Sorry, I just get so sick of the BS taught in schools about the wonders of socialism and how everyone can be equal in a utopian paradise. The only result is everyone is equally miserable and poor, while the ruling class politicians and their cronies have all the money and power over individuals lives. Take a look at Cuba and Venezuela, North Korea for examples. The Soviet Union also failed. It never works, but for some reason people never learn and keep trying.
It's much OT but just my 5 last cents:
You missunderstand somethng really importend: Not the system is wrong in socialsm, the ruler are. It's just human beeing, that not many ppl are able to control that much power without to get corrupt by the power.
And you misunderstand that the system causes those people to become the rulers. It attracts that kind of people. And absolute power corrupts absolutely. Socialism will always have this problem. It also breeds laziness. Far too many people are happy to coast through life expecting others to do the work to support them. This always brings down the whole system. That is the true story of the first American Thanksgiving. The mayflower compact was a socialist agreement that everyone would share their harvest and the central governors would give out the food to the people based on their need. The first 2 years of this more than half the colony starved to death because everyone figured their neighbor would grow enough food that they wouldn't have to work hard at it since they would just eat their neighbors crops. The problem was, when most of them thought this way, there wasn't enough food to go around. After 2 years of this William Bradford tore up the mayflower compact and everyone got their own piece of land and were told everything they harvest was theirs to eat or trade. Their harvest that year was abundant and they had so much food they invited the Indians for a feast (I know, not what you were taught in school, but that's part of my point). Capitalism takes advantage of human nature, call it greed if you want, but people will work hard for their, and their families, own good. When people have a large percentage of their labors taken and given to people that are coasting, it saps their motivation to work hard too.
Socialism has always failed, and always will fail. It's inevitable. Eventually you run out of other peoples money. The only place socialism could ever work is in heaven... and I'm and atheist so I guess you know where I stand on that one too. (In fact the religious teachings about it I believe is why it keeps being tried. Even the conservative religious people, Judeo-Christian's at least, that are generally for free market capitalism sympathize with socialism because that's the way the believe things will work in heaven) As soon as you put real people in the system it will always fail. I understand why academics look at it and think how wonderful it could be, and in theory, sure, it sounds nice. But real people don't work that way. People aren't machines that can be programmed to behave in a certain way. The only way to enforce people to work in that system is through tyranny (or universally loving your neighbor, which isn't going to happen on this earth). It has happened every single time it's been tried. And will continue to fail and cause the death, torture and general misery of millions of people along the way.
The definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Show me a place where it socialism is the norm and tell me it hasn't happened, and I'll point right back at it and show you how it is happening, it just hasn't collapsed yet, but it's on the way. It takes time, but it always happens, unless by some miracle people realize what is happening and reverse course before it's too late. Look at the massive debt of all the socialist countries, that's how it starts. And don't tell me "Yeah, well America is capitalist and they are in debt too." It's the socialist policies of the US that have put the US in debt. Cut those socialist policies out of the government and we have a maybe 20% tax rate and still have more money than we know what to do with along with a booming economy and extremely low un-employment. The problem in America doesn't have true capitalism anymore, it's crony-capitalism and socialism. There hasn't been true capitalism in the US for nearly 100 years, maybe even longer than that. America is still prosperous because of the capitalist underpinnings of the constitution. It was powerful enough to make us a superpower in an amazingly short time, and we are still coasting on the massive power capitalism gave the country, but the steam is running out unless we change course and go back to it. Everyone looks at the failures of the US and blames it on the capitalism, but it's the crony-capitalism that people confuse with true capitalism. They aren't the same thing by a long shot. the Federal government of the US was never meant to be much more
What everyone needs is equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. Equality of opportunity requires a small government that doesn't have the power to pick winners and losers.
As soon as government has that kind of power corruption enters the system. It's human nature, it's un-avoidable. If you want to get a picture of what ultimately happens when we demand our government give us equality of outcome read Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut. It's a short story, only a few pages, so no reason not to do it.
