One word we hear a lot in today's political world is the word socialism. Most often it is used by conservatives to paint a picture of a firey hellscape that could become America if it is steered by liberals. But I often wonder if many people who use the word really know what it means and why they hate it so much. Even if they do know what it is, do they know why they hate it so much? For many the fact that it is socialism is reason enough. But many say that it corrects the injustices under pure laissez faire capitalism and is more in line with the teachings of Jesus about looking out for the well being of the poor. I'm not a pure socialist but I think I agree with these points.
However to be fair many conservative economists do know what they are talking about and have valid criticisms about socialism. It may have an effect of deincentivizing people from working, but it doesn't seem to me that this wold necessarily be true, since it makes assumptions of human nature and there is still a sense of earning money for your work even if much of it goes to lower classes. It may in fact result in a lower GDP overall, but couldn't one say that this is a worthy sacrifice for the benefits of socialism? I would probably call myself a Kenesian when it comes to economics, a mixed economy that is capitalist, but impliments ideas of socialism where necessary. I feel that history has shown that there are times when it is indeed necessary. The Great Depression of the 1930s was an event where capitalism hit a snag, and had it not been for a combination of government intervention and WWII, we might not have left it as soon as we did.
An issue that gets shot down in the US because it is labelled socialist by its opponents is the idea of universal health care. People say the whole system will collapse like the Soviet Union if doctors are paid via tax money regardless of their performance. I don't think this is necessarily true, as it isn't the entire national economy that is participating in non purely capitalist activity, it is only the health care industry, so it could be supported from the outside, since the rest of the national market is still operates on capitalism. Taxes would be higher sure, but there are worse things than higher taxes, like having much of the country die of preventable sickness because they don't have enough money.
Speaking of the Soviet Union, that is probably the biggest reason people so fiercely oppose socialism. Because in principle it sounds somewhat similiar to communism, which brings to mind images of Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong and having a tyrant rule over the people with an iron fist. But this is a slippery slope arguement. Implimenting some policies of this nature will no slingshot the whole country to the extreme end of the political spectrum.
Overall the point I'm trying to make is not that we should be a socialist country, but rather that people in the political world have a cool head when talking about these things and not be so ideological. Captialism is a good thing overall, but it shouldn't be clung to like a dogma, with refusal to budge in any area of society even when there are clearly problems arising. We should be reasonable and being willing to put ideology aside in order to do what reason says is best.
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