Why is there a popular rise in socialism and communism?
Posted Jan 21, 2020, 2:06 PM UTC
554
Loss of personal responsibility. People have failed at life in capitalist societies and rather than change themselves they want everyone else to change.
Cherry on top is the stupidity or bubble they live in to not notice those systems don't or won't work.
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People have failed at life in capitalist societies and rather than change themselves they want everyone else to change.
I would guess that people who failed at life have done so through little fault of their own, and can look back at generations in their families and see the cycle of poverty at work. It's worthwhile to question a system that routinely keeps poor people poor.
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Whilst there are systems that may be in effect that hinder people who are in poverty, there are also attitudes and social pressures within their community that do just as much damage.
It's a fundamental issue where people without access to money do not learn enough about it to make wiser choices when presented with any opportunity. Take any subject you are not involved in and reflect on how little you know about it. Making proper long term money via investments takes a lot of learning. But a guy with $20-50 spare a month can make a nice pension with 40 years and middle class people/families who can dump as much as $500 a month for 40 years can become millionaires...
God forbid you actually have a lot of money to invest...
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Studies have shown that growing up poor means that you view money as "liquid" -- it goes away as soon as you get it, through multiple accrued debts. You can go through the reasons for these debts, but if you're working 50 hours a week at minimum wage, you're one hospital bill or doctor's visit away from that "$20-$50 spare" going away, and then some.
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Because young people are generally less educated about history.
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Yeah i kinda hope bernie gets elected in the usa just to see the fall out
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Bernie Sanders isn't a socialist or a communist. At best, he's a proponent of social democracy (which is still VERY capitalist). I really don't understand why he and AOC call themselves democratic socialists. They're just not.
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You can't compare Bernie and AOC. Bernie has reason and logic, but AOC is just...AOC.
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She's hot.
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Here in America, Bernie is considered "left" to "far left" when if you dropped him in any other system in Scandanavia or the UK, he'd be "moderate."
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Because the game is rigged. In order for capitalism to function, people need to have a sense that the game is fair. When three people have more wealth than the bottom half of society, it doesn't seem very fair.
Capitalism sowed the seeds of its own downfall via corruption, and the government didn't try to stop it. It instead contributed in order to get their own slice of the pie at the expense of the middle class.
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When three people have more wealth than the bottom half of society, it doesn't seem very fair.
Massive misconception. Claiming wealth by net worth is a great way to sell lies or just misunderstand everything.
Lets talk about the likes of Jeff Bezos because he's easier. Of course the man is disgustingly rich... but he doesn't have billions in his bank account. In fact, he's possibly operating on significant debt that'd make average people's brains melt.
You see, Bezos is worth an estimated $115b because he owns ~60m shares of a company and people will buy each of those shares today at $1800+ a piece. For each share Jeff Bezos still possesses that is exactly $0 in his bank account. Amazon doesn't even pay dividends to boot. What this ultimately means is Bezos' wealth is an incomprehensibly large potential, should he sell his shares. Although that is a whole different topic and he wouldn't get near $115b...
Right now, Bezos' wealth is in my pockets, or paying your taxes, being laundered through some gang's racket, sitting in Bill Gate's current account or lil' jimmies pocket money. It's part of everything. Every bit of Bezos' wealth that he pulls out of the economy to make a reality has to come from other people/places. If people completely stopped using Amazon today for whatever reason his wealth will free-fall because Amazon's stock would implode. His potential would fizzle away.
Too many people don't comprehend money/wealth correctly and come to brash decisions and poor political choices. Bezos income, cashflow and lifestyle could be significantly less than top sports stars, pop stars or A-list celebrities who get paid excessive amounts of money... even though Bezos' "net worth" could be 100x that or more of the other celebrity.
Rich people don't sit on money like treasure goblins. Really rich people also don't take money away from the rest of us and "hoard all the wealth". The wealth pool (economy) inflates to keep up with the likes of the people like Bezos who actually generate wealth in the US economy... Essentially, Bezos created his wealth. The USD is affected by his wealth.
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Sure it might sound nice to have Jeff Bezos amounts of money, but I don't understand how someone having a crapton of money makes the system unfair.
It's not impossible to move up the ladder, though it may be impossible for most to get on the top rung, it's achievable by just about anyone to earn enough for a comfortable life.
I think the big problem in some way is that people focus too much on arbitrary presentations of data like the one you've presented here, and assign some kind of meaning or significance to their own personal stake in life, when in reality, there is none.
