socialists want it so everyone can have their basic needs met, not because they themselves want free things. It's about caring for others, which you clearly are unable to comprehend.
What? No, I meant like when people said they didn't want to work 12 hours a day 6 days a week anymore, and then the capitalists had the police shoot them.
They don't want that. They just understand that the capitalists will literally kill them and they have to be prepared for that. This is not speculation, it's historically accurate
No, socialism doesn't work unless you force people into it. Socialism can theoretically be voluntary inside a capitalist system. No one forbids you to form a collective. Except no one joins such collectives except lazy rejects and people wanting free shit. There is a real reason hippie commune attempts have all fallen apart.
Capitalists will only kill you if you're trying to take their shit by force, which is entirely reasonable.
What are you talking about? Capitalists literally hire death squads and murder people all over the world to protect their profits from exploiting countries that their host nations invaded and colonized
There is a real reason hippie commune attempts have all fallen apart.
Ignoring the extreme scenario of hippie communes, things like "we want paid sick time", "we don't want to work more than 8 hours a day", and "we want to be paid in real money not company scrip" are pretty reasonable demands. All of that was met with violence by the capitalists. The police and sometimes army used violence, and then the leaders that survived were often jailed. So it's not like capitalism just naturally is stable. It's held in place by force.
Capitalists will only kill you if you’re trying to take their shit by force, which is entirely reasonable.
Overthrowing the current order at gunpoint is completely ethically justified, capitalism is fundamentally and irredeemably evil and anyone who doesn't see that is too fucking stupid to safely walk and chew at the same time
I just wish this was talked about more. I know AOC has mentioned co-ops before, but we're in need of proper legislation, and a legal framework, to support and recognize them. For the purpose of gaining access to capital (via bank loans) if nothing else. There are almost no drawbacks, and so many upsides. Aside from needing to learn how to actually work with other people, they're legitimately better in basically every way to traditional businesses.
Cooperatives aren't exactly socialist, though. This is a confusion of socialism that is ultimately reductive, removing firms from their place in society, both with respect to the broader economy and the state.
I'm not even super into the DSA, but this is just incorrect. Plenty of folks in the DSA talk about genuine worker democracy. Look at the different tendencies within the DSA rather than the individual candidates. The DSA's rank and file is much further to the left than AOC and Mamdani, and IMO this is a good thing because that's how you build actual socialist mass movements, rather than Bernie Sanders 2.0
That isn't what socialism is, but it is however exactly what Jesus told people to do. And yet she - a Christian - seems to hold the idea in contempt. Curious.
If you want capitalism so bad, be sure to "donate" a billion to the campaign of your favorite politician and use socialism to transfer wealth from the people to you without having to actually sell them anything, then use those billions to buy your own island...
You're absolutely right but everything that sides with labor over capital is considered socialism in the US. Banning child labor, two day weekend, Medicare/Medicaid, social security... These were all labelled socialist policies at one point or another.
It doesn't matter what is and is not socialism, friend.
They call it socialism in the USA, and have for many decades. I'm taking them at their own word.
In USA, our politicians call transfer of wealth "socialism" when they don't approve of that wealth transfer. Also, many use the word "communism" interchangeably with socialism.
A century and more of propoganda in the US has led to the perception that any regulation or check or balance on the private sector is socialism.
The average American is extremely brainwashed from a young age and is mostly incapable of questioning their presumptions on this. They're trained to happily lick the boot of their Epstein class and accept the status quo. Only a few break out of the trance in their lifetimes, that is, if something breaks the cosmic cycle of production and consumption they live by.
Hopefully for theirs and the world's sake the pendulum will swing back hard and they will embrace some type of spiritual successor to FDR / an American born version of Zohran Mamdani to run the country.
"Well if you hate Hitler's genocide, we shouldn't all have to collectively do something about it. Buy your own gun, get yourself to Germany, and start fighting Nazis yourself!"
Well that is just it, the wealthy of the US were totally on board with the Nazi. Industrialists like Ford help to bankroll the Nazi Empire by building factories and saying they could keep all the profits. Not to mention IBM developing the number system for the tattoos on Jewish prisoners and helping with the logistics of sending them to the death camps
Hitler didn't even want to kill the Jews at first, he wanted to exile them and sent envoys to see if other countries would take them. When the wealthy of the US found out they went and lobbied against this and stroked more anti-jewish sentiment in Europe to ensure the final solution would happen. Hell, even Hitler said he based the Holocaust after the Native American genocide the US committed.
US was fully onboard with eugenics leading up to WWII. There's a whole lotta retconning going on.
Not the least of it is that US were the heroes in WWII. We were "neutral" until the thing was half through, and even then barely even fought the Germans. History props America up, because one of our biggest exports is "history"...but we're the third-stringers who soaked up the glory when we finished the game 30 points up...while we were brought in with a couple minutes left and up by 50.
Us milennials are the worst of it. We got taught by boomer history teachers who heard endless exaggerated war stories from their dads and uncles and had that to feed their already stubborn attitudes. Or worse, Vietnam vets.
For real, the US is the source of the fascism which pisses me off when people say the US stopped the fascists. They are the fucking fascist and Italy and Germany were offshoots from the US.
If the US citizens hadn't invested the time and money in the European Axis then perhaps WWII would have never happened. That is speculative, of course, but it really feels the US is responsible especially after walking away from governance in the aftermath of WWI. I digress though.
You are absolutely correct as the Soviet Union did all the heavy lifting taking on around 80 percent of the Nazi forces. It was definitely the undoing of Germany when they attacked Russia, but if they hadn't we may be living in a far worse world for minorities than we have now. Unfortunately, it feels like thanks to the US spreading fascism around the world we are heading there anyways.
I'm guessing they mean, that under capitalism, most of your basic needs require money to access, so if you run out of money you have to sell your belongings in order to survive.
The goal of capitalism is to use exploitative systems so that you gain others' money and they don't gain yours.
The whole idea of investment is that you hire people to work for you and then they don't get the full value of the work they do, and it goes to you. That's how your employer makes money.
Same for landlords and basically all of the wealthy people in capitalism.
And when you aren't making enough money, you start making things so expensive that they can't afford homes, healthcare, food, and other necessities, like what's happening now.
There's no need for homelessness or poverty to exist. Those things are choices made by the wealthy.
