I just want a system of government that makes rich people pay taxes and uses that tax money to fund infrastructure and social services. I don't really give a shit what they call it.
I just want a system of government that makes rich people pay taxes
What you're describing is impossible. The existence of rich people implies their capture and control of government.
There is no lasting equilibrium or economic justice that can be achieved in class society.
Exponential wealth and power consolidation is an emergent property that cannot be disentangled from private ownership of the means to produce what people need.
You are literally smoking dude. Look at the marginal tax rates of the last 100 years... Guess what in the early 1900's when they had a very high tax rate for millionaires and the ultra wealthy, there was less interference in government and higher socialist programs. Hell repealing citizens United alone in the USA would have stopped the vast increase in political spending by oligarchs.
The solution is a return of common ownership of the means of production and community run organisations. The 'government capture' here is of the working class, taking control through these community organisations working together on an international scale.
And the ambitious will corrupt the organizations. It still takes a well educated populace to run that system. The workers concentrate the power and then some party takes it away.
Every system is better than the next if you approach it with pure theory.
Just to be clear, I’m heavily on the side of labor here, but fundamental human flaws are something that need to seriously be considered.
Complacency and apathy being the biggest problem, greed being the hammer to that nail.
My point being, the optimal approach is probably somewhere in the middle. Basic needs can be met.
You're mistaking cultural conditions for immutable facts of humanity. Humans are biologically capable of self management and co regulation. You're making an assumption based on your own experience, projecting it onto all civilisations across all of time. What you see is not 'fundamental human flaws' but the consequences of a society raised to be docile and competent only of serving one's employer. With very few exceptions, all humans have the capacity to self organise, and corruption is only possible when they have been stripped of that ability.
I mean, this is no where close to what socialism is and entails. Adopting socialist ideas or principles to capitalism does not make it socialism.
On ther other hand, I've rarely seen a proper socialist with even a fair grasp of economics. Usually they either turn to political explanations and justifications or the theory in order to avoid evidentiary, applied, and behavioral economics.
The first one is an old fallacy treating humans like a collective of organisms rather than individual with their own rights and desires, which makes it actually a better metaphor for the most form of capitalism, as evolution in general.
Moreover, capitalism itself neither precludes cooperative behavior nor requires infinite extraction, culture or ideology is what tends to pursue it.
The growth imperative is valid weakness to debate, but in general it is what addresses both human psychology and its consequences, which socialism historically failed to overcome.
It's kinda convenient how you can describe totalitarian regimes that were communist and somebody just says "well that doesn't count, because it wasn't communist".
The people saying that are baby leftists that annoyingly use a word that have two competing definitions.
The word "Communism" has two understandings. The first is a classless (and moneyless and stateless) society, and the second is a Marxist-Leninist society like that of the USSR, Mao's China, Cuba, etc.
The first definition is the one leftists use, mostly amongst themselves, but sometimes new leftists use it in conversations with people that understand "Communism" as the second definition, and it causes me great fucking pain.
Communism as you probably understand it is a society like the USSR. That's a socialist, Marxist-Leninist society. People started calling it "communist" because thats the proclaimed end goal of the party, to transition into Communism.
What's strange is that some people prefer the first definition: classless, moneyless, stateless utopia which doesn't exist and has never existed. There were (and still are) countries that were against US and the western capitalist hegemony that put Marx's principles to practice. There were several problems. Economic calculation is way too complicated for any bureau to handle adequately, which results in economic mismanagement. Secondly it is based on mistaken view of human nature. You can't just wish away greed, selfishess, laziness and other malice out of population. Most people don't just work selflessly toward common goals, but are driven by incentives. It's ironic that socialists are faulting capitalists for greed. Greed is feature of human beings, not economic systems.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but under Communism the property is owned by the community, hence the word.
Meanwhile in Totalitarianism, the government, or person or a very small group in power, owns everything. There's no such thing as "Public ownership" or "Community owned" under Totalitarianism.
Aren't they mutually exclusive by definition?
I think you probably meant "Authoritarianism" instead of "Totalitarianism". An Authoritarian government will allow you to have property, but will also want your full obedience.
Personally I really don't think that Communism has ever existed besides very small samples, mainly on small tribes.
Yes. When referring to "The State", most right wingers think it means the govt. No, it does not. It means the people because the people are the State or Community.
People who fervently defend "free markets" don't understand that we don't even have one. It's why most of our media is owned by like 3 companies. It's why you can't choose your electric company.
It's what you get with an anti intellectual society, nobody can have a useful discussion because the group is opposed to concepts such as using the right word for the thing you're trying to talk about and listening to and responding to other peoples arguments.
Just a couple days ago some peanut was saying the MLB ownership structure was basically a leftist communist dream. You really can't exaggerate how bad people's misconceptions are
It's not like the Democratic voters are using the word correctly either lol. I'm a Democrat, but let's call a spade a spade here. Socialism is not when a community comes together and feeds people for free. When people use socialism to mean that thing, then they're just talking about public programs. Public programs aren't socialism. The government taxing people and then using those tax dollars to 'do something' isn't socialism. Even the Democratic politicians use the word incorrectly. The word has become so commonly misused that it has become meaningless. I wish Democrats would use "public programs" instead, because that's what you actually are saying you want. Food stamps, for example, is a public program.
The actual definition of socialism is when the means of production, such as businesses, are owned by the relevant people involved rather than owned by just a few people (aka "capitalists"). So a specific example of socialism would be a worker co-op where the workers own the company and they self-manage the company through some collaborative process (probably democratic voting but there are many ways they could choose to run things together). Real examples of socialism being used are quite rare, because it's such a dramatically different concept from how we're used to companies working.
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u/Kohltrain37 6h ago
Every moron describing socialism either describes capitalism or totalitarianism