Socialism’s great weakness

[Hodos]

Here’s the problem: billionaires don’t pay income tax. They evade it by “donation” to different charity firms (of which only 5% is required to go to the charitys aim) and special interest groups. Groups who lobby for policy with more weight then you could ever vote with.

This is a completely false statement. They may reduce their tax liability, but that doesn’t mean they pay zero taxes. The fact is that the top 1% pay approximately 40% of tax revenue. The top 10% pay approximately 70% of tax revenue collected. And quite frankly, the organizations to which one donates is not really your business unless it is your donation. You are also making overly broad assumptions about the destination and character of the organizations to which people donate.

 

[Anrakyr]

They may reduce their tax liability, but that doesn’t mean they pay zero taxes.

Let me just grab something from recent events here:

How Amazon Avoids Paying Taxes

If you really think Amazon is blazing a new trail here you’d be mistaken. It’s just the most brazen culprit to date.

They even get away with abusive employment practices left and right but nothing happens.

Edit:

The US claimed $3.46 Trillion in taxes. To me Amazon not ducking taxes would have made it a solid $4.1Trillion.

 

[Hodos]

If you really think Amazon is blazing a new trail here you’d be mistaken. It’s just the most brazen culprit to date.

Now you are conflating Jeff Bezos as an individual with Amazon as a corporation. Nice bait and switch. But, you also didn’t look at the actual claim. The article states that the company is worth $793 billion, probably using its stock price as the gauge for its worth. That doesn’t mean that the company made $793 billion dollars in net revenue in the United States. You are also not considering that many of the tax breaks allowed are because they are taking a loss to re-invest in expansion, which has a net benefit to tax revenue through job growth. You might want to read the fine print rather than post an article that doesn’t explain the actual tax breaks being used. Not saying all tax breaks are good, some clearly aren’t. Petition your congressional representatives about specific tax breaks you believe are unfair. That is a far cry though from transitioning from capitalism to socialism.

The US claimed $3.46 Trillion in taxes. To me Amazon not ducking taxes would have made it a solid $4.1Trillion.

Again, you don’t understand how taxes work. The Net Worth of the company is different than its tax liability. You don’t assess 100% of a company’s net worth in taxes. That would be insane.

They even get away with abusive employment practices left and right but nothing happens.

You’re going to have to show the math on this. Companies are frequently accused of abusive employment practices even when they are in compliance with the law. Would have to see an actual investigation that demonstrates employment law was actually violated with both the accusation and the company’s response to see both sides. I am not against holding companies accountable for violation of employment law, but this requires actual due process.

 

[Anrakyr]

Again, you don’t understand how taxes work. The Net Worth of the company is different than its tax liability. You don’t assess 100% of a company’s net worth in taxes. That would be insane.

You are correct.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

form of democratic socialism

There is no form of democratic socialism. Democracy…

Democracy requires the people to vote on what system of government they would prefer. On the assumption that you are American, you’ll be doing that soon. If one of the options was a variation of socialism then voting to have it applied would be part of tbe democratic process. Hence ‘democratic socialism’.

The clue is in the name.

 

[Hodos]

Democracy requires the people to vote on what system of government they would prefer.

No, democracy is itself a system of government. We actually don’t live in a democracy, never have, by the way. We live in a republic. And again, the clue is not in the name. Just like you have semantic overload with other terms such as “social justice” which isn’t justice, we find the same here. While you can vote yourself into socialism, socialism itself is not compatible with democratic or republican government because it fundamentally cedes the most basic individual liberty to the collective, which explains why every nation that has embraced a socialist government ended up being a dictatorship or authoritarian regime of some sort.

 

[Freddy]

The weakness of socialism in it’s disordered and atheistic form,
is it overemphasizes the collective, or the community, at the expense of human dignity as manifested in every unique individual. And this is why you can have policies that are intended toward a good thing (like the health of a people or nation) while at the same time pursuing things like genocide in pursuit of that perceived good.
Other ideologies might tend in the opposite direction: inordinately emphasizing the rights of individuals over property and resources, and even the goods of salvation.

I don’t think that anyone suggesting that a form of socialism might be a good thing would include genocide as one of it’s policies.

 

[Freddy]

If we’re going to pick nits, then yes, very few people live under a true democracy (I think some areas of Switzerland come closest). But the generally accepted definition of the term (as opposed to its original meaning) is that there is universal sufferage and the people vote to decide who will represent them in government. There are then different styles of government, such as republics such as the US or parliamentary systems such as the UK.

Both countries can be fairly described as democracies as opposed to countries that have no democratic processes.

 

[goout]

goout:

The weakness of socialism in it’s disordered and atheistic form,
is it overemphasizes the collective, or the community, at the expense of human dignity as manifested in every unique individual. And this is why you can have policies that are intended toward a good thing (like the health of a people or nation) while at the same time pursuing things like genocide in pursuit of that perceived good.
Other ideologies might tend in the opposite direction: inordinately emphasizing the rights of individuals over property and resources, and even the goods of salvation.

I don’t think that anyone suggesting that a form of socialism might be a good thing would include genocide as one of it’s policies.

Plain and simple history says otherwise.

 

[Maximian]

I don’t think that atheism is fundamental part of Marxism.

In his Critique of Hegel Marx wrote:

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

 

[Maximian]

I don’t think that anyone suggesting that a form of socialism might be a good thing would include genocide as one of it’s policies.

The presumption behind the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat is that genocide may be necessary

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

I don’t think that anyone suggesting that a form of socialism might be a good thing would include genocide as one of it’s policies.

The presumption behind the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat is that genocide may be necessary

It certainly might be. But we are talking socialism.

 

[Regular_Atheist]

The presumption behind the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat is that genocide may be necessary

What makes you say this?

 

[Maximian]

The presumption behind the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat is that genocide may be necessary

Because the proletariat may decide it doesn’t want to be dictated to. This is known as revanchism and quite often runs along cultural faultlines. Hence the program requires a readiness to resort to genocide.

The genocidal transportations, the gulags, the terror and slave labour are not random aberrations. They arise out of the logic of the socialist program.