"build one big insurance company to provide coverage for everyone. And no gaps or deductibles. And they can't discriminate who's allowed to join. And let the government administrate it so a single company can't screw you over unfairly."
At least in my state, for every MPG over 25 you get, a bit extra is added to the cost of the yearly vehicle registration fee. This year electric vehicles are charged a bit over $135. https://www.dmv.virginia.gov/vehicles/taxes-fees/highway-use
Wait, wait... Jesus Christ literally said that. No, seriously. It was something like, "if you want to follow me, surrender your Earthly possessions" and "A thief cannot rob your ephemeral wealth, unlike stuff in your house." Paraphrased poorly, but that's the gist of it.
Trust me, most people actually not know how socialism or communism work, i tried to ask to many and everyone (except maybe 2 people) do not know what either of them are
Most people have a vague "the government tells you what to do in every aspect of life" sense of communism, and think socialism is like decaffeinated that.
If you come at it without using the words, and the audience is labor, you can usually get them on board. "If your boss doesn't even go into the office and makes seven figures off your work, and you make five, how does that feel?"
Of course, some people are so conservative they're happy to stay in their lower tier of the hierarchy.
Most people have a vague “the government tells you what to do in every aspect of life” sense of communism, and think socialism is like decaffeinated
Yet they are completely oblivious to the fact that this government is telling everyone else what to and not to do in every aspect of their life...while robbing taxpayers blind
I genuinely believe that most of the people who argue against socialism/communism like this have absolutely no idea what they actually are. Anything that isn't the status quo is immediately labeled socialism (communism if it's really different) and that means it's bad.
If they are fuckwits on THAT level and the rest of you can’t manage to stop or outmaneuver them, that doesn’t really reflect well on “the resistance,” such as it is.
We can all see how the conservative "pull yourself up by your boostraps trickle down" ideology is (isn't) working for the majority of our society, including the vast majority of conservatives.
I'm not some tree hugging ultra-lib. But the bottom line is capitalism simply isn't sustainable. It causes rampant pollution and an ever-widening wealth gap between the haves and have nots. We haven't even been utilizing capitalism that long in the big picture and it's already absolutely catastrophic for our environment. It's just not sustainable. It needs to be HEAVILY regulated if it keeps existing at all. And one thing I know for absolute certain is you get the opposite of regulation when you hire conservatives/regressives.
That's Buddhism, not socialism.
But hey, good news! This is America, which means you're free to whichever religious ideology you want, with no chance of persecution whatsoever.
It's also Islam and Christianity, in theory. Some people even actually do the things they are directly told is the only way they can make it to heaven.
But the argument is with that they will say but I paid into it. Which is even stupider because well what about taxes. So there's no argument they just are mad at people because they bought into something and are too bitter what they bought into was bullshit.
Google is a private entity known for problematic practices and associations.
This being said: a decade of underfunded education and propaganda-driven social media bubbles made many people unbelievably sociopathic in their worldview.
Socialism to a conservative: anything that benefits people I don’t like or don’t care about, with extra scrutiny when it’s POC;
Capitalism to a conservative: Dammit I’m special and precious and nothing at all like the other 8 billion souls god saw fit to populate the earth with because I
✓ work
✓ go to church
✓ follow Fox News
✓ am white
This was a missed opportunity to educate people about why individual, voluntary altruism will never achieve the scale or objectives of state-operated welfare programs.
How has this gone so long here? Education, and it's oversight.. That's where we failed. Nearly everyone I've met in corporate America is too stupid to be where they are, seemingly on purpose. Capitalism was never the issue. It's always the people, and their lazy greed. Capitalists need regulation. Not capitalism. As long as companies don't get punished like the entities they fought to be, what change is to be expected?. How does a company get the benifits of a human, but not the detriment? Not everyone is meant to be out there changing the world with their gray matter. However, there are a shit load of unpolished gems out there that just never got taught boilerplate type stuff that they should have in school. Martial rule for a generation at the least. No one wants to begin at the beginning. It seems like the only option though. It's too hard. Boo fucking hoo. Murder your darlings (like artists). Don't hate me too hard for this. I'm not even trolling this time.
My point is, when there's big expensive things to pay for... there's a precedent that the cost may be socialized via the US taxpayer. Then, editorially, i'd say this is esp true for things that reinforce the status quo.
They’re just different names for the rich and powerful walking on the backs of the poor.
No that's literally the name of capitalism, as capitalism refers to a system where socioeconomic power is primarily concentrated in the hands of a capitalist class, what you call "the rich and powerful." Their power stems from their richness, and their richness stems from their private control over the means of production, and thus the ability to extract surplus value from the labor of others. As Smith put it, wealth is ultimately the ability to "command" the labor of others.
Even if you voted in Socialism here, it’d just be a new set of faces keeping you down while they drink champagne and fly around in private jets.
I mean, if they did, that's not the fault of "socialism" but of a charlatan opportunist pretending to be one to trick the workers to enriching themselves.
This would be an equivalent fallacy to claiming that republicanism is equivalent to monarchism because some republican did not actually overthrow the monarchy but kept it in power while benefiting from it. That doesn't prove that republicanism is a lost cause or equivalent to monarchism, only that the specific republican was a traitor to the cause.
Scarcity exists for a reason under every “ism”.
The existence of scarcity doesn't imply that your society must be ruled by unelected oligarchs who rule at the expense of everyday working people. Genuinely I have no idea how you make that logical leap.
Please point out the example of a truly socialist or even communist society that wasn't just cover for another oligarchy.
While you are technically correct about the definition there is no basis in reality for anything other than wealthy rule. The only revolution that even approached ending this was the Haitian. The rest are just the wealthy using people as pawns.
There is no such thing as "true socialism." There is just "socialism." "True" things, in their ideal form, don't exist in the real world.
If you think a socialist society was just "another oligarchy," then by definition it is not a socialist society, so your wording disallows me from citing anything at all, because you'll just claim it wasn't "true socialism."
capitalism refers to a system where socioeconomic power is primarily concentrated in the hands of a capitalist class
No. Capitalism is a system where socioeconomic power can be sold and bought in the form of "capital". It's true that this inevitably leads to a concentration of power, as those with lots of capital can easily get the means to buy more capital while those with less capital need to slowly sell the little they have just to scrape by, but skipping that part and just saying "capitalism is about being evil" is unhelpful because then people will say "we'll, I'm not advocating for just being evil for evil's sake, I'm advocating for allowing free trade of capital"
I didn't say capitalism is about being evil. You just blatantly lied about something I wrote, invented a false quote out of whole cloth, and are confusing a system with an individual action.
