Every morning you drive on a road you didn’t build, drop your kids at a school you didn’t found, and trust that if your house catches fire, someone will show up without asking for a credit card first. None of that came from a business looking to profit. It came from all of us chipping in so everyone gets something we couldn’t manage alone.
That’s the basic idea behind socialism: we’re stronger when we pool what we have. And we already live it. When big banks and automakers were about to collapse, the government stepped in with public money to save them. If it’s fine to share the risk for corporations, why is it “radical” to share it for regular people?
So the question isn’t whether we do socialism. We already do. It’s who the leadership is willing to do it for.
What you’re describing is fine; it’s not wrong. The issue is that you’re abusing the term “socialism,” which already has a well-defined and widely agreed-upon meaning that is quite different from the one you’re using.
You’re right, the textbook definition is social ownership of the means of production, and “socialized costs” or “public support” would be more precise for what I’m describing. And I don’t think it’s “well-defined and widely agreed-upon.”
Marxists, market socialists, democratic socialists, and libertarian socialists all disagree on what it actually requires, and in everyday US usage it’s commonly used to mean government spending for social programs.
Either way, my point stands: we already collectivize risk and costs for some groups. The real question is who gets that help.
Here’s my opinion.
Every morning you drive on a road you didn’t build, drop your kids at a school you didn’t found, and trust that if your house catches fire, someone will show up without asking for a credit card first. None of that came from a business looking to profit. It came from all of us chipping in so everyone gets something we couldn’t manage alone.
That’s the basic idea behind socialism: we’re stronger when we pool what we have. And we already live it. When big banks and automakers were about to collapse, the government stepped in with public money to save them. If it’s fine to share the risk for corporations, why is it “radical” to share it for regular people?
So the question isn’t whether we do socialism. We already do. It’s who the leadership is willing to do it for.
Not really, no. What you’re describing is the socialization of production.
What you’re describing is fine; it’s not wrong. The issue is that you’re abusing the term “socialism,” which already has a well-defined and widely agreed-upon meaning that is quite different from the one you’re using.
You’re right, the textbook definition is social ownership of the means of production, and “socialized costs” or “public support” would be more precise for what I’m describing. And I don’t think it’s “well-defined and widely agreed-upon.”
Marxists, market socialists, democratic socialists, and libertarian socialists all disagree on what it actually requires, and in everyday US usage it’s commonly used to mean government spending for social programs.
Either way, my point stands: we already collectivize risk and costs for some groups. The real question is who gets that help.