The worlds richest people having a shit ton of money has absolutely no negative impact on anyone's personal income. In fact, one could argue that it can have a massively positive one, if the money was in the right hands. Look at Amazon. You can get nearly anything you can think of delivered to your door in two days or less. That's an incredible advancement that was made possible by Amazon being a massively "wealthy" company.
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I don't understand how someone having a crapton of money makes the system unfair.
Because they achieve that amount of wealth by cheating their employees out of fair wages. Do you know anything about the contractor system in tech? Because it's fucked.
it's achievable by just about anyone to earn enough for a comfortable life.
Not true at all. If it were, then most of the people with degrees they had to take out loans for would be able to find jobs, and most of those people wouldn't be starting their adult lives 5-6 figures in debt. And since they can't, you're assuming all of them are lazy/incompetent. That is a large amount of people to make a generalization about.
The worlds richest people having a shit ton of money has absolutely no negative impact on anyone's personal income.
Yes it does. Because those rich people find ways to "legally" skirt taxes, while the burden is placed on the middle class. Yes, the top 1% pays more in dollars in taxes, but they do not pay proportionally as much as the middle class.
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by cheating their employees out of fair wages
There's plenty of opportunities out there. If you're unsatisfied with your pay, you can find a better job. If a company is breaking the law, that seems less to do with capitalism, and more to do with enforcement of said law.
then most of the people with degrees they had to take out loans for would be able to find jobs
Problem with this is, so many people go to college and get useless degrees. College isn't the be-all-end-all of skill building for a career. You can get an A+ certification for $220 and along with a high school education, that can qualify you for an $18-20/hr job. No six-figure debt required.
you're assuming all of them are lazy/incompetent
You're assuming that I'm assuming this. Hypocritical much?
These people aren't generally lazy or incompetent (no more than the rest of us). They're simply ignorant of the opportunities that surround them to build a better skillset and make themselves more valuable to the job market.
More importantly, people are also generally content where they are, even if they have their sights set higher. You could, for example, if you really wanted to, work your crappy 9-5 and take night courses at a community college, even while paying down student debt, to improve your qualifications for a better job. You could, look for a better paying job almost immediately after finding one, and change jobs every year for a pay rise. You could stop browsing reddit, and use that time to pick up a new skill in your field on your own time. There's plenty of ways that people can advance themselves financially, but it's far easier to get into a position that you're content with and imagine a better life, rather than working towards it.
Because those rich people find ways to "legally" skirt taxes, while the burden is placed on the middle class.
No need to put legally in quotes. They're doing it legally, full stop. There's nothing stopping you from pulling the same tricks.
They pay more than enough in tax. 1% of earners are paying ~37% of income tax, while the bottom 50% is paying less than 4%. It really seems like you're blaming rich people for a problem with the tax code (as you see it).
Hypothetically, if we increased the 1% income tax to something like 80%, are you really so naive to think that they're just going to lower the tax rates on the middle class to compensate? The government is just going to find hundreds of new ways to waste a couple billion more dollars. No thanks.
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Not only has Amazon improved the lives of many people, and given people lots of opportunity, Bezos sells 2-3 billion dollars worth of his shares of Amazon annually to fund a Space program that intends to make space travel affordable for the average person.
Some people think that's impossible in our life time, but there is a person alive today who is older than the airplane. As in they are older than the first Wright Brother's plane to ever take flight.
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Take an economics class. Please.
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Why don't you grace us with your economics knowledge in refuting anything I've said, rather than just taking the high ground without justifying your position there?
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People are now far removed in time from the consequences of when it was last tried and to them it's some abstract theory.
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I don't think Stalin style communism is being called for much, the most popular system is ones similar to Scandinavian countries, and the consequences there don't seem too bad.
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Actually, they were terrible there, hence why the socialist parties went from a dominant majority to losing and then regaining a very weak majority once enough time passed. During the peak of socialism in Sweden for example the author of Pippi Longstockings was paying over 100% in tax on her earnings at one point, as in she was losing money each time a book sold. There's a reason why they openly opposed being called socialist by Bernie Sanders.
More so, many people don't know that things like minimum wage doesn't exist in Sweden or Norway, and Norway isn't part of the EU. People just demand all of the free stuff and turn a blind eye to all of the things that are very capitalist about those countries that would require personal responsibility.