When you state, "Capitalism is a system where socioeconomic power can be sold and bought in the form of 'capital'," you are basically defining it as "a system where an individual can do X." No, that phrase is itself incoherent, because systems are not defined by what individuals can do, they are defined by what the system actually does. That is to say, to be capitalist, then the defining characteristics of capital accumulation, i.e. commodity production and the extraction of surplus value by the capitalist class, has to be the dominant mode of production in that system, in the real, physical world.
You are using idealist definitions whereby a "system" is defined by what is written down on paper, and not what exists in real, physical reality. This is a flaw many liberals like yourself have: seeing things in terms of legislative ideas and not what physically exists. It is nonsensical to define a socioeconomic system in terms of potential individual actions allowed for on paper, but they instead have to be defined in terms of the real-world dominant structure of the system as it exists in reality.
Blatantly lying and claiming this topic somehow had anything to do with moralism" and calling someone "evil" doesn't make your "definition" any more reasonable.
Your idealism stems from liberal philosophy in general. Liberals are historical idealists, they believe in human "free will" and if individual humans have free will, then surely, a collection of humans, i.e., society, has "free will," and thus society has the "freedom" to choose whatever it wants to be, regardless of material circumstances. You thus have a hyperfocus on understanding systems based upon the ideas and ideals written down on paper by the people who run it, because that is ultimately seen as the determining factor for the whole system.
But that is not how Marxists see the world. Human societies are physical machines built in the real, physical world, built upon real material circumstances. These unconsciously dictate the structure of the basic structure of that socioeconomic system, and the legislation that is later enacted is only there as post-hoc rationalization for something that already, for the most part, pre-existed.
The aim of political economy, then, is to objectively study these physical structures as they arise, and to document them as they really exist in the real world. The ideals and morals of the leadership of a society in what they write down on paper or legislation or say in their speeches is not of primary concern. The primary concern is actual material system that exists in the real, material world.
I didn’t say capitalism is about being evil. You just blatantly lied about something I wrote, invented a false quote out of whole cloth, and are confusing a system with an individual action.
Quotation marks are not exclusively for repeating what the person you reply to wrote verbatim.
systems are not defined by what individuals can do, they are defined by what the system actually does.
You mean, systems except socialism. In socialism's case, if the result turn out bad "that’s not the fault of “socialism” but of a charlatan opportunist pretending to be one to trick the workers to enriching themselves"1
That is to say, to be capitalist, then the defining characteristics of capital accumulation, i.e. commodity production and the extraction of surplus value by the capitalist class, has to be the dominant mode of production in that system, in the real, physical world.
A system is capitalistic the moment the accumulation is enabled - not just when the accumulation reaches some threshold.
You are using idealist definitions whereby a “system” is defined by what is written down on paper, and not what exists in real, physical reality. This is a flaw many liberals like yourself have: seeing things in terms of legislative ideas and not what physically exists. It is nonsensical to define a socioeconomic system in terms of potential individual actions allowed for on paper, but they instead have to be defined in terms of the real-world dominant structure of the system as it exists in reality.
This is not "what is written down on paper"2 vs "what exists in real, physical reality". This is about mechanics vs dynamics. POSIWID does not mean the mechanics are completely meaningless - it just means that the mechanics were designed to achieve the dynamics they achieve in practice.
Blatantly lying and claiming this topic somehow had anything to do with moralism" and calling someone “evil” doesn’t make your “definition” any more reasonable.
I did not call you "evil". I said that defining an ideology by a bad outcome is akin to making "being evil" its definition.
Your idealism stems from liberal philosophy in general. Liberals are historical idealists, they believe in human “free will” and if individual humans have free will, then surely, a collection of humans, i.e., society, has “free will,” and thus society has the “freedom” to choose whatever it wants to be, regardless of material circumstances. You thus have a hyperfocus on understanding systems based upon the ideas and ideals written down on paper by the people who run it, because that is ultimately seen as the determining factor for the whole system.
Did you even read what I wrote? Specifically the part about how concentration of power is an inevitable outcome of all this freedom?
Quotation marks are not exclusively for repeating what the person you reply to wrote verbatim.
So quotation marks are used to blatantly lie and claim someone said what they did not?
You mean, systems except socialism. In socialism’s case, if the result turn out bad “that’s not the fault of “socialism” but of a charlatan opportunist pretending to be one to trick the workers to enriching themselves”
Funny how you again, say, "when the results turn out bad," which is objectively something I never said, implied, of gave the air of an impression of. I gave a definition of a physical system in the real world, not a moral analysis, but you are so obsessed with moralism that you keep trying to inject moralism into everything.
You are professionally dishonest, obsessed with lying and misrepresenting everything stated, because you know a single ounce of honesty would reveal how laughable your position is. It is equivalent to arguing that if a republican movement fails to get rid of its monarch, then is proof republicanism is just a form of monarchy, and anyone who disagrees is a moralist saying "when bad things happen" or whatever.
I am sorry, but you are just obviously a troll baiting at this point.
I did not call you “evil”. I said that defining an ideology by a bad outcome is akin to making “being evil” its definition.
No one said anything about "good" or "bad" but you. You are just professionally dishonest.
Did you even read what I wrote? Specifically the part about how concentration of power is an inevitable outcome of all this freedom?
Concentration of power is indeed inevitable from limitless individual freedom. I did not refute that because I don't disagree with it, and it is why capitalist societies always collapse into oligarchies, but socialist societies do not.
The rich don't give up power easily, but they do steal words and concepts in order to undermine them and keep doing what they've always done. Your society never got rid of the rich and powerful, and you called it socialism anyway. That's your problem.
Have you lived in a socialist or communist country? I have
Which country and what year?
Betting you're about to make it obvious to everyone that your "experience with socialism" is gonna be experience with post-socialist Neoliberal shock therapy.
I don't see any lesson here. If you aren't willing to spend your own resources on welfare of others, why would you support government spending your resources on welfare? It's a valid argument.
