What is "socialism"? - An attempt to clear up myths/misconceptions

[DonFerrari]

Vincoletto said:

DonFerrari said:

I'm pretty certain that if we extinguished all forms of government and distributed equally all the money, property and etc among people it wouldn't take more than 3 generations to get a level of inequality similar to our.

My thoughts exactly. Steal all the money and property from the rich and give it to the poor and in a short time it will be all the same. Or worse.

I have a family story that somehow resembles your. My father was from a family of 12. All extremely poor. I was born when my father was 17 and my mother 21, living on rent in a crappy place. But they both were always very hard workers and smart and with vision, very different from the rest of their families. My father was the only one that decided to study. They all could have done the same. But decided stay home. Several times my father told them to go study, invest in the future. They didnt want to.

My father became very successful, it allowed me to study in a good school and became kind of successful for brazilian standards. Today we can say both he, my mother and I are part of the "elite", capitalists pigs, living out of other people sweat. We were"privileged" and my father helps a lot of people in the family who didnt have the same "luck" and "opportunities" as him. Yeah... pure luck...

Capitalism allows you to ascend and have a better life, have property and pass this to your sons and generate a circle of development. Even in a "shithole" country like Brazil.

Capitalism is imperfect and meritocracy have distortions and privileges, but still have no system that can really do it better.

I'm sorry for the rest of your family but happy your parents saw the path forward.

3/4 of my ancestors were slaves (even though I'm white skinned). Their path forward started with the great grandparents. On my father side my great grandfather came from Bahia to São Paulo walking to find a place to work (had found the good place in Minas near Bahia) sometime after he returned to the land he found. Settled with my great grandmother and started the family with both and the eldest son working the land, while all son and daughter had the opportunity to study (although the eldest because of the farm work didn't had as much disposition), my grandfather finished technical high school and ascended to bank manager in his late career also because of his achievements a lot of the nephews and nieces saw that studying was their chance to grow. My grandmother was a clerk on a store and from their marriage my father and his brother and sister all have university degrees with all of my generation having as well.

From my mother family it took a little longer. My grandfather was a construction worker and my grandmother were a teacher. Both came to São Paulo (and moved back and forth to Bahia) and had 7 son, that my grandfather never left fear for lack of food and demanded they studied (although most of them wanted to work as early as 12). My mother and aunt finished high school and later university while another aunt made high school through those 3 months courses. the other, 2 finished high school and 2 only basic school (they hated studying... but have done entrepreneur study later on, and also construction classes). Still all my generation on this side as well have university concluded.

That is the only path forward for a family (which left wing in Brazil try to destroy, the family bounds that make father and mother invest in their children and help them move forward and achieve what they couldn't because they had to sacrifice for them) it's cumulative effort and I won't accept any system that make light of the sacrifice they done to give me a better situation than they have and try to blame the ones that inherited that sacrifice because of those that din't.... I have seem to many people that prefer to party instead of study and them blame others for theirs failures.

VGPolyglot said:

DonFerrari said:

Necessitating a car doesn't mean a 15k USD car, there are plenty of 500 USD cars.

For every barrier you or socialism think and that the government feel they'll need to intervene, capitalism and entrepreneur find an alternative for the problem and solve it. The government just end up putting more barriers, and people saying others can't thrive without their help or intervention just do those people a disfavor.

"The government" did you read my OP?

Yes I read... and did you read what I wrote? Because all you have done in the examples is trying to put barriers on what people can achieve because of the "evil capitalism", while saying all cases that people won despise the supposed barriers doesn't count.

Still waiting for why someone need a 15k car instead of a 500 (if he really needs a car), how is it impossible for a group of 10 people to put together 10k to start a business (even if evidence show that a lot of people start their own business with very little money). The truth is that the easiest way is to accept a wage and work for someone that is taking the risk and profiting with it.

ArchangelMadzz said:

VGPolyglot said:

Social democracy.

Thanks.

Saeko said:

We have all that in switzerland, even if the country is very liberal, is a Direct democracy here.

And we start making test soon on RBI in a few town/city.

Yeah we have that here in the UK too which I'm very happy about. 

I hate the idea that someone gets a serious illness and they have to worry about debt from healthcare bills. 

But do you like the idea that the government will take money from everyone to give it to possible ones that didn't make their own plans, savings, etc?