There will always be pockets of poverty in capitalism, that's what people point at and try to tear it down with. But for the most part that poverty doesn't last, people move in and out of poverty all the time in capitalism. It isn't a permanent condition. And even the poverty in capitalism is far superior to the poverty in any other form of government. In Free market capitalism, as long as people are willing to work hard, they will have a chance to get ahead. In communist countries it's nearly impossible to get ahead. If you were born the son of a ditch digger, you will grow up to be a ditch digger. And communism is just the next step past socialism. You can already hear the cries for it in western socialist countries. "The only way to solve the debt problem is to take all the money from the rich and re-distribute it to the people." It was a similar cry that created the Soviet Union.
What people don't seem to understand about the rich, at least first generation rich, not the ones that inherited a fortune, is that without them, most of us would be poor. They invented something, or some process that made other people's lives better. Their products actually created money that didn't exist before they started their business. There isn't a set amount of money in the world that is just divided up un-equally. Without their ideas and inventions there would actually be less money in the world. People get the idea that they are takeing and hoarding all the money, but much of the money they have wouldn't even exist without them. As to the money you spend on their products... if you think the price is too high, don't buy it. No one is forcing you to. If you think their product will give you some value to your life and that the price they are asking is worth the benefit you receive, who cares if they get rich on it? You got something you wanted out of the deal too. If other people are willing to pay more than you for a product, why should they sell it to you at a lower price? What makes you so special?
Look, I understand being envious of people that have more than you do. I've been poor, hell I'm really not in that great of shape now. I can't work a normal job because I get Cluster Headaches. (Imagine a day long migraine packed into 30-120 minutes and repeat up to 10 times a day. clusterheadaches.com for more info if you are curious) I'd love to have some of the expensive fancy toys the rich have, hell I'd just like to have a normal life without pain. But don't get so jealous that you can't see that buying those expensive toys is how the rich can put their money to work for everyone else. When they buy those toys, it gives the people that make them jobs so that they can feed their families and buy smaller toys of their own. One of the worst things that happens when there is an economic crisis like there was at the end of 2008 (caused because the government
forced banks to make loans to people that couldn't afford them, not because of greedy capitalists as you've been told) is that people resent the rich for spending money and so the rich try to remain inconspicuous about their spending. This only exacerbates the problem, we need them spending, especially when the rest of us aren't due to financial hardships. That's what gets the economy back on track. But instead people start demanding higher taxes on the rich, which only makes them spend even less.
Try to look at the whole economy not as one economy but as 2 distinctively different economies. One is the private sector economy, the other is the public sector economy, government spending. Remember, everything the government spends must first be taken out of the public sector economy in the form of taxes. So government spending does NOT help the overall economy. It can't, because before the government can spend money it mush first take it from the economy in one way or another. Taxing it, borrowing it from future taxes, or printing it, which devalues the money with inflation. So government spending to "help the economy" is like having a blanket that isn't long enough, so you cut some off of the bottom and sew it on the top. In the short term your chest will feel warmer... but before long your feet get cold. Not to mention a lot of the length of the blanket actually gets shorter because of the waste introduced by the overlap where you sewed it back together. Now on the other hand... if the government were to cut taxes, that leaves more money in the hands of the people and businesses to invest in their companies and their lives. More individuals with more money to spend quickly turns into more sales for businesses, who in turn hire more people to make the more products and services demanded by the public, which means even more people have jobs, and therefore money to spend on even more products, and before long the economy is booming again. that increase in the economy then leads to more tax revenue because taxes are collected only when money changes hands. With a lower tax rate, money changes hands more often and the treasury actually receives more dollars.
The real irony of socialism, is that in order to pay for all the social programs that socialists want to create what they need to do is keep taxes low. But in practice they want control more, so they tax more and bankrupt the country.
Sorry didn't mean to hi-jack the thread, but I just get frustrated by how mis-understood Free Market Capitalism is. I kinda thought the bitcoin crowd would get it. But it is to be expected when it is government doing the education. They of course want to protect themselves with their version of the story. The real beauty of bitcoin is that there is no government involvement. No federal reserve printing money to cause inflation so they can inflate away the country's debt, etc. It is pure Free Market Capitalism, and that's why it will succeed as long as governments don't figure out a way to destroy it, and I fully expect them to try. My biggest worry is that governments will buy up enough computing power to gain control and destroy bitcoin with our own tax dollars.
Korxax
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