It's basically the same as any other rule: if everyone follows the rule, you get a better result than when the thing is voluntary.
Imagine there are no taxes and no welfare programs. Spending resources on the welfare of others is entirely voluntary.
Let's say 20% of the population does this. What happens? The 20% of the population which is the most altruistic has fewer resources, some of which was given to the 80% least altruistic people.
If you do this repeatedly, what happens? The least altruistic people end up with the vast majority of resources. This is bad.
What do we do instead? We establish a governmental welfare program, and we make everyone contribute to it, regardless of whether they're altruistic or not.
The workers actually own the means of production directly and welfare is made largely unnecessary, excepting disability, then you abolish the useless state.
The government already takes our money. We want our money to be used to benefit working-class people, not used to build child rape islands, bomb half the globe, and carry out industrial-scale holocausts in our name.
We want our money to be used to benefit working-class people
No. Most people want their tax money to be spent on things that benefit everyone. Like infrastructure, police, legal framework, defence, research ect. Socialist style welfare specifically takes away from the working class and funds everyone else.
It's not even about "spending your own resources on others". Its about where the government spends YOUR money.
If I pay $100 dollars in income tax (for example), is the government spending that $100 dollars on MY healthcare, MY roads, MY sewage and water lines, MY roads.
Or is the government handing my $100 dollars off to private contracts who are then profit motivated to spend only $20 dollars providing those services so that they can keep as much of it as possible?
Socialism isn't "free stuff" or directly paying for other peoples stuff. It's about making sure the tax dollars are spent on US. When that happens, a surplus results that allows us to help others who are struggling.
Because the government won't let you die. Say that person that said "I'm opting out" loses their job and maybe gets a chronic sickness. Now they have no disability, no food stamps, no medical. They're literally dead if they don't have someone they know willing to support them.
Say one family member works and the other is a stay at home spouce and they have 2 kids. Same thing happens, except they're all fucked. Can't use the resources because "you opted out of that stupid shit".
Everyone wants to not pay into it until they need it. I'm not saying it's handled the best, not it keeps people from dying.
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Many people do give some of their money or belongings to those less fortunate already. It's called charity. Socialists want to create a world where charity isn't necessary.
I think of it where charity is not optional. Seriously though there would be charities but for more niched things. Not to make sure vets (who get more healthcare than most of the country) get healthcare or children get healthcare. I swear the charity commercials from when I was a kid about children in africa are now about children in the us.
You may be overestimating the quality of VA hospitals.
ETA: Just to clarify, I’m not trying to negate their point. I’m just mentioning that veteran healthcare isn’t actually all that great. There’s a good reason so many vets end up crazy and homeless in the US.
Literally any healthcare>>>No healthcare
There were times in my life that I would not go to the hospital unless I was literally dying for fear of the costs. A ton of people in the US are like that, and imagine how many ignore weird pains or symptoms that then progress into serious conditions that could've been treated if they'd have gotten checked out earlier.
This is one of the major contributing factors to the reduced cost for socialized healthcare: it is a lot less expensive to catch things early than to treat them later.
Ohhh, veterans.
I thought you had specific healthcare for veterinarians and I thought that was very niche
They would go to the VVA: Veterans Veterinarians Association
Not to be confused with the Veterinarian Veterans Association
Okay I gotta good giggle out of that. I imagined, okay now I'm going to use this animal painkiller and suture myself up!
you may be underestimating nothing.
Just to clarify I do agree with the point you were making. I was just commenting on the fact that veteran healthcare in the US isn’t actually that great, and not as easily accessible as some think it is.
oh I get it but honestly I have seen it in action and for a veteran living in a major area it seems light years above typical. Most things I hear come down to long term care facilities, which are bad for ones the poor end up in if not worse, and people living in the stix. Which again the poor there just are getting nothing. I was in no way trying to say what they get is great just that it is additional to what the non veteran gets. I see a lot of veteran and first responder thing (another profession with generally better benefits than average) and talking about wounds but I tell you its better to be shot as a first responder or veteran than as a teacher although even they tend to at least have benefits. Its real bad if you make your money in the gig economy.
Veterans generally rate their VA provided healthcare higher than civilians rate their civilian healthcare in the US. The whole myth that the VA is significantly worse than the regular system is just that; a myth. Outcomes and patient satisfaction trend higher in VA hospitals.
My take from what I’ve been told is it’s great as long as you can stay healthy enough to make it through the bureaucratic crap. With VA hospitals, you get to take all the fun and games of a regular hospital admin and throw in a bunch of government red tape.
You want a lot of things and have no plan to get there useless populist
Good to see the idiots on twitter still arguing like children
Ah, the classic "I'm a narcissist so I can only see that other people want things only for themselves" view. Most who are socialists want it so everyone can have their basic needs met, not because they themselves want free things. It's about caring for others, which you clearly are unable to comprehend.
Maybe fuck off back there with your childish “arguments”?
"It's only real democracy when I like the outcome, otherwise its populism" - false democracy advocates
Say the Zionist terrorist
They also want to do that at gunpoint.
Minor detail you forgot to mention.
Capitalism is enforced at gunpoint. Can we condemn that, too?
You mean like when you can't loot other people's shit?
What? No, I meant like when people said they didn't want to work 12 hours a day 6 days a week anymore, and then the capitalists had the police shoot them.
I mean, that certainly wasn't nice, but unions are an accepted part of "capitalism" now.
Describing murder and decade long imprisonment as "nice" is underselling it.
Also, "accepted" is stretching it. Union busting, suppression, and capture, are all common.
Yeah, because no war has ever been fought to bring capitalism anywhere. Ever. Not even one little time.
They don't want that. They just understand that the capitalists will literally kill them and they have to be prepared for that. This is not speculation, it's historically accurate
No, socialism doesn't work unless you force people into it. Socialism can theoretically be voluntary inside a capitalist system. No one forbids you to form a collective. Except no one joins such collectives except lazy rejects and people wanting free shit. There is a real reason hippie commune attempts have all fallen apart.
Capitalists will only kill you if you're trying to take their shit by force, which is entirely reasonable.