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The idea of equality is misleading
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In America, because 1) our social safety net is full of holes, 2) our antitrust laws aren't keeping up with our new mega-corporations, and 3) every time anyone suggests the slightest reforms to fix those problems they get branded a socialist and/or communist. Eventually you just embrace the labels and enjoy the communism memes.
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Underrated response here ^
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Not here, in Western Europe, for sure. Everyone is fed up with this shit, here.
And I'm deeply sorry for America...
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And I'm deeply sorry for America...
Why?
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Because people feel like their concerns and rights aren't adequately addressed by the current capitalist system
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The failure of neoliberalism is driving a desire for change due to rising living costs, stagnant wages, climate change, monopolisation, and lack of social programmes.
Socialism or communism in all their many definitions tend to offer things that fix some of these.
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Bernie sanders
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Every system is capable of becoming corrupt. People believe a 180 degree change will make a difference and the current greed on the capitalist system has become saturated with corruption.
Changing "the system" from capitalism will only change who and how corruption is controlled by.
I believe we should fix a system rather than replace it. I think every time you swing 180 degrees you are avoiding the lesson that needs to be learned
It's hard work to fix a broken system.
People are attracted to the "easy answer" that they see in tossing out dirty laundry instead of cleaning it.
Unbridled capitalism and unbridled socialism and unbridled communism all lead to corruption.
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Lack of personal accountability and the quality of education.
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You listed the reasons that have led to trump...
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👆🏻 exhibit A
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exactly
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Nope. You don’t understand. I’m using you as the example.
See what I mean?
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I dont think there is a rise in communism, just a rise in people who think social democracy is communism.
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There's nothing new about the popularity of Socialism and Communism. They've been around for over 100 years and have always been present in some way or another in almost every society.
Social media just makes it seem like it's new because 20 years ago you would have no idea how many young Communists existed in New Jersey or Australia.
Basically as long as you have an unequal society where a tiny percentage at the top own the majority of wealth and working class people struggle to make ends meet, then Communism/Socialism will be attractive.
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[deleted]
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It's just part of a vicious cycle that has existed throughout the human history. Currently it is accelerated due to the grievances people have against their governments almost all over the world from Hong Kong to Chile. This has happened time and time again.
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Hardened men make good times. Good times make soft men. Soft men make hard times type of deal?
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Sort of. At times we love socialism, then we realize it sucks; then we love capitalism then we find irresponsibility and corruption makes it a bad choice; then we prefer a communist rule only to be fucked in the ass; then we want responsible monarchy, to be fucked again... There will be no end to it, nothing will be perfect, it's all part of a cycle and majority of people born in their time periods are going to act up against whatever trend they think is hurting them in their life. This cycle of politics is just a giant example of how life goes on, years pass by, yet nothing really changes. Damn, it's 2020, we are at the peak of science and technology and yet people will believe stupid news like climate change denial or anti vaccination stuff, etc. It's funny to think that same things happened even hundreds of years ago.
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Because people don't get how it really works...
Sure it sounds awesome on paper, that everyone is equal... but reality has it that some are more equal than others.
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Because the path to hell is paved with good intentions and people always think they're somehow smarter and more capable of accomplishing something that has not only failed every time it has been attempted but has failed so catastrophically that it has created more death and misery than anyone could imagine. They always say it wasn't the real thing, or there was outside meddling, or something of the such, but this time they say it will be different.
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It hasn't failed every time
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One name should really some it up. Jeff Bezos
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A rise in socialism and communism is usually a sign that a government or country is doing very well. As people become comfortable and safe and entitle and they forget about struggle and how they became safe and comfortable, they start looking for reasons to be unhappy. when there is nothing else to fear, people turn to their neighbors and peers. Jealousy and greed seep in and people start worrying about how much more someone has than they do. They decide that isn't fair and demand equalization.
And... as history has shown us, this tends to be the end of the cycle of government. Socialism and Communism are not sustainable government models and lead to the collapse of societies, which inevitably leads to oligarchy, monarchy or dictatorship to restart the cycle. (see Ancient Rome, The Aztecs, The Inca.... etc)
Any real evidence would be great
I'm not your personal researcher. You are not obligated to believe me and I am not obligated to convince you.
Do the work yourself. Its not hard.
In arguments, the person who makes a claim has the burden of proof for it.
That is only if I care to convince you and I don't. I know what I know. I have shared that knowledge. You can look for information on the subject and confirm my conclusion or you can draw your own or chose to be ignorant.
Or you can chose to not give a f&*K about this particular subject.
But at the end of the day, your lack of knowledge on this subject is your problem, not mine.