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Your reasoning is a fallacy of generalization of a bad example. Move to Europe and see how it might work. I pay a lot of taxes, but I do see value in paying the

Your reasoning is a fallacy of generalization of a bad example. Move to Europe and see how it might work. I pay a lot of taxes, but I do see value in paying them. > Socialism in practice is actually just wealth redistribution: taking from productive people to give to the poor and unproductive. This is wrong. Poor people can be productive. If salary inequality is high, the workers earn bare minimum doing most of the job while managers get their bonuses. Landlords may capture significant share of their income despite being absolutely unproductive. In such cases socialist policies may simply minimize inverse redistribution (exploitation).

matheusmoreira 1y ago
> Move to Europe and see how it might work. The welfare states of Europe are unlikely to keep working much longer if too many people start moving there in order to benefit from them. > Poor people can be productive. I didn't mean to imply they couldn't be. They are distinct groups. I meant to say that socialism frequently targets the poor with charity, and straight up demands that the unproductive be taken care of. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." Socialism demands that you work for others at no benefit to yourself. Nothing wrong with such charity, provided that people freely choose to engage in it. Socialism seeks to force the costs of it upon everyone whether they want it or not, turning it into a burden. It's easy to be the good guy when others are paying for it. > Landlords may capture significant share of their income despite being absolutely unproductive. Are landlords not responsible for the maintenance of the property? > In such cases socialist policies may simply minimize inverse redistribution (exploitation). Minimization of exploitation is just normal regulation, not socialism. I agree that this is necessary. Billionaires are a sign people are exploiting a lack of regulation in some area. Surveillance capitalism is my favorite example.
- ivan_gammel 1y ago
  >The welfare states of Europe are unlikely to keep working much longer if too many people start moving there in order to benefit from them. I'm not proposing everyone to move. :) Besides, immigration crises are costly, but long-term effects of immigration are positive. It's not the migration itself is evil, it's how fast and why people move. >Socialism demands that you work for others at no benefit to yourself. Some results of your work will always be owned by others at no benefit to yourself. Socialism is not unique here. It also does not demand that all your work is for others (by definition, working people are supposed to be primary beneficiaries). >Socialism seeks to force the costs of it upon everyone whether they want it or not, turning it into a burden It is not unique property of socialism. Only in anarchy this is not happening, all other systems with a government do that. You pay taxes no matter what. >Are landlords not responsible for the maintenance of the property? They are incentivized to spend as less as possible on it to maximize profits and they won't spend more than you pay, so effectively they are just redistributing some share of your money towards maintenance.
  - matheusmoreira 1y ago
    > Some results of your work will always be owned by others at no benefit to yourself. Businesses provide plenty of benefits in return for the value they capture. I work for well managed companies that let me just show up, do my job, go home and get paid. Anyone who wants to capture the full value can just start their own company and handle everything by themselves. I've done that too. It's liberating and at the same time a huge pain in the ass. This is a perfectly good tradeoff to make. > You pay taxes no matter what. We pay taxes so the government can build useful infrastructure and handle all the natural monopolies. We want our tax money to be converted into useful services like fire departments and police forces. We don't want governments literally giving away our money to people in the form of welfare checks. This is just politicians using our money to buy votes.
1718627440 1y ago
> Move to Europe and see how it might work. Where in Western and Central Europe exactly do we have Socialist countries?
- ivan_gammel 1y ago
  There's no socialism, it's called social market economy with a lot of socialist policies in place. Universal healthcare, generous support of parenthood, strong employee and tenant protections, high taxes etc. It mostly works and what doesn't work well seems to be fixable without changing the vector, just by reducing the inefficiencies.

matheusmoreira 1y ago

> Move to Europe and see how it might work. The welfare states of Europe are unlikely to keep working much longer if too many people start moving there in order to benefit from them. > Poor people can be productive. I didn't mean to imply they couldn't be. They are distinct groups. I meant to say that socialism frequently targets the poor with charity, and straight up demands that the unproductive be taken care of. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." Socialism demands that you work for others at no benefit to yourself. Nothing wrong with such charity, provided that people freely choose to engage in it. Socialism seeks to force the costs of it upon everyone whether they want it or not, turning it into a burden. It's easy to be the good guy when others are paying for it. > Landlords may capture significant share of their income despite being absolutely unproductive. Are landlords not responsible for the maintenance of the property? > In such cases socialist policies may simply minimize inverse redistribution (exploitation). Minimization of exploitation is just normal regulation, not socialism. I agree that this is necessary. Billionaires are a sign people are exploiting a lack of regulation in some area. Surveillance capitalism is my favorite example.

ivan_gammel 1y ago
>The welfare states of Europe are unlikely to keep working much longer if too many people start moving there in order to benefit from them. I'm not proposing everyone to move. :) Besides, immigration crises are costly, but long-term effects of immigration are positive. It's not the migration itself is evil, it's how fast and why people move. >Socialism demands that you work for others at no benefit to yourself. Some results of your work will always be owned by others at no benefit to yourself. Socialism is not unique here. It also does not demand that all your work is for others (by definition, working people are supposed to be primary beneficiaries). >Socialism seeks to force the costs of it upon everyone whether they want it or not, turning it into a burden It is not unique property of socialism. Only in anarchy this is not happening, all other systems with a government do that. You pay taxes no matter what. >Are landlords not responsible for the maintenance of the property? They are incentivized to spend as less as possible on it to maximize profits and they won't spend more than you pay, so effectively they are just redistributing some share of your money towards maintenance.
- matheusmoreira 1y ago
  > Some results of your work will always be owned by others at no benefit to yourself. Businesses provide plenty of benefits in return for the value they capture. I work for well managed companies that let me just show up, do my job, go home and get paid. Anyone who wants to capture the full value can just start their own company and handle everything by themselves. I've done that too. It's liberating and at the same time a huge pain in the ass. This is a perfectly good tradeoff to make. > You pay taxes no matter what. We pay taxes so the government can build useful infrastructure and handle all the natural monopolies. We want our tax money to be converted into useful services like fire departments and police forces. We don't want governments literally giving away our money to people in the form of welfare checks. This is just politicians using our money to buy votes.

1718627440 1y ago

> Move to Europe and see how it might work. Where in Western and Central Europe exactly do we have Socialist countries?

ivan_gammel 1y ago
There's no socialism, it's called social market economy with a lot of socialist policies in place. Universal healthcare, generous support of parenthood, strong employee and tenant protections, high taxes etc. It mostly works and what doesn't work well seems to be fixable without changing the vector, just by reducing the inefficiencies.