What are you talking about? Capitalists literally hire death squads and murder people all over the world to protect their profits from exploiting countries that their host nations invaded and colonized
Ignoring the extreme scenario of hippie communes, things like "we want paid sick time", "we don't want to work more than 8 hours a day", and "we want to be paid in real money not company scrip" are pretty reasonable demands. All of that was met with violence by the capitalists. The police and sometimes army used violence, and then the leaders that survived were often jailed. So it's not like capitalism just naturally is stable. It's held in place by force.
Why is it their stuff?
Do you genuinely believe capitalism has not killed or caused the killing of numerous individuals?
Strawman alert.
Coward alert.
Overthrowing the current order at gunpoint is completely ethically justified, capitalism is fundamentally and irredeemably evil and anyone who doesn't see that is too fucking stupid to safely walk and chew at the same time
Here is my gun, its written down you moron.
Democratic socialists do not want to impose socialism on people through violent force.
They also dont want socialism. They want reform just like centrists.
Not one DSA candidate has called for the means of production to be in the hands of the workers.
Not one has said we should get rid of capitalists.
Not one has said we should get rid of for profit banks and insurance.
They do talk about single payer healthcare but that is just a social program and not socialism.
Its all reform unless we(the workers)seize the means of production and I havent heard one peep about that from the DSA.
So, no, the DSA aren't socialists at all, they are at best reformists.
Many members of DSA would like to see a significant proliferation of worker owned co-ops.
I just wish this was talked about more. I know AOC has mentioned co-ops before, but we're in need of proper legislation, and a legal framework, to support and recognize them. For the purpose of gaining access to capital (via bank loans) if nothing else. There are almost no drawbacks, and so many upsides. Aside from needing to learn how to actually work with other people, they're legitimately better in basically every way to traditional businesses.
Cooperatives aren't exactly socialist, though. This is a confusion of socialism that is ultimately reductive, removing firms from their place in society, both with respect to the broader economy and the state.
So coops in capitalism? Sounds like reform and we know reform doesnt work, we are living thru that right now.
I'm not even super into the DSA, but this is just incorrect. Plenty of folks in the DSA talk about genuine worker democracy. Look at the different tendencies within the DSA rather than the individual candidates. The DSA's rank and file is much further to the left than AOC and Mamdani, and IMO this is a good thing because that's how you build actual socialist mass movements, rather than Bernie Sanders 2.0
Oh, I see the issue. You're one of those tankies who equates authoritarianism with socialism.
One of those people who is tired of losing and isn't completely historically and politically illiterate
"Authoritarianism" is not a form of society. All states are monopolies on violence, what matters most is which class in society controls it.
What in the actual fuck are you talking about?
Read other replies to my comment to find out. Mind the vote score, too. The vicious savages aren't hiding.
Crying about "viscious savages" because people took away your internet points just makes you sound like a pampered little bitch.
I couldn't care less about my points. Look at the upvotes on the ones proposing murder.
When capitalists do it, it's somehow not murder.
That isn't what socialism is, but it is however exactly what Jesus told people to do. And yet she - a Christian - seems to hold the idea in contempt. Curious.
I don't love religion, but many churches do make some attempt to help the poor in the areas where they run.
There are a lot of churches that are closer to a mafia with intent and fees.
long as you obey
that’s not charity, that’s extortion
You don't have to obey, they just make you pay more... to do the right thing... you know, grease god's palms
Side note: Google is NOT your friend.
shoulda said DUCKDUCK
They're not really your friend either, just the enemy of your enemy for now.
the story of tech
Yeah, that sentence aged like milk
Dear Capitalists,
If you want capitalism so bad, be sure to "donate" a billion to the campaign of your favorite politician and use socialism to transfer wealth from the people to you without having to actually sell them anything, then use those billions to buy your own island...
Oh wait they are already doing that, sorry
"It's like investments, bailouts and subsidies but for people instead is companies."
Yeah, close enough.
Thats still all capitalism. There is no socialism in capitalism even when the wealthy make huge wealth transfers.
Why is it so hard to understand that all socialism is is when workers control the means of production just like capitalists do in capitalism.
If they control the means then it is capitalism, if we(the workers) control it then that's socialism.
Transferring wealth is just that, wealth transfer.
Having the national purse pay for bailouts is not socialism.
This idea of getting something for nothing is not socialism.
You're absolutely right but everything that sides with labor over capital is considered socialism in the US. Banning child labor, two day weekend, Medicare/Medicaid, social security... These were all labelled socialist policies at one point or another.
It doesn't matter what is and is not socialism, friend.
They call it socialism in the USA, and have for many decades. I'm taking them at their own word.
In USA, our politicians call transfer of wealth "socialism" when they don't approve of that wealth transfer. Also, many use the word "communism" interchangeably with socialism.
"Google is your friend."
It might be her friend but it isn't ours!
Isn't that how people who decry socialism define it, not really how socialism actually works?
It's really more a description of welfare, which is something that can be utilized by socialism, but doesn't define it.
Yeah it's a massive straw man
A century and more of propoganda in the US has led to the perception that any regulation or check or balance on the private sector is socialism.
The average American is extremely brainwashed from a young age and is mostly incapable of questioning their presumptions on this. They're trained to happily lick the boot of their Epstein class and accept the status quo. Only a few break out of the trance in their lifetimes, that is, if something breaks the cosmic cycle of production and consumption they live by.
Hopefully for theirs and the world's sake the pendulum will swing back hard and they will embrace some type of spiritual successor to FDR / an American born version of Zohran Mamdani to run the country.
100% agree
Ask your average blue collar Republican voter what they hate about socialism and they will perfectly describe capitalism
The average socialist describes socialism as a liberal, democratic, capitalist center left government.
People would lose their shit if the government started going after private ownership.
"Well if you hate Hitler's genocide, we shouldn't all have to collectively do something about it. Buy your own gun, get yourself to Germany, and start fighting Nazis yourself!"
Well that is just it, the wealthy of the US were totally on board with the Nazi. Industrialists like Ford help to bankroll the Nazi Empire by building factories and saying they could keep all the profits. Not to mention IBM developing the number system for the tattoos on Jewish prisoners and helping with the logistics of sending them to the death camps
Hitler didn't even want to kill the Jews at first, he wanted to exile them and sent envoys to see if other countries would take them. When the wealthy of the US found out they went and lobbied against this and stroked more anti-jewish sentiment in Europe to ensure the final solution would happen. Hell, even Hitler said he based the Holocaust after the Native American genocide the US committed.
