Socialism FAQ

Socialist FAQ

Social media full of socialist who repeat endless slogans about the topic.    However, they rarely understand the subject and resort to name calling and eventually blocking.

The means of production should be owed by the workers

What does this mean exactly?   You can create a corporation now and provide stock options to employees.  Many businesses already do this.  This is the company being owed by the employees.  Not all stocks are publicly sold on the stock exchange.

No one should have billions of dollars

You're talking about someone who owns publicly traded stock in a company.   These are not the same thing as cash.   The value of the stock changes every day and can drop drastically if the company is not making a profit.    If these people were to sell the majority of their shares it would crash the price of the stock and bankrupt the company. 

Everyone should pay their fair share in taxes

What is the total they need to pay a portion of?   The government is constantly spending more money so it's impossible to pay a share of a moving target.  The top income earners already pay a majority of the taxes according to IRS data.   The proper solution is for the government to reduce how much it spends.

My (True) Socialism has never been tried before

This is completely wrong as many forms of socialism have been tried ending in disasters.  What ever you think socialism is has more than likely been tried before.    Socialism is an old idea.  The leaders in Guyana and Ivory coast even tried an experience where Guyana adopted socialism and Ivory Coast adopted free market principles.      Socialism failed miserably.

The Nordic countries are a socialist success

The government of those countries have denied being socialist.    They don't have a minimum wage.  They have low corporate taxes and few business regulations.   They have more capitalism than the United States. At best, they were a welfare state in the 1970's nearly bankrupting the country and have reduced their welfare programs drastically since.

The poor are poorer; rich richer

Who is poor depends on how you measure it and the news media often manipulates the data to support their headlines.   The poverty line is based on the CPI which is constantly modified to hide the true inflation.   The current CPI would be double the reported percentage if using the 1980 calculation. In addition, the poverty level is different depending where you look.   A middle class person in California would be considered rich in Mississippi. 

According to IRS data the median income has increased over the years which indicates growth of wages.   

Trickle Down Economics

This is a political slogan invented by Democrats in the 1920's.   The treasurer wanted to lower taxes on the rich because they were hiding their money in tax shelters.  His reasoning was to increase investments by making it more profitable to invest their money in the economy instead of tax shelters.  His efforts failed and it was dismissed as "trickle down economics" because people failed to grasp how investment in the economy would benefit people.   According to Sowell, the number of those earning over a million per year were 206 before the tax hikes and 21 while the taxes were high at 76%.    207 reported high incomes after the taxes were lowered again.    This is why lowering taxes often increases tax revenue.

There's no economist who invented or advocates this theory.   Keynesian economics, although difference from what the namesake pushed, according to Friedman, is a better description of 'trickle down' which is pushed by both parties.    This theory says the government can spend massive amounts of money on special interest groups that will make it to the pockets of citizens eventually.   The modern version is "modern monetary theory" which suggest the government can spend without consequences.

We should return to the tax rate at 90% like in the 1950's

The effective tax rate paid was never 90%.   At the time the average tax rate was 35% according to IRS data.  The top tax rate was set at 90% but they also had a complicated tax code which allowed many deductions reducing the effective rate.

The rich just move their money to places that aren't taxed.   It's often the middle class who suffer the most because they aren't able to move their money to tax shelters.

We need equality 

Equality under the law is something everyone has in the United States and most Western countries.  This means everyone has the same starting position and is treated the same by the law.

We need Equity 

Equity, the equal distribution of resources is not possible.   Siblings from the same household don't end up with the same distribution.    The only way to attempt this is a powerful central government that forces people to have equal resources.   The way this works is two cattle ranchers start with the same number of cattle; say 10.   Over a year, one works hard and raises good quality herds and increases the number to 20.  The second rancher doesn't put any effort into the cattle and most are underweight plus two die.  The government comes in and takes 12 from the first rancher, keeps 4, sells the remaining 8 to rancher 3.

This is a work in progress and will be updated as I encounter more socialist on social media. Check back often.