US was fully onboard with eugenics leading up to WWII. There's a whole lotta retconning going on.
Not the least of it is that US were the heroes in WWII. We were "neutral" until the thing was half through, and even then barely even fought the Germans. History props America up, because one of our biggest exports is "history"...but we're the third-stringers who soaked up the glory when we finished the game 30 points up...while we were brought in with a couple minutes left and up by 50.
Us milennials are the worst of it. We got taught by boomer history teachers who heard endless exaggerated war stories from their dads and uncles and had that to feed their already stubborn attitudes. Or worse, Vietnam vets.
For real, the US is the source of the fascism which pisses me off when people say the US stopped the fascists. They are the fucking fascist and Italy and Germany were offshoots from the US.
If the US citizens hadn't invested the time and money in the European Axis then perhaps WWII would have never happened. That is speculative, of course, but it really feels the US is responsible especially after walking away from governance in the aftermath of WWI. I digress though.
You are absolutely correct as the Soviet Union did all the heavy lifting taking on around 80 percent of the Nazi forces. It was definitely the undoing of Germany when they attacked Russia, but if they hadn't we may be living in a far worse world for minorities than we have now. Unfortunately, it feels like thanks to the US spreading fascism around the world we are heading there anyways.
Google's my third biggest enemy.
Oh! Are the enemies sized in terms of their actual side? Or relative to your hate?
Like, are enemies #1 and #2 the Moon and the Sun or something? Or is #1 a person and your disdain is just larger for them?
Just by volume. Mass doesn't come into the picture at all.
Capitalism is LITERALLY forcing other people to give away all of their belongings.
In capitalism, you just don't have any remaining belongings to give away.
can you explain this some? im not very knowledgeable about economic systems
I'm guessing they mean, that under capitalism, most of your basic needs require money to access, so if you run out of money you have to sell your belongings in order to survive.
The goal of capitalism is to use exploitative systems so that you gain others' money and they don't gain yours.
The whole idea of investment is that you hire people to work for you and then they don't get the full value of the work they do, and it goes to you. That's how your employer makes money.
Same for landlords and basically all of the wealthy people in capitalism.
And when you aren't making enough money, you start making things so expensive that they can't afford homes, healthcare, food, and other necessities, like what's happening now.
There's no need for homelessness or poverty to exist. Those things are choices made by the wealthy.
You're better off reading wikipedia than getting economics advice from someone who thinks capitalism involves the abolition of private property.
In no way does capitalism require people to give away all of their belongings. If there is one core tenet of capitalism, it is private property.
-and the property that becomes one person's private property comes from...?
(I know it might take a capitalism-supporter a minute. It's okay.)
"build one big insurance company to provide coverage for everyone. And no gaps or deductibles. And they can't discriminate who's allowed to join. And let the government administrate it so a single company can't screw you over unfairly."
pay at the pump auto insurance..
included into the cost of each gallon of gas.
universal coverage, no uninsured drivers, clear & transparent funding source.
How's that going to work with the switch over to electric cars?
Change "gallon of gas" with "kilo watt"
Kilo what?
https://comiccrossroads.fandom.com/wiki/Kilo_(Earth-616120)
At least in my state, for every MPG over 25 you get, a bit extra is added to the cost of the yearly vehicle registration fee. This year electric vehicles are charged a bit over $135. https://www.dmv.virginia.gov/vehicles/taxes-fees/highway-use
doesn't matter because it's never going to happen anyway.
This is only socialism if it pertains to the workplace and you are talking about "one big union" not insurance; that would be a social program.
Roads and infrastructure; not socialism.
Insurance and consumer protection; not socialism.
Single payer Healthcare; not socialism.
Firefighter, police and military; not socialism.
Democracy in the workplace; now thats what I call socialism.
Wait, wait... Jesus Christ literally said that. No, seriously. It was something like, "if you want to follow me, surrender your Earthly possessions" and "A thief cannot rob your ephemeral wealth, unlike stuff in your house." Paraphrased poorly, but that's the gist of it.
That's what I was thinking. She didn't describe socialism, she described christinism. She probably hates it just the same.
It’s not “ignorance.” They know better. They pretend not to.
Trust me, most people actually not know how socialism or communism work, i tried to ask to many and everyone (except maybe 2 people) do not know what either of them are
Most people have a vague "the government tells you what to do in every aspect of life" sense of communism, and think socialism is like decaffeinated that.
If you come at it without using the words, and the audience is labor, you can usually get them on board. "If your boss doesn't even go into the office and makes seven figures off your work, and you make five, how does that feel?"
Of course, some people are so conservative they're happy to stay in their lower tier of the hierarchy.
Yet they are completely oblivious to the fact that this government is telling everyone else what to and not to do in every aspect of their life...while robbing taxpayers blind
It's like the old "every conservative accusation is a confession" thing.
When they say "the communists want to make you work in a factory for 12 hours a day with no pay", that's what they want to do.
I genuinely believe that most of the people who argue against socialism/communism like this have absolutely no idea what they actually are. Anything that isn't the status quo is immediately labeled socialism (communism if it's really different) and that means it's bad.
You're a better person than me. I would have refused to have any political conversations with a person like that a long time ago.
By all means, keep giving the worst people on the planet the benefit of the doubt
Que?
I'm not giving them the benefit of the doubt. I'm calling them out as uneducated. They're victims of American propoganda.
You're getting the people who make the propaganda confused with the people who are targeted by the propaganda
If they are fuckwits on THAT level and the rest of you can’t manage to stop or outmaneuver them, that doesn’t really reflect well on “the resistance,” such as it is.
What the fuck are you talking about?
I’m scared for our society, nobody willing to actually educate themselves outside of social media
I mean the proof is in the pudding.
We can all see how the conservative "pull yourself up by your boostraps trickle down" ideology is (isn't) working for the majority of our society, including the vast majority of conservatives.
I'm not some tree hugging ultra-lib. But the bottom line is capitalism simply isn't sustainable. It causes rampant pollution and an ever-widening wealth gap between the haves and have nots. We haven't even been utilizing capitalism that long in the big picture and it's already absolutely catastrophic for our environment. It's just not sustainable. It needs to be HEAVILY regulated if it keeps existing at all. And one thing I know for absolute certain is you get the opposite of regulation when you hire conservatives/regressives.
Here, I'll give up all means of production that I personally own and aren't for personal use.
Done.
(Ok I'm not giving up my retirement account until we have an effective pension system because I'm not an idiot, but other than that done)
That's Buddhism, not socialism.
But hey, good news! This is America, which means you're free to whichever religious ideology you want, with no chance of persecution whatsoever.
It's also Islam and Christianity, in theory. Some people even actually do the things they are directly told is the only way they can make it to heaven.
How about you forego social security and Medicare if you hate socialism so much? No? Thats what I thought.
And roads, fire and police services whenever you need those too
But the argument is with that they will say but I paid into it. Which is even stupider because well what about taxes. So there's no argument they just are mad at people because they bought into something and are too bitter what they bought into was bullshit.
I know :/ i just hate hearing all these dumb arguments on the internet lol.
Google is a private entity known for problematic practices and associations.
This being said: a decade of underfunded education and propaganda-driven social media bubbles made many people unbelievably sociopathic in their worldview.
Socialism to a conservative: anything that benefits people I don’t like or don’t care about, with extra scrutiny when it’s POC; Capitalism to a conservative: Dammit I’m special and precious and nothing at all like the other 8 billion souls god saw fit to populate the earth with because I ✓ work ✓ go to church ✓ follow Fox News ✓ am white
This was a missed opportunity to educate people about why individual, voluntary altruism will never achieve the scale or objectives of state-operated welfare programs.
How has this gone so long here? Education, and it's oversight.. That's where we failed. Nearly everyone I've met in corporate America is too stupid to be where they are, seemingly on purpose. Capitalism was never the issue. It's always the people, and their lazy greed. Capitalists need regulation. Not capitalism. As long as companies don't get punished like the entities they fought to be, what change is to be expected?. How does a company get the benifits of a human, but not the detriment? Not everyone is meant to be out there changing the world with their gray matter. However, there are a shit load of unpolished gems out there that just never got taught boilerplate type stuff that they should have in school. Martial rule for a generation at the least. No one wants to begin at the beginning. It seems like the only option though. It's too hard. Boo fucking hoo. Murder your darlings (like artists). Don't hate me too hard for this. I'm not even trolling this time.
US is pretty socialist:
Socialism requires democratic control. The 08 corporate bailouts are a great example of this not being a democracy at all.
All social programs and not socialism.
My point is, when there's big expensive things to pay for... there's a precedent that the cost may be socialized via the US taxpayer. Then, editorially, i'd say this is esp true for things that reinforce the status quo.
Still not socialism. Try again.
Lmao
Socialism isn't when the government does things.
No that's literally the name of capitalism, as capitalism refers to a system where socioeconomic power is primarily concentrated in the hands of a capitalist class, what you call "the rich and powerful." Their power stems from their richness, and their richness stems from their private control over the means of production, and thus the ability to extract surplus value from the labor of others. As Smith put it, wealth is ultimately the ability to "command" the labor of others.
I mean, if they did, that's not the fault of "socialism" but of a charlatan opportunist pretending to be one to trick the workers to enriching themselves.
This would be an equivalent fallacy to claiming that republicanism is equivalent to monarchism because some republican did not actually overthrow the monarchy but kept it in power while benefiting from it. That doesn't prove that republicanism is a lost cause or equivalent to monarchism, only that the specific republican was a traitor to the cause.
The existence of scarcity doesn't imply that your society must be ruled by unelected oligarchs who rule at the expense of everyday working people. Genuinely I have no idea how you make that logical leap.
Please point out the example of a truly socialist or even communist society that wasn't just cover for another oligarchy.
While you are technically correct about the definition there is no basis in reality for anything other than wealthy rule. The only revolution that even approached ending this was the Haitian. The rest are just the wealthy using people as pawns.
There is no such thing as "true socialism." There is just "socialism." "True" things, in their ideal form, don't exist in the real world.
If you think a socialist society was just "another oligarchy," then by definition it is not a socialist society, so your wording disallows me from citing anything at all, because you'll just claim it wasn't "true socialism."
China lifted 800 million people out of poverty in 40 years. 90% of Chinese adults own their own home.
China is not socialist or communist.
China is absolutely socialist, lol.
China is a Neofascist Oligarchy that formerly claimed communism and now claims some socialist policy.
Get lost with your bullshit.
You can believe whatever you want about it but it's not gonna change reality, lmao.
No. Capitalism is a system where socioeconomic power can be sold and bought in the form of "capital". It's true that this inevitably leads to a concentration of power, as those with lots of capital can easily get the means to buy more capital while those with less capital need to slowly sell the little they have just to scrape by, but skipping that part and just saying "capitalism is about being evil" is unhelpful because then people will say "we'll, I'm not advocating for just being evil for evil's sake, I'm advocating for allowing free trade of capital"
I didn't say capitalism is about being evil. You just blatantly lied about something I wrote, invented a false quote out of whole cloth, and are confusing a system with an individual action.
When you state, "Capitalism is a system where socioeconomic power can be sold and bought in the form of 'capital'," you are basically defining it as "a system where an individual can do X." No, that phrase is itself incoherent, because systems are not defined by what individuals can do, they are defined by what the system actually does. That is to say, to be capitalist, then the defining characteristics of capital accumulation, i.e. commodity production and the extraction of surplus value by the capitalist class, has to be the dominant mode of production in that system, in the real, physical world.
You are using idealist definitions whereby a "system" is defined by what is written down on paper, and not what exists in real, physical reality. This is a flaw many liberals like yourself have: seeing things in terms of legislative ideas and not what physically exists. It is nonsensical to define a socioeconomic system in terms of potential individual actions allowed for on paper, but they instead have to be defined in terms of the real-world dominant structure of the system as it exists in reality.
Blatantly lying and claiming this topic somehow had anything to do with moralism" and calling someone "evil" doesn't make your "definition" any more reasonable.
Your idealism stems from liberal philosophy in general. Liberals are historical idealists, they believe in human "free will" and if individual humans have free will, then surely, a collection of humans, i.e., society, has "free will," and thus society has the "freedom" to choose whatever it wants to be, regardless of material circumstances. You thus have a hyperfocus on understanding systems based upon the ideas and ideals written down on paper by the people who run it, because that is ultimately seen as the determining factor for the whole system.
But that is not how Marxists see the world. Human societies are physical machines built in the real, physical world, built upon real material circumstances. These unconsciously dictate the structure of the basic structure of that socioeconomic system, and the legislation that is later enacted is only there as post-hoc rationalization for something that already, for the most part, pre-existed.
The aim of political economy, then, is to objectively study these physical structures as they arise, and to document them as they really exist in the real world. The ideals and morals of the leadership of a society in what they write down on paper or legislation or say in their speeches is not of primary concern. The primary concern is actual material system that exists in the real, material world.
Quotation marks are not exclusively for repeating what the person you reply to wrote verbatim.
You mean, systems except socialism. In socialism's case, if the result turn out bad "that’s not the fault of “socialism” but of a charlatan opportunist pretending to be one to trick the workers to enriching themselves"1
A system is capitalistic the moment the accumulation is enabled - not just when the accumulation reaches some threshold.
This is not "what is written down on paper"2 vs "what exists in real, physical reality". This is about mechanics vs dynamics. POSIWID does not mean the mechanics are completely meaningless - it just means that the mechanics were designed to achieve the dynamics they achieve in practice.
I did not call you "evil". I said that defining an ideology by a bad outcome is akin to making "being evil" its definition.
Did you even read what I wrote? Specifically the part about how concentration of power is an inevitable outcome of all this freedom?
Footnotes
And this time I do quote you verbatim. ↩
Here I am quoting you verbatim again. One indicator is that there is no other reason to put the quotation marks. ↩
So quotation marks are used to blatantly lie and claim someone said what they did not?
Funny how you again, say, "when the results turn out bad," which is objectively something I never said, implied, of gave the air of an impression of. I gave a definition of a physical system in the real world, not a moral analysis, but you are so obsessed with moralism that you keep trying to inject moralism into everything.
You are professionally dishonest, obsessed with lying and misrepresenting everything stated, because you know a single ounce of honesty would reveal how laughable your position is. It is equivalent to arguing that if a republican movement fails to get rid of its monarch, then is proof republicanism is just a form of monarchy, and anyone who disagrees is a moralist saying "when bad things happen" or whatever.
I am sorry, but you are just obviously a troll baiting at this point.
No one said anything about "good" or "bad" but you. You are just professionally dishonest.
Concentration of power is indeed inevitable from limitless individual freedom. I did not refute that because I don't disagree with it, and it is why capitalist societies always collapse into oligarchies, but socialist societies do not.
The rich don't give up power easily, but they do steal words and concepts in order to undermine them and keep doing what they've always done. Your society never got rid of the rich and powerful, and you called it socialism anyway. That's your problem.
Yeah just like capitalism/merchant guilds didn't actually boot out the aristocracy. It shook things up a bit, but they hung on by doing a rebrand.
"Everyone who disagrees with me is not human"
I diagnose you with idealism, the (stupid) belief that reality is shaped by human consensus.
Let me guess, you're from Mexico and 15 years old, and want to tell me about the horrors of living under socialism.
How many people did you murder?
Oh you're a veteran? Name every child you've raped.
Which country and what year?
Betting you're about to make it obvious to everyone that your "experience with socialism" is gonna be experience with post-socialist Neoliberal shock therapy.
Sure you weren't.
Ok, go ahead and tell us all about how the government controls everything in those socialist countries so we can have a good laugh.
So the communist government had communist labor policy?
That's the big boogey man?
Like after the French Revolution other people just became the rich ruling class.
But its not the "ism", it's the corrupt people that gain and warp the power to benefit of themselves.
Most revolutions are just the upper classes playing musical chairs while the lower classes are only allowed to operate the record player.
This is a jaded but correct view.
I don't see any lesson here. If you aren't willing to spend your own resources on welfare of others, why would you support government spending your resources on welfare? It's a valid argument.
It's basically the same as any other rule: if everyone follows the rule, you get a better result than when the thing is voluntary.
Imagine there are no taxes and no welfare programs. Spending resources on the welfare of others is entirely voluntary.
Let's say 20% of the population does this. What happens? The 20% of the population which is the most altruistic has fewer resources, some of which was given to the 80% least altruistic people.
If you do this repeatedly, what happens? The least altruistic people end up with the vast majority of resources. This is bad.
What do we do instead? We establish a governmental welfare program, and we make everyone contribute to it, regardless of whether they're altruistic or not.
Or
The workers actually own the means of production directly and welfare is made largely unnecessary, excepting disability, then you abolish the useless state.
No state, who enforces this?
The community. Individuals laughing at the idea of some asshole trying to take a 70% cut of their work.
So you're relying on individuals not to be racist, sexist, homophobic, greedy, form clicks, make pacts to gang up on each other.
That's just gang violence with extra steps
The government already takes our money. We want our money to be used to benefit working-class people, not used to build child rape islands, bomb half the globe, and carry out industrial-scale holocausts in our name.
No. Most people want their tax money to be spent on things that benefit everyone. Like infrastructure, police, legal framework, defence, research ect. Socialist style welfare specifically takes away from the working class and funds everyone else.
It's not even about "spending your own resources on others". Its about where the government spends YOUR money.
If I pay $100 dollars in income tax (for example), is the government spending that $100 dollars on MY healthcare, MY roads, MY sewage and water lines, MY roads.
Or is the government handing my $100 dollars off to private contracts who are then profit motivated to spend only $20 dollars providing those services so that they can keep as much of it as possible?
Socialism isn't "free stuff" or directly paying for other peoples stuff. It's about making sure the tax dollars are spent on US. When that happens, a surplus results that allows us to help others who are struggling.
Because you and the person in the post have the same misconception of what socialism is.
Welfare state =/= socialism.
Because the government won't let you die. Say that person that said "I'm opting out" loses their job and maybe gets a chronic sickness. Now they have no disability, no food stamps, no medical. They're literally dead if they don't have someone they know willing to support them.
Say one family member works and the other is a stay at home spouce and they have 2 kids. Same thing happens, except they're all fucked. Can't use the resources because "you opted out of that stupid shit".
Everyone wants to not pay into it until they need it. I'm not saying it's handled the best, not it keeps people from dying.
Economy of scale.